The Effect of Longitudinal Heat Conduction on Thermal Enhancement of Plastic Plate Heat Exchangers

The metals are the most popular materials for the plate heat exchangers due to high thermal conductivity. The thermal performance of the metallic plate heat exchanger is degraded by longitudinal heat conduction in the plate. For the cabinet cooling system and ventilator, the metallic plate heat exchanger can be replaced by the plastic plate heat exchanger. In this article, the longitudinal heat conduction in the plastic heat exchanger is studied by using the heat transfer models with and without longitudinal heat conduction, which were proposed in our previous work. The effects of both transverse heat conduction and longitudinal heat conduction can be considered. The thermal performances of the plastic plate heat exchanger and metallic plate heat exchanger are compared. We find out that in the plastic plate, both the transverse heat conduction and longitudinal heat conduction are weakened because of the low thermal conductivity. The high-density polyethylene plastic plate heat exchanger has better thermal performance than that of the aluminum plate heat exchanger.