Aircraft heat exchangers.

One of the major challenges in aircraft engineering now is to develop heat exchangers for
aero engines that are more efficient and lighter weight and can work at ever higher
temperatures.

Thermal management studies have initially focussed specifically on the development of

high-efficiency lightweight heat exchangers, which are seen as offering potentially large
environmental benefits as the pressure increases on industry to address climate change.

To develop highly efficient and ultra-light heat exchangers will become a central point for
Rolls-Royce research and development, including test and development of manufacturing
technologies.

High temperature heat exchangers.

New processes are being investigated to enable aero-engine heat exchangers to operate
at temperatures approaching 1000C.

This area of research is important for Rolls-Royce in maintaining competitiveness across

all of its aerospace, marine and energy markets.

High pressure heat exchangers are required to work at very high heat transfer rates.
They illustrate the dilemma. They are fabricated from tubes or channels which have small
hydraulic diameters.

This increases the compactness of the unit and therefore reduces its mass, which is the
objective. Designs of the manifold are required so that the pressure drop remains within
acceptable limit.

Operating under extreme temperatures and high mass flow rates, the small size of the
heat exchangers and the thin walls of the tubes require various high temperature brazing
materials with thin walled tubes and special manufacturing automation processes to allow
cost effective constant-quality fabrication of production units.

Heat exchangers capable of power transfer rates of up to 1 megaWatt per kilogram mass
are capable of being manufactured and used operationally.

The various types of heat exchangers which are custom engineered for this market include:

- fuel heaters (oil-to-fuel heat exchangers)

- oil coolers (air-to-oil and oil-to-fuel heat exchangers)

- buffer air coolers (air-to-air heat exchangers)

- bleed air pre-coolers (air-to heat exchangers)

- cold plates (fuel-to- air and fuel-to metal heat-sinks for electronics cooling)

Heat Exchangers
 Figure 4: Liquid-to-liquid plate-fin heat exchanger

Plate-fin heat exchangers and flat tube heat exchangers are two types of heat exchangers
commonly found on aircraft. Heat exchangers are used to cool auxiliary power units,
hydraulics, gearboxes, and more. They are engineered for high performance with poor heat
transfer fluids such as oils and ethylene glycol solutions. Aluminum plate-fin heat exchangers
consist of finned passages separated by flat plates and have a unique internal configuration to
maximize heat transfer. (See Figures 4 & 5.) They offer the best performance-to-weight ratio
and can be used for air-to-air, air-to-liquid, or liquid-to-liquid cooling. Aluminum flat tube
heat exchangers consist of a number of flat tubes with multiple extended surface channels
within each tube. Fins are vacuum-brazed between the flat tubes and form the passages for the
second fluid. These flat tubes provide a lower cost alternative to plate-fin designs. Both types
of heat exchangers are vacuum-brazed for ruggedization.

Figure 5: Plate-fin oil cooler heat exchanger

used on a helicopter application

Heat exchangers are often used for cooling hydraulic oil, engine oil, and EGW with RAM air
via a RAM air intake system or with a fan. RAM air may also be replaced with an ethylene
glycol solution or PAO as the heat sink. For example, PAO is sometimes used in intercooler
applications to cool gaseous nitrogen (GN2) for inerting fuel tanks to reduce fire hazards. One
way that engineers can save space and minimize weight is to route fluids currently in use on
the aircraft through the liquid cooling loop. For example, fuel may be used as the heat sink to
cool oil since fuel is a readily available fluid, eliminating the need to have an additional fluid
on board. Another way to save space is to create a heat exchanger with multiple cooling
circuits to cool several fluids at once. For example, a 4-circuit heat exchanger may be used to
simultaneously cool air, oil, and EGW via RAM air or a fan.

Heat exchangers are widely used in industry both for cooling and heating large scale industrial processes.
The type and size of heat exchanger used can be tailored to suit a process depending on the type of fluid,
its phase, temperature, density, viscosity, pressures, chemical composition and various other
thermodynamic properties.

In commercial aircraft heat exchangers are used to take heat from the engine's oil system to heat cold fuel.
[21]
This improves fuel efficiency, as well as reduces the possibility of water entrapped in the fuel freezing in
components
The modeling of any physical system requires intimate knowledge of the physical
processes involved. The engineer must decide what processes are to be modeled
and how detailed an analysis is required. Approximations made in the modeling
process can greatly alter the calculated dynamic behavior. Therefore, each
simplifying assumption must be justified.