Author(s)

J.M. Bergheau & S. Lalot

Abstract

This paper presents a new finite clement approach for the modeling of heat exchangers which has been recently implemented in SYSTUS+. The fluid is represented by a set of one-dimensional elements, and the wall of the pipe, in which the fluid flows, by 2D elements. One element in the fluid is connected with several wall elements. It is well known that the usual Galerkin method for the finite element modeling of diffusion-convection problems leads to spatial oscillations for high Peclet numbers, typically, with first order elements, when the Peclct number is higher than 2. To avoid these oscillations, the formulation in the fluid uses a Petrov-Galerkin method involving discontinuous test functions. The heat transfer computation is based on the average fluid temperature (as the usual correlations do) but on the lo

Keywords