Heat Transfer Engineering, Vol.26, No.9, 22-29, 2005
Heat transfer characteristics of a quadratic Koch island fractal heat exchanger
Heat exchangers are widely used in the air conditioning and refrigeration industries, and any increase in their efficiency will have a positive effect on the industry as well. A new design of heat exchanger is proposed that will increase the heat transfer area significantly. The heat transfer area was increased by the use of fractals. Three techniques were used to investigate the heat transfer increase; analytical, numerical, and experimental methods. The results showed that the fractal heat exchanger has a higher heat transfer to overall volume ratio than a conventional tube-in-tube heat exchanger.