Heat and mass transfer in plate-fin sinusoidal passages with vapor-permeable wall materials

Laminar forced flow and heat mass transfer in sinusoidal plate-fin small passages encountered in compact heat mass exchangers are investigated. The duct is similar to a traditional plate-fin heat exchanger, but vapor-permeable materials like polymer membranes, paper, and ceramics can be used as the duct materials so both sensible heat and moisture can be exchanged simultaneously. Heat conduction and mass diffusion in the fins and heat and moisture convection in the fluid are analyzed simultaneously as a conjugate problem. Their fully developed Nusselt and Sherwood numbers under various aspect ratios and fin conductance parameters are calculated. The results found that though fins extend the heat transfer area, they are less effective compared to a traditional compact heat exchanger with metal foils. Most unfortunately, fin efficiencies for moisture transfer are even much smaller than those for heat transfer due to the low fin mass conductance parameters. For such heat mass exchangers, the use of fins can be regarded mostly as supporting materials, rather than as mass intensification techniques.

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