The Utilization of COMSOL MULTIPHYSICS and Exchanger Design Rating Software for Designing and Analyzing of Air Cooler

Nowadays, air coolers are extremely utilized at industrial and vital fields. Based on this significance, the paper exhibited the general concept of thermal and mechanical design of an air cooler heat exchanger model via COMSOL MULTIPHYSICS and Exchanger Design Rating (EDR) to obtain the most optimal thermal and operation conditions for boosting the heat exchanger efficiency. This was reached from the advantage of the integration between simulation software COMSOL MULTIPHYSICS and EDR have been used to enhance the operating and mechanical factors of the air cooler heat exchanger. The preference for using COMSOL and EDR are related to several factors, most notably the type of application to be simulated and detail level available for simulation. A simulation model of the air cooler was developed in EDR software and provided noteworthy results. Specifically, one of the marked outcomes is an increase of the overall heat transfer coefficient of 253.9 W/m 2 .K in case 1 and 279.5 W/m 2 .K in case 2 when compared to the baseline scenario of the as-built air cooler. The mechanical improvement proposed from the results of case 2 showed that it is possible to reduce the number of fans used by reducing the air flow rate by about 26%. At the same time, it provides the same thermal acting by cooling natural gas from 51°C to 37°C. Thus, reducing the amount of energy consumed by 61%, this is interested from an economic view point. A simulation of sample air cooler was carried out in COMSOL MULTIPHYSICS. With respect toward the results, a suitable design for the heat sink was reached, which provides acceptable thermal performance.