Software for heat exchange numerical calculation in micro gas turbine recuperator

It is known, that micro gas turbines are competitive with piston engines with power level up to 500 hp. in terms of fuel efficiency and specific weight. Due to the increased competitiveness between micro gas turbines and piston engines, interest in usage of regenerative cycle in turboshaft and turboprop micro gas turbines is rising. There is a need for the correct calculation of recuperators and a cost-effective manufacturing technology development for their series production. The automated software for heat exchanger thermal hydraulic properties' calculation was presented in this paper. With the use of it, 130 designs of heat exchangers for 4 kW micro gas turbine were obtained. The ones with the highest heat exchange efficiency and lowest relative losses were highlighted. The conclusion about the geometric and mesh parameters, that influence the mentioned parameters the most, was also made, and the best for 4 kW micro gas turbine heat exchanger configurations from the chosen ones were selected.