Fluid Flow Analysis and Design of a Flow Distributor in a Domestic Gas Boiler Using a Commercial CFD Software

The aim of the study was to investigate the possible use of commercial Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software in the design process of a domestic gas boiler. Because of the limited computational resources some simplifications had to be made in order to contribute to the design in a reasonable timescale. The porous media model was used in order to simulate the influence of the pressure drop characteristic of particular elements of a heat transfer system on the water-flow distribution in the system. Further, a combination of CFD analyses and spread sheet calculations was used in order to solve the flow distribution problem.

Authors:

• Lukasz Peronski
• Roy Bratley
• Derek B. Ingham
• Lin Ma
• Mohamed Pourkashanian
• StephenTaylor

Keywords:

• CFD
• domestic gas boilers
• flow distribution
• heatexchanger
• porous media

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