Design and Manufacture of a Heat Exchanger for Industrial Fast Axial Flow CO2 Lasers
D. Esmaeilpour Ghoochani, G. H. Dehghan, M. Hasanvand, S. Jelvani and M. Montazerolghaem
The aim of this paper is the thermal analysis of the fast axial flow (FAF) CO2 laser and proposition of a complete algorithm of the heat exchanger design for this type of laser. Selection of an appropriate heat exchanger for the FAF CO2 laser, while enhancing heat exchange performance, causes less pressure drop and flow reduction. Based on the design of an industrial 1000 W CO2 laser various types of heat exchangers were compared with each other and plane-finned tube heat exchanger was found to be the appropriate cooling system for the FAF CO2 laser. Finally, a compact plane-tube finned type heat exchanger, with full geometric profile and arrangement of the pipes was designed and manufactured. Moreover, the flow velocity field of the gas mixture at separator plates within the heat exchanger has been simulated and optimized using finite element method. The results show that the optimum height of separator plates is 34 cm to achieve maximum output flow velocity.
Keywords: Fast axial flow CO2 laser, convection heat transfer, heat exchanger, heat exchange capacity , pressure drop, finite element method (FEM)