Performance of a biologically-inspired heat exchanger with hierarchical bifurcating flow passages

The performance of a heat exchanger with fractal-like flow passages has been examined. The hierarchical bifurcating flow passages in the heat exchanger studied here mimic those seen in the vascular systems of plants and animals. Overall system performance was examined computationally. The computational fluid dynamics results, cast in terms of commonly defined dimensionless parameters, show that system performance can be characterized in a manner similar to traditional compact heat exchanger designs. Previous use of hierarchical bifurcating flow passages for heat exchanger applications has typically been limited to microscale flow networks. This work examines the potential of such networks for mesoscale applications.