Heat-transfer characteristics in multi-scale flow networks with parallel channels

The potentials of microstructured systems have already been demonstrated for a large number of applications in chemical engineering. Nevertheless, the rational use of these systems at industrial scale rises new questions, among which the strategies to structure internal flow appear as a key issue. The present study explores the geometries of complex flow networks with parallelized channels and highlights their respective design issues. The impact of arranging channels of different dimensions on the thermal performances of the resulting multi-scale networks is investigated considering the flow maldistribution problem. The hydrothermal network efficiencies are quantified and compared with respect to several geometrical and physical constraints, in order to propose design guidelines and channel arrangement strategies.