Multivariate Design and Analysis of Aircraft Heat Exchanger Under Multiple Working Conditions Within Flight Envelope

Abstract

This paper presents a multi-condition design method for the aircraft heat exchanger (HEX), marking with lightweight, compactness, and wide range of working conditions. The quasi-traversal genetic algorithm (QT-GA) method is introduced to obtain the optimal values of five structural parameters including the height, the tube diameter, the tube pitch, and the tube rows. The QT-GA method solves the deficiency of the conventional GA in the convergence, and gives a clear correlation between design variables and outputs. Pressure drops, heat transfer, and the weight of the HEX are combined in a single objective function of GA in the HEX design, thus the optimal structure of the HEX suitable for all the working conditions can be directly obtained. After optimization, the weight of the HEX is reduced to 2.250 kg, more than 20% lower than a common weight of around 3 kg. Based on the optimal structure, the off-design performance of the HEX is further analyzed. Results show that the extreme working conditions for the heat transfer and the pressure drops are not consistent. It proves the advance of the multi-condition design method over the traditional single-condition design method. In general, the proposed QT-GA design method is an efficient way to solve the multi-condition problems related to the aircraft HEX or other energy systems.