The US Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) has awarded Michigan State University US$2.3 million to develop a metal heat exchanger using additive manufacturing (AM).
According to Andre Benard, associate professor of mechanical engineering, the plate-type heat exchanger should be scalable, compact, low-cost, resistant to corrosion, and can remain strong at the highest operating temperatures.
It will be printed using high-temperature alloys suitable for powder-based manufacturing, he says.
'The heat exchangers we’re working on are needed in systems like concentrated solar towers, nuclear power systems and for recapturing energy from industrial gas furnaces,' Benard added. 'There is a demand for compact heat exchangers that can operate at temperatures close to 2,000°F – and the existing ones are large, costly and do not meet the temperature requirement.'
This story uses material from MSU, with editorial changes made by Materials Today. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of Elsevier.
