Proc.

of the 5
th
International Conference on Advances in Mechanical Engineering (ICAME-2011), J une, 6-8, 2011
S.V. National Institute of Technology, Surat 395 007, Gujarat, India


487

Thermodynami c Optimi zation of Pl ate-fi n Heat Exchanger
usi ng Teachi ng-Learni ng-Based Opti mizati on (TLBO)
Al gorithm

R. Venkata Rao* and Vivek Patel

*S.V. National Institute of Technology, Surat 395 007, Gujarat, India
*
Corresponding author (e-mail: ravipudirao@gmail.com)

This study explores the use of teaching-learning-based optimization (TLBO)
algorithm for thermodynamic optimization of a plate-fin heat exchanger.
Minimizing the total number of entropy generation units for specific heat duty
requirement under given space restrictions is considered as objective function.
Based on the applications heat exchanger length, fin frequency, numbers of fin
layers, lance length of fin, fin height and fin thickness are considered for
optimization. Heat duty requirement constraint is included in the procedure. An
application example is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness and accuracy
of the proposed algorithm. The results of optimization using TLBO are validated
by comparing with those obtained by using genetic algorithm (GA), particle
swarm optimization (PSO) and artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm.

1. Introduction

Various types of heat exchangers are used for different industrial applications and one
of the important types is the compact heat exchanger. The compact heat exchanger can be
either plate-fin type or tube-fin type. Plate-fin heat exchanger has high thermal effectiveness.
However this superior thermal performance of the compact heat exchanger is at the expense
of higher frictional losses (i.e. pressure drop). Therefore, the optimum design of compact heat
exchanger is always required as the optimal trade-off between the increased heat transfer
rate and the power consumption due to higher pressure drop within the given set of
constraints. The analysis based on the second law of thermodynamics is one of the effective
tools which would allow the evaluation of the heat transfer enhancement methods by
consideration of both trade-off factors [1-3].
Thermodynamic optimization of any real system always includes the second law of
thermodynamic. Second law based entropy generation minimization (EGM) method first
described as a modeling and optimization method by Bejan [4,5] is used as a gauge for
optimal analysis to evaluate the thermal performance of any real system that owe their
imperfection to heat transfer, mass transfer, fluid flow and other transport processes. The
entropy generation as quantitative measure of the irreversibility is related to the heat transfer
and fluid friction during the heat exchanger operation and serves as a direct measure of the
lost potential for work or the lost ability to transfer heat in the case of a heat exchanger and
the number of entropy generation units (N
s
) indicates these irreversibility associated with the
lost work or lost heat. Thus minimizing the number of entropy generation units (EGU) means
minimizing the irreversibility of the system which increases the available part of the work or
heat transfer [2-7].
The design of plate-fin exchanger involves a large number of geometric and operating
variables as a part of the search for an exchanger geometry that meets the heat duty
requirement and a given set of design constraints. The conventional optimization techniques
become very cumbersome and laborious to do the same. Recently some authors had applied
different non-traditional random search algorithms for the optimization of plate-fin heat
exchangers. Xie et al. [1] used genetic algorithm (GA) for optimal design of plate-fin heat
exchangers. The authors had considered minimization of total annual cost as an objective
function and pressure drop as a constraint. Mishra et al. [2] used GA to carry out second law
based optimization of cross flow plate-fin heat exchangers. The authors had considered
minimization of entropy generation units as an objective function. Mishra et al [8-9] used GA
Proc. of the 5
th
International Conference on Advances in Mechanical Engineering (ICAME-2011), J une, 6-8, 2011
S.V. National Institute of Technology, Surat 395 007, Gujarat, India


488

for optimal design of plate-fin heat exchangers. The authors had considered minimization of
total annual cost and total thermoeconomic cost as an objective function. Rao and Patel used
PSO and ABC for plate-fin heat exchanger optimization [10,11].
In the present work, an attempt is made to put the entropy generation minimization, and
teaching-learning-based optimization (TLBO) algorithm into the plate-fin heat exchanger
optimization design practice. In this paper, ability of the TLBO algorithm is demonstrated
using application example. The TLBO results are compared with those obtained by using GA,
PSO and ABC for the same application examples considered by previous researches
[2,10,11].

2. Teaching-learning-based optimization (TLBO) algorithm
TLBO is a teaching-learning process inspired algorithm proposed recently by Rao et al.
[12] based on the effect of influence of a teacher on the output of learners in a class. TLBO is
population based method. In this optimization algorithm a group of learners is considered as
population and different design variables are considered as different subjects offered to the
learners and learners result is analogous to the fitness value of the optimization problem. In
the entire population the best solution is considered as the teacher. The working of TLBO is
divided into two parts, Teacher phase and Learner phase. Working of both the phase is
explained below.

3.1 Teacher phase
It is first part of the algorithm where learners learn through the teacher. During this
phase a teacher tries to increase the mean result of the class room from any value M
1
to his
or her level (i.e. T
A
). But practically it is not possible and a teacher can move the mean of the
class room M
1
to any other value M
2
which is better than M
1
depending on his or her
capability. Considered M
j
be the mean and T
i
be the teacher at any iteration i. Now T
i
will try
to improve existing mean M
j
towards it so the new mean will be T
i
designated as M
new
and the
difference between the existing mean and new mean is given by [12],
( )
_
i i new F j
Difference Mean r M T M =

(1)
Where T
F
is the teaching factor which decides the value of mean to be changed, and r
i
is
the random number in the range [0, 1]. Value of T
F
can be either 1 or 2 which is a heuristic
step and it is decided randomly with equal probability as,
| | 1 (0,1){2 1}
F
T round rand = +

(2)
Based on this Difference_Mean, the existing solution is updated according to the following
expression
= +
, ,
_
new i old i i
X X Difference Mean

(3)

3.2 Learner phase
It is second part of the algorithm where learners increase their knowledge by interaction
among themselves. A learner interacts randomly with other learners for enhancing his or her
knowledge. A learner learns new things if the other learner has more knowledge than him or
her. Mathematically the learning phenomenon of this phase is expressed below.
At any iteration i, considering two different learners X
i
and X
j
where i j
( )
, , new i old i i i j
X X r X X = + If f (X
i
) <f (X
j
) (4)
( )
, , new i old i i j i
X X r X X = + If f (X
j
) <f (X
i
) (5)
Accept X
new
if it gives better function value.

3. Objective function for thermodynamic optimization
According to the methodology of Bejan [5], entropy generation rate (S) for two fluid
streams can be expressed in terms of temperature and pressure as,
,2 ,2 ,2 ,2
, ,
,1 ,1 ,1 ,1
ln ln ln ln
a a b b
a p a a b p b b
a a b b
T P T P
S m C R m C R
T P T P
( ( | | | | | | | |
= + ( ( | | | |
| | | |
( (
\ . \ . \ . \ .
(6)
Proc. of the 5
th
International Conference on Advances in Mechanical Engineering (ICAME-2011), J une, 6-8, 2011
S.V. National Institute of Technology, Surat 395 007, Gujarat, India


489

Where, T
a,2,
T
b,2
, P
a,2
and P
b,2
are the exit temperature and pressure of the fluid a and fluid
b respectively. For the cross flow heat exchanger with both fluids unmixed, effectiveness is
given by Incropera and DeWitt [13] as,
( )
0.23 0.78
1
1 exp exp 1
r
r
NTU C NTU
C

( | |
(
=
( |

( \ .
(7)
Finally number of entropy generation units is defined as [5],
max
s
S
N
C

= (8)
Here in the present work, the objective is to minimize the number of entropy generation
units. Moreover, to take in to account the effect of constraints violation during the optimization
process an arbitrarily large value (known as penalty function) is also added in the objective
function [2]. So, finally the objective function for the present work is represented as,
( )
2
1
( ) 1 ( )
m
s j
j
Minimizef X N R g X
=
= +

(9)
Where R
1
is the penalty parameter having a large value, the second term on the right side
takes into account the effect of constraints violation.

4. Application example
This application example is taken from the work of Mishra et al. [2]. A gas-to-air cross
flow plate-fin heat exchanger having heat duty of 160 kW (as shown in Figure 1) and air as a
fluid on both the sides of heat exchanger needs to be designed and optimized for minimum
entropy generation. Maximum dimension of the exchanger is limited to 1 m x 1 m, and
maximum number of fin layers for gas side is to be 10. Fluid-a and Fluid-b enter the heat
exchanger with the flow rate of 0.8962 kg/s and 0.8972kg/s at a temperature of 571K and
271K respectively. Inlet pressure of both the fluids is 1MPa. Other thermo-physical properties
of both the fluids are available in reference [2]. The plate-fin surfaces having same
specifications are assumed on both the sides of heat exchanger. So, the objective is to find
out the heat exchanger dimensions i.e. heat exchanger length, fin frequency, numbers of fin
layers, lance length of fin, fin height and fin thickness giving the required heat duty for
minimum entropy generation. Mishra et al. [2] used GA while Rao and Patel [10,11] used
PSO and ABC for this thermodynamic design optimization problem.
________________________________
______
Design variable Search
range
________________________________
__
Heat exchanger length (L
a
) 0.1 - 1 m
Heat exchanger length (L
b
)
0.1 - 1 m
Fin height (H) 2 10 mm
Fin frequency (n) 100 -
1000 f/m
Fin thickness (t) 0.1 - 0.2 mm
Lance length of fin (l) 1 - 10 mm
Number of fin layer (N
a
) 1 100
________________________________
Figure 1: Front view and side view of plate-fin
heat exchanger and offset fin
Table 1: Search range of design
variables
The objective function given by equation (9) is subjected to seven inequality constraints
which are bound by lower and upper limits of the design variables shown in Table 1. In
addition to these inequality constraints, an additional equality constraint is also considered to
fulfill the heat duty requirement.
Proc. of the 5
th
International Conference on Advances in Mechanical Engineering (ICAME-2011), J une, 6-8, 2011
S.V. National Institute of Technology, Surat 395 007, Gujarat, India


490

Table 2 shows the optimized values of the design variables of the considered example
using TLBO algorithm and its comparison with the results obtained by previous researchers
using GA, PSO and ABC approaches [2,10,11]. Results show that new geometry obtained
using TLBO algorithm increases the convective heat transfer coefficient h
a
on fluid-a side and
h
b
on fluid-b side. The higher heat transfer coefficient increases the heat exchanger
effectiveness of the present geometry compares to geometry suggested Mishra et al. [2]
using GA approach and Rao and Patel [10] using PSO and ABC approach [11].
Similarly the reduced flow length of the fluid-a and fluid-b along with the reduced mass flux
velocity of the both the fluids reduces the pressure drop on fluid-a and fluid-b side in the
present design compare to design suggested by Mishra et al. [2] using GA approach and Rao
and Patel [10,11] using PSO and ABC approach.

Table 2: Comparison of heat exchanger design geometries
Parameters GA PSO ABC TLBO
approach [2] approach [10] approach [11] approach
L
a
(m) 0.994 0.985 0.957 0.934
L
b
(m) 0.887 0.996 0.984 0.967
H (mm) 9.53 9.8 9.6 9.9
n (fins/m) 534.9 442.9 474.4 466.87
t (mm) 0.146 0.1 0.12 0.1
l (mm) 6.3 9.8 9.7 10
N
a
8 10 10 10
Q (kW) 159.99 159.99 159.99 159.99
h
a
(W/m
2
k) 797 1131.7 1493.3 1745.8
h
b
(W/m
2
k) 817 844 1392.2 1605.9
G
a
(kg/m
2
s) 4.59 11.71 10.97 9.82
G
b
(kg/m
2
s) 10.72 9.79 9.3 8.556
P
a
(N/m
2
) 5287.7 3331.3 2179.4 1861.1
P
b
(N/m
2
) 2216.9 1834.5 1234.4 1120.5
CPU time (s) ----- 1.81 4.688 2.76
(W/K) 77.47 64.86 61.91 60.13
N
s
0.063332 0.053028 0.0503 0.04945

Overall the increase in heat exchanger effectiveness along with the reduction in pressure
drop in the present case reduces the rate of entropy generation compare to GA, PSO and
ABC approach [2,10, 11], which ultimately reduces the number of entropy generation units by
21.9% compare to GA approach [2], 7.29% compare to PSO approach [10] and 2.87%
compare to ABC approach [11].
0.045
0.05
0.055
0.06
0.065
0 20 40 60 80 100
N
o
.

o
f

E
G
U
,

N
s
No. of generations
Population size=10
Population size=20
Population size=40

0.045
0.055
0.065
0.075
0.085
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
N
o
.

o
f

E
G
U
,

N
s
No. of generations
No.of generations =10
No. of generations =20
No. of generations =30

Figure 2: Effect of population size on
convergence rate
Figure 3: Effect of no. of generation on
convergence rate

The effect of population size and no. of iteration on the fitness value of the objective
function and convergence rate are shown graphically in Figure 2 and 3. It is observed from
Figure 2 that as the population size increase, the convergence rate of the algorithm is also
increases, however it does not affect the final solution but at the same time computational
Proc. of the 5
th
International Conference on Advances in Mechanical Engineering (ICAME-2011), J une, 6-8, 2011
S.V. National Institute of Technology, Surat 395 007, Gujarat, India


491

efforts increase as the population size increases. Similarly It is observed from Figure 3 that
minimum 20 iterations are required to reach the convergence.

5. Conclusion
The present study demonstrates successful application of TLBO algorithm for the
thermodynamic optimization of plate-fin heat exchanger considering the minimization of
entropy generation units as objective function. The TLBO algorithm is simple in concept and
easy for understand. Unlike GA, PSO and ABC algorithm, TLBO does not require any
algorithm parameters to be tuned which make the implementation of TLBO simpler and easy.
These features boost the applicability of the TLBO algorithm particularly in thermal system
design, where the problems are usually complex and have a large amount of variables and
discontinuity in the objective function. In the present work seven design variables are
optimized for minimum entropy generation unit under given set of constraint. The algorithms
ability is demonstrated using application examples and the performance is compared with GA,
PSO and ABC approach given by previous researchers. Improvement in the results are
observed using TLBO algorithm compared to GA, PSO and ABC approach given by the
previous researchers, showing the improvement potential of the TLBO algorithm for plate-fin
heat exchanger optimization.

References

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