Heat Exchanger Specifically Designed for Low to Medium Pressure Ratio Gas Turbine Application

A compact heat exchanger with cross and counterflow configuration is proposed to facilitate gas turbine installations suitable to small space available for conventional vehicular gas turbine engine envelopes. The invention is intended to advance vehicular gas turbine development programs world-wide. The concept is adaptable as an intercooler for turbo-supercharged Diesel engines. Low pressure ratio regenerative industrial and vehicular gas turbines have not reached mass production status because their heat exchanger construction either rotary (periodical) or recuperative (static) seems to be an unreliable and high cost component. The need exists to establish heat exchanger technology which will satisfy aerodynamic and heat transfer requirements of gas turbines and this is addressed in this paper.