Heat exchanger optimization using the progressive quadratic response surface model

In this study, the shape of plate-fin type heat sink is numerically optimized to acquire the minimum pressure drop under the required temperature rise. To do this, a new Sequential Approximate Optimization (SAO) is proposed and it is integrated with the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). In thermal/fluid systems for constrained nonlinear optimization problems, three fundamental difficulties such as high cost for function evaluations (i.e., pressure drop and thermal resistance), the absence of design sensitivity information, and the occurrence of numerical noise are confronted. To overcome these problems, the Progressive Quadratic Response Surface Method (PQRSM), which is one of the sequential approximate optimization algorithms, is proposed and the heat sink is optimize by means of the PQRSM