Thermal Simulation of Heat Pumps

Siemens Digital Industries Software solutions enable Sanden to lower development costs and maximize product performance. Heat pump manufacturer uses Simcenter STAR-CCM+ to rapidly explore design space and bring products to market faster. Gaining market share in an established, competitive market – like the one for domestic hot water heaters – is always a challenge, even when you’re introducing customers to higher-performing, environmentally-friendly product options. In cooperation with advanced development engineers, the thermal engineers at SANDEN Manufacturing Europe (SME) met this challenge by relying on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations to design a key component of an innovative heat pump that uses carbon dioxide (R744) as the working fluid. They used Simcenter STAR-CCM+ software from Siemens Digital Industries Software to perform the simulations. Additionally, the SANDEN engineers performed fully automated CFD-based design explorations – using Design Manager, a multidisciplinary design exploration tool that is part of Simcenter STAR-CCM+ – to determine the optimum shape of the passageways that direct air through the heat pump’s evaporator to maximize the heat transfer that occurs in the evaporator.