Applications of artificial neural networks for thermal analysis of heat exchangers – A review

• Review of ANN applications for heat exchanger analysis.
• Research needs in the ANN modeling of heat exchangers were listed.
• Limitations of ANN modeling were highlighted.
• Hybrid ANN model is recommended for heat exchanger modeling.

Artificial neural networks (ANN) have been widely used for thermal analysis of heat exchangers during the last two decades. In this paper, the applications of ANN for thermal analysis of heat exchangers are reviewed. The reported investigations on thermal analysis of heat exchangers are categorized into four major groups, namely (i) modeling of heat exchangers, (ii) estimation of heat exchanger parameters, (iii) estimation of phase change characteristics in heat exchangers and (iv) control of heat exchangers. Most of the papers related to the applications of ANN for thermal analysis of heat exchangers are discussed. The limitations of ANN for thermal analysis of heat exchangers and its further research needs in this field are highlighted. ANN is gaining popularity as a tool, which can be successfully used for the thermal analysis of heat exchangers with acceptable accuracy.