CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) computations are carried out in order to investigate the flow distribution and its influence on the heat transfer processes in the high-performance heat exchanger. The subject of this investigation is the classical model of the high-performance heat exchanger with elliptical tubes and rectangular fins. It is possible to find the flow domains where the heat transfer conditions are impaired due to the fully developed turbulent flow. Therefore, the considerable thermal loads occur that may cause the breakdown of the heat exchanger. The emphasis of this investigation is put on the zones and the locations where the tubes are not properly fed with liquid, that result in occurrence of cavitation.

The analysis of effectiveness of the gradient algorithm for the two-dimension steady state heat transfer problems is being performed. The three gradient algorithms - the BCG (biconjugate gradient algorithm), the BICGSTAB (biconjugate gradient stabilized algorithm), and the CGS (conjugate gradient squared algorithm) are implemented in a computer code. Because the first type boundary conditions are imposed, it is possible to compare the results with the analytical solution. Computations are carried out for different numerical grid densities. Therefore it is possible to investigate how the grid density influences the efficiency of the gradient algorithms. The total computational time, residual drop and the iteration time for the gradient algorithms are additionally compared with the performance of the SOR (successive over-relaxation) method.

The finite element method (FEM) is one of the most frequently used numerical methods for finding the approximate discrete point solution of partial differential equations (PDE). In this method, linear or nonlinear systems of equations, comprised after numerical discretization, are solved to obtain the numerical solution of PDE. The conjugate gradient algorithms are efficient iterative solvers for the large sparse linear systems. In this paper the performance of different conjugate gradient algorithms: conjugate gradient algorithm (CG), biconjugate gradient algorithm (BICG), biconjugate gradient stabilized algorithm (BICGSTAB), conjugate gradient squared algorithm (CGS) and biconjugate gradient stabilized algorithm with l GMRES restarts (BICGSTAB(l)) is compared when solving the steady-state axisymmetric heat conduction problem. Different values of l parameter are studied. The engineering problem for which this comparison is made is the two-dimensional, axisymmetric heat conduction in a finned circular tube.