Heat Transfer Studies using Artificial Neural Network - a Review

This review explains the effective utilization of artificial neural network (ANN) modeling in various heat transfer applications like steady and dynamic thermal problems, heat exchangers, gas-solid fluidized beds etc. It is not always feasible to deal with many critical problems in thermal engineering by the use of traditional analysis such as fundamental equations, conventional correlations or developing unique designs from experimental data through trial and error. Implementation of ANN tool with different techniques and structures shows that there is good agreement in the results obtained by ANN and experimental data. The purpose of the present review is to point out the recent advances in ANN and its successful implementation in dealing with a variety of important heat transfer problems. Based on the literature it is observed that the feed-forward network with back propagation technique implemented successfully in many heat transfer studies. The performance of the network trained were tested using regression analysis and the performance parameters such as root mean square error, mean absolute error, coefficient of determination, absolute standard deviation etc. The authors own experimental investigation of heat transfer studies of tube immersed in gas-solid fluidized bed using ANN is included for strengthening the said review. The results achieved by performance parameters shows that ANN can be used reliably in many heat transfer applications successfully.