Multi-objective optimization of a new special-shaped tube for heating deicing fluid

The ground deicing heating system is an important equipment to ensure flight safety of civil aircraft in winter. As the main element, the heating tube directly affects the working efficiency of the system. The deicing fluid is high viscosity mixture. To improve heating efficiency of deicing fluid, a new special-shaped tube is proposed, which is named double-spiral trapezoidal grooved tube. The upper base width (m), groove depth (h) and base angle (θ) are the important structural parameters of the new tube. The optimal Latin hypercube design is applied to carry out the experiment design of m, h and θ. Nusselt number (Nu), flow resistance coefficient (f) and performance evaluation criteria (PEC) are selected as the optimization objectives. Then, the response surface approximation model is established to conduct sensitivity analysis. Based on the model, NCGA and NSGA-II algorithms are, respectively, introduced to perform the multi-objective optimization. The results show that NSGA-II is better than NCGA. When $$m \in \left[ {0.17, \, 0.33} \right]$$ , $$h \in [1.06, \, 1.08]$$ and $$\theta \in \left[ {84.06, \, 84.75} \right]$$ , the best range of optimization objectives is $$Nu \in \left[ {86.04, \, 87.81} \right]$$ , $$f \in \left[ {0.70, \, 0.73} \right]$$ and $${\text{PEC}} \in \left[ {1.60, \, 1.62} \right]$$ . With the growth of turbulence intensity, PEC > 1, and Nu increases by 4–27%. As a result, the heating efficiency of the new tube is superior to the original tube.