Heat exchanger with stiffening tube connectors

Abstract

A heat exchanger having: an upstream header; a downstream header; a core extending from an upstream end at the upstream header to a downstream end at the downstream header, wherein the core includes tubes arranged in a square matrix that defines rows of tubes arranged in a row direction and columns of the tubes arranged in a column direction that is normal to the row direction, each of the tubes defining an upstream end and a downstream end that are spaced apart from each other in a longitudinal direction, and an outer boundary of the core is defined by outer ones of the tubes, wherein each of the tubes is longitudinally divided into tube segments; and tube connectors extending between the tube segments and interconnecting longitudinally and diagonally adjacent ones of the tube segments to stiffen the core.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.