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Innovative minichannel condensers and evaporators for air-conditioning equipment.

Number: pap. 2555

Author(s) : DEL COL D., ROSSATO M., BERNARDINELLO S., et al.

Summary

The use of aluminum heat exchangers for refrigeration and air-conditioning equipment is very interesting since it allows to reduce weight and manufacturing costs while maintaining high performance. In this paper a two-phase heat transfer characterization of an innovative aluminum minichannel heat exchanger is presented. The heat exchanger is composed by rectangular channels with internal perforated turbulators. A unique test section has been designed and realized in the Two Phase Heat Transfer Lab of the University of Padova in order to measure the refrigerant heat transfer coefficient (HTC) during flow boiling and condensation. The test section has a single refrigerant channel with a perforated fin to make the minichannels. The test section is provided with 14 water flow modules installed at top and bottom of the refrigerant channel to promote boiling or condensation of the refrigerant. Therefore, the test section is divided in seven different zones: each of them is equipped with 8 thermocouples to measure the wall temperature during the refrigerant phase change. The heat flow rate in each zone is calculated from an energy balance on the water side. Pressure transducers and thermocouples on the refrigerant side allow to determine the saturation temperature and thus the heat transfer coefficient of the refrigerant. The refrigerant used during tests is R410A. The particular scheme adopted for the test section enables to measure HTC at varying vapor quality and heat flow rate. Vaporization and condensation tests were carried out with different saturation temperatures, heat flux (from 10 to 60 kW m-2) and refrigerant mass flux (50–100 kg s-1m-2). The aim of the present paper is to investigate the potential performance of these innovative minichannel heat exchangers as condensers and evaporators in air-conditioning equipment, since very few data are available in the literature during flow boiling and condensation in similar geometries. Therefore, it is very important to verify the accuracy of available heat transfer predicting models. The present preliminary flow boiling data have been compared with predictions from the Liu and Winterton (1991) correlation.

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Pages: 10 p.

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Details

  • Original title: Innovative minichannel condensers and evaporators for air-conditioning equipment.
  • Record ID : 30013299
  • Languages: English
  • Source: 2014 Purdue Conferences. 15th International Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Conference at Purdue.
  • Publication date: 2014/07/14

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