Multiple Parallel Flow Condenser Thermal Performance Of The Numerical Simulation

With the increasing impact of global warming, the CFCs refrigerantswhich have been widely used are substituted due to the environmentalprotection. R-134a is considered to be an ideal candidate for replacingR-12. The parallel flow type condenser, which is composed of the flattubes and the louvered fins, is usually designed as the varied cross-section.In the air conditioning refrigeration industry, the research of the parallelflow type condenser was focused on enhancing the heat transferefficiency and the system performance, improving the design pattern offins, and directing the design of the compact heat exchangers with lessenergy-consuming.The investigation of heat transfer and flow behaviors of parallel flowtype condensers was performed in this paper. The stimulation modelswere based on the coupled conduction-convective heat transfer for thelouver fin geometry. The control volume based on finite element method(CVFEM) was employed to solve the problems numerically. Theinfluences of frontal air velocity, louver pitch, fin pitch and louver angleon heat transfer and flow resistance characteristic were presented.In addition, a model was developed for the parallel flow typecondenser with the energy balance method. Fluid flow and heat transferprocesses in both refrigerant and air sides were analyzed with the latestphysical properties database and the corresponding correlations. Theinfluences of major parameters on the parallel flow type condenserperformance were discussed. The results obtained in this paper are helpfulfor the optimal design of the parallel flow type condenser.