Summary

The objective of this work is to evaluate the thermohydraulic performance of finned tube condensers. In order to accomplish this objective, a test bench was built and a computational code was developed. The test bench has two circuits: one for air flow and another for refrigerant flow. The condenser heat released rate can be measured in both circuits. In the air circuit, the air flow is measured by nozzles and the temperature difference by differential thermocouples. In the refrigerant circuit, the mass flow rate is measured by a Coriolis type mass flow meter and the enthalpy differential is calculated from the absolute temperature and pressure measurements. The j and the f dimensionless parameters are calculated from the experimental data. The effect of fin geometry, fin pitch, louver, and fin edge corrugation were all explored experimentally. Comparisons with correlations available in the open literature are presented and discussed. The computational code can be used either to calculate the j and the f parameters from heat transfer and air pressure drop data, or to simulate the heat transfer and the air pressure drop from j and f empirical correlations. The developed computational code was coupled to the MODEFRONTIER# optimization software in an attempt to optimize the fin pitch for a specific condenser.

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