Study on the Coupling Effect of Heat Transfer and Refrigerant Distribution in the Flat Tube of a Microchannel Evaporator

Wenju Hu and Xin Zhang
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Wenju Hu: Beijing Key Laboratory of HVAC, Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Beijing 100044, China
Xin Zhang: Beijing Key Laboratory of HVAC, Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Beijing 100044, China

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 14, 1-22

Abstract: Refrigerant maldistribution severely deteriorates the heat transfer performance of a microchannel evaporator. Compared with the refrigerant distribution among flat tubes along the header, refrigerant distribution among microchannels in the flat tube in the airflow direction has barely been paid attention. In this paper, a heat transfer mathematical model of a microchannel evaporator’s flat tube composed of vertically placed parallel microchannels in the airflow direction was developed. The Refrigerant distribution among the microchannels was evaluated and its influence on heat transfer between air and refrigerant was analyzed. The results showed that the refrigerant distribution and heat transfer performance between air and refrigerant were interrelated and interacted with each other. The temperature of the air leaving the microchannel evaporator changed along the microchannel because of uneven refrigerant distribution among the microchannels, and the air temperature difference between air leaving out of the bottom and the top of the evaporator was approximately 2.13 °C. Ignoring the heat transfer from adjacent microchannels will lead to a small heat transfer deviation for the flat tube; thus, heat transfer among microchannels can be neglected.

Keywords: microchannel evaporator; refrigerant distribution; heat transfer performance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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