ANALYSIS OF SEGMENT-BY-SEGMENT ¿ - NTU MODELLING OF A MINICHANNEL CO2 GAS COOLER

Published

July 12, 2010

Author(s)

Santiago M. Ballester, Jose M. Corberan, Jose Gonzalvez-Macia, Piotr A. Domanski

Abstract

Most of the current air-to-refrigerant heat exchanger models use the classic ε-NTU approach. These models do not account for longitudinal conduction neither in the fin nor in the tube, transverse conduction in the tube, and for the heat conduction between different tubes, which is a consequence of the employed adiabatic fin tip assumption. This paper presents a more detailed numerical approach to heat exchanger modeling with the goal to capture heat conduction effects within the heat exchanger structure and detailed representation of air properties. The new model uses a segment-by-segment approach and applies a 2-D discretization for each segment. The paper includes a presentation of the numerical scheme, validation, and a parametric study which tests the impact of the traditional heat exchanger model assumptions. The study revealed large errors in capacity prediction of individual tubes due to the adiabatic fin tip assumption, when the neighboring tubes are of different temperature.

Proceedings Title

13th International Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Conference at Purdue

Conference Dates

July 12-15, 2010

Conference Location

West Lafayette , IN

Pub Type

Conferences

Keywords

heat exchanger, modeling, simulation, microchannel fins

Citation

Ballester, S. , Corberan, J. , Gonzalvez-Macia, J. and Domanski, P. (2010), ANALYSIS OF SEGMENT-BY-SEGMENT ¿ - NTU MODELLING OF A MINICHANNEL CO2 GAS COOLER, 13th International Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Conference at Purdue, West Lafayette , IN (Accessed October 16, 2025)