Experimental investigation of double rows liquid-vapor separation microchannel condenser.

Abstract

Double rows liquid-vapor separation microchannel condenser (D-LSMC) is a novel condenser, an optimal tube pass scheme D-LSMC was obtained by the theoretical method. A series of experiments were conducted to research heat load, average heat transfer coefficient (AHTC) and pressure drop of the optimal D-LSMC. The experimental results were compared with an optimal common double rows parallel flow microchannel condenser (D-PFMC). The findings showed, at mass flow rate 0.026 kg/s to 0.036 kg/s (equal to mass flux of 635 kgm-2s-1 to 874 kgm-2s-1 in the first tube pass), the AHTCs of the D-LSMC were 4.5% to 15.1% higher than the D-PFMC, however the pressure drop of the D-LSMC were only 46.3% to 52.0% of the D-PFMC. In addition, the heat transfer capacity of back tube row almost reduced by half than the front tube row. The minimum entropy generation number (Ns) was used to evaluate the D-LSMC and the D-PFMC, which indicated the D-LSMC owned greater thermodynamic performance.