Heat transfer characteristic of proposed heat transfer configurations of temperature chamber design for energy test refrigerator

Abstract

A recent method of energy test for refrigerator requires two temperature test condition and lower airspeed of the temperature chamber. The testing technology laboratory of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences has developed a temperature chamber capable of conducting the test. This paper presents the heat transfer characteristic of the proposed configuration for heat exchanger for temperature chamber design. An aligned and staggered configuration is investigated in the current study as the proposed configuration of the heat exchanger through numerical modelling. Three parameters of heat transfer characteristics are determined in this current paper: heat transfer rate, heat transfer coefficient, and pressure loss. The result shows that the staggered results in higher heat transfer rate and heat transfer coefficient. Such greater heat transfer values may occur since the greater amount of bank for staggered configuration, and thus provide a greater area for fluid behavior. The verification model indicates a far gap at around 75% relative to the theoretical determination. The growth rate of 1.1 in the mesh sizing is not enough to provide a small sizing that may be indicated as a factor to such a considerable gap. The implication of the greater heat transfer space in staggered configuration brings to the concern of energy consumption for fan-speed as a result of greater pressure loss. The energy need for fan speed for staggered configuration is 1.66% higher of aligned configuration.