Study of melting of frost on heat exchanger for heat pump. Effect of flow amount and temperature of working fluid for waffle louver fin heat exchanger.

Abstract

This experimental work was carried out to obtain basic information of melting of frost on a heat exchanger used as a heat pump and air-conditioner. The working fluid of heat exchanger used in this experiment is 50 wt% propylene glycol aqueous-solution. Flow amount G and temperature Tb of the working fluid are in the range of 0.1<G [m3/hour]<0.2 and 10<Tb [°C]<34 respectively. A melting thermal efficiency η is defined here as the ratio of a net heat for melting to a heat supplied to the heat exchanger until an end time for melting tc. η strongly depends on tc, and also tc is strongly affected by G and Tb. In conclusion it can be found that the heat supplied to the heat exchanger can be utilized with high η when tc becomes small.