• International Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration
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• v.7
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• pp.101-111
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• 1999

The effect of various conditions of frosting and defrosting on the defrosting behavior of a fin-tube heat exchanger has been examined experimentally. An electric heater is used for defrosting in a fin-tube heat exchanger. There are several local maxima in the water draining rate. The amount of residual water on the heat exchanger after completion of defrosting is kept constant due to surface tension on the heat exchanger. Without considering degradation of the thermal performance due to the frosting, the defrosting efficiency is improved with increasing amount of frost irrespective of the frosting condition. The defrosting behavior is affected by frosting density as well as frost accumulation, both of which vary with the experimental operating conditions. The heat loss to the surrounding air decreases, and melting and defrosting efficiencies show high values with decreasing heat input.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.28-35
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• 2007

In this study the seasonal performance of a residential air conditioning system having either a fin-and-tube condenser or a microchannel condenser is experimentally investigated. A commercially available 7 kW capacity residential air conditioning system having a fin-and-tube condenser served as the base system. The test results show that the system with a microchannel heat exchanger has a reduced refrigerant charge amount of 10%, the coefficient of performance is increased by 6% to 10%, and the SEER is increased by 7% as compared with those of the base system. Moreover, the condensing pressure of the system is decreased by 100 kPa and the pressure drop across the condenser is decreased by 84%. The microchannel heat exchanger enhances the SEER of the residential air conditioning system by providing better heat transfers at reduced pressure drops.

• International Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.14-18
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• 2006

This study was performed to investigate the heat transfer characteristics of the circular fin-tube heat exchanger. This paper contains the experimental data for the seven kinds of fin geometries. The correlation of Stasiulevicius agreed with the experimental data at high Reynolds number, however not well at low Reynolds number. The Nusselt number was well correlated with Graetz number, and showed a transition near Gz=10. An empirical correlation proposed in the present study agreed well with the experimental data.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.292-300
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• 1999

Fin conduction not only enhances heat transfer to the ambient air but also increases tube-to-tube conduction. The latter is known to deteriorate the heat exchanger performance. Heat conduction between neighboring tubes thorough the fin is numerically investigated for accurate performance analysis of plate finned-tube heat exchangers. Governing equations for arbitrary plate fin are solved and the temperature distribution is obtained using the principle of superposition. Analysis is made using finite element method by changing the shapes of fin, the arrangements of tubes and the fin parameter mD. It is found that tube-to-tube conduction is significant when mD is small or the distance between neighboring tubes is small.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.584-588
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• 2004

This work was performed to investigate the heat transfer characteristics of the circular fin-tube heat exchanger. This paper contains the experimental data for the seven kinds of fin geometries. The correlation of Stasiulevicius agreed with the experimental data at high Reynolds number, however not well at low Reynolds number. The Nusselt number was well correlated with Graetz number, and showed a transition near Gz=10. An empirical correlation proposed in the present work agreed well with the experimental data.

• Proceedings of the SAREK Conference
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.408-413
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• 2008

This study presents comparison of the air side heat transfer and friction characteristics in a heating condition between Louver fin-tube heat exchangers and aluminum heat exchangers. Experiments are performed for the Louver fin-tube heat exchangers and aluminum heat exchangers using a calorimeter, which is designed based on air-enthalpy method described in ASHRAE standards. The air velocities its are varied from 0.7 to 1.6 m/s with 0.3 m/s interval. A study result shows that the heat transfer performances of aluminum heat exchangers are $40{\sim}80%$ higher than those of Louver fin-tube heat exchangers per unit volume, mass and heat transfer area.

• 한국전산유체공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2004.03a
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• pp.183-189
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• 2004

The flow and the heat transfer about the cross-flow fin-tube heat exchanger in an out-door unit of a heat pump system has been numerically Investigated. Using the general purpose analysis code, FLUENT, the Navier-Stokes equations and the energy equation are solved for the three dimensional computation domain that encompasses multiple rows of the fin-tube. The temperature on the fin and tube surface is assumed constant but compensated later through the fin efficiency when predicting the heat-transfer rate. The contact resistance is also taken into consideration. The flow and temperature fields for a wide range of inlet velocity and fin-tube arrangements are examined and the results are presented in the paper. The details of the flow are very well captured and the heat transfer rate for a range of inlet velocity is in excellent agreement with the measured data. The flow solution provides the effective permeability and the inertial resistance factor of the heat exchanger if the exchanger were to be approximated by the porous medium. This information is essential in carrying out the global flow field calculation which, in turn, provides the inlet velocity lot the microscopic temperature-field calculation of the heat exchanger unit.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.22 no.11
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• pp.1555-1563
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• 1998

Heat transfer and pressure drop for ${\phi}10.07$ dry surface fin-tube heat exchanger with wave and wave-slit fins were measured for different fin spacings and number of tube rows. Longitudinal and transverse tube spacings of the heat exchangers are 21.65mm and 25mm respectively, and wave depth of wave fin is 1.5mm. The experiments were performed for 4 different fin spacings, 1.3, 1.5, 1.7 and 2.0mm, and the number of tube rows were 1,2 and 3 rows. The present results were compared with the previous results for the wave depth of 2mm. Also hydrophilic coated and bare fins were tested. Correlations for Colburn j-factor and friction factor were developed.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.494-501
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• 2000

Effectiveness of a 3-pass plate finned-tube heat exchanger is calculated using heat exchangelet method by changing the shape of fin and the arrangement of tubes. The alternative refrigerant R134a is taken in this study. Conduction between neighboring tubes along the fin is taken into account in addition to convection between the fin and the surrounding air. Governing equations are obtained by using energy balance in a small control volume containing a tube and fins. They are numerically solved following the tube. Effect of tube-to-tube conduction is investigated in single-phase and two-phase flows with various fin shapes and arrangements of tubes. Improvement of effectiveness by fin perforation is studied too. The results shows that perforating fins, increasing the number of tubes, and increasing the distance between neighboring tubes at the same fin area enhance the effectiveness.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.17 no.11
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• pp.965-973
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• 2005

This paper proposes a mathematical model for predicting the frosting performance on a fin-tube heat exchanger. The model consists of empirical correlations of average heat transfer coefficients for the plate and tube surfaces and a diffusion equation inside the frost layer. The numerical results are compared with experimental data for the frost thickness, the frosting rate and the heat transfer rate to validate the proposed model. The results are in good agreement with the experimental data, and show that this model can be applied to predict frosting performance of common fin-tube heat exchanger.