CONTACT RESISTANCE IN AIR-COOLED PLATE FIN-TUBE AIR-CONDITIONING CONDENSERS

Test equipment and procedures have been developed to measure the heat transfer performance of an industry-standard wavy plate fin-tube conde nser, and to compare it with alternative designs, Two test rigs were e mployed:one used direct electric heating, and the other used an R22 th ermosyphon. Analysis revealed that the standard production heat exchan ger suffered from excessive fin-tube resistance. This was confirmed by sectioning and microscopic examination. Seven different designs were compared at the same Reynolds number. The results were analysed to iso late the air-side heat transfer coefficient. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevi er Science Ltd and IIR