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Author
Payne, W. V. | Domanski, P. A.
Title
Potential Benefits of Smart Refrigerant Distributors. Final Report.
Coporate
National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD
Sponsor
Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Technology Institute, Arlington, VA
Report
ARTI-21CR/605-200-50-01, December 2002, 196 p.
Distribution
AVAILABLE FROM: National Technical Information Service (NTIS), Technology Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, Springfield, VA 22161. Telephone: 1-800-553-6847 or 703-605-6000; Fax: 703-605-6900; Rush Service (Telephone Orders Only) 800-553-6847; Website: http://www.ntis.gov
Keywords
refrigerants | experiments | uncertainty | validation
Identifiers
Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS); evaporator modeling and simulations; capacity undertainty; user's instruction for the EVAP-COND version used in this study
Abstract
The main goal of this study was to investigate the benefits possible for finned tube refrigerant evaporators when refrigerant distribution was precisely controlled to produce a desired equal superheat in each circuit. This goal was accomplished by examining three different finned tube evaporators; a wavy fin, wavy-lanced fin, and a wavy-lanced fin evaporator with tube sheets separated. The effects of non-uniform airflow on capacity were also examined while superheat was controlled in each evaporator circuit. In parallel with the experimental effort, a modeling program was implemented and validated with the experimental results and then used to determine the savings in evaporator core volume possible if refrigerant distribution was controlled by a smart distributor. In extreme cases, the savings in core volume could be as much as 40%.