An improvement of airflow and heat transfer performance of multi-coil condensers by different coil configurations

Mal-distribution of airflow is an important factor for the performance of air-cooled multi-coil air-cooled condensers. This study is an attempt to investigate the effects of different included angles between the coils of the condenser. It has been found in this study that it can be a mean to improve the performance of multi-coil condensers without using larger heat transfer surfaces. A commercially used four-coil condenser of an air-cooled water chiller was used as the base case in the tests and analysis. The results show that the variation of the included angle can increase the airflow rate by 7.85%, which corresponds to 5.29% increase in heat transfer. The improvements were found to be due to the reduction of the stagnant flow regions of the heat exchanger coils, and more even flow distribution through the coils. Test data were used to verify the computer model of the four-coil heat exchanger. The same tested fan performance characteristic was used in all of the analyses. The research results are important as air-cooled condensing units can be designed to better performance merely by changing the configuration of the coil arrangements. (c) 2010 Elsevier Ltd and IIR. All rights reserved.