Improving the Heat Transfer Rate of Air Conditioning Condenser by Material Optimization

Abstract

Air conditioning systems have condensers that remove unwanted heat from the refrigerant and transfer the heat outdoors. The optimization of the global exploit of heat exchanging devices is still a burdensome task due to different design parameters involved. There is need for more and substantial research into bettering cooling channel materials so as to ensure elevated performance, better efficiency, greater accuracy, long lasting and low cost heat exchanging. The aim of this research work is to improve the heat transfer rate of air conditioning condenser by optimizing materials for different tube diameters. Simulations using thermal analysis and Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) analysis were carried out to determine the better material and fluid respectively. The analysis was done using Analysis System software. Different parameters were calculated from the results obtained and graphs are plotted between various parameters such as heat flux, static pressure, velocity, mass flow rate and total heat transfer. The materials used for CFD analysis are R12 and R22, and for thermal analysis are copper and aluminium. From the CFD analysis, the result shows that R22 has more static pressure, velocity, mass flow rate and total heat transfer than R12 at condenser tube diameter 6 mm. In thermal investigation, the heat flux is more for copper material at condenser tube diameter 6 mm. Copper offers maximum heat flux. Also, refrigerant R22 scores maximum for the heat transfer criteria, but cannot be recommended due to toxicity