Effect of Coil Geometry on Frost-Free Finned-Tube Evaporator Performance

This paper outlines a mathematical modelling approach to predict the steady-state behaviour of finned-coil evaporators. The model was built taking three domains into account: (i) refrigerant flow inside the coil; (ii) heat transfer through the walls; and (iii) air flow through the finned-coil array. The equations were obtained from the mass, momentum and energy conservation principles, mathematically written according to their one-dimensional differential formulation. Comparisons with experimental data were carried out and it was found that the model predictions, in terms of cooling capacity, refrigerant superheating, and outlet air temperature, were within an acceptable error band. The main contribution of this work is the thermal performance evaluation of two different evaporator designs under various operating conditions.