Determination of Refrigerant Path Number for Fin-tube Condenser Considering Heat Transfer Performance and Pumping Power

Fin-tube heat exchangers are widely used in air-conditioners and heat pumps, which are constructed with a lot of tubes. Refrigerant circuit of heat exchanger with numerous pipe can be constructed by many methods. Refrigerant circuit design is usually determined designer’s experience and case by case test without guides. The number of path affects largely on heat exchanger performance. In this paper, design methodology for optimum number of path is suggested by relating convective thermal resistance and pumping power. Suggested methodology is described through an example and verified by various refrigerant circuit simulation results.