Numerical and experimental analysis of an air cooled evaporator

Aim of the paper is a numerical-experimental analysis for an air cooled evaporator working with refrigerant R22, in steady-state conditions. A homogeneous model for the refrigerant is considered; this model is capable of predicting the distributions of the refrigerant temperature, the velocity, the void fraction, the tube wall temperature, the air temperature and the humidity along the test evaporator. A comparison with the measurements on a dry expansion evaporator mounted in an air channel linked to a vapour compression plant is discussed. The results show that the model provides a reasonable estimation of the steady-state response