The hybrid method applied to the plate-finned tube evaporator geometry

A procedure for the design and rating of plate-finned tube evaporator is proposed, to overcome limitations of both numerical and experiment based available present methods. The hybrid method allows to achieve high accuracy without incurring excessive computational cost and provides overall performance predictions starting from local analyses. The domain is divided into control volumes, where heat transfer is modeled by means of predictor equations obtained by known data. An iterative analytical method is used to find at each control volume the convergence between the heat transfer rates on both sides, and to obtain the distribution of wall temperature in the heat exchanger and the spatial distribution of the air mass flow rate. A case study is shown where in the first row the refrigerant completely evaporates, while this doesn't happen for the last one where the vapor quality at the outlet is 28% lower.