Performance simulation of fin-and-tube heat exchanger for air conditioner with irregular tube row structure

 Fin-and-tube heat exchangers have been widely used in air conditioners, and they are divided into two types, i.e. the regular tube row structure heat exchanger and the irregular tube row structure heat exchanger. The existing studies on simulation of the fin-and-tube heat exchanger focus on those with regular tube row structure, and the simulation method of the fin-and-tube heat exchanger with irregular tube row structure has not been reported. In this paper, a general description method of the irregular tube row heat exchanger is presented by analysing the structural characteristics of irregular tube row. The general distribution parameter model and solving algorithm of the fin-and-tube heat exchanger are established. The performance simulation of the fin-and-tube heat exchanger with irregular tube row structure is implemented, and the accuracy of this model is verified by experiments. Compared with the experimental results, under the rated cooling and heating conditions, the maximum relative errors of the heat transfer and refrigerant pressure drop for the selected four types of heat exchangers are 1.6% and 4.0%, respectively, which means the simulation results are accurate enough for heat exchanger design.