Computer model for air-cooled refrigerant condensers with specified refrigerant circuiting

A computer model for an air-cooled refrigerant condenser is presented; the model is intended for use in detailed design analyses or in simulation of the performance of existing heat exchangers that have complex refrigerant circuiting or unusual air-side geometries. The model relies on a tube-by-tube computational approach calculating the thermal and fluid-flow performance of each tube in the heat exchanger individually, using local temperatures and heat transfer coefficients. The refrigerant circuiting must be specified; the joining or branching of parallel circuits is accommodated using appropriate mixing expressions. Air-side heat exchange coorelations may be specified so that various surface geometries can be investigated. Results of the analyses of two condensers are compared to experiment.