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Indexed by:会议论文

Date of Publication:2009-01-01

Included Journals:EI、Scopus

Volume:1

Page Number:694-701

Abstract:Highly increasing cooling demand results in the popularization of large scale air conditioning systems such as multi-split air conditioners. In the circumstance, many condensers might be used to acquire large cooling capacity by adequately dissipating heat to the ambient. If a number of condensers are placed in a small outdoor space, the flow interaction among will be a key point, i.e., the assembling of the outdoor condenser units into arrays so that airflows will not impact each other is essential for achieving the designed cooling capacity. For a demonstration, this investigation has studied flow and heat transfer of three condensers aligned in a line locating on the horizontal flat, using experimental measurement and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation. The CFD method models finned coils of condensers as porous medium after being successfully validated by experiment in terms of velocity and temperature of sucked air. Then with CFD investigated factors that may deteriorate heat exchange include: separation distance between every two neighboring units, distance with a vertical wall in parallel with the array, and different fan operating pressures. It finds the CFD simulation by modelling finned coils as porous medium can provide reasonably acceptable results. From heat transfer point of view, the separation distance between every two neighbouring units shall be at least 0.2 m, the distance with a vertical wall in parallel with the array shall not be less than 0.8 m, and large different operating pressures among units do not impact the flow and heat transfer of the other units meaningfully.