Simulation of air-to-refrigerant fin-and-tube heat exchanger with CFD-based air propagation Varun Singh*, Omar Abdelaziz, Vikrant Aute, Reinhard Radermacher Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA article info Article history: Received 27 May 2009 Received in revised form 9 December 2010 Accepted 26 July 2011 Available online 12 August 2011 Keywords: Heat exchanger Condenser Modeling Finned tube CFD Hybrid Simulation abstract A new model for simulating air-to-refrigerant fin-and-tube heat exchangers with compu- tational fluid dynamics (CFD)-based air propagation is introduced. This model is based on a segment-by-segment approach and is developed to be a general purpose and flexible simulation tool. The model superimposes a CFD mesh on the heat exchanger model’s geometric grid, interprets the CFD results, and processes them to generate the air propa- gation path through the heat exchanger. The model is capable of accounting for air flow maldistribution and other complex flow patterns including recirculation zones within the heat exchanger, as well as, entrainment of exit flow into the heat exchanger, using both two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) CFD results. The modeling results show that the overall predicted heat load using 3D-CFD simulation results agrees within 4% of the experimental data, without employing any multipliers on air side correlations. ª 2011 Elsevier Ltd and IIR. All rights reserved. Simulation d’un e ´ changeur de chaleur air-frigorige `ne a ` tubes ailete ´s a ` l’aide de la propagation d’air et de la me ´ canique nume ´ rique des fluides Mots cle ´s : Echangeur de chaleur ; Condenseur ; Mode ´ lisation ; Tube ailete ´ ; Me ´ canique nume ´ rique des fluides ; Hybride ; Simulation 1. Introduction Refrigerant to air fin-and-tube heat exchangers have wide- ranging applications in the refrigeration and air-condi- tioning industry. They are used to transfer heat between air and the working fluid (e.g., refrigerants, water, glycols etc). In order to predict their performance accurately, and reduce design and development time, computer models are fast replacing physical prototypes. There are several such models and tools in the literature that can be used to model both steady state and transient behavior, and have been validated against experimental data. Existing heat exchanger models * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ1 301 405 8726; fax: þ1 301 405 2025. E-mail address: vsingh3@umd.edu (V. Singh). www.iifiir.org available at www.sciencedirect.com journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijrefrig international journal of refrigeration 34 (2011) 1883 e1897 0140-7007/$ e see front matter ª 2011 Elsevier Ltd and IIR. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijrefrig.2011.07.007