Performance evaluation of fin-and-tube heat exchangers in an outdoor unit considering air flow mal-distribution

The heat transfer capacity of air conditioning outside units is inextricably related to fins and airflow distribution, and research on the combination of the two is lacking. To analyze the fins and fin-and-tube heat exchanger, three-dimensional numerical models of the fins and flow field of the outdoor unit are created in this paper. On the one hand, the heat transfer and fluid flow characteristics of the fins are quantitatively evaluated and analyzed. On the other hand, the resistance coefficients of the porous media are numerically fitted to study the uniformity of the air velocity distribution on the surface of the heat exchanger. Two indexes, the total integrated heat capacity and JF-factor, are applied to evaluate the performance of the fins and fin-and-tube heat exchanger on the overall and specific levels, respectively. The results indicate that slit fins perform better than wave fins at heat transfer, whereas plain fins perform the worst. However, improved heat transfer performance results in increased pressure drop, which has a two-sided effect. It causes both a decrease in air volume flow rate and an increase in air distribution uniformity. Comparing the comprehensive performance of different fins, JF-factors of slit fins and wave fins are on average 20.95% and 14.36% higher than plain fins. In terms of overall performance, slit fins and wave fins have higher integrated heat exchange capacities than plain fins by 18.0% and 9.33%, respectively.