Study on The Effect of Different Plenum Chamber Coefficients on Frosting of Air-cooler

Abstract

The performance of the air-cooler in the refrigeration system plays a key role in improving the energy efficiency. Here, the plenum chamber coefficient was defined to study a possible way of enhancing the refrigeration system performance. In order to investigate the influence of the plenum chamber coefficient on the frosting and the cooling system of the chillers, three plenum chamber coefficients (0.74,0.97,1.2) were studied under high humidity. The temperature decreasing curve of the environmental chamber, the velocity distribution of the air cooler, and the frost accumulation under and on the air-cooler were analysed. The results show that the frost accumulation on the tube will increase with the increase of the plenum chamber coefficient and the frost accumulation on the fin will increase at first and then decrease with the increase of the plenum chamber coefficient. On the whole, in this study, frosting is the most obvious when the plenum chamber coefficient was 0.97