Evaluation of Air-side Friction Characteristics on Design Conditions of Slit Fin and Tube Heat Exchanger

An experimental study on the air-side pressure drop of slit fin-tube heat exchanger has been carried out. The data reduction methodology for air-side pressure drop in the literature is not based on a consistent approach. This paper focuses on method of data reduction to obtain the air-side performance of fin-tube heat exchanger using R22 and recommends standard procedures for dry and wet surface pressure drop estimation in fin-tube heat exchanger. A comparison was made between the predictions of previously proposed empirical correlations and experimental data for the air-side pressure drop on design conditions of condenser and evaporator. Results are pre-sented as plots of friction f-factor against Reynolds number based on the fin collar outside diameter and compared with previous studies. The data covers a range of refrigerant mass fluxes of with air flows at velocity ranges from 0.38 m/s to 1.6 m/s.