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Article history: The use of air conditioning in all-electric cars reduces their driving range by 33% in average. With the pur-
Received 25 February 2016 pose of reducing the energy consumption of the vehicle and optimising the performance of the batteries,
Revised 21 December 2016 the mobile air-conditioning can be integrated with the temperature control system of the powertrain by
Accepted 5 January 2017
means of a coolant loop. In such layouts, the air-to-coolant heat exchangers must operate efficiently in
Available online 7 January 2017
both air heating and cooling modes. Dynamic simulation tools comprising the entire thermal system
are essential to assess its performance. In this context, fast but accurate models of the system compo-
Keywords:
nents are required.
Heat exchanger
Louvered fin
This paper presents the thermal characterisation of a commercial compact louvered-fin flat-tube heat
Correlation exchanger (heater core) for this novel application, based on an experimental campaign comprising 279
Wet condition working points that reflect real air-conditioning (heating and cooling) working conditions. A general
Modelling methodology to fit a single correlation of the global heat transfer coefficient for both dry and wet working
Automotive conditions is explained. The semiempirical correlation developed is employed in a single-node model of
the heat exchanger that requires minimal computation time. The present model predicts the heat transfer
rate with an average deviation of 3.5% in the cases with dehumidification and 1.9% in the cases when the
heat exchanger remains dry.
2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2017.01.017
1359-4311/ 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
B. Torregrosa-Jaime et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 115 (2017) 774781 775
Nomenclature
conditions are avoided in that study, nevertheless they are usual in Rather than analysing the performance of the selected geometry as
air cooling applications. More recently, Jokar et al. [8] presented a previous studies did, the present work focuses on the operating
test facility consisting of an automotive RHP with secondary cool- conditions of the HEX. As a novelty, partially wet working condi-
ant loops in which five different air-to-coolant compact HEXs were tions that are usual in air-conditioning applications are intention-
tested. The discussion of the results focuses on the coolant side and ally included and analysed. From these results, a methodology to
the effect of condensation on the air side is not analysed. Vaisi et al. fit a single everywhere correlation of the global heat transfer coef-
[9] studied two types of louvered fins configurations in an automo- ficient of the compact HEX for both working modes is explained.
tive radiator, but the temperature working conditions differ signif- The developed correlation can be employed to build a semiempir-
icantly from those of the air-conditioning applications. Xu et al. ical HEX model that considers dehumidification, based on the
[10] compared the performance of compact HEXs with wavy and approach by Braun et al. [14]. The present model has provided
louvered fins under wet and frosting conditions working as evapo- excellent validation results and is useful for its integration a
rators. Automotive condensers and evaporators were also mea- dynamic model of the entire mobile AC system [18].
sured and compared by Liang et al. [11] under dry and wet
conditions. In their study, Liang et al. [11] assessed about the suit-
ability of the existing correlations for the prediction of the air-side 2. Experimental method
heat transfer performance of these HEXs by means of a multi-node
model. In the European ICE Project FP7 [17], an innovative air-
In vehicle applications, simulation tools comprising the entire conditioning system for an electric minibus was developed. Specif-
AC system are essential to assess its performance under a wide ically, the project addressed the design of a magnetocaloric heat
range of dynamic working conditions. All the loops and the electri- pump that was intended for replacing the vapour-compression
cal auxiliaries shall be included in the models in order to find the heat pump in a water-to-water layout. For compatibility reasons,
synergies among the components [12]. Grey box models offer a the rest of the components of the air-conditioning system were
compromise between generalisation capabilities, accuracy and kept the same regardless of the heat pumping technology
simulation time [13]. In this context, single-node or lumped employed [19]. Fig. 1 shows a scheme of the designed system,
parameter models of the HEXs are more convenient than multi- which included the water-to-water heat pump (HP), the power
node or distributed parameter models due to its simplicity and electronics of the vehicle (PE) and two intermediate coolant loops
speed. However, the traditional effectiveness approach is not accu- in which the air-to-coolant HEXs had to work in both cooling and
rate when the HEX works under dynamic dry and wet conditions, heating modes. Three units of the commercial compact HEX A51-
in which the boundary between the dry and wet surfaces moves. KS423 by the ICE Project partner MAHLE Behr (Figs. 2 and 3 and
Several authors have developed simple dynamic HEX models for Table 1) were chosen for the coolant loop to the minibus cabin.
cooling coils with dehumidification [1416]. Among them, the This model is a louvered-fin flat-tube aluminium heat exchanger
approach by Braun et al. [14] has demonstrated a good accuracy is used more commonly as heater core.
with minimal modelling effort and computation time. The thermal behaviour of a HEX depends on its geometrical
In this paper, the thermal characterisation of a commercial characteristics and on the conditions of both flows. An experimen-
compact louver-fin flat-tube HEX under dry and wet conditions tal campaign was carried out by MAHLE with the purpose of char-
is presented. The measured air-to-coolant HEX is intended for a acterising the thermal performance of this HEX for its novel use in
novel application in both heating and cooling of an electric minibus air-conditioning applications, for both heating and cooling of a
cabin. With this purpose, a comprehensive experimental campaign vehicle cabin. In order to obtain on-board performance data, the
has been carried out as a part of the European ICE Project FP7 [17]. HEX was mounted inside one of the HVAC units of the minibus,
776 B. Torregrosa-Jaime et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 115 (2017) 774781
PE
HP
FRONT
REAR
RADIATOR
PE
HP
FRONT
REAR
RADIATOR
Fig. 1. Integrated air-conditioning system layout for an electric minibus. Above: heating mode. Below: cooling mode.
Table 1
Dimensions of the A51-KS423 compact heat exchanger.
Q
ewet;air _ 2
3. Model mair iair;in isat;w;in
The results of the experimental campaign have been used to The value of the heat transfer rate (Q) computed in the coolant
find a correlation for the global heat transfer coefficient multiplied side (Eq. (3)) has been employed to calculate the effectiveness as in
by the heat transfer surface (UA) of the studied HEX. For system Jokar et al. [8]. Measuring the flow rate and the temperature in the
design purposes, a model of a HEX based on the UA is more conve- air side is more difficult than in the water side. As observed later,
nient than one based on the effectiveness, since the former allows when the air flow rate is low there is a significant dispersion in
for scaling up and down the HEX and therefore finding its optimum the results. On the contrary, the measurements in the water side
size for the studied application. Besides, employing a correlation are much more accurate. Regarding the thermal losses, in the pre-
for the UA instead of the experimental dot map improves the inter- sent setup the HEX is separated from the walls of the test duct by
polation and extrapolation of the values during the simulations. an insulating foam so it can be assumed that all the heat losses,
The methodology explained in this work to fit a correlation for including the losses from the headers, go to the air inside the duct.
the UA is general and can be applied to other HEX geometries pro- _ w cp;w T w;out T w;in
Q m 3
vided that an experimental data set is available.
The UA can be found with the effectiveness-NTU method. The The e can be written as a function of the NTU, which in turn
effectiveness (e) of the HEX is calculated from the experimental depends on the UA. The relationship between e and NTU depends
tests by applying its definition for sensible (Eq. (1)) or latent (Eq. on the geometry of the HEX. A specific e-NTU expression for an
Fig. 4. Experimental setup: HEX inside the HVAC unit (left) and HVAC unit on the test bench (right).
778 B. Torregrosa-Jaime et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 115 (2017) 774781
Table 2
AC operation points tested by MAHLE.
Mode Air inlet T [C]/RH [%] Coolant inlet T [C] Air flow rate [m3 h1] Coolant flow rate [m3 h1]
Heating 0/7010/6020/50 30354050 100200250300400 0.30.60.9
Cooling 20/40a25/5030/60 51015 150200250300 0.30.60.9
a
20C/40% conditions were tested under air flow rates of 100, 200 and 300 m3 h1
unmixed cross-flow unit with npass passes per tube (npass = 2 in this Therefore, Eq. (9) can be rewritten as Eq. (14), where K1, K2, n1
case) has been applied (Eqs. (4)(7)) [20]. Compared to the com- and n2 are unknown constants to be fitted.
monly employed e-NTU relationship for an infinite number of tube
rows in ESDU 86018 [21], the present expression fits better the 1
UA 14
experiments and does not have any limitation on the heat capacity
1
n
_ w1
K1 m
K 1
n
_ 2
2mair
of the fluid flows.
1 ! The exponents n1 and n2 in Eq. (14) have been found in litera-
1 K K 2KR ture considering the characteristics of the coolant and air flows
e 1 1 e 4
R 2 2 respectively through the measured HEX.
In the coolant side, the Re in the tests ranges between 115 and
NTU air 688 so the flow regime is laminar. It is assumed that the mean Nus-
K 1 exp 5 selt number for hydrodynamically developed laminar flow in flat
npass
tubes can be approached by the expression for parallel plates,
UAair Eqs. (15)(17) [23].
NTU air 6
_ air
cair m 1=3
Num Nu31 Nu32 15
c m _ air
R air 7
cp;w m_w Nu1 7:541 16
where cair
equals the specific capacity of air (cp,air) if the HEX is dry q
(sensible process) and csat (Eq. (8)) if it is wet (latent process) [14]. Nu2 1:841
3
RePrdh =L 17
isat;w;in isat;w;out
csat 8 Under the conditions measured and due to the geometry of the
T w;in T w;out HEX the value of Num approaches Nu2, so the rest of the terms in
Convection is the dominant heat transfer mode in a heat Eq. (15) can be neglected. n1 refers to the exponent of the Re in
exchanger [22], hence the UA can be expressed by Eq. (9). the coolant side, which can be inferred directly from these
expressions.
1
UA 9 Similarly, n2 is the exponent of the Re in the air side. Several
1
hair A 1
hw Aw wall gfin Afin correlations for plate-fin surfaces with louvered fins have been
tried to find the value of n2 for the tested air flow range. The best
The HEX surfaces and the fin efficiency (gfin) are characteristic
results were obtained with the correlation in Webb and Kim [24].
and constant for a given HEX.
The constants K1 and K2 in Eq. (14) have been calculated in
The convection coefficient (h) (Eq. (10)) is a function of the
order to minimise the sum of the root mean squared error (RMSE)
Nusselt number (Nu), the fluid conductivity (k) and a characteris-
of the heat transfer rate. If the purpose is to predict the HEX perfor-
tic length, in this case the hydraulic diameter (dh), which is a con-
mance, fitting the heat transfer rate provides greater accuracy than
stant geometrical parameter for a given HEX. The Nu (Eq. (11))
fitting the UA values.
can be generally expressed as a function of the Prandtl (Pr) and
K1 refers to the heat transfer conditions in the coolant side, so
Reynolds (Re) numbers, where K, n and m depend on the flow
its value should remain the same regardless the type of process
conditions.
in the air side (sensible or latent). However, in the air side the
Nuk energy transfer rate during a latent process increases significantly
h 10
dh compared to that of a sensible process. Therefore, K2 is expected to
be larger if the HEX is wet. Two values of K2 have been fitted: one
Nu KRen Prm 11 to the cases in which the HEX surface in the air side is mainly dry
(K2,dry) and the other to the points in which it is mainly wet (K2,wet).
The Pr (Eq. (12)) and the Re (Eq. (13)) depend on the thermo-
In order to decide the prevailing working condition, the 0D
physical properties of the fluids, which in turn depend on the tem-
approach by Braun et al. [14] for counterflow cooling coils has been
perature. In the tests carried out, the variation of the properties
followed to model the HEX. This method requires that the UA val-
due to the temperature difference is assumed to be negligible com-
ues are known, therefore the model itself has been employed to
pared to the effect of the variation of the test conditions. Conse-
find the fitting constants for Eq. (14). A brief description of the
quently, the Pr remains constant and the Re depends only on the
methodology is provided in the next paragraphs, for more details
fluid mass flow rate, given that the hydraulic diameter (dh) and
on the equations the reader can refer to Braun et al. [14].
the cross-sectional surface (Ac) of the ducts are constant geometri-
First, the HEX is supposed to be all dry, this is, the air is not
cal parameters.
dehumidified at any point of the HEX so there is only sensible heat
cp l transfer. The Q and the outlet temperatures of the fluids are calcu-
Pr 12
k lated by means of the effectiveness method with Eq. (1). Then, the
temperature of the coil surface at the outlet of the HEX (Ts,out) is
_ h
md
Re 13 calculated. If Ts,out is higher than the dew point temperature at
lAc the inlet of the HEX (Tdew,in), the HEX is all dry as assumed.
B. Torregrosa-Jaime et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 115 (2017) 774781 779
4.2. Model validation results Fig. 7. Experimental sensible heat ratio (SHR) for air cooling cases with inlet
temperature differences of 20 K and 15 K.
Figs. 8 and 9 compare the experimental values of the heat trans-
fer rate (Q) in the coolant side with the values obtained by means
of the correlation. The proposed correlation achieves a good accu- racy for all the conditions tested in both cooling and heating
modes: the average relative error is 2.4% and the maximum, 14.0%.
Fig. 8 shows the cases in which the coil was partially wet.
Table 3 Although different values of the condensate mass flow rate were
Parameters of UA correlation.
measured, treating each working point as if the HEX surface was
Constant Value either all wet or all dry provides a good accuracy. Compared to
K1 545.28 fitting a single value for K2, differentiating between mainly wet
n1 0.33 (K2,wet) and mainly dry (K2,dry) conditions reduced the average
K2,dry 1810.11 relative error by 1.2 percentage points and the maximum by 5.1.
K2,wet 3318.72
The largest errors, up to 12.4%, are produced by the cases in
n2 0.58
which the latent heat load is low but the working conditions are
780 B. Torregrosa-Jaime et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 115 (2017) 774781
Fig. 8. Experimental and predicted Q as a function of the air flow rate for partially Fig. 11. Experimental and correlated UA as a function of the air flow rate for all dry
wet working conditions. working conditions.
Fig. 9. Experimental and predicted Q as a function of the air flow rate for all dry Fig. 12. Experimental (exp) and correlated (corr) UA values as a function of the air
working conditions. The inset zooms the region where Q < 1 kW. and coolant flow rates, for the case Tin,w = 40 C and Tin,air = 0 C.
still closer to all wet. As noted in Braun et al. [14], in these condi- Similarly, Figs. 10 and 11 compare the UA values obtained from
tions the heat transfer rate is underpredicted. the experimental tests with the values from the fitted correlation.
Fig. 9 shows the cases in which the HEX was all dry. As As expected the dispersion and the deviation are larger than the
expected, a single value of the constants in Eq. (14) fits both air ones observed for the heat transfer rate, but generally the relative
cooling and heating modes. The largest errors, up to 14.0%, corre- error is less than 20% for both partially wet (Fig. 10) and all dry
spond mainly to cases with low air flow rates, which are difficult (Fig. 11) working conditions.
to measure. As commented before some of these cases produced As commented before, the cases with the lowest flow rates gen-
experimental effectiveness values larger than one, nevertheless erally yield the largest errors (Fig. 10). For instance, Fig. 12 shows
the correlation achieved good predictions. the UA values of two experimental data set with the inlet temper-
atures fixed. The experimental UA values for an air flow rate of
100 m3 h1 do not follow the trend of the points around. The case
with a coolant flow rate of 0.9 m3 h1 and an air flow rate of
100 m3 h1 produced an effectiveness value larger than one and
hence the corresponding UA value could not be obtained. However,
the fitted correlation prevents the experimental dispersion and
predicts a coherent value for the points missed, as suggested by
the results in Fig. 9.
In the context of a model comprising a complete mobile air-
conditioning system, the main outputs from the HEX model are
the outlet temperatures of the air and the coolant. Fig. 13 is
deducted from the results of the heat transfer rate (Figs. 8 and 9)
and compares the experimental temperature variations in the
HEX with the predictions of the model in air cooling mode, includ-
ing partially wet and all dry working conditions. Since the inlet
temperatures are inputs to the model, the maximum deviation in
the coolant outlet temperature is 0.41 K and in the air outlet tem-
Fig. 10. Experimental and correlated UA as a function of the air flow rate for perature, 1.74 K. These results definitely validate the model and
partially wet working conditions. confirm the excellent accuracy of the developed approach.
B. Torregrosa-Jaime et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 115 (2017) 774781 781
Acknowledgements
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