Effect of refrigerant flow direction and throttle opening in RAC unit using micro-channel evaporator
Abstract Experimental comparisons are made on the performance of a room air conditioner using micro-channel evaporator with the refrigerant flowing in the Upward Flow mode (UF mode, meaning refrigerant flowing upward from the bottom) and Downward Flow mode (DF mode, meaning refrigerant flowing downward from the top). Test results show that UF mode develops a superior refrigerant distribution in the micro-channels to what DF mode does. This is then illustrated by the infrared thermographs at the nominal operating condition. Subsequently, the effect of the width of throttle opening on the sample unit performance is investigated experimentally in the micro-channel evaporator adopting the UF mode. Measurement and calculation results of pressure difference between evaporator inlet and outlet, mean temperature of the evaporator surface, cooling capacity, input power and EER show that the tested unit operates with the best performance with the refrigerant pressure of 993.61 kPa at the inlet of micro-channel evaporator. Infrared thermographs of the working evaporator verify this conclusion.