Thermal Modeling of Mini-Channel and Laminated TypesEvaporator in Mobile Air Conditioning System

In this paper, mini-channel type evaporator which is new in mobile air conditioning (MAC) or automotive air conditioning (AAC) systems is thermally modeled. The performance of mini-channel evaporator is also compared with the laminated evaporator which is being currently used in automotive industries. The mini-channel evaporator was constructed of two rows of parallel flow mini-channel tubes with inlet and outlet headers. The numerical results of modeling the laminated and mini-channel evaporators validated with the corresponding experimental data which was obtained from experiments performed on mobile air conditioning system in calorimeter test bench. The comparison of modeling results of two evaporators showed good agreement with experimental data. The performance of laminated and mini-channel evaporators were also compared under various operating conditions. The mini-channel evaporator had higher cooling capacity (7.2%) and higher refrigerant pressure drop (45%) in comparison with the corresponding values in laminated evaporator assuming the same external geometry. The outlet air temperature and enthalpy of minichannel evaporator was also lower, 11% and 8% respectively, than that for laminated evaporator. This cause to reduce the time period as well as power/fuel consumption for reaching the comfortable cabin temperature.