Performance Analysis of Integral Receiver/Dryer Condenser for Automobile

The important problems from the point of view of preventing global warming are to save the power consumption of automotive air-conditioning systems and reduce the refrigerant amount used. To achieve those requirements, integral receiver/ dryer(R/D) condensers were developed recently. Typical integral condensers have extra headers that play the role of R/D. Except an extra header and somewhat complex tube array resulting from the extra header, the most integral R/D condensers have almost the same specification as common condensers. When integral R/D condensers are applied, it is known that the refrigerating effect increases, resulting from the increase of subcooling degree in condenser, and the refrigerant amount used saves. In spite of several merits, integral condensers have not been used a lot. That is why there is an uncertainty in performance, using those condensers. The objective of this study is to theoretically optimize the tube array (tube per pass) in an integral R/D condenser that is really being applied to some vehicles. Through computer simulation, we could see that the tube array, 14-6-3-5-3-4, in the same condenser was the best, comparing heat release rate, pressure drop, etc. to the real array, 17-5-3-3-2-5. It should be noted that the optimization is based on the condenser performance only.