Effect of Coolant Temperature on the Condensation Heat Transfer in Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Applications

This article directly investigates the effect of a cooling medium's coolant temperature on the condensation of the refrigerant R-134a. The study presents an experimental investigation into condensation heat transfer, vapor quality, and pressure drop of R-134a flowing through a commercial annular helicoidal pipe under the severe climatic conditions of a Kuwait summer. The quality of the refrigerant is calculated using the temperature and pressure obtained from the experiment. Measurements were performed for refrigerant mass fluxes ranging from 50 to 650 kg/m²s, with a cooling water flow Reynolds number range of 950 to 15,000 at a fixed gas saturation temperature of 42°C and cooling wall temperatures of 5°C, 10°C, and 20°C. The data shows that with an increase of refrigerant mass flux, the overall condensation heat transfer coefficients of R-134a increased, and the pressure drops also increased. However, with the increase of mass flux of cooling water, the refrigerant-side heat transfer coefficients decreased. Using low mass flux in a helicoidal tube improves the heat transfer coefficient. Furthermore, selecting low wall temperature for the cooling medium gives a higher refrigerant-side heat transfer coefficient.