Heat exchanger utilizing device to vary cross section of header
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing heat exchangers in air conditioners face inefficiencies due to non-uniform refrigerant distribution in microchannel refrigerant tubes, leading to suboptimal heat exchange performance and reduced air conditioner performance.
Innovation Solution
A heat exchanger design featuring a header with a booster mechanism that varies the cross-sectional area using a movable blocking plate and elastic unit, along with baffles to divide refrigerant tubes into groups, ensuring uniform refrigerant distribution across multiple refrigerant tubes.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Power
If a microchannel refrigerant tube is used to increase heat exchange efficiency, then heat transfer performance is improved, but refrigerant distribution uniformity deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The header is divided into multiple flow paths by baffles, which segment the refrigerant flow into distinct channels. This segmentation ensures that refrigerant is distributed evenly across multiple tubes rather than flowing preferentially through certain paths, thereby improving distribution uniformity while maintaining the microchannel structure's heat exchange efficiency
Solution Approach 2:
The cross-sectional area of the header is varied locally using a blocking plate that can be positioned at different locations. By adjusting the blocking plate, the cross-sectional area of specific flow paths is modified to compensate for non-uniform flow distribution, ensuring that each tube receives appropriate refrigerant flow while maintaining high heat exchange efficiency
2Stability of the object's composition
If refrigerant flow is blocked longitudinally in the header to create groups, then refrigerant distribution uniformity is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
Baffles are installed in the header to divide refrigerant tubes into multiple groups, creating separate flow paths. This segmentation approach achieves uniform refrigerant distribution by preventing longitudinal mixing and ensuring each group receives balanced flow, while the modular baffle design keeps the added complexity manageable
Solution Approach 2:
A blocking plate is introduced that can be dynamically adjusted to modify the cross-sectional area of the header. This dynamic element allows the system to adapt refrigerant flow distribution to different operating conditions, improving distribution uniformity across varying compressor rates while providing a single adjustable component rather than multiple fixed structures
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The solution enhances refrigerant distribution, improving heat exchange efficiency and air conditioner performance by ensuring consistent refrigerant flow across all tubes, regardless of compressor operation rates.
Implementation Method 1
an elastic unit to elastically bias the blocking plate
Implementation Method 2
since the refrigerant undergoes phase change as it flows along the microchannel refrigerant tube
Data Source
AI summary
A heat exchanger that effectively distributes a refrigerant by varying the cross-sectional area of a header and an air conditioner having the same. The heat exchanger includes a plurality of refrigerant tubes disposed spaced apart from each other, a header joined to both ends of each of the refrigerant tubes, at least one baffle to divide the refrigerant tubes into a plurality of mutually adjacent groups and block a longitudinal flow of a refrigerant flowing in the header, each of the groups causing the refrigerant to flow in one direction, and a booster installed to vary a cross-sectional area of the header to uniformly distribute the refrigerant to refrigerant tubes in the same group among the refrigerant tubes. The booster to vary the cross-sectional area of the header may allow a refrigerant flowing through a header to be effectively distributed to the refrigerant tubes.