Traditional halocarbon – based refrigerants tend to considerably increase global warming and ozone depletion factors. Therefore, CO2 is fast becoming a key instrument as a natural refrigerant which was widely applied and attracted the consideration of the research community. The gas cooler is an important component in the CO2 transcritical refrigeration system and plays a key role in the performance due to the determination of operating pressure consequently power consumption. In this research, the performance characteristics of a CO2 gas cooler having wavy fin geometry, which is currently used in industries such as air conditioning, automotive and aviation, was determined experimentally in a calorimetric test room. The experimental results was used as benchmark data to validate the three – dimensional numerical model. Laminar model and realizable k - ɛ turbulent model were employed for analyses. Moreover, the second order upwind scheme was considered to discretize momentum and energy equations. Accordingly, a multi-objective optimization process has been performed employing Response Surface Method (RSM) to determine the optimum wavy fin geometry in CO2 transcritical refrigeration system. Four geometrical parameters namely longitudinal pitch, half transverse pitch, tube outer diameter, and fin pitch of the gas cooler were optimized. According to results, the new optimized CO2 gas cooler exhibited lesser pressure drop and higher heat transfer capacity in comparison with the tested gas cooler geometry used in the industry. It was found that the overall heat transfer coefficient enhancement is between 5.4 – 12.2 % while pressure drop decreases about 175.08 – 188.58 % for three different inlet velocities.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
customersupport@researchsolutions.com
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Copyright © 2025 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.