Library Subscription: Guest

ISSN Online: 2379-1748

8th Thermal and Fluids Engineering Conference (TFEC)
March, 26-29, 2023, College Park, MD, USA

STRESS AND FATIGUE ANALYSIS OF AIR-TO-REFRIGERANT HEAT EXCHANGERS WITH NON-ROUND TUBE SHAPES

Get access (open in a dialog) pages 517-524
DOI: 10.1615/TFEC2023.cmd.046319

Abstract

Air-to-refrigerant heat exchangers are fundamental components in Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning, and Refrigeration (HVAC&R) systems. Recent research has shown that heat exchangers utilizing small hydraulic diameter, non-round, shape-optimized tubes to be promising next design update. Such tubes can improve performance, reduce material and lower refrigerant charge. However, such tube designs may be more susceptible to fatigue issues. Therefore, stress and fatigue analyses of such heat exchangers are critical to ensure structural integrity, reliability, and manufacturability. In the present work, a mechanical model is developed to obtain the stress distributions in heat exchangers with round, ellipse, and airfoil-shaped tubes. The results indicate that under 3.45 MPa internal pressure, the maximum stresses don't surpass 190 MPa.