Analysis of the use of different heat exchangers in propane heat pumps.

Resumen

In this paper, a propane heat pump is studied by using two different types of heat exchangers. The first group includes the traditional tube-and-fin heat exchanger and the second one includes compact heat exchangers. These last heat exchangers are formed by finned multiport tubes with minichannels through which the refrigerant flows. They have hydraulic diameters of about 1 mm. In this work, several configurations of heat exchangers have been considered for a compression refrigeration system. They try to meet certain given specifications. Each solution has been analyzed on the bases of the EER, COP, cooling and heating capacities, refrigerant charge, and so on. The results have been obtained by using a refrigeration software called ART which was developed for the analysis of refrigeration cycles and the design of refrigeration systems. Along the paper, the system and its elements are introduced and briefly described, the results obtained for each configuration are analyzed, and some conclusions are drawn.