Heat Transfer Analysis of Internally Grooved Copper Tube R404-A Evaporators

Internally grooved copper tubes are used extensively in HVAC applications, direct expansion batteries and air or water cooled heat exchangers. The advantage of internally grooved copper tubes in evaporator and condenser units is an increase in the refrigerant-side heat transfer coefficient. When an internally grooved tube heat exchanger and a smooth-tube heat exchanger with the same dimensions are compared, the overall heat transfer coefficient and convective heat transfer coefficient are found to increase in different ratios. In addition to this difference, the refrigerant side pressure is found to be a function of the groove geometry, pitch space and choice of refrigerant. In this study, which is different from previous studies in the literature performed using single internally grooved tube condensers and evaporators, refrigerant R404-A is studied in the internally grooved tube evaporator. The heat transfer in the evaporator described here is 30% better than that observed in a conventional smooth-copper-tube evaporator. In the internally grooved tube, the internal surface area is 68% larger than that inside the smooth reference tube. As a result, the convective heat transfer coefficient inside the internally grooved tube is found to be lower than that in the smooth tube.