Experimental and numerical study of an integrated fin and micro-channel gas cooler for a CO2 automotive air-conditioning

A carbon dioxide integrated fin and micro-channel gas cooler for an automotive air-conditioning was proposed in the work. An experimental study was conducted to investigate the performance of the integrated fin and micro-channel gas cooler. Measured heat capacity for the gas cooler ranged from 1 to 6 kW. Effects of various inlet air temperatures and velocities, refrigerant mass flow rates and operating pressures were studied to provide a better understanding on how these parameters affected the CO2 gas cooler performance. A segment-by-segment model was developed to simulate the integrated fin and micro-channel gas cooler. The model predicted the gas cooler heat capacity within 5% and refrigerant-side pressure drop within 8% deviated from the experimental data. The validated model was used to analyze the impact of fin geometry and air-side mal-distribution on the performance of the heat exchanger.