Impact of fin spacing on temperature distribution in adsorption cooling system for vehicle A/C applications

Effects of fin spacing on the temperature distribution in a finned tube adsorber bed are studied to decrease the temperature gradient inside the adsorber bed and minimize the adsorber bed to adsorbent mass ratio (AAMR) for vehicle air conditioning applications. Finned tube adsorber beds have shown higher specific cooling power and coefficient of performance, and low AAMR among the existing adsorber beds. A single-adsorber bed ACS with interchangeable heat exchangers is built and equipped with hermetic type T thermocouples. Two copper heat exchangers with 6.35 mm (1/4″) and 9.5 mm (3/8″) fin spacing are custom-built and packed with 2-4 mm silica gel beads. The experimental results show that by decreasing the fin spacing from 9.5 mm to 6.35 mm, the temperature difference between the fin and adsorbent reduces by 4.6 °C under the cycle time of 600 s and an adsorption to desorption time ratio (ADTR) of one. A greater reduction in the temperature gradient inside the adsorber bed with smaller fin spacing is observed for short cycle time operation, e.g. 600 s, compared to long cycle time operation, e.g. 1400 s. Finally, simultaneous comparison of the temperature gradient between the fins and AAMR against fin spacing indicates that the optimum fin spacing for a finned tube heat exchanger packed with 2-4 mm silica gel beads is about 6 mm.