Experimental investigation on the thermodynamic performance of double-row liquid–vapor separation microchannel condenser

• The pressure drop on the front row is lower than that on the back row.
• The heat transfer capacity on the back row is only 60% of that on the front row.
• The double-row liquid–vapor separation microchannel condenser has a lower in-tube pressure drop.
• The double-row liquid–vapor separation microchannel condenser has an advantaged thermal performance.

A double-row liquid–vapor separation microchannel condenser (D-LSMC) was presented, and its tube pass scheme was optimized using the theoretical method. A series of experiments were conducted to investigate the heat load, average heat transfer coefficient (AHTC), and pressure drop of the optimal D-LSMC. Experimental results were compared with an optimal common double-row parallel-flow microchannel condenser (D-PFMC). The findings showed that, at the inlet mass flux of 585 kgm−2 s−1 to 874 kgm−2 s−1, the AHTC of the D-LSMC was 3.3%–14.4% higher than that of the D-PFMC. However, the pressure drop of the D-LSMC was only 43.4%–52.1% of that of the D-PFMC. The heat exchange capacity of the back row was weaker by almost half of that of the front row. In addition, the tube wall temperature of the back row decreased faster than that of the front row, which indicated that the back row had a larger pressure drop. The minimum entropy generation number (Ns) was used to evaluate the D-LSMC and the D-PFMC, which indicated the greater thermodynamic performance of the D-LSMC.