Development of New Concept Air-Cooled Heat Exchanger for Energy Conservation of Air-Conditioning Machine

A new concept air-cooled heat exchanger using mesh fins and tiny tubes, “mesh-finned heat exchanger”, has been proposed with the aim of enhancing the air-side heat transfer. The basic characteristics of the air-side heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics for the mesh finned heat exchanger have been examined experimentally, and the information required to design the practical heat exchanger has been additionally investigated, with the variation of the fin and tube arrays. The comparisons of the heat exchanger performance between the proposed heat exchangers and the existing one show that the former are superior to the latter by approximately twice. Therefore, this new concept heat exchanger can help energy conservation through heat transfer enhancement.