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Conflict of Interest: In relation to this article, we declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Publication history: Received February 17, 2003
Accepted April 14, 2003

This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bync/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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An Experimental Study of the Air-side Particulate Fouling in Fin-and-Tube Heat Exchangers of Air Conditioners

Young-Chull Ahn Jae-Min Cho Hee-Soo Shin Yu-Jin Hwang Chang-Gun Lee Jae-Keun Lee^† Hyun-Uk Lee¹ Tae-Wook Kang²

School of Mechanical Engineering, Pusan National University, San 30, Jangjeon-Dong, Kumjung-Ku, Busan 609-735, Korea ¹Digital Appliance Company Research Lab., LG Electronics, 391-2, Gaeumjeong-dong, Changwon City 641-711, Korea ²Air Conditioner Division, LG Electronics, 76, Seongsan-dong, Changwon City 641-713, Korea

jklee@pusan.ac.kr

Korean Journal of Chemical Engineering, September 2003, 20(5), 873-877(5), 10.1007/BF02697291

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Abstract

An experimental study was conducted to investigate the chronological performance variation such as pressure drop across a heat exchanger and cooling capacity due to the air-side particulate fouling of fin-and-tube heat exchangers for air conditioner evaporators used. Thirty samples of air conditioners used in the field such as inns, restaurants, and offices are collected in chronological order of use. This study was intended to provide factual longterm fouling data under actual operating conditions. It was found that the important parameters to influence the fouling of heat exchangers are the concentration and size of indoor pollutants, the filter efficiency, the hydrophilicity of fin surfaces, fin spacing, and the structure of fins. The pressure drop of heat exchangers increases from year to year due to the deposition of indoor pollutants larger than 1 mm in size and increases up to 44% in the samples used for 7 years. Also, the air-side particulate fouling degrades the cooling capacity by 10-15% in the samples used for 7 years.

Keywords

Heat Exchanger Particulate Fouling Pressure Drop Cooling Capacity Air Conditioner

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