Numerical Study of the Thermo-physical Properties Effects of a Finned Flat-tube Heat Exchanger Body Material on the Adsorption Chiller Performance

In this study, the thermo-physical properties effects of the heat exchanger body on the adsorption chillers performance have been investigated. For this purpose, an adsorbent bed with a rectangular finned flat-tube heat exchanger is simulated by employing a three-dimensional control volume scheme. Furthermore, silica gel SWS-1L-water has been used as a working pair. In order to investigate the effects of thermo-physical properties of the heat exchanger body material, two main parameters including the thermal conductivity coefficient and the volumetric thermal capacity are examined. Also, the effects of these parameters along with variations of the fin height and fin pitch on the specific cooling power (SCP) and the system coefficient of performance (COP) are investigated. The results indicated that the SCP increases with the increase in thermal conductivity coefficient up to a certain value, which increases and decreases with the increase in fin height and fin pitch, respectively. The results also showed that the effects of the volumetric thermal capacity on the SCP are negligible such that it can be considered independent of the heat exchanger body material volumetric thermal capacity. Unlike the SCP, the COP is strongly influenced by the volumetric thermal capacity. The increase in volumetric thermal capacity results in decreasing the COP. The slope of the decrease in the COP decreases with increasing the fin height and pitch. Also, by increasing the thermal conductivity coefficient, the COP slightly decreases.