Coil Designer

Overview
Features
Related Publications
     Journal Papers
     Conference papers
Availability
Screenshots

Overview

A highly customizable tool for simulating tube-fin, microchannel,wire-fin, and flat tube coils, for air-to-refrigerant heat exchangers and tube-in-tube heat exchangers for fluid-to-fluid heat exchangers.

Features

• New Solvers
  • Allow for simulation of tube-fin and microchannel HX with variable tube and fin geometry including locations and variable 3D fin spacing
  • 2D fin conduction (tube-to-tube in tube-fin coils,tube-tube and port-to-port in MCHX) with user-defined fin cuts.
  • New model for simulation of smooth and fluted tube coaxial (aka. Tube-in-tube) heat exchanger
  • Extensively validated against experimental data
• Refrigerant Options
  •Pure fluids (R134a, R1234yf, R1234ze, CO2,), and pre-defined mixtures (R410A, R404A, R407C)
  • Single phase fluids (e.g., water, glycols)
  • All refrigerants available in NIST REF PROP 9.0
  • User-defined refrigerant mixtures and external fluid properties
  • Proprietary implementation for popular refrigerant properties gives significant improvement in execution time compared toNIST REF PROP.
• Air Side Options
  • Multiple fins types (plate, louver, slit, wavy, or bare tubes), with dry air and wet air
  • 2-D air maldistribution on coil face area in velocity,temperature and humidity
  • Built-in velocity profiles and velocity profiles from CFD output
  • Load a fan curve to allow the program to solve for the air flow rate
• Flexible Tube-circuitry
  • Number of tube rows and columns not limited
  • Built-in counter-flow circuitry options (tube-fin) and pass-based inputs (microchannels)
  • Custom circuitries connecting tubes on-screen
• Heat Transfer and Pressure Drop Correlations
  • Popular heat-transfer (62), pressure drop (44), and void fraction (15) correlations implemented in the tool for different refrigerant phases
  • Refrigerant specific (e.g., two-phase R410A,supercritical CO2) correlations
  • Data reduction tool allows for back-calculating f and j factors for airside performance based on lab data
• Post-processing and Results
  • Detailed results including properties of interest for segments and tubes
  • Plot for heat load vs. tubes and circuits, outlet air temperature profile and 3-D plots
  • 3-D coil drawing with overlaid results
  • Export results to spreadsheet for archiving and further analysis
• Sensitivity / Parametric Studies
  • Parametric studies be conducted with one, two or more parameters simultaneously
  • Coil dimensions, refrigerant and air side inlet conditions and tube passes can be varied
  • Results can be plotted and exported to spreadsheet
  • Multiple processors cores can be used for simultaneous calculations
• Flexible Tube-circuitry
  •Number of tube rows and columns not limited
  •Built-in counter-flow circuitry options (tube-fin) and pass-based inputs (microchannels)
  •Custom circuitries connecting tubes on-screen
  •Microchannel HX can have up to 25 slabs in serie
• Interoperability
  •Coils saved in portable data format for loading from any application
  •External communication interface for .NET platform and for Microsoft Excel. Interfaces for other applications or platforms can be developed
  •Solvers can be used from other applications (Desktop,Web, Cloud)
• Customization Options
  •User-defined correlations for heat transfer and pressure drop (refrigerant and air)
  •User-defined refrigerants can be added to the program
  •User-defined coefficients for standard heat transfer and pressure drop equations.
  •Allows the user to develop coefficient files and encryption
  •User-defined cost correlations
• Optimization Capabilities
  •Single and multiobjective genetic algorithms built-into the program
  •The algorithm systematically searches the design space defined for optimum coil performance (e.g. heat load and pressure drop) requirements
  •Results displayed as a trade-off (Pareto) set between cost and performance
• Support Options
  •Support available via email, phone and the web
  •MOC personnel assist the users in integrating CoilDesigner with their in-house tools
• Work in progress
  •Data reduction tool for calculating f and j factors for air side performance based on lab data
  •New Solver accounts for 2-D fin conduction with variable fin cuts, variable tube diameters, 3-D fin spacing, variable tube locations and refrigerant-oil mixture effects

Related Publications

Evaluate what CoilDesigner can do for your coil design and optimization requirements.CoilDesigner White Paper

Journal Papers

Jiang, H., Aute, V., Radermacher, R., 2006. CoilDesigner: a general purpose simulation and design tool for air-to-refrigerant heat exchangers. International Journal of Refrigeration 29, 601–610.

Hwang, Y., Radermacher, R., Singh, V., 2007. Heat Exchanger Design for CO2 Cycle with a Linear Compressor. HVAC&R Journal, Vol. 13, No. 3., pp. 471-483

Singh, V., Aute, V. and Radermacher, R., 2008 "Numerical approach for modeling air to refrigerant fin-and-tube heat exchanger with tube-to-tube heat transfer"International Journal of refrigeration, 31(8),1414-1425

Singh, V., Aute, V. and Radermacher, R., 2009. "A heat exchanger model for a fin-and-tube heat exchanger with an arbitrary fin sheet" International Journal of Refrigeration.

Abdelaziz, O., & Radermacher, R.,2010. Modeling heat exchangers under consideration of manufacturing tolerances and uncertain flow distribution. International Journal of Refrigeration, 33(4), 815-828.

Abdelaziz O., Aute V., Azarm S., Radermacher R., 2010. Approximation Assisted Optimization For Novel Compact Heat Exchanger Designs, HVAC&R Journal, Vol. 16, No. 5., pp. 707-728

Qian, S., Huang, L., Aute, V., Hwang, Y., Radermacher, R., 2013. Applicability of Entransy Dissipation Based Thermal Resistance for Design Optimization of Two-phase Heat Exchangers. Applied Thermal Engineering, 55 (2013) 140-148

Conference Papers

Schwentker, R., Winkler, J., Aute, V., and Radermacher, R., 2006. "A Simulation and Design Tool for Flat Tube, Louvered-Fin Heat Exchangers," SAE Technical Paper 2006-01-1451.

Jiang, H., Aute, V., Radermacher, R., 2002, “A User-Friendly Simulation and Optimization Tool for Design of Air-Cooled Heat Exchangers”, Proceedings of 16th International Compressor Engineering and 9th International Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Conferences.

Aute, V., Radermacher, R., Naduvath, M.V., 2004. Constrained multi-objective optimization of a condenser coil using evolutionary algorithms. In: International Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Conference at Purdue West Lafayette, IN.

Schwentker, R. A., Aute, V. C., Radermacher, R., & Mercer, K. B., 2005. Simulation and Design Tool for Microchannel Heat Exchangers. Proceedings of Fifth International Conference on Enhanced, Compact and Ultra-Compact Heat Exchangers: Science, Engineering and Technology, Eds.

Singh, V., Aute, V. and Radermacher, R., 2008 "Usefulness of Entropy Generation Minimization Through a Heat Exchanger Modeling Tool" 12th International Refrigeration and Air conditioning Conference, Purdue University.

Singh, V., Aute, V. and Radermacher, R., 2008. "Study of Effect of Heat Transfer through Fins in a Fin-and-tube Carbon Dioxide Gas Cooler on its Performance through Numerical Modeling"12th International Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Conference at Purdue,2008a,West Lafayette, IN

Huang, L., Aute, V., Radermacher, R., 2012. A Mass Flow Based Generalized Microchannel Heat Exchanger Model, 10th IIR Gustav Lorentzen Conference on Natural Refrigerants, Delft, Netherlands.

Huang, L., Aute, V., Radermacher, R., 2012. A Generalized Effectiveness-NTU Based Variable Geometry Microchannel Heat Exchanger Model. Int. Ref. and A-C Conf. at purdue, West Lafayette, IN.

Qian, S., Huang, L., Aute, V., Hwang, Y., Radermacher, R., 2012. Effectiveness of Entransy Dissipation Metric and Entropy Generation Units in the Design of Fin-Tube Heat Exchangers. Int. Ref. and A-C Conf. at purdue, West Lafayette, IN.

Availability

The full version of the PHESim software is currently available to MOC members only.

For demonstration versions, please contact MOC

Screenshots