Heat Transfer Improvement of a Cooling Tube Using a Splitter Plate under Frosting Condition

Abstract

A method using a splitter plate for improving the heat transfer performance of a cooling tube under frosting condition were proposed in this study. Fundamental experiments to validate the method was conducted. A bare cooling tube, a cooling tube with splitter plate and cross fin-tube were tested. Two splitter plates were prepared, which had 20 and 40 mm in length, while the diameter of the cooling tube was 20 mm. The heat transfer performance and pressure loss were evaluated. The temperatures of the coolant were -20 and -196 °C. The results showed that the cooling tube with a splitter plate increases the heat transfer performance without increasing the pressure loss. Consequently, the splitter plate increases the heat transfer rate per a pressure loss coefficient under frosting condition.