The Effects of Maldistribution of Refrigerant and CFD Modeling of a Refrigerant Distributor
摘要
This study focuses on sensitivity analysis the geometry of a distributor in a DX evaporator coil system to achieve more homogeneous, high-quality, and flow-consistent working fluid distribution to evaporators. Numerical multiphase flow analyses were conducted using ANSYS Fluent with the refrigerant R454B. Following the validation of a real-world experiment, the validated setup was applied to the new model to analyze various geometric parameters and their effects on flow performance. Key findings revealed that increasing the bend radius before the distributor improved both flow rate and quality homogeneity, with larger radii yielding more consistent results. Similarly, extending the pipe length after the bend led to further improvements in flow distribution uniformity. Increasing the orifice length by 20 mm enhanced flow quality. However, this adjustment also caused an increase in flow rate deviations at one outlet. In addition, increasing the angle of the outlet pipes at the orifice alignment significantly reduced flow rate (STDm) and quality (STDX) deviations. In contrast, adding chamfers to the orifice and increasing the chamfer angle negatively impacted flow and quality consistency. These findings identified the key geometric parameters required to analyze distributor performance, offering a systematic approach to enhancing flow quality and distribution homogeneity in similar applications.