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Modular component design and development is a general trend in automotive industry to reduce size and weight, parts and cost, and to protect the environment. As part of the work to achieve these targets an experimental and analytical investigation on the integrated all aluminum radiator and condenser, which was brazed, has been carried out in the view point of thermal flow phenomena.. In the study, the thermal flow phenomena of integrated all aluminum radiator and condenser was examined in combination of wind tunnel and calorimeter testing for full scale prototype model and analytical modeling based on a finite difference procedure for solving the thermal performance describing flow, pressure drop, and heat transfer. The integrated all aluminum radiator and condenser proto was designed in cross flow construction with dual tank and single integral multi-louvered fin.

It has been well known that the new R-134a refrigerant system requires more efficient evaporator with better performance to obtain equivalent or better cooling capacity and system performance than the one of R-12 using automotive air-conditioning system due to its inherent thermo-physical properties. Various new efficient and compact type evaporators, especially drawn cup plate type evaporators, have been proposed since R-134a is being enforced in automotive air-conditioning system for environmental conservation purpose. But to now few investigations have been done regarding the thermal and hydrodynamic characteristics of these type evaporators. In the present study, the thermal and hydrodynamic analysis has been carried out for the U-flow (or so called “single tank compact drawn type”) plate type evaporator for automotive air-conditioning system using R-134a refrigerant.

A thermal fluid flow analysis for multiflow channel(MFC) condenser for automotive air-conditioning system using HFC-134a refrigerant has been carried out. The present study has been done as a part of the work intended to develop a design tool of HFC-134a refrigerant air conditioning system for passenger vehicle by applying a steady state simulation scheme to obtain the performance optimization. Thermodynamic and flow properties of HFC-134a refrigerant and temperature profile of the air flow over the surface of MFC condenser are predicted as a function of flow channel distance using a model of finite difference method. Variations of the heat transfer rate and pressure distribution are predicted under consideration of the actual multiflow channel constructions. The results of the predicted analysis obtained from the simulation analytical model were found to be conform with the known actual operation conditions of HFC-134a condenser in passenger vehicle air conditioning system.