A novel concept for automotive air conditioning condensers has been developed. The condenser utilizes flat oval tube technology currently used in automotive radiators. The innovative FOTC (Flat Oval Tube Condenser) design has mechanically expanded tubes measuring 8mm x 2.1mm with a wall thickness of 0.5mm. It has shown through testing to be more efficient than the current known PFC (Parallel Flow Condenser) design at low vehicle speed operations.
Compared to the PFC design the FOTC utilizes a smaller internal volume which reduces weight and refrigerant charge. With this understanding it can easily be seen the FOTC design is also far superior to current round tube condenser manufactured today.
It can also be seen that the individual tubes of the FOTC are better protected against debris encountered under typical highway driving conditions, due to the width of the finstock of 16mm.
This status report presents the theoretical and experimental data on FOTC prototypes compared to PFC designs and round tube condenser designs known in the automotive market today.
