Comparative Performance of an Automotive Air Conditioning System Using Micro-channel Condensers with and Without Liquid-vapor Separation☆

Abstract This paper experimentally investigated the performances of an automotive air conditioning (AAC) system with the liquid-vapor separation micro-channel condenser (LSMC) and a common parallel flow micro-channel condenser (PFMC), respectively. The performances of the two systems were compared under nomal running condition of IMACA. The cooling capacity of the LSMC system was 5.18% higher than that of the PFMC and the EER value of the LSMC system was 3.73% higher than that of the PFMC. The further investigation on the performance of the two systems were measured under the outdoor dry bulb temperature varying from 29 °C to 41 °C while the indoor dry bulb and wet bulb temperature fixed at 27 °C and 19.5 °C. In addition, under the standard condition of IMACA, the thermodynamic performance of two systems under the condenser air face velocity varying from 1.5 to 4.5 m/s was investigated. Compared with the PFMC system, the cooling capacity and EER of the LSMC system were improved by 1.79%∼8.49% and 1.43%∼7.18%, respectively.