| Abstract: | In this paper a thermal network method using the effective specific heat model of a refrigerant with phase change is proposed for predicting the capacity of a plate‐fin and tube‐type heat exchanger. The effective specific heat model can attain an accurate result of a condenser's heat exchanging capacity when it has a small number of elements. By comparing calculated results with those of an experiment, it is found that the error in the condenser's calculated capacity is less than 1% when the range of subcool temperature is from 15 to 22 K at the outlet of refrigerant flow. © 2002 Scripta Technica, Heat Trans Asian Res, 31(2): 128–140, 2002; DOI 10.1002/htj.10021 |
