Performance analysis of a refrigerating system with a grooved-tube evaporator

A grooved-tube heat exchanger was developed and applied as an evaporator of a refrigerating system. Studies were carried out to evaluate the performance of the refrigerator. Isobutane (R-600a) was employed as the working fluid. Same studies were performed on the system but with the same size of a regular-tube evaporator. The two refrigerating systems were compared in terms of heat exchanger effectiveness, coefficient of performance (COP), and two-phase pressure drop. The heat exchanger effectiveness of the grooved-tube evaporator was found to be higher compared to the regular-tube evaporator. COP of the system with the grooved-tube evaporator was also observed to be higher. Although the pressure drop for the grooved-tube evaporator was slightly higher than that for the regular-tube evaporator, the compressor demand for this increase was not very significant.