Research on Heat Transfer Characteristics of Plate Evaporators for Cold Storage

A new type of plate evaporator suitable for cold storage refrigeration systems was designed. A mathematical model of the plate evaporator was established using Fluent14.0 software, and the effects of refrigerant mass flow rate and air velocity on the heat transfer characteristics of the plate evaporator were discussed. The numerical simulation results were verified through experiments. The research results show that in the design conditions of a refrigerant inlet dryness of 0.27, temperature of −5 °C, saturation pressure at this temperature, mass flow rate of 0.0187 kg/s, air inlet temperature of 6 °C, relative humidity of 80%, and flow rate of 3 m/s, the new plate evaporator had a cooling capacity of 3.13 kW, a refrigerant side pressure drop of 1.36 kPa, and an air side pressure drop of 495 Pa. By increasing the mass flow rate of the refrigerant or the air side flow rate, the cooling capacity of the evaporator increases linearly, but at the same time, the pressure drop on both the refrigerant and air sides increases rapidly.