KR100765557B1 - Heat exchanger - Google Patents

Abstract

The heat exchanger according to the present invention comprises a plurality of microchannel tubes; Headers formed at both ends of the microchannel tube; A conduit connected to the header; And a refrigerant amount adjusting structure formed in at least one of the headers so that the amount of refrigerant flowing into each microchannel tube is controlled, and the refrigerant flowing into the header is uniformly distributed in different partitioned spaces. It is characterized in that the supply to the microchannel tube.

When the heat exchanger of the present invention increases the heat exchange area for the same size heat exchanger, improves the performance of the refrigeration system as a whole, reduces the size of the heat exchanger, and the supercritical refrigerant flows inside the heat exchanger pipe, According to the temperature state of the refrigerant pipe can be located at an appropriate position has the advantage that the heat exchange performance of the refrigerant is increased.

heat transmitter

Description

Heat exchanger

1 is a perspective view of a heat exchanger according to the spirit of the present invention.

2 is a side view of a heat exchanger according to the present invention;

3 is a cross-sectional view of II ′ of FIG. 1.

4 is a perspective view of a header according to the present invention;

5 is a view for explaining the operation of the header according to the present invention;

6 is a perspective view of a heat exchanger according to another embodiment of the present invention.

<Explanation of symbols for main parts of the drawings>

1: heat transfer heat exchanger 2: after heat exchanger 3: heat transfer side upper header

4: Heat transfer side lower header 5: Heat transfer side upper header 6: Heat transfer side lower header

10: microchannel tube 11: fan

The present invention relates to a heat exchanger, and more particularly, to a heat exchanger in which heat exchange efficiency is enhanced. More particularly, the present invention relates to a heat exchanger having improved heat exchange performance in a heat exchanger to which a microchannel tube is applied and suitable for a refrigerant flowing in a supercritical phase.

Representative examples of the heat exchanger is a device such that the heat exchange is performed by the mutual hydrothermal action between the refrigerant and the air to be heat exchanged with the refrigerant. Such heat exchangers are widely used in equipment such as air conditioners or refrigerators.

It is an important requirement that the heat exchanger be subjected to a large amount of heat exchange by a small volume heat exchanger. In order to ensure that the requirements are satisfied, a general heat exchanger is generally provided with a coolant tube through which a coolant flows and a fin in contact with the coolant tube, and the fins are provided so that a plurality of fins are arranged side by side in parallel. do.

In spite of such a general configuration, since the heat exchange performance of the heat exchanger is not good, a microchannel tube in which a plurality of channels are formed in a single refrigerant tube has recently been proposed. However, even if the microchannel tube is applied, there is a problem in obtaining sufficient heat exchange performance.

Also, a heat exchanger having a form in which the microchannel tube extends from side to side generally includes a header provided at both left and right ends of the heat exchanger in a state in which the microchannel tube extends in the left and right directions, and the header is divided into a plurality of microchannel tubes. The refrigerant flows at once. In the case of the microchannel tube heat exchanger configured as described above, since the amount of the refrigerant flowing through each of the microchannel tubes through which the refrigerant flows is not uniform, there is a problem that the amount of heat exchange is reduced.

Under the background described above, the present invention proposes a heat exchanger in which a large amount of heat exchange is performed so that heat exchange performance of the microchannel tube heat exchanger is improved.

In addition, by improving the flow structure of the refrigerant flowing through the heat exchanger, the refrigerant flows evenly with respect to the entire area of the heat exchanger, and proposes a heat exchanger that improves the heat exchange performance between the refrigerant flowing through the tube and the air.

In addition, a heat exchanger is proposed in which the amount of heat exchanger for the same volume is increased so that the size of the heat exchanger is reduced so that the overall size of the device on which the heat exchanger is mounted is reduced.

The heat exchanger according to the present invention for achieving this object is a plurality of microchannel tube; Headers formed at both ends of the microchannel tube; A conduit connected to the header; And a refrigerant amount adjusting structure formed in at least one of the headers so that the amount of refrigerant flowing into each microchannel tube is controlled, and the refrigerant flowing into the header is uniformly distributed in different partitioned spaces. It is characterized in that the supply to the microchannel tube.

According to another aspect of the present invention, a heat exchanger includes: a first heat exchanger; A second heat exchanger having an outlet side connected to an inlet side of the first heat exchanger; And a header provided at the inflow side and the outflow side of the first heat exchanger and the second heat exchanger, wherein a supercritical refrigerant flows inside the first heat exchanger and the second heat exchanger, based on a fan. The first heat exchanger is placed in front of the second heat exchanger, so that the refrigerant cooled while passing through the second heat exchanger flows into the first heat exchanger, thereby improving heat exchange performance. Refrigerant amount adjusting structure is formed to control the amount of the refrigerant flowing into the air, characterized in that the refrigerant flowing into the header is distributed to different partitioned space is supplied to the heat exchanger.

By the heat exchanger as proposed, the size of the heat exchanger may be reduced, and the heat exchange performance may be further improved by efficiently distributing the refrigerant in the heat exchanger. In addition, there is an advantage that can be more preferably applied to the refrigeration system of the refrigerant flowing in the supercritical phase, such as carbon dioxide.

Hereinafter, with reference to the drawings will be described in detail a specific embodiment of the present invention. However, the spirit of the present invention is not limited to the embodiments as proposed, and those skilled in the art who understand the spirit of the present invention may add, change, delete, add, etc. other embodiments included in the scope of the same idea. It may be easily proposed, but this will also be included within the scope of the present invention.

1 is a perspective view of a heat exchanger according to the spirit of the present invention.

Referring to Figure 1, the heat exchanger according to the present invention, the heat transfer heat exchanger 1 formed on the side facing the fan 11 causing air flow, and the post heat exchanger formed behind the heat transfer heat exchanger (1) (2) is included. Of course, the heat exchanger 1 is close to the fan 11, and the air blown from the fan 11 immediately flows in, and the after heat exchanger 2 passes through the heat exchanger 1. It is a heat exchanger on the side where air is subsequently passed through.

The heat exchanger (1) includes a plurality of microchannel tubes (10) extending in the vertical direction, a heat transfer side upper header (3) formed at an upper end of the microchannel tube (10), and the microchannel tube (10). Heat transfer side lower header (4) formed at the lower end of the) and the outlet pipe (9) extending from the heat transfer side upper header (3) for outflow of the refrigerant. The post heat exchanger 2 includes a plurality of micro channel tubes 10 extending in the vertical direction, a post heat side upper header 5 formed at an upper end of the micro channel tube 10, and the micro channel tubes. The rear row side lower header 6 formed at the lower end of the 10 and the inlet pipe 8 extending to the rear row side upper header 5 to introduce the refrigerant. In addition, the rear row side lower header 6 and the heat transfer side lower header 4 are connected to each other (7) is included.

The operation of the heat exchanger as will be described in detail with reference to the side view of the heat exchanger shown in FIG. 2.

Referring to FIG. 2, the heat exchanger according to the present invention is first introduced into the heat transfer heat exchanger 1 through the connection pipe 7 after the heat exchange is primarily performed by the refrigerant introduced into the after heat exchanger 2 as a whole. It is a structure for performing heat exchange.

Since the refrigerant is first introduced into the after-heat heat exchanger 2 as described above, the heat exchange performance of the refrigerant flowing in the supercritical phase is improved, which will be described in detail. .

Recently, there is an increasing demand for environmentally friendly refrigerants that do not affect air pollution in place of environmentally damaging refrigerants such as CFC, among which carbon dioxide is in the spotlight. Since the carbon dioxide has a low critical temperature, the condensation process (which can be understood as a heat dissipation process) is performed in the supercritical region, and the carbon dioxide condensation process in the supercritical region is accompanied by a temperature change of the carbon dioxide flowing inside the gas cooler. do. This is in contrast to the general refrigerant is subjected to the condensation process isothermal isothermal pressure as the phase change process.

In this way, the carbon dioxide condensation process is a change in temperature, in order to improve the heat exchange performance of the heat exchanger accordingly, the heat exchange does not occur so that the refrigerant having a large temperature difference with the air is later heat exchanged with the air, and the heat exchange takes place to some extent and the air and temperature difference occurs. The small refrigerant is preferably first heat exchanged with air. This is because it is preferable to improve heat exchange performance between fluids in which heat exchange takes place.

Under such a background, the inlet pipe 8 through which the uncondensed refrigerant flows is connected to the afterheat heat exchanger 2, and the heat transfer heat exchanger 1 condenses to some extent while passing through the after heat exchanger 2. After the coolant flows up and flows out through the outlet pipe (9).

By such a configuration, the irreversible loss of the refrigerant flowing in the supercritical phase is reduced, thereby increasing the heat exchange efficiency of the heat exchanger and reducing the size of the heat exchanger.

3 is a cross-sectional view taken along line II ′ of FIG. 1. Referring to FIG. 3, the microchannel tube 10 is formed such that a plurality of channels 12 through which refrigerant flows are formed side by side. In addition, a plurality of the microchannel tubes 10 are superimposed on the heat transfer heat exchanger 1 and the post heat exchanger 2 in the vertical direction.

On the other hand, the refrigerant flowing through each of the plurality of overlapping microchannel tubes 10 flows evenly or at least a controlled amount of refrigerant flows for each microchannel tube 10, which is the header (3) (4) This is due to the refrigerant distribution structure formed at (5) (6). As such, the amount of refrigerant flowing in the plurality of microchannel tubes 10 is adjusted, for example, to be equally divided, thereby increasing the efficiency of heat exchange during heat exchange with air blown from the fan 11. Can be obtained. In other words, even in the microchannel tube 10 aligned with both ends of the header, the same or similar amount of refrigerant flows as the microchannel tube 10 aligned with the central portion of the header, so that the heat exchange performance is improved. It will be possible.

If different amounts of refrigerant flow through the microchannel tubes 10, the cooling amount of the refrigerant flowing therein varies for each microchannel tube 10, and thus, the temperature of the refrigerant and the heat exchange amount of the refrigerant are different. You lose. Such a change in temperature of the refrigerant increases the irreversibility to the heat exchange, thereby lowering the heat exchange performance.

The flow of the same amount of refrigerant for each microchannel tube 10 is achieved by the internal structure of the header (3) (4) (5) (6) formed at the end of the microchannel tube (10), Hereinafter, the refrigerant amount adjusting structure for allowing the same amount of refrigerant to flow for each microchannel tube 10 will be described in detail.

Fig. 4 is a perspective view of the header according to the present invention, and Fig. 5 is a view illustrating the operation of the header according to the present invention, and these figures are explained using the rear row side upper header 5 as an example.

4 and 5, the header 20 according to the present invention is divided into two spaces in the upper and lower spaces by the separating plate 22, the upper space is partitioned by the separation plate (22) After the refrigerant flowing into 21 is first collected, the refrigerant is distributed in an appropriate amount by the refrigerant distribution structure. To this end, a plurality of holes 25 and 26 having different sizes are formed in the separator 22.

In detail, the upper space of the separation plate 22 forms an assembly space 23 through which the refrigerant flowing through the conduit 21 is primarily collected, and the lower space of the separation plate 22 is the opening 25. Refrigerant introduced through the (26) forms a separation space 24 that is separated before entering each microchannel tube (10). The separation space 24 forms a space where the refrigerant is separated before the refrigerant flows into each of the microchannel tubes 10. In addition, the separation spaces 24 are partitioned from each other by the partition plate 27. Therefore, the refrigerant provided independently for each of the openings 25 and 26 and collected in any one of the separation spaces 24 flows only through the microchannel tubes 10 connected to the specific separation space 24. .

In addition, the opening includes an inner opening 25 formed at a position adjacent to the conduit 21 and an outer opening 25 formed at a distance from the conduit 21. The inner opening 25 is formed at a position adjacent to the conduit 21 so that the coolant flowing from the conduit 21 can be directly introduced therein, and the coolant introduced through the conduit 21 is far away. Since it can flow directly into the inner opening 25 without a moving distance, the size of the opening is small. The outer opening 26 is provided with a large size for the opposite reason. Due to the size difference of the openings 25 and 26, the amount of the refrigerant that may flow through each of the openings 25 and 26 may be uniformly controlled.

As a result, the amount of the refrigerant flowing into the separation space 24 is different due to the size difference of the openings 25 and 26 formed at the inflow side of each separation space 24, which is the opening 25 ( When the size of the 26 is the same, the amount of refrigerant that can be introduced differently due to the relative distance to the conduit 21 is adjusted again, so that the amount of refrigerant introduced through the respective openings 25 and 26 is the same. It will play the role of making it. Due to the interrelationship of the openings, the amount of refrigerant flowing into each of the separation spaces 24 may be uniformly matched, and at least, due to the relative difference in size of the openings 25 and 26, each of the openings 25 ( Naturally, the amount of refrigerant flowing through 26 can be controlled. In addition, since the refrigerant introduced into each separation space is partitioned by the partition plate 27 and does not mix with the refrigerant in the other separation space, a uniform amount of refrigerant may be supplied to each microtube.

The structure of the header 20 shown in FIGS. 4 and 5 has been described taking the after-heating upper header 5 of the after-heat heat exchanger 2 as an example. However, the structure of the header 20 as shown in the figure is not limited to the rear row side upper header 5, the rear row side lower header 6, the heat transfer side upper header 3 and the heat transfer side lower header 4 ) May also have the same structure. Of course, the internal structure of the rear row side lower header 6 and the heat transfer side lower header 4 will naturally be provided in a symmetrical structure with the rear row side upper header 5.

As described, the refrigerant amount adjusting structure is provided in the plurality of headers 20, so that the amount of the refrigerant flowing through the inside of each microchannel tube 10 can be controlled more accurately. In addition, the flow resistance of the refrigerant applied to any one of the headers 20 is reduced, so that an irreversible loss of the refrigerant can be obtained.

By the heat exchanger as described, a proper amount of refrigerant is introduced into all of the microchannel tubes formed in the heat exchanger, and used for heat exchange of the refrigerant, and the heat exchange efficiency of the refrigerant can be improved. Therefore, it is possible to obtain the effect of increasing the heat exchange area for the heat exchanger of the same size, and further has the advantage of improving the performance of the refrigeration system. Since the heat exchange area is increased, the size of the heat exchanger can be reduced.

In addition, when the air volume and the wind speed applied to each microchannel tube are different from each other, by adjusting the size of the openings 25 and 26, a larger amount of refrigerant flows in the microchannel tube having a large airflow and wind speed. In addition, by allowing a smaller amount of refrigerant to flow in the microchannel tube having a small air flow rate and a wind speed, the heat exchange performance of the heat exchanger can be further increased.

In addition, when the supercritical refrigerant flows inside the heat exchanger pipe of the present invention as proposed, the refrigerant pipe may be positioned at an appropriate position according to the temperature of the refrigerant. In other words, when the temperature of the coolant is high, the coolant flows inside the afterheat heat exchanger 2 of the heat exchanger, and when the coolant temperature is low, the coolant flows inside the heat transfer heat exchanger 1 of the heat exchanger. . In this manner, the refrigerant and the air flow in opposite flows to each other, thereby reducing the irreversible loss of the refrigerant and improving the heat exchange performance of the refrigerant. In particular, it will be understood that this case is the case where the heat exchanger of the present invention is used in the gas cooler.

6 is a perspective view of a heat exchanger illustrating another embodiment of the present invention.

Another embodiment of the present invention, the other parts are the same as the original embodiment, characterized in that the configuration of the connecting pipe 7 is different. Therefore, parts not specifically described in the description of the present embodiment will be used for the description of the original embodiment, and detailed description thereof will be omitted.

6, the present embodiment is characterized in that there is no configuration of the connecting pipe (7). In other words, the rear row side lower header 6 and the front row side header 4 form a single body, and the respective separation spaces are provided in the form of being connected to each other, thereby forming an integral lower header 30. In this state, the refrigerant discharged from the post heat exchanger 2 flows to the inflow side of the heat transfer heat exchanger 1.

The configuration of the heat exchanger can be obtained by the above-mentioned configuration, and the production can be easily made. The length of the pipe can be shortened, the pipe loss is reduced, and the irreversibility of the refrigerant is reduced, thereby improving the heat exchange performance. have.

In another embodiment of the present invention, the refrigerant distribution structure may allow the refrigerant to be distributed in an appropriate amount of refrigerant rather than the same amount of refrigerant for each microchannel tube. For example, since a strong wind speed is applied to the center of the heat exchanger, the amount of heat exchange may be increased. In this case, a large amount of refrigerant may flow into the microchannel tube at the center.

According to the heat exchanger of the present invention, the heat exchange area of the same sized heat exchanger is increased, and the overall performance of the refrigeration system is improved and the size of the heat exchanger can be reduced.

In addition, when a supercritical refrigerant flows inside the heat exchanger pipe, such as a carbon dioxide refrigeration cycle, the refrigerant pipe may be located at an appropriate position depending on the temperature of the refrigerant, thereby reducing irreversible loss of the refrigerant. There is an advantage that the heat exchange performance is improved.

Claims (6)

A plurality of microchannel tubes; Headers formed at both ends of the microchannel tube; A conduit connected to the header; And It is formed in at least one of the header includes a refrigerant amount adjusting structure for controlling the amount of refrigerant flowing into each microchannel tube, The refrigerant introduced into the header is uniformly distributed to the partitioned different space and is supplied to the microchannel tube. The method of claim 1, The refrigerant flowing through the microchannel tube is a supercritical heat exchanger. The method of claim 1, The refrigerant amount adjusting structure An assembly space accommodated in a state where the refrigerant is collected; A separation space in which refrigerant is separated from each other immediately before being connected to the microchannel tube; And Partition plates for partitioning the separation space into a plurality of spaces, A heat exchanger having a plurality of openings having different sizes to control the amount of refrigerant flowing into the separation space in the separation plate separating the assembly space and the separation space. The method of claim 3, wherein The opening formed in the position close to the pipe in the opening is small in size, and the opening formed in the position far from the pipe has a large size. A first heat exchanger; A second heat exchanger having an outlet side connected to an inlet side of the first heat exchanger; And And a header provided at an inlet side and an outlet side of the first heat exchanger and the second heat exchanger. A supercritical refrigerant flows inside the first heat exchanger and the second heat exchanger, and the first heat exchanger is placed in front of the second heat exchanger based on a fan, so that the coolant cooled while passing through the second heat exchanger. It is to be introduced into the first heat exchanger to improve the heat exchange performance, Refrigerant amount adjusting structure is formed in at least one of the header to adjust the amount of the refrigerant flowing into the heat exchanger, the refrigerant flowing into the header is distributed to different partitions are supplied to the heat exchanger heat transmitter. The method of claim 5, The refrigerant amount adjusting structure An assembly space accommodated in a state where the refrigerant is collected; A separation space in which refrigerant is separated from each other immediately before being connected with the heat exchanger; And Partition plates for partitioning the separation space into a plurality of spaces, A heat exchanger having a plurality of openings having different sizes to control the amount of refrigerant flowing into the separation space in the separation plate separating the assembly space and the separation space.

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