An Experimental Evaluation on Air Conditioning Performance with Vairtex Air Director Applied on Residential Condenser Unit

An experimental study was carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of the VairTEX Air Director device on a modified 1.5-ton air conditioner. The experiment was divided into two parts. The first part included thermodynamic performance evaluations at two refrigerant flow rates. As the air director was installed on the condenser unit, COP was improved by an appreciable amount of maximum 5% while the evaporator delivered cooler air at its exit by maximum 15%. Compressor power consumption was reduced by 4.5%. Three directional velocity measurements using six-orientation hot-wire technique was employed to characterize air flow discharge from the condenser with and without the device. The radial component was significantly reduced while axial flow was greatly improved, hence increased a volume flow rate by 48.7%. Tangential component at the Air Director exit resembled the profile found in cyclone devices. Heat transfer between ambient and refrigerant also increased. Thus, condenser performance was improved.