IJMTST is UGC Approved Journal with Journal Id: 43137

International Journal for Modern Trends in Science and Technology, 8(S06): 59-68, 2022
Copyright © 2022 International Journal for Modern Trends in Science and Technology
ISSN: 2455-3778 online
DOI: https://doi.org/10.46501/IJMTST08S0710
Available online at: https://www.ijmtst.com/vol8si07.html

Design and Thermal Analysis of Condenser in Air

Conditioning System Using FEA

K. Gowthami, N. N. M. D. Lakshmi Narayana, S. Bhargav Kumar, D. Ajay Ratan, D. Luther Praful

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Godavari Institute of Engineering and Technology(A), JNTUK, Kakinada.

To Cite this Article

K. Gowthami, N. N. M. D. Lakshmi Narayana, S. Bhargav Kumar, D. Ajay Ratan and D. Luther Praful. Design and
Thermal Analysis of Condenser in Air Conditioning System Using FEA. International Journal for Modern Trends in
Science and Technology 2022, 8(S06), pp. 59-68. https://doi.org/10.46501/IJMTST08S0710

Article Info
Received: 26 April 2022; Accepted: 24 May 2022; Published: 30 May 2022.

ABSTRACT
Condensersare used in air conditioning systems to extract undesired heat from the refrigerant and send it to the outdoors. The
condenser coil is the principal component of a condenser, through which the refrigerant flows, and fins are the extended surface of
the hose pipe that aids in heat transmission to the atmosphere. Heat rejection from the condenser is dependent on a number of
factors, including the surface area of the fins and tube, the material used in its manufacture, the length of the hose pipe, the
refrigerant used in it, and so on. It is therefore critical to choose the right material for the condenser and modify the fins to
improve the air conditioner's performance. The project's goal is to optimise design parameters.

KEYWORDS: Condenser,SOLIDWORKS,ANSYS,c17500,Al2014,MgAZ31B

1. INTRODUCTION referred to as condensation. The refrigerant condenses

An air conditioner is a household equipment that into a high-pressure, low-temperature liquid, which is
dehumidifies and removes heat from a space. In a closed then transported to the expansion device in the loop. The
cycle known as the refrigeration cycle or heat pump expansion device in a system does the same thing: it
cycle, all air conditioners use the same compression, drops the pressure when the refrigerant leaves the
condensation, expansion, and evaporation cycle. The condenser. Because of the pressure reduction, some of the
heat is moved from a hotter to a cooler location using the refrigerant will boil quickly, resulting in a two-phase
same refrigerant. The first phase in the refrigeration cycle mixture. This rapid phase change is known as flashing,
is compression, and a compressor is the piece of and it helps the evaporator, the next phase of process in
equipment that raises the working gas's pressure. the cycle, fulfil its role. The evaporator, like the
Low-pressure, low-temperature refrigerant enters the condenser, is the second heat exchanger in a conventional
compressor as a low-pressure, low-temperature gas and refrigeration circuit and is named after its primary
exits into condenser as a high-pressure, high-temperature purpose. Given that it performs what we anticipate air
gas.Among the two, one of the two types of heat conditioning to do - absorb heat - it acts as the end of a
exchangers used in a basic refrigeration loop is the refrigeration cycle. When refrigerant enters the
condenser, or condenser coil. The condenser removes evaporator as a low-temperature liquid at low pressure
heat from the hot refrigerant gas vapour until it and a fan drives air through the evaporator's fins, the air
condenses into a saturated liquid condition, which is is cooled by the refrigerant absorbing heat from the place.

59 International Journal for Modern Trends in Science and Technology

The refrigerant is then returned to the compressor, where Convectional heat transfer occurs in air-cooled
the process continues. condensers. Solidworks is used for modelling. The
In this paper, we optimise the design parameters condenser is thermally analysed to evaluate the material
by changing the thickness of the fin and creating slots to and refrigerant. Copper is being considered for tubes,
the fins with modified thickness to reduce the weight of and c17500, Al2014, and MgAZ31B are being considered
the condenser. So, let's go through the condenser in more for fins. R12 is the variable refrigerant. Ansys is used for
detail. thermal analysis. Small units such as household
The condenser in air conditioning systems takes refrigerators, deep freezers, water coolers, window air
undesired heat from the refrigerant and sends it to the conditioners, split air conditioners, small packaged air
outside. A condenser is a device or unit used to cool a conditioners, and so on use air cooled condensers. These
substance from its gaseous state to its liquid state in heat are used in plants with a small cooling load and a small
transfer systems. As a result, the latent heat is released. amount of refrigerant in the refrigeration system.
The substance will release latent heat and it will be Because they are typically made of copper or aluminium
transferred to the condenser coolant. Condensers can be coil, air cooled condensers are also known as coil
constructed in a variety of ways, designs, and are condensers. Air cooled condensers take up more space
available in variety of sizes ranging from small to large. than water cooled condensers. The current study
For example, a condenser is used to cool a refrigerator, examined the performance of an air-cooled condensing
remove heat from the interior of the unit and transfers to unit by varying the fin material and thickness. It is critical
the outside air. Condenser is employed as follows. to consider a metal with high thermal conductivity and
Distillation and steam generation are examples of low density for refrigeration applications when
industrial processes. Other heat-exchange systems designing condenser fins. Aluminum is used to make the
include power plants. The coolant is either cooling water fins.
or ambient air. The condenser coil, through which the
refrigerant flows, is usually the most important part of To study the effect of fin’s thermal conductivity on
the condenser. The refrigerant temperature must be condenser performance, three fin materials were
higher than the air temperature because the AC considered: Aluminium alloy Al2014, Copper alloy
condenser coil contains refrigerant that absorbs heat from c17500, and Magnesium alloy MgAZ31B. The system is
the surrounding air. Heat transfer in condenser occurs by modelled in Solidworks. For Thermal analysis, ANSYS
means of Convection. Software is used. When various factors for a condenser
are considered, such as heat transfer and temperature,
1.1 Basic Types of Condenser Magnesium alloy MgAZ31B is found to be the best fin
material. A condenser or evaporator is a heat exchanger
 Water – cooled Condenser that allows condensation by releasing or absorbing heat.
 Air – cooled Condenser The refrigerant and air will be physically separated at the
 Evaporative Condenser air conditioner condenser and evaporator. As a result,
heat transfer occurs via conduction. The heat exchanger
Water – cooled Condensers are further divided into three
that allows these processes to take place, High
types. They are: 1) Double – Pipe,
conductivity ensures that the temperature difference
2) Shell and tube and
between the outside and inside walls is kept to a
3) Shell and coil.
minimum.

The length and size of air conditioner condensers and

2. RELATED WORK
evaporators must be sized in such a way that the

The proposed system is based on the idea of developing refrigerant is completely condensed before the

an optimization technique that can be used to determine condenser's exit and completely boiled before the

the best configuration of a finned-tube condenser. evaporator's exit. These two factors are primarily
determined by the size of the compressor and refrigerant

60 International Journal for Modern Trends in Science and Technology

used. To design an effective, yet compact air conditioner various wind speeds and observed the comparison of
condenser and evaporator per unit heat transferred, air them to each other and the basic flat fin model.
conditioner manufacturers must understand how 4) Design, Optimization and Performance Analysis of
conduction and convection work. To account for any Condenser for HVAC Automobile System for R-290.
performance drop during the service life, the condenser Author: Parikshit A. Ladke, C.S. Choudhari.
and evaporator are typically designed to 110 percent of Year of Publishing: 2016.
the intended heat transfer requirement. Observation: The optimization results show that by
keeping the frontal area of the condenser constant
LITERATURE REVIEW and varying geometrical parameters, the COP of the
1) Design and Analysis of Condenser using 3D system decreases as the outer diameter increases. It is
Modelling Software. also concluded from varying the number of rows and
Author: A. Harsha Vardhan Reddy, G. Rajasekhar fins per inch that 12 fins per inch gives better
Reddy, G. Phanindra, K. Vijay Kumar. performance and 2 rows gives better performance.
Year of Publishing:2018. According to experimental analysis, air flow velocity
Observation: In this paper, we observed also plays a role in improving system performance.
thatbothCopper and aluminium alloys are being We observed that increasing air velocity increases the
considered as materials for tubes. R 12 refrigerants Coefficient of Performance and Refrigerating Energy
will be used. Temperature distribution and heat of the system.
transfer rates are determined using CFD analysis. 5) Design and Analysis of Air Cooled Condenser by
The heat transfer is higher in CFD analysis at using Copper and Alumimium tubes.
condenser length 405mm. The heat flux is greater for Author: V. P. Karthik, N. Prithiviraj, R. Sateesh, J.
copper material at condenser length 405mm in Govindaraj.
thermal analysis. As a result, we conclude that the Year of Publishing: 2018.
best material for condenser tubes is Copper. Observation: In this paper, we observed that copper
2) Design and Heat Transfer Analysis of AC Condenser tubes have a higher heat transfer rate than
by Optimising Material. aluminium tubes for the same experimental setup.
Author: Kishor Kumar Hirwani, Jwaharlal Dandu. Copper tubes are preferred for applications requiring
Year of Publishing: 2019. a high rate of heat transfer in diesel units (or) thermal
Observation: In this paper, we observed thatCFD power plants, while aluminium tubes are used for
analysis was performed on both Evaporator and applications requiring a low rate of heat transfer.
condenser models with different fluids (R30 &R160) 6) Thermal Analysis of AC Condenser Coil.
to determine the heat transfer coefficient, heat Author: Chavan Karthik, Dr. M. Naveen Kumar
transfer rate, mass flow rate, and pressure drop. By Year of Publishing: 2018.
increasing the mass flow inlets and observing the Observation: CFD analysis is used in this thesis to
CFD analysis of the evaporator, the heat transfer rate determine temperature distribution and heat transfer
and heat transfer coefficient values are increased. rates by varying the refrigerants. Heat transfer
And R160 fluid refrigerant has the highest heat analysis is performed on the condenser to determine
transfer coefficient value. As a result, it can be the best material. According to the analysis results,
concluded that the refrigerant R160 fluid performs the heat transfer rate is greater when the refrigerant
better R22 is used. When the results for fin material
3) Design and Analysis of AC Condenser for Improving between Aluminum alloy 1100 and 1050 are
Efficiency. compared, Aluminum alloy 1050 performs better.
Author: N. Venkatesh, B B V Kishore. 7) Performance Analysis and Design of Plate-Fin and
Year of Publishing: 2017. Tube Condenser for Air Conditioner.
Observation: In this thesis, we studied about the Author: K. V. J. P. Narayana, M. Sai Santosh Kumar
performance of several louver fin arrangements at Year of Publishing: 2016.

61 International Journal for Modern Trends in Science and Technology

 Observation: In this paper, we observed that using surrounding air as it extracts heat from the air. Air is
Aluminum alloy 1100 as a fin is advantageous for blown across the evaporator fins and cooled before being
condensers. When comparing refrigerants, routed from the air conditioner through ducts and vents
Hydrocarbon and Hydrofluorocarbon, using into various rooms.
Hydrocarbon is more advantageous because it has a The dimensions of the cooling plate are:
higher thermal flux.
8) CFD and Thermal Analysis on AC Condenser by Dimensions of the fin Values
using Different Fluids and Different Material. Length of fin 210 mm
Author: Manish Kumar Goswami, DR M. Babu. Breadth of fin 44 mm

Year of Publishing: 2019. Thickness of fin 0.8 mm

Circle diameter 10 mm
Observation:According to this paper, while
No. of circles 16
observing CFD analysis R134A has a higher heat
Distance between circles 25 mm
transfer coefficient and a higher heat transfer rate
Small circle diameter 6.2 mm
than other fluids in CFD analysis. By considering
No. of small circles 2
Thermal analysis results, Heat flux is greater when
Table: 1 Dimensions of the fin
R22 and Copper are used and When the fluid R134A
3.2 Tubes
and the material Copper are used, the heat transfer
Condenser tubes are specifically designed to condense
rate increases.
process fluid from the tube's exterior. This application is
common in heat exchangers, ranging from being part of a
3. PROPOSED WORK
chiller's condenser and evaporator refrigeration cycle to
In this paper, we optimise the design parameters by condensing steam in surface condensers and everything
changing the thickness of the fin and creating slots to the in between. Copper–nickel alloys, brass, titanium,
fins with modified thickness to reduce the weight of the stainless steel, and ferritic stainless steel are the most
condenser. So, let's go through the fins in more detail. common tube materials in a condenser.
3.1 Cooling Plate (Fin)
Condenser fins are thin metal slats that run along the 3.3 MATERIAL SELECTION
outside of your air conditioner's frame. The condenser The following materials are selected for the Fins:
fins' purpose is to move warm air away from the air 1. Al2014: It is an aluminum alloy with alloying elements
conditioner while it is running. The fins' purpose is to of copper, silicon and magnesium. It has high
increase the surface area of the condenser, making it conductivity, good machinability, and excellent corrosion
easier to transfer the heat of the refrigerant to the resistance.
surrounding air. Heat moves from the inside to outside of 2. c17500: It is a copper alloy with alloying elements of
the coil when the warm, gaseous refrigerant flows cobalt and berryllium. It has high conductivity, good
through the condenser. Condenser fins and evaporator resistance, and good machining performance.
fins are the two types of air conditioner fins. Each does a 3. MgAZ31B: It is a magnesium alloy with alloying
similar job of allowing air to flow smoothly through and elements of aluminium and zinc. It is lightweight,
out of an air conditioner, but in their own way. resistant, has a high conductivity, and has a low density.
Condenser fins are located on the outdoor portion of an Materials c17500 Al2014 MgAZ31B
air conditioner near the compressor and resemble a grill selected
with metal fins running the length of it. These air Density[Kg/m3] 8750 2800 1770
conditioner fins are a component of the condenser that Poisson’s Ratio 0.34 0.34 0.35
aids heat movement away from the air conditioner, Coefficient of 1.76e -05 2.3e -05 2.6e-05
allowing heat to disperse more quickly. Evaporator fins Thermal
are located on the evaporator and help with the thermal Expansion[1/⁰C]
energy exchange process that occurs with the Thermal 200 192 96

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Conductivity
[W/m ⁰C]
Specific heat 890 875 1000
[J/kg ⁰C]
Table 2: Properties of Selected Materials

Specifications of Selected Condenser:

Parameters Values
Capacity of Condenser 1.5 ton
No. of Condenser fins 48
Connecting rod length 282.50 mm
igure 1 (b) Design of Condenser with a modified fin
Connecting rod diameter 6 mm
Thickness of 0.5 mm.
Pipe outer diameter 10 mm
Pipe inner diameter 9.5 mm
Thickness of pipe 0.5 mm
Length of pipe 291 mm
Table 3: Specifications of Condenser

3.4 DESIGN OF CONDENSER:

The design of condenser is done in solidworks with two
modifications:
Modification-1: Design of Condenser by modifying the
thickness of the fins.
Modification-2: Design of above modified Condenser
by creating slots to the fins. Figure1 (c) Design of condenser by creating slots to
modified fin.

3.5 THERMAL ANALYSIS

The Steady State Thermal Analysis is carried out using

the ANSYS Software.

The design of condenser is completed in Solidworks

using FEA analysis and is transferred to the ANSYS for
performing steady state thermal analysis using various
Figure 1 (a) Design of Standard condenser with materials.
a fin thickness of 0.8 mm.
Finite Element Analysis (FEA) is a numerical method for
breaking down a complex system into very small pieces
(of user-defined size) known as elements. The software
creates a comprehensive explanation of how the system
works as a whole by implementing equations that govern
the behaviour of these elements and solving them all.
This type of analysis is commonly used for the design
and optimization of systems that are far too complex to

63 International Journal for Modern Trends in Science and Technology

analyse manually. Because of their geometry, scale, or Convection Coefficient: 5 W/m2 ⁰C
governing equations, systems that fit into this category
are overly complex. Many colleges' Mechanical
Engineering Departments use ANSYS as the standard
FEA teaching tool. ANSYS is also used in the Thermal Analysis of standard Condenser with copper
departments of Civil and Electrical Engineering, as well tube, c17500 fins:
as Physics and Chemistry.

IMPORTED MODEL:

Figure 3 (a) Temperature

Figure 2 (a) Boundary conditions of imported

condenser

MESHED MODEL:

Figure 3 (b) Total Heat Flux

Thermal Analysis of standard Condenser with copper
tube, Al2014 fins:

Figure2 (b) Meshed Model

Boundary Conditions of Imported Condenser:

Temperature: 45⁰ C
Ambient Temperature: 22⁰ C

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Figure 4(a) Temperature
Figure 5 (b) Total Heat Flux
Thermal Analysis of modified (1) Condenser with
copper tube, c17500 fins:

Figure 4 (b) Total Heat Flux

Thermal Analysis of standard Condenser with copper

tube, MgAZ31B fins: Figure6 (a) Temperature

Figure 5 (a) Temperature Figure 6 (b) Total Heat Flux

65 International Journal for Modern Trends in Science and Technology

Thermal Analysis of modified (1) Condenser with
copper tube, Al2014 fins:

Figure 8 (a) Temperature

Figure 7 (a) Temperature

Figure 8 (b) Total Heat Flux

Thermal Analysis of modified (2) Condenser with
copper tube, c17500 fins:

Figure 7 (b) Total Heat Flux

Thermal Analysis of modified (1) Condenser with
copper tube, MgAZ31B fins:

Figure 9 (a) Temperature

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 Thermal Analysis of modified (2) Condenser with
copper tube, MgAZ31B fins:

Figure 9 (b) Total HeatFlux Figure 11 (a) Temperature

Thermal Analysis of modified (2) Condenser with

copper tube, Al2014 fins:

Figure 11 (b) Total Heat Flux

4. RESULT

Figure 10 (a) Temperature The condenser tubes are made of copper in this
optimization process, and the fin materials are varied in
the order of c17500, Al2014 and MgAZ31B for the
Standard design and the other modified designs of
condensers.
Fins Temperature Total heat flux
Materi ( ) (W/m2)
al Max Min Max Min

c17500 45.002 44.756 6.146×103 2.8413×10-9

Al2014 45.002 44.746 6.145×103 3.1969×10-9

Figure 10 (b) Total Heat Flux MgAZ31B 45.005 44.498 6.116×103 3.4079×10-9

67 International Journal for Modern Trends in Science and Technology

Table 4: Standard Condenser with c17500 as tube design, and when compared to copper alloy and
material magnesium alloy, Aluminium alloy (Al2014) is more
efficient.
Fins Temperature Total heat flux
Materi ( ) (W/m2) FUTURE SCOPE
al Consider the following points when expanding on your
Max Min Max Min
thesis work. The modified condenser in modification 1
c17500 46.007 44.629 18.296×103 3.5367×10-9 can be made with slots, which will increase the heat flux
and efficiency of the condenser. Computational Fluid
Al2014 45.01 44.492 24.133×103 3.2311×10-9
Dynamic (CFD) analysis can also be performed by
MgAZ31B 45.02 44.008 23.801×103 3.3875×10-9 changing the refrigerants.

Table 5:Modified (1) Condenser with c17500 as tube

Conflict of interest statement
material
Authors declare that they do not have any conflict of
interest.
Fins Temperature Total heat flux
Materi ( ) (W/m2) REFERENCES
al Max Min Max Min [1] Harsha Vardhan Reddy, G. Rajasekhar Reddy, G. Phanindra, K.
Vijay Kumar. Design and Analysis of Condenser using 3D
c17500 45.008 44.742 7.898×10 3 3.6008×10 -9 Modelling Software.2018.
[2] Kishor Kumar Hirwani, Jwaharlal Dandu. Design and Heat
Al2014 46.009 44.732 7.900×103 3.4999×10-9 Transfer Analysis of AC Condenser by Optimising Material. 2019.
[3] N. Venkatesh, B B V Kishore. Design and Analysis of AC
MgAZ31B 45.016 44.469 7.868×103 2.398×10-9 Condenser for Improving Efficiency. 2017.
[4] Parikshit A. Ladke, C.S. Choudhari.Design, Optimization and
Table 6: Modified (2) Condenser with c17500 as tube
Performance Analysis of Condenser for HVAC Automobile
material System for R-290. 2016.
[5] V. P. Karthik, N. Prithiviraj, R. Sateesh, J. Govindaraj. Design and
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Alumimium tubes. 2018.

In our project, we designed an aircoolеd condensеr for a [6] Chavan Karthik, Dr. M. Naveen Kumar. Thermal Analysis of AC
Condenser Coil. May 2018. Siddhartha Institute of technology and
1.5ton air conditioner. Solidworks is used for design. We
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c17500 tubе material and varying the fin matеrials, and Design of Plate-Fin and Tube Condenser for Air Conditioner.

copреr alloy c17500, aluminium alloy Al2014, and 2016.

[8] Manish Kumar Goswami, DR M. Babu. CFD and Thermal
magnesium alloy MgAZ31B. We analyse the thermal
Analysis on AC Condenser by using Different Fluids and Different
properties temperaturе and heat flux in thеrmal analysis. Material. 2019.
Using the fin matеrial Aluminum alloy Al2014 and the
modification-1 design (by reducing the thickness of the
fin), the heat flux is increased. Modification -2 (creating
slots in the condenser's fin) design also gives more heat
flux than the standard design but less than the
modification-1 design. As a result, using Aluminum alloy
Al2014 as a fin and reducing the thickness of the fin
benefits the condenser. The modification-2 is not as
effective as modification 1.
According to the findings, both the temperature and total
heat flux are optimal for the modification-1 design when
compared to the modification-2 design and the standard

68 International Journal for Modern Trends in Science and Technology