Condensation and frost formation in heat exchangers

The occurence of condensation and of frost formation are considered for air to heat exchangers with emphasis on how such occurrences would affect the performance of such heat exchangers when they are used in ventilating applications. The formulations which predict performance are developed for parallel, counter flow and cross flow with either formation or condensation, and for condensation the consequences for evaporation of condensate and of the effect of longitudinal conduction in the walls of the exchanger are also considered. For the prediction of the exchanger performance with frost formation there must be specified the growth of the frost layer with time and existing theories for this growth are examined, a new method of calculation of the growth is presented and this is shown to give results for the growth that are in accord with available experimental evidence. This new theory for the growth of a frost layer is used to predict the performance of a parallel flow exchanger under conditions in which frost formation occurs, by successively applying the steady state performance calculation for time increments over which the frost layer build-up is calculated for these time increments. The calculation of counter flow exchanger performance by this method, while feasible, is so time consuming that only the general aspects of the calculation are considered