CoilDesigner | Center for Environmental Energy Engineering

A highly customizable tool for simulating tube-fin, micro-channel, wire-fin, and flat tube coils, for air-to-refrigerant heat exchangers and tube-in-tube heat exchangers for fluid-to-fluid heat exchangers
Model validated with 19 experimental data sets (publications available)

Pure fluids (R134a, CO2 etc.), and pre-defined mixtures (R410A, R404A, R407C etc.)
Single phase fluids (e.g., water, glycols etc.)
Plus all refrigerants available in NIST REFPROP 7.0/8.0, including new fluids such as R1234yf
User-defined refrigerant mixtures (created on-the-fly), and user-defined external fluid properties (via DLL’s or .FLD files)
Proprietary implementation for popular refrigerant properties leading to order or magnitude improvement in execution time compared to NIST REFPROP 8.0

Multiple fins types (plate, louver, slit, wavy, or bare tubes), with dry air and wet air
Can account for 2-D air maldistribution on coil face area in velocity, temperature and humidity
Built-in velocity profiles plus the option to create velocity profiles and to load velocity profiles from CFD output
Load a fan curve to allow the program to solve for the air flow rate

Number of tube rows and columns limited by available computer memory only
Built-in counter-flow circuitry options (tube-fin) and pass-based inputs (microchannels)
Custom circuitries can be created by connecting tubes on-screen via consecutive mouse clicks

Popular heat-transfer (62), pressure drop (44), and void fraction (15) correlations implemented in the tool for different refrigerant phases, along with user specified correction factors
Refrigerant specific (e.g., two-phase R410A, supercritical CO2) correlations

Detailed results available including all properties of interest for all segments and tubes
Plot for heat load vs. tubes and circuits, outlet air temperature profile and 3-D plots
3-D coil drawing with overlaid results
Export results (and all inputs) to spreadsheet for archiving and further analysis

Parametric studies can be conducted with one, two or more parameters simultaneously
Coil dimensions, refrigerant and air side inlet conditions and tube passes can be varied
Results can be plotted and exported to spreadsheet

Coils are saved in portable data format and thus can be loaded from any other application
External communication interface is provided for .NET platform and for Microsoft Excel. Interfaces for other applications or platforms can be developed

User-defined correlations for heat transfer and pressure drop (refrigerant and air) can be added
User-defined refrigerants can be added to the program
User-defined coefficients for standard heat transfer and pressure drop equations can be provided
Optionally the program allows the user to develop a coefficient file and encrypt it for distribution
User-defined cost correlations can be added

Single and multiobjective genetic algorithms are built-into the program
The algorithm systematically searches the entire design space defined by the user for optimum coils that meet certain performance (e.g. heat load and pressure drop) requirements
Results are displayed as a trade-off (Pareto) set between cost and performance

Support available via email, phone and web-based meetings
ISOC personnel also assist the users in integrating CoilDesigner with their in-house tools

Design Options: Tube length, fin density, number of fans, circuits, fan types, motor types, resulting in a total of 125000 possible coils
The GA evaluated 5000 coils and produced the trade-off set shown on the right
For the same heat load as the baseline coil, the cost can be reduced by up to 15% or, for the same cost, the heat load can be increased by 12 percent
GA can be used to systematically search the large design space and find optimum solutions for coil design problems

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