What Are the Latest Innovations in Car AC Condenser Technology and How Do They Impact the Industry?

The car ac condenser is a component of the refrigeration system and is a type of heat exchanger. It can convert gas or vapor into liquid, and transfer the heat in the tube to the air near the tube in a very fast manner. The working process of the condenser is an exothermic process, so the temperature of the condenser is relatively high. In the prior art, the evaporator of a passenger car is generally installed on the roof, and the condenser is generally installed on the front of the vehicle. Today's condensers are all dissipated by exhaust fans. After the exhaust fans have been exhausted for a long time, the air The dust in the air will adhere to the condenser, which is not conducive to the heat dissipation of the condenser, and the air temperature is high in summer, and the high-temperature air drawn in by the exhaust fan is even more unfavorable for the heat dissipation of the condenser

• Conventional Automotive Air Conditioning Condenser Technology

The conventional technology of the automobile condenser is to transfer the energy of the refrigerant to the surrounding environment, so that the high-temperature, high-pressure refrigerant vapor becomes a high-temperature, high-pressure refrigerant liquid. Traditional in-tube condensers mostly use a single in-tube process without vapor-liquid separation for condensation, which will gradually thicken the liquid film due to condensation on the wall, resulting in complex two-phase flow. A worsening situation occurs.

Among them, the flat-flow condenser is the most widely used heat exchanger type at present. It is evolved from the tube belt type and is also composed of flat tubes and fins. There are also louver-style slits on the heat sink, but the flat tubes are not bent into a serpentine shape, but each one is cut off. There is a header at each end. The refrigerant enters the cylindrical or square header from the pipe joint, then splits into the oval flat tube, flows to the opposite header in parallel, and finally returns to the pipe joint seat or another pipe through the jumper. pipe fittings.

• The Latest Innovations in Automotive Air Conditioning Condenser Technology

1. Use a water cooler

The water cooler, which is a new type of thermal management system, connects the engine cooling circuit with the air conditioning system. This innovative condenser uses water instead of air and can improve a car's fuel efficiency and performance.

2. Condenser folded flat tube technology

Condenser folded flat tube technology is different from the extruded flat tube commonly used at present. The folded flat tube makes full use of the performance advantages of multi-layer composite materials to achieve tube wall thinning; and the internal flow channel may not be completely isolated to improve heat transfer efficiency. It is worth mentioning that this process has low requirements on the production site and equipment investment is relatively small. However, due to the thinning of the pipe wall, the process puts forward higher requirements on the reliability, molding and corrosion resistance of the material.

In terms of anti-corrosion mechanism, the condenser with folded flat tube is obviously different from the extruded tube, and the fins will not fall off. And because the anti-corrosion performance and strength of the rolled composite aluminum are greatly improved compared with the extruded aluminum, the wall thickness of the folded flat tube can be reduced by about 25%. In addition, the folded flat tubes can also be used with non-composite fins to further reduce the manufacturing cost of the condenser.

3. Double condenser air conditioning system

There are two types of dual-condenser air-conditioning systems. One is the air-cooled dual-condenser system. Its layout mode adds an auxiliary condenser to the front of the original single condenser and has an independent fan to complete the capacity of the vehicle's condenser. The second is the arrangement mode of the water-cooled double condenser system, which is based on the original single condenser, and an auxiliary condenser is added to the side sump of the vehicle cooling water tank to complete the supplementary capacity of the vehicle condenser.

• Impact on the industry

1. The development of lightweight high-performance condensers reduces the power consumption of automotive air-conditioning systems, thereby reducing vehicle emissions and slightly improving fuel economy.

2. It reduces the packaging space and the difficulty of vehicle layout caused by the increase in the volume of the condenser, which helps to improve the performance of the A/C system, helps to reduce the difficulty of vehicle layout, and reduces the development cost and cycle of the vehicle. These innovations lead to innovative designs of components and process technologies.

3. As people pay more attention to the air quality inside the car, more and more air purification technologies are installed on real cars in recent years. Improving comfort and cleanliness will be a direction of future competition.

The condenser is the key to the car's air conditioning system, the bridge between the indoor heat and the outdoor environment. Therefore, innovations in automotive air-conditioning condensers are very important to the automotive industry, as they can improve the performance and fuel efficiency of vehicles.

FAQs

Q1:What is the working principle of car condenser?

The condenser cools the high-pressure and high-temperature refrigerant from the compressor to high-pressure and low-temperature, and then vaporizes through the capillary tube and evaporates in the evaporator.

Q2:What will happen to the development trend of the automotive air-conditioning condenser industry?

Large-scale development, energy-saving and environmental protection concepts speed up the process of compacting automotive air-conditioning condensers and other technological processes.

Q3:What is the prospect of the automotive air-conditioning condenser industry?

The global automotive air conditioning system market is expected to witness rapid growth over the next few years owing to increasing demand for vehicles in developing countries.