The function of evaporator is to absorb heat from surrounding location or medium which is to be cooled by means of refrigerant. The refrigerant either boils as it flows through a pipe, tube or other type of space so that liquid is continuously wetting all the inside surface or it boils in a shell around submerged tubes through which the fluid to be cooling is flowing. Various methods are used for evaporators, depending upon the refrigerant to be used and evaporator application, but iron, steel and copper predominate. Refrigerant evaporators should be of extended surface or finned tube type whatever practical. In order to keep the average surface temperature down, a good bond between the fin and tube is essential. Integral fins formed out of the tube itself are best in this respect and give the best heat transfer rate.
Type of evaporators based on operating condition:
1. Flooded type evaporator
2. Dry or direct expansion type evaporator
Type of evaporator based on construction:
1. Bare tube evaporator
2. Plate evaporator
3. Finned tube evaporator
4. Shell tube evaporator
5. Tube in tube evaporator
Bare tube evaporator: The bare tube evaporators are made up of copper tubing or steel pipes. The copper tubing is used for small evaporators where the refrigerant other than ammonia is used while the steel pipes are used with the large evaporators that uses ammonia as refrigerants. The evaporator comprises of several turns of tubing and are usually used for liquid chilling. In blast cooling and freezing operations, atmospheric air flows over bare tube evaporator and the chilled air leaving it used for cooling purposes.
Plate evaporators: In plate type evaporators, the coil usually made of copper of aluminum is embedded in the plate so as to form a flat looking surface. Externally the plate type evaporator looks like single plate but inside it, there are several turns of the metal tubing through which the refrigerant flows.
The advantage of plate type evaporator is that they are more rigid as the external plate provides lots of safety. The external plate also helps increasing heat transfer from metal tubing to the substance to be chilled. These type of evaporators are easy to clean and can be manufactured cheaply. They can be converted into box shape, partitions or shelves as required for different purposes. Due to various advantage and flexibility offered by plate type evaporator, they are used extensively.
Finned tube evaporator: The finned evaporators are tube type evaporators covered with the fins. When the fluid (air or water) to be chilled flows over the bare tube evaporator, lots of cooling effect from the refrigerant goes wasted since there is less surface for transfer of heat from fluid to refrigerant. The fins on the finned tube evaporator increases contact surface area and increases heat transfer rate. Thus finned evaporators are more effective than bare tube evaporators.
For fins to be effective, it is very important that there is good contact between coil and the fins. In some cases fins are soldered directly to surface of the coil and in other cases, the fins are just slipped over the surface of tubes or coils. The finned evaporators are most commonly used in the air conditioners of almost all type like window, split, packaged and central air conditioning. In this system, finned evaporator is known as cooling coil. The hot air flows over finned evaporator for cooling. To increase effectiveness of heat transfer from evaporator, the tubing are also given internal fins. These fins are made by forming different internal cross section shapes at the time of manufacturing of tubing.
