International Journal of Refrigeration 27 (2004) 965973 www.elsevier.

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A general steady state mathematical model for n-and-tube heat exchanger based on graph theory
Jian Liua, WenJian Weia, GouLiang Dinga,*, Chunlu Zhanga, Masaharu Fukayab, Kaijian Wangb, Takefumi Inagakib
a

Department of Power and Energy Engineering, Institute of Refrigeration and Cryogenics, Shanghai Jiaotong University, 1954 Huashan Road, Shanghai 200030, China b Fujitsu General Institute of Air-Conditioning Technology Limited, 1116 Suenage, Takatsu-Ku, Kawasaki 213-8502, Japan Received 7 January 2004; received in revised form 25 June 2004; accepted 25 June 2004

Abstract Fin-and-tube heat exchangers are widely used in air conditioners, chillers, etc. A lot of factors, including arrangement of refrigerant circuits, congure specication of ns and tubes, and operating conditions, have signicant inuence on the performance of n-and-tube heat exchangers. For the purpose of fast design of high performance heat exchangers, a simulator reecting the inuence of these factors is necessary. In this paper, a general steady state mathematic model based on the graph theory is presented. With the help of the directed graph and graph-based traversal methods (Breadth-rst search and Depth-rst search), this model is capable to describe any exible refrigerant circuit arrangement, and quantify the refrigerant distribution in the refrigerant circuit and heat conduction through ns. An alternative iteration method is also developed to solve the conservation equations, which can shorten the simulating time effectively. The model is veried with the experimental results, and the maximum error is within G10.0%. A simulator based on this model has been used for designing practical n-and-tube heat exchangers. q 2004 Elsevier Ltd and IIR. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Heat exchanger; Finned tube; Modelling; Heat transfer; Steady state; Pressure drop

` Modele mathematique du regime permanent dun echangeur de ` chaleur a tubes ailetes fonde sur la theorie graphique
Mots cles: Echanger de chaleur; Tube ailete; Modelisation; Transfert de chaleur; Regime permanent; Chute de pression

1. Introduction Fin-and-tube heat exchangers are widely used in air conditioners, chillers, etc. A lot of factors, including arrangement of refrigerant circuits, congure specication of ns and tubes, and operating conditions, have signicant inuence on the performance of n-and-tube heat

* Corresponding author. Tel.: C86-21-62932110; fax: C86-2162932601. E-mail address: glding@sjtu.edu.cn (G.L. Ding). 0140-7007/$35.00 q 2004 Elsevier Ltd and IIR. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijrefrig.2004.06.008

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Nomenclature Ao Ai Di Do m f G h L P Q T x Greek Dp a r Heat transfer area on air side (m2) Inside surface area of tube (m2) Inner diameter of tube (m) Outer diameter of tube (m) Mass ow rate (kg sK1) Friction factor Mass ux (kg mK2 sK1) Specic enthalpy (kJ kgK1) Length (m) Pressure (Pa) Heat exchange (W) Temperature (K) Quality Pressure drop (Pa) Heat transfer coefcient (kW mK2 KK1) Density (kg mK3) 3 Void fraction h0 Fin surface efciency Subscripts a Air acc Acceleration back Back bottom Bottom f Friction n front Front in Inlet l Liquid o Outlet r Refrigerant top Top tot Total v Vapor wall Tube wall

exchangers. For the purpose of fast design of high performance heat exchangers, a simulator reecting the inuence of these factors is necessary. Unfortunately, it is not easy to develop a model for such kind of simulator because of two main difculties. (1) The methods used to arrange the refrigerant circuits are almost unlimited in practical design. It is difcult to nd a simple way to describe all of the possible refrigerant circuits. (2) The simulating time consumption used to solve the coupled conversation equations in a distributed parameters are almost intolerance in practical design. It is difcult to develop an effective algorithm to solve those coupled conversation equations in a short time. Many researchers have developed distributed parameter models to analyse the steady state performance of n-andtube heat exchangers. However, most of the models are only suitable for n-and-tube heat exchangers with simple tube arrangement, such as X. Jia et al. (1999) [1], Judge and Radermacher (1997) [2], Theerakulpisut et al. (1998) [3]. One method that is capable of analyzing the performance of heat exchanger with complex refrigerant circuitry is tubeby-tube technology developed by Domanski (1991) [4]. This method was further developed by Lee et al. (2002) [5] to study two-dimension air distribution. However, both of them did not consider the effect of the heat conduction through ns. Liang et al. (2001) [6] used a distributed model to analyze the performance of heat exchangers with complex refrigerant circuitry, but no detailed algorithm was presented. So a general model and corresponding effective algorithm used to evaluate the performance is still lacking, and further study is needed. This study attempts to construct a general steady state

mathematical model that can describe any refrigerant circuits, and evaluate the effects of refrigerant distribution and the heat conduction in a n-and-tube heat exchanger. A novel algorithm is also developed to solve the conservation equations and shorten simulating time.

2. Mathematical model A typical n-and-tube heat exchanger generally consists of corrugated or plain n plates assembled over a bank of coils. A distributed parameter model is used to analyze the detailed local behaviors and understand the mechanism of heat and mass transfer, and the whole heat exchanger is divided into several control volumes. Each control volume contains three parts: the refrigerant inside tube, n-and-tube, and the air outside tube. 2.1. Description of tube connection In order to accurately describe the complex refrigerant circuits, an adjacency graph and corresponding adjacent matrix in the graph theory is introduced to describe the connection among each tube, and trace the conuence and division of refrigerant ow. The directed graph is a kind of conceptualized hierarchy, depicted as a set of vertices connected by edges and each edge is endowed with certain direction. As far as heat exchanger considered, one vertex denotes a heat exchange tube, and the edge denotes the relationship between two tubes. Because the refrigerant ow direction has been considered, the edge is also endowed with ow direction.

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Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of a simplied heat exchanger and a single control volume.

Thus the kind of adjacent graph can be used to describe any exible refrigerant circuits. The adjacency matrix is a mathematic data structure used to express above directed graph. The value of matrix element is expressed as follows:
( mi;j Z 0 1 when No: j is not connected to No: i; the value is 0 when No: j is connected to No: i; the value is 1

identify each tube in the heat exchanger, each tube is coded in order from rst row to last row (shown in Fig. 1). There are two additional articial tubes added in #0 and #9, which represent the inlet refrigerant header and outlet refrigerant header, respectively. According to the heat exchanger in Fig. 1, the corresponding directed graph and adjacent matrix M can be obtained, which are presented in Figs. 2 and 3, respectively. 2.2. Equations of control volume 2.2.1. Assumption On the basis of the analysis of actual operating conditions of heat exchanger, the following assumptions are applied: (1) The refrigerant ow inside the tube is one-dimensional axial ow.

According to the adjacent matrix, the simulator will easily get the information of conuence and division in each tube, and trace the refrigerant ow direction. For example, a simplied heat exchanger with complex refrigerant circuitry and typical control volume are shown as Fig. 1, in which 2 rows and 4 columns tubes are assembled and the refrigerant ow splits into two branches. In order to

Fig. 2. The directed graph corresponding to Fig. 1.

Fig. 3. The adjacent matrix corresponding to Fig. 2.

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(2) The heat transfer along tube length direction is neglected. (3) The pressure drop on airside is neglected because it is usually very small.

2.2.4. Governing equations for n-and-tube Considering the heat conduction through ns, the energy equation is expressed as follows: Q1r C Q1a C Qcond Z 0 (9)

2.2.2. Governing equations on refrigerant side Energy equation for refrigerant: Q1r Z Q2r (1)

where, Qcond is the total heat conduction by ns, calculated as follows: Qcond Z Qfront C Qback C Qtop C Qbottom (10)

where, Q1r and Q2r represent the heat exchange by enthalpy difference and that by temperature difference, respectively, calculated as follows: Q1r Z mr hr;in K hr;out  Q2r Z ar Ai Tr;in C Tr;out K Twall 2  (3) (2)

where, Qfront, Qback, Qtop, and Qbottom are heat conductions through ns from front row, back row, upper column, and bottom column, respectively. They are calculated by the temperature difference between the tube wall temperature of current control volume and corresponding temperature of neighbor tube (shown as Fig. 1). Eqs. (1), (4), (6) and (9) are the whole governing equations for a typical control volume. 2.2.5. Analyses on conservation equations The input parameters of a control volume are inlet refrigerant enthalpy hr,in, inlet refrigerant pressure pr,in, refrigerant mass ow rate mr, and inlet air dry bulb temperature Tdb,in, inlet air wet bulb temperature Twb,in, and air mass ow rate ma. Therefore, there are ve unknown variables (Ta,out, Tr,out, hr,out, ha,out, Twall). But when the air/refrigerant state equations are introduced, only three unknown variables (Ta,out, hr,out, and Twall) are left, the set of Eqs. (1), (6), and (9) is solvable. The outlet refrigerant pressure drop can be obtained by Eq. (4). 2.3. Conuence and division of branch For a heat exchanger with a complex refrigerant circuit, the governing equations at the division/conuence points are needed to determine the inlet refrigerant state parameters of down stream branches. The following equations are adapted to branch conuence, and other parameters can be obtained according to following two variables: Pn m kZ1 h hin Z Pn k;out k (11) kZ1 mk pin Z/Z pk;out Z/Z pn;out k Z 1 wn (12)

Here, mr is refrigerant mass ow rate; hr,in and hr,out are inlet and outlet refrigerant specic enthalpies of the control volume, respectively; Tr,in and Tr,out are inlet and outlet refrigerant temperatures of the control volume, respectively. The heat transfer coefcient ar is calculated by empirical correlation. Momentum equation for refrigerant: Dptotal Z Dpf C Dpacc (4)

where, Dptotal, Dpacc and Dpf represent total pressure drop, acceleration pressure drop and friction pressure drop of refrigerant, respectively. In two-phase region, the acceleration pressure drop is calculated as follows:  2  xr;out 1 K xr;out 2 Dpacc Z m2 C r rv 3r;out rl 1 K ar;out  2  xr;in 1 K xr;in 2 (5) K m2 C r rv 3r;in rl 1 K ar;in 2.2.3. Governing equations on airside Energy equation for mainstream air: Q1a Z Q2a (6)

where, Q1a and Q2a represent heat exchange by enthalpy difference and that by temperature difference, Q1a Z ma ha;in K ha;out  Q2a Z aa Ao ho Ta;in C Ta;out K Twall 2  (8) (7)

Here, air mass ow rate ma is obtained based on upstream control volumes in front row; ha,in and ha,out are inlet and outlet air specic enthalpies of the control volume, respectively; Ta,in and Ta,out are inlet and outlet air dry bulb temperatures of the control volume, respectively. The heat transfer coefcient aa is calculated by empirical correlation.

where, hin and pin represent the specic enthalpy and pressure of refrigerant after conuence, respectively; hk,out, pk,out and mk are the specic enthalpy, pressure and mass ow rate of refrigerant at the outlet of the k sub-branch upstream, respectively; n is the number of conuence branch. The following equations are adapted to branch division, and other parameters can be obtained according to following two variables: hout Z h1;in Z/Z hk;in Z/Z hn;in k Z 1 wn (13)

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pout Z p1;in Z/Z pk;in Z/Z pn;in

k Z 1 wn

(14)

where, hout and pout represent the specic enthalpy and pressure of refrigerant before division, respectively; hk,in and pk,in are the specic enthalpy and pressure of refrigerant at the inlet of the k sub-branch downstream, respectively. 2.4. Refrigerant distribution In a heat exchanger with multiple circuits, refrigerant mass ow rate will be adjusted automatically until the refrigerant pressure drops in all circuits from inlet to outlet are equal. Eq. (15) uses a simple expression to reect the relationship between the refrigerant mass ow rate m and the pressure drop Dp according to Jungs correlation. Dp Z Sm2 (15)

process, special empirical heat transfer and pressure drop correlations have been chosen, and listed as Table 1. The properties of refrigerant are based on REFPROP Ver6.0 [17].

3. Algorithm An overall alternating iterative algorithm based on graph-based traversal method is developed to solve the distributed parameter model. In this algorithm, the energy equations of all control volumes are solved simultaneously independent of the momentum equations rstly, and then the momentum equations of all control volumes are solved independent of energy equations. Therefore, the coupled relationship of energy conservation equations and momentum conservation equations is decoupled. Meanwhile, in order to realize above process, the basic concepts of Breadth-rst search (BFS) and Depth-rst search (DFS) in graph theory are introduced to create the appropriate searching path. By comparing with the previous algorithm, which is used to solve those coupled conservation equations, the iteration number has been largely reduced and it leads to sharply reduction of whole simulation time. The computation time with the new method is only 1/40 to 1/60 of the previous one. This algorithm mainly consists of three parts, shown as Fig. 4: (1) Creation of computation sequences, in which two different calculation sequences, called heat transfer path and pressure drop path, are used to accomplish the solving process of energy conservations equations and that of momentum conservation equations. (2) Heat transfer calculation process, which solves the energy conservation equations of all control volumes independent of the momentum equations along the heat transfer path. (3) Pressure drop calculation process, which solves the momentum equations of all control volumes independent of the energy equations along pressure drop path, and then adjusts the refrigerant mass ow rate in each branch based. The solution is iterated until the overall heat conduction of n is less than specied criteria. The following presents the detailed contents of each part. 3.1. Creation of computation sequences 3.1.1. Heat transfer path The BFS is a basic search algorithm that is used to visit all the vertices in directed graph in a given systematic order. If a vertex has several neighbors, it would be equally correct to visit them in any order. By using the concepts of BFS, a heat transfer path is dened that starts from one conuence or division vertex, and trace the following vertices

where, S is the equivalent ow resistance for a given circuit branch. Initially, by assigning the refrigerant mass ow rate in each branch, which starts from the same division point and ends at the outlet of heat exchanger, the refrigerant pressure drop Dpi (iZ1,.,n) in each branch can be obtained, according to Eq. (4), then the value of S in each branch can be got: S1 Z Dp1 Dp Dp ; .; Sk Z 2k ; .; Sn Z 2n m2 mk mn 1 (16)

where, Sk, Dpk, and mk are the equivalent ow resistance, pressure drop and refrigerant mass ow rate of the k branch (kZ1wn), respectively. The distribution of refrigerant mass ow rate in each branch can be adjusted to ensure that the pressure drop of each branch is the same (Dp1ZDp2Z.ZDpn) by using previous calculated equivalent ow resistance Si (iZ 1,.,n), so the ratio of refrigerant mass ow rate in each branch is express as follows: 1 1 1 m1 : m2 : / : mn Z p : p : / : p S1 S2 Sn (17)

Since the sum of the refrigerant mass ow rates is equal to the mass ow rate at the division point, the ratio of the refrigerant mass ow in the k branch is calculated as: SK0:5 3k Z Pn k K0:5 jZ1 Sj (18)

where, 3k is the ratio of the refrigerant mass ow rate in the k branch to the total refrigerant mass ow rate mtotal (kZ 1wn). By the Eq. (18) and total refrigerant mass ow rate mtotal, refrigerant distribution in each branch can be determined. 2.5. Heat transfer and pressure drop correlations In order to simulate the evaporation and condensation

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Table 1 List of applied heat transfer and pressure drop correlations Applied region Refrigerant side Items Heat transfer coefcient Correlations Evaporation Gabrielii and Vamling [7] for two phase, smooth tube Kandlikar [9] for two phase, enhanced tube DittusBoelter [8] for single phase Jung (1989) [12] for two phase, smooth tube ChengShu Kuo [14] for two phase, enhanced tube ColebrookWhite for single phase [15] Wang et al. (1999) [16] for wavy ns Wang et al. (1999) [16] for wavy ns Condensation Shah [8] for two phase, smooth tube Yu and Koyama [10,11] for two phase, enhanced tube DittusBoelter for single phase M.Goto et al. (2001) [13] for two phase, smooth tube Modied Smith et al. (2001) [15] for two phase, enhanced tube Smith et al. (2001) [15] for single phase

Pressure drop

Air side

Heat transfer coefcient Pressure drop

according to the refrigerant ow direction until the other conuence or division one is met. When the refrigerant circuit splits into several branches from one division vertex, the model will search one of branch with the minimum start Tube No. until the other conuence or division vertex is met, then it will go back to the previous division point to nish the remaining branch with the same method. Creation of heat transfer path is present as the following steps: Step 1: based on the adjacency matrix, the heat transfer path starts from the Tube No. 0, and search for the next tube, until the conuence or division vertex is met. Step 2: from the conuence or division vertex, search for the next tube, until another conuence or division vertex is met. Step 3: go on searching the vertices in the same way as step 2, until the last conuence one is reached. As seen in the Fig. 1, the heat transfer paths can be obtained as follows: 0/ 8/ 4 4/ 3/ 2/ 5 4/ 7/ 6/ 5 5/ 1/ 9 3.1.2. Pressure drop path The DFS is another search algorithm, which considers the outgoing edges of a vertex before any neighbors of the vertex By using the concept of DFS, a pressure drop path is dened that starts from one division vertex, and ends at the refrigerant outlet vertex. When the refrigerant circuit splits into several branches from one division vertex, the model will search one of branch with the minimum start Tube No. until the refrigerant outlet point is reached, then it will go back to the division point to nish the remaining branch with the same method.

Creation of the pressure drop path is present as the following steps: Step 1: based on the adjacency matrix, the pressure drop path starts from the Tube No. 0, and search the next tube until the refrigerant outlet point is reached. Step 2: from the division point, search for the next tube, until the outlet point is reached. Step 3: go on searching the vertices in the same way as step 2, until the last division vertex has nished. As seen in the Fig. 1, the corresponding pressure drop path can be obtained as follows: 0/ 8/ 4/ 3/ 2/ 5/ 1/ 9 4/ 3/ 2/ 5/ 1/ 9 4/ 7/ 6/ 5/ 1/ 9

3.2. Heat transfer calculation process Process of heat transfer calculation starts from the inlet refrigerant tubes, and calculates all the control volumes in the heat exchange one by one along the heat transfer path until the last one is completed. By giving the inlet air state parameters of tubes in rst row, which are exposed to the upwind air, the inlet air state parameters of remaining tubes in other rows will be calculated depending on the outlet air state parameters from the upstream tubes. 3.2.1. Heat transfer algorithm of control volume For a control volume, the simulation process begins with a set of inlet known parameters and assumed outlet unknowns on both air and refrigerant side. By assuming the outlet refrigerant specic enthalpy hr,out, outlet air temperature Ta,out, and tube wall temperature Twall, the energy governing equations can be solved. A two-level iteration method is developed to solve the set of equations of

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Fig. 5. Flow chart of heat transfer calculation for one control volume.

Fig. 4. Logical ow chart of a simulation algorithm.

a single control volume. The rst level iteration is to search a suitable temperature of tube wall. The second level iteration is to search suitable outlet air dry bulb temperature and outlet refrigerant specic enthalpy. The ow chart is shown as Fig. 5. 3.2.2. Overall heat transfer calculation For the rst iteration loop, the heat exchange in each control volume can be calculated along heat transfer path one-by-one with refrigerant pressure in each control volume unchanged. After every control volume is computed, the

inlet and outlet air parameters of each control volume are updated; the inlet and outlet refrigerant parameters (enthalpy and temperature) of each control volume are updated, which will be used by pressure drop calculation process. For subsequent iterations, the heat exchange of each control volume is calculated based on the adjusted refrigerant ow rate, which is determined by pressure drop calculation. In the process of iteration, the inlet air properties of each control volume are replaced by the upstream air state. 3.3. Pressure drop calculation process Process of pressure drop calculation starts from the inlet tubes, and calculates all the control volumes in the heat exchange along the pressure drop path one-by-one until the

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Table 2 Conguration parameters for heat exchanger Geometric parameters Number of rows Transverse tube pitch Longitudinal tube pitch Upwind area Wavy n geometric Fin thickness Fin space Value 3 25 mm 21.65 mm 0.229 m2 Micro-n tube Outside diameter Tube wall thickness Micro n height Micro n helix angle Smooth tube Outside diameter Tube wall thickness Geometric parameters Fin corrugation angle Fin collar outside diameter Value 158 9.68 mm Geometric parameters Micro n apex angle Micro n space Value 608 0.20 mm

0.14 mm 1.86 mm

9.40 mm 0.26 mm 0.22 mm 158

9.00 mm 0.35 mm

last one is completed. At the outset of the calculation, the pressure drop of each path is calculated one by one based on the inlet and outlet refrigerant states (enthalpy and temperature) of each control volume, which are calculated by the heat transfer calculation process. After every control volume is computed, the distribution of refrigerant mass ow rate is adjusted to ensure the pressure drops of the pressure drop paths with same start point is the same, the inlet and outlet refrigerant pressure of

each control volume are updated, which will be used by the heat transfer calculation process.

4. Validation of the model In order to verify the reliability and accuracy of this model, the experimental test has been conducted on a actual heat exchanger, which is shown in Fig. 6. This heat exchanger has 3 rows and 16 column tubes. These tubes are assembled with stagger type. The conguration parameters are listed as Table 2. Experimental and predicted values are compared for a number of operating conditions. There are total 40 test data used under various conditions operating as evaporator and condenser: refrigerant mass ow rate is from 40 to 180 kg hK1, air upwind velocity is from 0.5 to 1.5 m sK1, the evaporation saturation temperature is from 4 to 16 8C, and condensation saturation temperature is from 35 to 60 8C. Fig. 7 shows the deviations between predicted heat exchanges and experimental values are within G10%.

Fig. 6. The schematic diagram of refrigerant circuitry.

Fig. 7. Comparison of heat exchange between experimental values and prediction values.

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References
[1] Jia X, Tso CP, Chia PK. A distributed model for prediction of the transient response of an evaporator. Int J Refrig 1995;18: 33642. [2] Judge J, Radermacher R. A heat exchanger model for mixtures and pure refrigerant cycle simulations. Int J Refrig 1997;20: 24455. [3] Theerakulpisut S, Priprem S. Modeling cooling coils. Int Commun Heat Mass Transfer 1998;25:12737. [4] Domanski PA. Simulation of an evaporator with non-uniform one-dimensional air distribution. ASHRAE Trans 1991;1: 793802. [5] Lee JH, Bae SW, Bang KH, Kim MH. Experimental and numerical research on condenser performance for R22 and R407C refrigerants. Int J Refrig 2002;25:37282. [6] Liang SY, Wong TN, Nathan GK. Study on refrigerant circuitry of condenser coils with energy destruction analysis. Appl Therm Engng 2000;20:55977. [7] Gabrielii C, Vamling L. Changes in optimal design of a dryexpansion heat exchanger when replacing R22 with R407C. Int J Refrig 1998;21:51834. [8] Shah MM. A general correlation for heat transfer during lm condensation inside pipes. Int J Heat Mass Transfer 1979;22: 54756. [9] Kandlikar SG, Raykoff T. Predicting ow boiling heat transfer of refrigerants in micron tubes. Enhanced Heat Transfer 1997;4:25768. [10] Miyara A, Nonaka K, Taniguchi M. Condensation heat transfer and ow pattern inside a herringbone-type micro-n tube. Int J Refrig 2000;23:14152. [11] Cavallini A, DelCol D, Doretti L, Longo GA, Rossetto L. Review paper: heat transfer and pressure drop during condensation of refrigerants inside horizontal enhanced tubes. Int J Refrig 2000;23:425. [12] Jung DS, et al. Prediction of pressure drop during horizontal annular ow boiling of pure and mixed refrigerants. Int J Heat Mass Transfer 1989;32:243546. [13] Goto M, Inoue N, Ishiwatari N. Condensation and evaporation heat transfer of R410A inside internally grooved horizontal tubes. Int J Refrig 2001;24:62838. [14] Kuo C-S, Wang C-C. Horizontal ow boiling of R22 in 9.52mm micro-n tubes. Appl Therm 1996;16(8/9):71931. [15] Smith SJ, Shao L, Riffat SB. Pressure drop of HFC refrigerants inside evaporator and condenser coils as determined by CFD. Appl Energy 2001;70:16978. [16] Wang CC, Jang JY, Chiou NF. A heat transfer and friction correlation for wavy n-and-tube heat exchangers. Int J Heat Mass Transfer 1999;42:191924. [17] NIST REFPROP V6.0, National Institute of Standards and Technology, USA.

Fig. 8. Comparison of pressure loss between experimental values and prediction values.

Fig. 8 shows the deviations between predicted pressure losses and experimental values for evaporator are within G 20%. It also shows that the pressure losses of condenser are very small and the absolute erros of the predicted pressure losses of condenser are less than 30 kPa. Such small error of pressure loss in condenser has almost no inuence on the performance of heat exchangers. Figs. 7 and 8 show that the accuracy of the model is acceptable. As the accuracy of the model depends on the accuracies of correlations for heat transfer coefcients and pressure losses, more accurate correlations are needed if better prediction accuracy is required.

5. Conclusions With help of the concepts of directed graph and graphbased search algorithms (BFS and DFS) in graph theory, a general steady state distributed parameter model for the nand-tube heat exchanger is developed. The model makes it possible to analyze the performance of heat exchangers with complex refrigerant circuits. A novel computational algorithm, named alternative iteration method, is also developed to shorten the simulating time by decoupling the calculation of the energy conservation equations and momentum conservation equations. The predicted heat exchanges agree with experimental ones within a maximum error G 10.0%. The predicted refrigerant pressure drop for evaporator agree with experimental ones within a maximum error G20.0% and the maximum error of predicted pressure drop of condenser is less than 30 kPa.