Experimental analysis on drying performance of a condensing clothes dryer with two new plate-fin heat exchangers

In this paper, an off-set fin heat exchanger (OSFHE) and a flying-wing fin heat exchanger (FWFHE) were developed for the condenser of a condensing clothes dryer. They were used to replace the slit fin heat exchanger (SFHE), which is the prototype condenser. Performance pa-rameters, like condensation rate, IEC energy efficiency index (EEI) and specific moisture extraction rate (SNEER), were used to assess the dehumidification performance of the heat ex-changers and the drying performance of the dryer. Though the fin areas of OSFHE and FWFHE are 20% and 34.2% less than that of SFHE, the experiment results indicated that OSFHE and FWFHE had a faster condensation rate than SFHE during the main drying stage. And the heat exchanger with a faster condensation rate also led to less power consumption of the dryer in most tests. Compared with using SFHE, using OSFHE could decrease the EEI of the dryer by 0.43%. Using FWFHE could reduce the EEI of the dryer by 1.19% and improve the EU energy efficiency class of the dryer from Class C to Class B. Both OSFHE and FWFHE are able to replace SFHE and become a new generation of condensers for clothes dryers.