Effect of Variable Heating Load on the Refrigerant Distribution of a Dual Cold-Plate System

This study examines the refrigerant distribution of a dual cold-plate system subject to the influence of heating load, using a R-134a based vapor compression system with a nominal capacity ranging from 50 W to 250 W. The cold plate is of identical configuration. Initially, test is performed under an equal heating load for each cold plate (70 W), which then gives rise to a uniform distribution and equal outlet superheat condition. For an unequal heating load, it is found that the distribution of mass flowrate subject to the influence of heating load is strongly related to the outlet states of the two cold plates. For the condition where one of the cold plates is in superheated state while the other is in saturated state, the mass flowrate for the fixed heating load is lower than that of smaller heating load, and the difference increases when the heating load gets smaller due to the influence of accelerational pressure drop. A maximum of 17% difference is seen at a loading ratio of 0.571 (40 W/70 W). For the condition where both outlet states of the cold plate are at superheated states, the mass flowrate for the fixed heating load is marginally higher than that of the smaller heating load, and the difference is insensitive to the increase in heating load. For this situation, the effect of accelerational pressure is negligible, and it is mainly attributed to two-phase/single-phase distribution pertaining to the effect of heating load.