As anybody who has ever designed heat transfer equipment will tell you, it all comes down to tradeoffs. The specifics of the application and the priorities of the equipment’s end user will always have the greatest impact on a heat exchanger’s eventual design. For some applications, minimizing a coil’s total cost is the top priority. In such situations, our engineers will try to design a heat exchanger that’s as small as possible, using the least amount of raw materials and labor needed to meet the thermal requirement. On the other hand, for a heavy industrial application where service life and durability are the considerations of record, our approach to heat exchanger design would be entirely different.

Well, it’s the start of a new year and that can only mean one thing – it’s AHR Expo season! This February’s show in Orlando will mark the 42^nd year that Super Radiator Coils has exhibited at the expo (come visit us at booth #3361!), and we’re looking forward to bringing new people, products, and ideas to Orlando. 

We asked a few SRC team members who will be attending the show some things they’re looking to accomplish during their time in Orlando, some topics they expect to be prevalent, and their thoughts on the event in general.

Well, believe it or not, 2024 is just about over. It’s been quite a busy year in the world of HVAC, manufacturing, and heat transfer, and we thought we’d run through a brief recap of some of this year’s biggest headlines before we officially turn the calendar to 2025.

There's a litany of terms and definitions to keep straight when it comes to heat transfer and heat transfer equipment. Add in the fact that certain industries and applications may use the same term to define different things and it can get pretty confusing. For this post, we thought it'd be helpful to create a list of terms that relate to heat exchangers - their design, thermal performance, and some topics relating to how they're manufactured.

When it comes to heat exchangers, there’s a host of decisions that are impacted by application-specific factors. One such choice is the heat exchanger’s working fluid. There are dozens if not hundreds of working fluids to choose from, each with its own properties and applications with which those properties are compatible. For this article, we thought it’d be useful to create a list of some common working fluids grouped by the temperature classification in which they’re typically grouped.

Capacity and coefficient of performance (COP) are both used to measure HVAC equipment's effectiveness, but they tell different stories. Capacity, measured in tonnage or Btu./hr., refers to a unit's ability to heat or cool a space. COP measures efficiency - the relationship between a system's performance and the cost of the electricity needed to power it. To many - especially those in the commercial HVAC market - COP is the more consequential metric due to its direct impact on the operating costs for unit manufacturers' customers.

But for OEMs that have opted for R-454B as their replacement for R-410A units, there are some interesting performance implications associated with making that switch. Specifically, R-454B typically offers better COP, but based on our recent performance testing, there are scenarios in which its capacity is less than R-410A.

Zeotropic refrigerant blends have become more prevalent than ever, as regulation has pushed the HVAC-R and related industries away from single-component fluids as well as popular azeotropic* blends like R-410A. But with zeotropic mixtures comes temperature glide, an in-depth understanding of which can help you be sure that your performance calculations are as accurate as possible when designing a unit or system.

The evaporator coil is a critical part of any compression-expansion refrigeration cycle and is one of at least two heat exchangers used to capture and direct thermal energy for useful purposes in such systems. This article will cover some fundamentals of evaporator coils – their function, componentry, and some information on how to best design them to ensure proper function.

Unlike standard air conditioning or heating systems, heat pumps have the ability to serve both functions. Because of that, the coil selection process for heat pumps differs somewhat from non-heat pump designs. Check out our latest video to learn more about some best practices when running heat pump coil selections in Enterprise, Super Radiator's coil selection software, so you can be sure your coils perform as needed in both heating and cooling modes.

In any compression-expansion refrigeration cycle, there are (at least) two heat exchangers working in tandem to condition a space, one of which is the condenser coil. In basic terms, the function of the condenser coil is to take the heat absorbed by the system’s evaporator and move it away from the space being conditioned.

In this article, we’ll expand on the condenser coil’s function, look at some typical condenser coil configurations, and finish by discussing some design considerations for common condenser applications.