SINDA/FLUINT
is used in automotive climate control and building HVAC design to
simulate transient operation of vapor compression (VC) cycles and
for the prediction of pressures, coefficients of performance, and
condenser/evaporator liquid positions in a closed two-phase system
with a fixed fluid charge. The program can also be used to size
components, to estimate the impact of tolerances and other variations,
and to help estimate uncertainties given limited test data.
This widespread
application of SINDA/FLUINT to VC cycles is largely due to an increased
demand for transient modeling of air conditioning systems needed
to improve energy efficiency. SINDA/FLUINT’s unique abilities to
analyze transient two-phase phenomena
have been recognized as being critical to achieving accurate performance
predictions.
A key advantage
of using SINDA/FLUINT to model VC cycle air conditioners is that
it is not written specifically to address such systems: the general-purpose
nature of the code can be exploited to integrate the VC cycle model
with detailed models of the application (vehicle, building, electronics
cabinet, etc.).