Component Makers Work Toward 13 SEER

Component Makers Work Toward 13 SEER

Coil Configurations

Many major OEMs make their own heat exchangers, said Craig Grohman, Modine’s program manager for microchannel launch in the HVAC market. “Others, including some smaller companies, are looking at an all-aluminum brazed product we make — microchannel heat exchangers.”

The approaching 13 SEER deadline comes as Modine launches a product line called the PF2.

It is based on parallel-flow or microchannel coils long made by Modine for the automotive and truck markets.

Modine makes round tube plate fin (RTPF) coils with copper tube with aluminum fins, used in the majority of HVACR applications including residential air conditioners, but Grohman said the microchannel coils will become more common in the HVACR market because of efficiency and refrigerant changes pending between 2006 and 2010.

Modine showcased that line at a special meeting during the International Air-Conditioning, Heating, Refrigerating Exposition (AHR Expo) in Orlando Feb. 7-9.

Modine says its PF2 aluminum microchannel technology was de-signed to increase heat transfer coefficients, decrease heat exchanger sizes, improve durability, and increase corrosion resistance.

Amos Snow III, president and chief executive officer of Bois D’Arc International, said the thick-wall copper his company uses has helped bring more demand for his coil.

New refrigerants being adopted by some OEMs operate at higher pressure ranges, he noted. “We engineer coils to fit the applications, so if they need higher condensing capacity we can re-engineer the coils to achieve that.” The company makes both OEM and replacement coils for HVAC use.

He said the company experienced a 70-percent increase in business last year and expects “phenomenal” growth this year, increasing employment from 18 to 40 and more than doubling that number in 2006. Bois D’Arc International recently relocated from Kilgore to Longview, Texas, and plans to build a 45,000-square-foot building in addition to the 35,000-square-foot building it occupies now. (The News, Jan. 10, 2005.)

Using nothing smaller than 3/8-inch tube diameters helps Bois D’Arc achieve “about any performance criteria that needs to be met,” he said. His company makes completed coil assemblies and is moving away from a louvered fin design to a high-pitch corrugation. Snow said that avoids the plugging up that often robs the efficiency of louvered-fin assemblies. The high-pitch corrugation can be cleaned in the field and is more cost effective, he asserted.