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Finned coils

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Finned coils design and selection software

COILR (round tube) and COILM (microchannel tube) are the REF.BOX modules dedicated to the design, virtual prototyping, optimization and commercial characterization of finned coils for heat exchanger manufacturers dedicated to data centres, air handling units, industrial and commercial refrigeration, air conditioning, remote condensers and condensing units.

This software module allows to design and simulate a finned coil heat exchanger with a scientific approach, being able to completely characterize the its thermodynamic and heat-transfer phenomena, the unit operating range, to rapidly and accurately calculate the heat exchanger energy performance and to commercially characterize the unit by defining its descriptions, images, documentation, any associated accessories and price lists distinguished by market.

It’s a must-have software module for all companies focused on finned coil heat exchangers efficient design, optimization and commercialization.

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User friendly
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Commercial management

Design

The finned coils module can create a faithful digital copy of the real unit, allowing its comprehensive definition:

  • Operating fluid: the choice is between many different brines, oils and all the refrigerants currently available on the market, including HFOs, propane (R290) and carbon dioxide (R744);
  • typology: unit typology selection among (evaporators, condensers, gas-coolers, desuperheaters, dry-coolers, etc);
  • geometry: complete characterization of the tube type (round or microchannel tube), of tube and fins geometry and of the tube circuitry using a three-dimensional graphical interface;
  • calibration: user-defined or self-calculated experimental correction coefficients to calibrate the unit nominal performance;
  • user friendly: intuitive graphical interface, rapid special unit generation and Excel files support for massive components and units export and import.

Calculation

REF.BOX is equipped with an extremely robust and advanced numerical engine that allows the units design, virtual prototyping and optimization in terms of costs and energy performance. The calculation engine includes the unit operating constraints returning alarm signals if necessary. A model with a three-dimensional finite volume scheme is also available which is able to graphically characterize all the round tube and microchannel coils possible circuits and to evaluate the effect of convergences and divergences in the refrigerant circuits and the frontal air maldistribution in terms of speed and temperature.

The finned coils module can calculate the unit in different operating modes, in detail:

  • selection: the calculation, using an innovative heuristic optimisation algorithm, creates the finned coil that best fits the load constraints given the operating boundary conditions, encumbrance, pressure drops and fluid velocity constraints;
  • check: the calculation returns the unit maximum capacity given the operating boundary conditions;
  • input capacity step: it is possible to calculate the unit operating performance for a given user-defined capacity step;
  • normative: it is possible to calculate the unit performance in accordance to the selected normative methodology requirements (Gross, Net, EN 1216, etc.) as far as it concerns the fans thermal and electrical contributions evaluation and the numerical calculation results formatting;
  • catalogue: catalogue data is a tool for generating performance table based on variable boundary conditions and load.

Commercial characterization

REF.BOX allows a complete commercial characterization of units. This characterization is used in the REF.WEB configurator for unit commercial selection. In particular, it’s possible to assign to each unit:

  • descriptions: descriptions and technical specification items definition (multilingual);
  • images and dimensional: images and dimensional association (multilingual);
  • documentation: manuals and brochures association (multilingual);
  • operating limits: envelope and operating limits definition;
  • accessories: accessories definition, including rules, and their combination with the unit;
  • price lists: units and accessories differentiated association by price list;
  • user level: user level assignment to manage unit visibility within the web configurator.

User friendly

REF.BOX extremely intuitive graphic interface and its intrinsic characteristics allow the user to quickly and easily manage all the details necessary to define the heat pump, and to fast create and manipulate entire product series. In addition, the provided Excel files allow the massive import of hundreds of components, accessories, descriptions, price lists and fully-defined refrigeration units.

The main REF.BOX features are:

  • refrigeration components creation, copying and editing both from the graphical interface and from Excel;
  • heat pumps creation, copying and editing both from the graphical interface and from Excel;
  • the instantaneous creation of new units or a series with different architectures starting from an existing one, for example the creation of an only heating heat pump starting from a reversible one;
  • special heat pumps rapid creation and web publishing starting from standard units;
  • components replacement and parameters modification for tens of refrigeration units at the same time, for example the setting of pressure switches of an entire series or the compressor replacement for all units of the same size in a given series;
  • entire series duplication for OEM management, including the possibility of binding them technically and/or commercially to keep data always aligned to the original units;
  • accessories creation, copying and editing both from the graphical interface and from Excel;
  • accessories coupling to the heat pump by managing their number, coding, price, weight, refrigerant charge, dimensions and unit operating range;
  • multilingual descriptions and documentation definition and editing both from the graphical interface and from Excel;
  • automatic synchronization with the REF.WEB commercial configurator database giving the opportunity, for example, to publish special units and to update price lists in a really fast way.

Commercial management

Thanks to REF.BOX, in addition to the heat pumps technical characterization, the user can also manage autonomously and completely the commercial stuff, associating all the accessories, price lists, texts, documents and images necessary to the selection and drafting of the offer documents within the REF.WEB commercial configurator.

Specifically, REF.BOX allows to define entire series or single heat pumps:

  • multilingual descriptions;
  • multilingual images and dimensional that may be differentiated according to the selected accessories;
  • multilingual documentation to be attached to the offer;
  • operating limits subordinate to the selected accessories;
  • accessories with rules of incompatibility, coupling, prerequisite, alternative associates, alternatives of which one is always mandatory;
  • accessories association with management of number, coding, images, descriptions, price, weight, refrigerant charge;
  • coupling with one or more markets or distributors;
  • distinct price lists by market type or by distributor;
  • commercial visibility through user level assignment.