In order to meet the requirement of simulating different types of heat exchangers which are widely used in refrigerating system by a simulation tool

a general 3D distributed-parameter numerical design tool

HXSIM

is introduced. A general simulation framework was adopted to establish a general purpose solver. With the help of control volume method

all types of heat exchangers can be divided into four types

which are fin-tube control volume

microchannel-fin control volume

wire-tube control volume and plate-tube control volume. There exists three objects in each control volume

which are refrigerant

air and tube fin (tube wire or tube plate)

and the governing equations for each object are established according to its heat transfer and pressure drop characteristic. OpenGL was applied in building an interactive graphic user-friendly interface

and in developing HXSIM to facilitate a modular

highly flexible and customized simulation tool. The model prediction with HXSIM were verified against experimental data

which shows the maximum deviation for heat exchange capacity is within 10% and the maximum deviation for air side pressure drop is within 1.16 Pa.