The performance of air coolers with different flow distribution was simulated after establishing the model of air cooler evaporator with different kinds of flow distribution

and the air cooler with optimal flow distribution which adopted R717 as refrigerant was tested using the refrigerating capacity test method with liquid feed pump in this paper. The results indicate that the performance of air cooler was optimal with the flow distribution of two circuits in a single row. The refrigerating capacity was 44.3 kW at evaporating temperature ﹣25 ℃ as the pumping ratio increased to 3.5 which was the optimum value to the air cooler. The heat transfer coefficient was enhanced by 25.5% from 27.4 W/(m2?K) to 34.4 W/(m2?K) with the evaporating temperature varying from ﹣25 ℃ to 0 ℃ and the refrigerating capacity increased from 44.3 kW to 64.3 kW which achieved a 45.15% enhancement at the same range of evaporating temperature. The experimental data also verified that the cooling capacity of experimental values were approximately 5% lower than that of simulation values

which indicated the validity of air cooler model.