Airflow distribution has significant impact on the performance of finned-tube evaporator. Simulation optimization and experimental study were carried out of fin-tube heater exchange flow path form with three typical air velocity distributions

when the heat exchanger structure size and inlet air state were under certain conditions. The optimization demonstrates that the capacity is increased by 10.3%

3% under upper-triangular and middle-triangular air distribution. The analysis on upper-triangular optimized form show that the high air velocity profile is the key of improving heat transfer performance

and the COP is increased about 8% with upper-triangular air distribution. An experimental rig was built and verification was carried out. The results showed that relative error was in 5%

which indicates that the optimized and experimental results are basically consistent.