Thermal Science and Engineering Progress 20 (2020) 100479

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Thermal Science and Engineering Progress

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tsep

Thermal-hydraulic characterization and system-level optimization of T

microchannel condensers for household refrigeration applications☆
Joel Boeng , Renata S. Rametta, Cláudio Melo, Christian J.L. Hermes
⁎

POLO Research Laboratories, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Federal University of Santa Catarina, 88040970 Florianópolis, SC, Brazil

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: This paper is aimed at evaluating the applicability of fan-supplied microchannel heat exchanger technology as
Microchannel condenser condensers in household refrigerating appliances. A mathematical model was developed to predict the heat
Household refrigerator transfer rate and the air-side pressure drop of microchannel heat exchangers. Such a model was incorporated
Energy consumption into a simulation platform for household refrigerators, which allowed correlating the geometry of the heat
Modelling
exchanger with the energy consumption of the appliance. Experiments were carried out in a closed-loop wind-
Optimization
tunnel facility and also in a climatic chamber, the former for leveraging the condenser characteristics whereas
the latter provided data for validating the system simulation model. While the predictions for the heat transfer
rate and the air-side pressure drop in the condenser remained within ± 10% and ± 20% error bands, the system
simulation model was able to predict energy consumption with errors within ± 3.5%. Sensitivity analyzes
pointed out 13% energy consumption reduction when a 200-mm high, 180-mm wide and 72-mm deep micro-
channel condenser with 200 fins per meter and 46 rectangular channels of 1.2 mm of hydraulic diameter is
adopted.

1. Introduction
Forced-draft condensers are regularly used in household re-
frigerators due to the enhanced heat transfer rate. Hence, an airflow
system, comprised by a fan, the condenser itself and inlet and outlet
ducts are accommodated into the compressor niche, demanding a
compact, low impedance design. Because of its high heat transfer rates
per unit of volume, microchannel condensers have been used in air
conditioning systems and automotive radiators for more than a decade,
albeit being a costly solution for household applications. However, cost
is not prohibitive any longer due to recent technological advances in
the manufacturing processes.
Furthermore, microchannel heat exchangers can also lead to re-
frigerant charge reduction, which is particularly relevant when flam-
mable refrigerants like hydrocarbons are being used. Shao et al. [25], in
turn, simulated the behavior of microchannel condensers in serpentine
format and observed that the refrigerant charge is half of that found in
similar heat exchangers but with vertical distributors. Nevertheless,
microchannel heat exchangers may suffer from a nonuniform re-
frigerant distribution in the microchannel ports, and also large pressure
drops both on the refrigerant and air sides. Huang et al. [15] in-
vestigated the refrigerant nonuniformity in the microchannels with
vertical distributors, pointing out that gravity plays a dramatic role on
the flow distribution in a microchannel condenser of an automotive air
conditioning system. Irregular distribution of refrigerant is an intrinsic
problem for long vertical distributors, barely occurring in microchannel
condensers assembled in serpentine format. In contrast, the latter are
subject to a higher internal pressure drop due to the higher local mass
flow rate (in each channel) and longer length.
Many studies in the literature aimed at the application of micro-
channel heat exchangers as condensers in refrigeration systems, espe-
cially for air conditioners. Park and Hrnjak [21] observed a 13.1% raise
in the coefficient of performance (COP) of a residential air conditioning
system when the regular fin-on-tube condenser was replaced by a mi-
crochannel condenser with vertical distributors. In addition, the au-
thors observed a drop of 2.5 °C in the condensing temperature, a re-
duction in the refrigerant side pressure drop from 166 kPa to 57 kPa,
and a 9.2% reduction in the refrigerant charge. More recently, Tosun
et al. [27] investigated the application of a forced-draft mini-channel
condenser into a no-frost household refrigerator. Two mini-channel
condenser designs operating under different capillary tube restriction
and refrigerant charge were assessed. With both capillary tube length
and refrigerant charge optimized, the authors reported a reduction of
19% in the energy consumption and 8% in the refrigerant charge when

☆
An abridged version of this manuscript was presented at the 17th International Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Conference at Purdue, July 9–12, 2018.
⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: joel@polo.ufsc.br (J. Boeng).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsep.2020.100479
Received 4 November 2019; Received in revised form 11 January 2020; Accepted 12 January 2020
Available online 22 January 2020
2451-9049/ © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
J. Boeng, et al. Thermal Science and Engineering Progress 20 (2020) 100479

Nomenclature V condenser volume, m3

v velocity, m s−1
Roman
Greek
A area, m2
Acoil coil surface area, m2 α parameter, dimensionless
Af face area, m2 β compactness factor, m−1
Amin minimum free flow area, m2 η0 fins efficiency, dimensionless
Atotal total heat transfer area, m2 ρ density, kg m−3
f friction factor, dimensionless µ viscosity, Pa s−1
G mass flux, kg m−2 s−1 σ dimensionless free-flow passage, area ratio
H condenser height, m Θ louver angle, degree
ℏ heat transfer coefficient, W m−2 K−1
j Colburn factor, dimensionless Subscripts
Llouver louver length, m
P pressure, Pa air air
Pr Prandtl number, dimensionless ext external
Q air flow rate, m3 s−1 in inlet
ReLp Reynolds number (louver base), dimensionless int internal
s standard deviation max maximum
t student coefficient ms related to measurement system
u uncertainty n counter
U propagated uncertainty out outlet
UA overall thermal conductance, W K−1 sd related to standard deviation

the mini-channel condenser was used when compared to the conven- Sigwalt [5], the use of water as a working fluid in the testing facility
tional system – a forced-draft wire-on-tube condenser. The present work instead of a condensing refrigerant reduces the measurement un-
is therefore aimed at the application of forced-draft microchannels as certainties without affecting the performance as the heat transfer re-
condensers in household refrigerators, departing from the heat ex- sistance is ruled by the air-side. The air flow rate was measured by a set
changers characteristics obtained by means of an open-loop wind- of nozzles, whereas the mass flow rate was measured using a Coriolis-
tunnel facility to the component matching and system-level optimiza- type flow meter. All variables were monitored and recorded in real
tion focused on energy savings. time, with reading intervals below 1 s. Energy balances on the air or
water sides provide the respective heat transfer rates, which shall agree
to within ± 10% error bands. The final heat transfer rate is taken as the
2. Condenser characterization
linear average of these figures.
The overall thermal conductance coefficient (UA) was calculated
2.1. Test planning
from the so-called ε-NTU method for heat exchangers with mixed Cmin
and unmixed Cmax, where C is the thermal capacity [16]. The heat
The condensers used in this work are comprised of two small dis-
transfer rate was also expressed by means of the Colburn j-factor, cal-
tributors placed horizontally at the inlet and outlet of a coil with par-
culated as follows:
allel microchannels and louvered fins, as depicted in Figs. 1 and 2. Two
types of refrigerant-side cross sections were tested: one with 31 parallel 0.
2/3
ext Prair
circular channels with 0.64-mm diameter, and another with 12 parallel j=
air . Vair . cp, air (1)
rectangular channels with 1.24-mm hydraulic diameter. Four heat ex-
changers were selected for each cross section, based on the available where,
space inside the compressor niche, totaling 8 samples. The fin density 1
and the condenser depth were fixed for all samples due to manu- Atotal Atotal
0. ext =
facturing constraints. UA int . Aint (2)
Table 1 summarizes the samples geometry. The circular section
The water side heat transfer coefficient was calculated by the cor-
condensers are the odd and the rectangular section ones the even. An
relation proposed by Gnielinski [11], which is a function of the friction
additional sample with 7 parallel rectangular channels with 1.2-mm
factor, in this case calculated through the Shah and Sekulic [24]
hydraulic diameter was also evaluated, which differ substantially from
the others, especially in depth and fin density.
The condensers were tested in an open-loop wind-tunnel calori-
meter facility designed and constructed according to the ASHRAE 37
(1987), 41.2 (1988) and 51 (1999) standards [2–4], being comprised by
two independent circuits, namely air and water sides, as depicted in
Fig. 3. The tests were carried out with air flow rates spanning 50 to
140m3h−1, which is typical range for domestic appliances. The air
temperature at the wind-tunnel inlet was kept constant at 21 °C by
means of an air conditioning system in series with a PID-controlled
electrical heater. The water inlet temperature was kept constant at
40 °C by a thermostatic bath, whereas the water mass flow rate was
controlled to maintain the inlet and outlet water temperatures differ-
ence at 3 °C. As mentioned by Hoke et al. [14] and Barbosa Jr. and Fig. 1. Microchannel condenser samples considered in the present work.

2
J. Boeng, et al. Thermal Science and Engineering Progress 20 (2020) 100479

Fig. 2. Geometric parameters of the microchannel condenser samples.

Table 1 overall thermal conductances and Colburn j-factors are within the un-
Samples geometry. certainty levels corresponding to ± 5%, ± 8%, ± 4%, ± 7.5% and ±
Samples #1/#2 #3/#4 #5/#6 #7/#8 Extra
8.5%, respectively (see the Appendix).

Number of passes [–] 10 12 14 18 18

Passes pitch [mm] 9.1 9.1 9.1 9.1 10 2.2. Experimental results
Height [mm] 83.8 101.6 119.4 157.5 180
Width [mm] 91.7 117.1 142.5 167.9 200
Depth [mm] 31.8 31.8 31.8 31.8 12 Fig. 4a depicts the overall thermal conductance as a function of air
Coil thickness [mm] 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.5 2 flow rate for all samples of Table 1. As expected, the condensers with
Fin height [mm] 7.6 7.6 7.6 7.6 8 the largest external heat transfer area presented the higher overall
Fin density [fins.m−1] 1000 1000 1000 1000 700
thermal conductance. Considering that its measurement uncertainty is
Fin thickness [mm] 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1
Face area [m2] 0.0077 0.012 0.017 0.026 0.036
around ± 9%, one can note that the samples #1 and #2 show the same
Minimum area [m2] 0.0057 0.0088 0.013 0.020 0.027 performance regardless of the number or shape of the microchannels.
Total heat transfer area [m2] 0.46 0.71 1.02 1.57 0.54 The same analysis also applies to condensers (#3 and #4) and (#5 and
#6), confirming that the heat transfer rate is not significantly affected
by the internal convection coefficient in these heat exchangers. None-
theless, differences of up to 29% in the overall thermal conductance
were found for samples #7 and #8, indicating that the number and
shape of the microchannels is relevant when the heat exchanger has a
larger heat transfer area. One can note that a larger heat transfer area
implies a higher heat transfer rate followed by a higher mass flow rate
on the water side and, consequently, a change in flow patterns from
laminar to turbulent, particularly in the condenser #7. Fig. 4b shows
the Colburn j-factor for all samples as a function of the Reynolds
number (ReLp = QLlouver /Amin µ ). The differences observed between
samples #1 to #8 are not so significant, albeit the extra one presented
much higher j-factors which is due to density of fins and depth of the
condenser.
The air-side pressure drop was obtained from the static pressure
measurements at the inlet and outlet of the heat exchanger. Fig. 5a
Fig. 3. Schematic representation of the open-loop wind-tunnel calorimeter. shows the pressure drop as a function of the air flow rate for all con-
densers. In general, the operating air flow rate of the condenser side of a
typical frost-free household refrigerator is around 60 m3h−1, and its
correlation for laminar flow, and Bhatti and Shah [6] for the transition/
respective total air flow system impedance is approximately 15 Pa,
turbulent flows. The air-side pressure drop was measured by a differ-
including the air-side pressure drop of the condenser. The pressure
ential pressure transducer installed at inlet and outlet of the heat ex-
drops in samples #1 to #4, both with small face area, are so high that
changer, and the friction factor was calculated as follows:
hinder the use of these heat exchangers in domestic refrigeration ap-
plication. In contrast, the pressure drop of the extra sample are suffi-
Amin 2. Pair 2
Amin
f= air air , in air , in
1 1+ ciently low (from 1.0 to 4.5 Pa) to be successfully used in such appli-
2
Atotal air , in Gair , max air , out Af2 (3) cations. Also, the friction factor is illustrated in Fig. 5b as a function of
the Reynolds number. In this case, all samples showed similar f-factors
Accounting for all instrument errors and propagated uncertainties, due to the same types of fins and coil design.
the air-side pressure drops, friction factors, volumetric air flow rates,

3
J. Boeng, et al.
Fig. 4. Summary of condenser thermal characteristics: (a) overall thermal conductance, and (b) Colburn j-factor.
2.3. Data correlation
Fig. 6a compares the j-factors obtained in this work with the pre-
dictions of different correlations available found in the literature (e.g.,
[10,7,8,18,20,26]), showing that none of them was able to reproduce
appropriately the experimental results obtained with samples #1 to #8.
Therefore, the following correlation was proposed for fitting the data
gathered in the present work:
3Re 0.18 0.65
j = 10 Lp (4)
where α is a dimensionless parameter defined as = H/ , whereas β
is the compactness factor defined by the ratio of total air-side heat
transfer area to external volume of the condenser ( = Atotal / V ), H is the
condenser height, and σ is the dimensionless air-side free-flow area
ratio (σ = Amin/Af). The predictions of the proposed correlation are
compared with the experimental data in Fig. 6b, where one can see that
eq. (4) can predict 95% of the data within a ± 15% error band. The
correlation is valid for 50 ≤ ReLp ≤ 550 and 180 ≤ α ≤ 360.
The friction factors were also compared with correlations from the
available literature [10,8,18,20]. As shown in Fig. 7a, none of them
were able to reproduce the experimental data properly. Therefore, a
new correlation was developed for samples #1 to #8 with the same
range of application of equation (4), being as follows:
f = 10 2ReLp0.43 0.87
(5)
Fig. 7b shows that the proposed correlation agrees reasonably well
with the experimental data with 98% of the datapoints within a ± 15%
error band.
For the extra sample, which has a distinct fin density from that of
condensers #1 to #8, it was observed that the correlations of Chang and
Wang [8] and Ryu and Lee [23] reasonably correlate the experimental
data within an error band of ± 10%, as depicted in Fig. 8a. The latter
was therefore selected, which is valid for 100 ≤ ReLp ≤ 3000. Simi-
larly, a correlation in the literature was identified to predict the friction
Fig. 5. Summary of condenser hydraulic characteristics: (a) pressure drop and (b) friction factor.
4
Thermal Science and Engineering Progress 20 (2020) 100479
factor for the extra condenser. As shown in Fig. 8b, the correlation
proposed by Kim and Bullard [18], with an application range of
100 ≤ ReLp ≤ 600, satisfactorily reproduces the experimental data
with maximum deviations of ± 20%.
3. System-level evaluation
3.1. Refrigerator testing
Besides the thermal–hydraulic evaluation in the wind tunnel, some
selected samples were installed in a household refrigerator to evaluate
system performance as well as to generate data for the validation of the
refrigeration simulation model. A French-door bottom-mount frost-free
refrigerator with a 166-liter freezer compartment placed below a 374-
liter fresh food compartment was used. The refrigeration system is
comprised of a reciprocating compressor, a forced-draft wire-and-tube
condenser and a finned-tube evaporator. The system is charged with
51 g of R600a (nominal). The appliance was evaluated in an environ-
mental chamber according to a standardized energy consumption tests
[17]. The power measurements were taken by a digital analyzer with an
accuracy of ± 0.1% of the readings. Accounting for all instrument er-
rors and propagated uncertainties, the temperatures, the refrigerant
mass flow rate and the energy consumption are within the uncertainty
level corresponding to ± 0.2 °C, ± 0.01 kg h−1 and ± 2% (see the
Appendix).
The samples were selected based on their overall thermal con-
ductance and air-side pressure drop, with special attention given to the
pressure drop, since the original airflow system, including the fan, was
not modified. The extra sample as well as the samples #7 and #8 were
selected to be evaluated in the refrigerator. Table 2 shows the energy
consumption, the overall thermal conductance, the airflow rate, the
refrigerant mass flow rate and other relevant parameters.
It is worth noting that the extra condenser lead to a reduction of
approximately 7% in energy consumption, when compared to the ori-
ginal wire-on-tube condenser. It was also noted that the replacement of
J. Boeng, et al.
Fig. 6. Summary of j-factor reduction exercise: (a) comparison among several correlations from the open literature, and (b) predictions of the proposed correlation.
the original condenser by sample #8 did not cause any substantial
changes in performance, regardless of the considerable higher UA.
Moreover, condenser #7 presented an increase of 1.7% in energy
consumption. It is further noted that the air flow rate of condensers # 7
and # 8 has been reduced by approximately 38% due to the excessive
pressure drop provided by the high fin density. Note that reducing the
volumetric air flow rate also decreases the external convection through
the compressor, reducing its volumetric efficiency. Decreasing volu-
metric efficiency slightly reduces the refrigerant mass flow rate, which
in turn depletes cooling capacity and increases energy consumption.
Moreover, among the samples, condenser #7 presented the highest inlet
condenser temperature and the lowest refrigerant mass flow rate, pos-
sibly due to the highest refrigerant-side pressure drop. Table 2 also
shows the average compressor discharge and inlet/outlet condenser
temperatures during an on-cycle of an energy consumption test. Note
that those temperatures are substantially lower when the extra con-
denser is adopted, which contributes to the lower energy consumption
values.
3.2. Simulation model
The correlations obtained in this study for the serpentine-type mi-
crochannel condensers were compared with an in-house tailor-made
refrigerator simulation platform for domestic refrigerators [12,13]. The
condenser operation is characterized by three distinct regions, namely
superheating, condensation, and subcooling. Latent heat transfer occurs
in the condensation region, while sensible heat transfer characterizes
both other regions. Therefore, the condenser model was developed
based on the discretization of the serpentine into nonoverlapping con-
trol volumes using a two-dimensional mesh in order to predict the re-
frigerant state, the temperature distribution, and the pressure drop
along the heat exchanger. The model was divided into two submodels,
namely (i) thermal and (ii) hydrodynamic, which provide the heat
transfer rate and the pressure drop, respectively.
Fig. 7. Summary of f-factor reduction exercise: (a) comparison among several correlations from the open literature, and (b) predictions of the proposed correlation.
5
Thermal Science and Engineering Progress 20 (2020) 100479
For the thermal submodel, the simplifying assumptions were:
steady-state regime, one-dimensional air flow rate, uniform air and
refrigerant distribution, microchannels and fins with constant cross
section, uniformly distributed fins, uniform control volume wall tem-
perature, and no axial conduction on the tube wall. Energy balances are
performed in each region, both on the refrigerant and air sides. Since
the fluid state at the control volumes outlet is unknown, the ε-NTU
method was chosen for the heat transfer process. The internal convec-
tion coefficient in the two-phase region was calculated by the correla-
tion proposed by Kim and Mudawar [19], while the correlation pro-
posed by Adams et al. [1] was used for both monophasic regions.
Finally, the friction factor parameter was derived from air-side static
pressure measurements. More detailed information about the simula-
tion model can be found in Rametta [22].
The model validation exercise was performed with the original
wire-on-tube condenser as well as the extra sample, and condensers #7
and #8. Table 3 compares the model prediction with the experimental
values of energy consumption (EC), compressor run time ratio (RTR)
and compressor power (WK). Note that the model can reasonably pre-
dict the experimental data with a maximum deviation of ± 3.5% in
energy consumption. The energy consumption prediction for the system
with condenser #7 was hindered due to the difficulty to predict the
pressure drop on the refrigerant side, which is higher for that specific
sample.
3.3. Optimization exercise
The system simulation model was then used to find an optimum
condenser geometry considering the energy consumption as the re-
sponse. Three parameters were evaluated, namely fins density (from
100 m−1 to 700 m−1), condenser depth (from 12 mm to 102 mm), and
number of passes (from 16 to 20). All other geometric parameters were
held constant and identical to the extra sample. It must be mentioned
that the number of microchannel ports increases linearly with the
J. Boeng, et al. Thermal Science and Engineering Progress 20 (2020) 100479

Fig. 8. Prediction of the data obtained for the extra condenser sample: (a) j-factor, and (b) f-factor.

Table 2 month), i.e. 13% energy savings in comparison with the original con-
Energy consumption results for different condensers. figuration.
WoT #7 #8 Extra
4. Summary and conclusions
Energy consumption (kWh/month) 75.9 77.2 75.3 71.4
UA (W K−1) 7.1 15.9 29.7 25.8
Airflow rate (m3 h−1) 60.0 37.2 37.2 61.5
The aim of this work was investigating the effect of forced-draft
Compressor discharge temperature (°C) 57.5 61.8 59.0 54.6 microchannel condensers in a specific household refrigerator. To this
Condenser inlet temperature (°C) 46.3 50.6 47.7 41.0 end, a mathematical model was developed and validated with con-
Condenser outlet temperature (°C) 44.8 40.2 41.0 37.3 denser data obtained by means of a wind-tunnel calorimeter, allowing
Subcooling degree (°C) 3.7 3.2 3.0 2.6
the evaluation of the impact of the microchannel condenser geometry
Refrigerant mass flow rate (kg h−1) 2.33 2.27 2.36 2.45
Refrigerant charge (g) 58.0 51.2 57.4 57.0 on the energy consumption of the refrigerator. The main outcomes of
this work are summarized as follows:

Table 3 • The heat transfer rate and air-side pressure drop correlations can
Validation of the system simulation model. predict the experimental counterparts within error bands of ± 10%
and ± 20%, respectively.
•
Experimental Model Error (%)
The system simulation platform was validated against experimental
#7 EC (kWh.month −1
) 77.3 74.8 3.3 data obtained for the refrigerator assembled with different samples,
RTR (–) 0.65 0.62 5.4 showing maximum deviations of ± 3.5%.

#8
WK (W)

EC (kWh.month−1)
138.0

75.3
142.8

74.4
3.5

1.1
• The extra microchannel condenser led to 7% energy savings when
compared to the original wire-on-tube condenser.
RTR (–)
WK (W)
0.62
135.0
0.62
142.5
0.8
5.5 • An optimum condenser geometry with 20 passes, 200 mm height,
180 mm width, 72 mm depth, 200 fins per meter and 46 rectangular
WOT EC (kWh.month−1) 75.9 73.9 2.6
channels of 1.2 mm of hydraulic diameter led to a predicted energy
RTR (–) 0.63 0.62 2.3
WK (W) 135.0 142.1 5.3 consumption 13% lower than that obtained with the original wire-
on-tube condenser.
extra EC (kWh.month−1) 71.4 70.8 0.9
RTR (–) 0.57 0.6 4.6
WK (W) 139.0 139.4 0.3 Credit authorship contribution statement

Joel Boeng: Methodology, Formal analysis, Writing - original draft.

condenser depth, in a ratio of 1.7 mm−1. Table 4 presents the energy
consumption results in kWh per month for all simulated configurations.
The blank cells represent situations of lack or excess of heat exchange
area, when the model struggles with convergence issues.
The increase of the fin density or the condenser depth causes an
increase in the total heat transfer area. In contrast, the air-side pressure
drop also raises, overloading the air flow system and consequently
decreasing the total air flow rate. Therefore, for a constant depth, there
is an optimum fin density that minimizes energy consumption, and vice
versa. In regard to the number of passes, it is clear that, for identical
geometries, the increase of the number of passes decreases the energy
consumption, since there is an increase of the total heat transfer area
without a substantial overload of the airflow system. It must be men-
tioned that the number of passes was limited to 20 because of the space
available in the compressor niche. Also, a brief inspection of Table 4
shows that the configuration with fin density of 200 m−1, 20 passes and
72 mm depth presents the lowest energy consumption (66.7 kWh/
Renata S. Rametta: Investigation, Software, Data curation. Cláudio
Melo: Supervision, Project administration, Funding acquisition.
Christian J.L. Hermes: Writing - review & editing.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influ-
ence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
This study was carried out under the auspices of the Brazilian
Government funding agencies CAPES, CNPq and Embrapii. Financial
and technical support from Whirlpool Latin America is duly acknowl-
edged.

6
J. Boeng, et al.
Table 4
Energy consumption [kWh.month−1] vs. microchannel condenser geometry.
Appendix
Uncertainty analysis
The uncertainty analysis of direct measurements, such as mass flow rate, was based on the mean and standard deviation associated to the
measured variable, and the uncertainty of the measuring instruments, provided by the manufacturers. The expanded uncertainty for any direct
measured variable was calculated from:
2 2
U = t ums + usd
where t is the Student’s t-value (assumed as 2 for a 95.45% confidence level), ums is the uncertainty of the measurement instrument and usd is the
standard deviation from the acquired data. The propagated uncertainty for the indirect measurement was calculated according the uncertainty
propagation law (Holman [28]), where the standard uncertainty of the observations is calculated from:
n 2
y
y = f (x1, x2 xn) usd (y ) = u (x i )
1
xi
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