Full Description

The abundant availability of solar energy in the Indian continent and growing attention towards hybrid air conditioners in the global HVAC market have prompted this study to evaluate the energy performance of solar energy-backed vapor compression-based air-conditioners in the composite climate of India. A novel superheating assisted cooling system is introduced and analyzed from the thermodynamic standpoint. The primary objective is to develop an experimental setup comprising an air conditioner and external heat exchanger that emulates the solar hybrid air conditioner and then carry out the performance assessment at different degrees of superheat. In the proposed system, the vapour compression-based cooling system is integrated with an external shell and tube heat exchanger. After compression from the compressor, refrigerant is further superheated to different degrees of superheat in the external heat exchanger. Based on the energy balance and log mean temperature difference (LMTD) method, the system's theoretical coefficient of performance (COP) is calculated. It is found that because of the high rate of heat transfer, the COP of the system increases with increasing the degree of superheat. An experimental facility was developed at Malaviya National Institute of Technology Jaipur, India to validate the theoretical findings. Furthermore, the hypothesis was validated by conducting the experiment in a similar environment with similar thermodynamic characteristics assumed during the theoretical assessment. The performance of the system at 5, 10, and 15 degrees of post-compression superheat was investigated experimentally. Results reveal that due to the high rate of heat transfer, for 15 degrees of superheating, the refrigerant temperature at the condenser outlet decreased from 40.10C (104.18F) to 36.81C (98.26F). Also, the refrigerating effect enhanced from 282.29 W (965.30 BTU/hr) to 432.73 W (1476.53 BTU/hr) from base case to 15 degrees of superheat, respectively, corresponding to the enhancement of COP from 1.13 to 1.70. The contribution of the study towards the subject field lies in the quantified assessment of the effect of different degrees of superheating of the refrigerant on air conditioner performance.

Product Details

Published: 2022 Number of Pages: 9 Units of Measure: Dual File Size: 1 file , 2.3 MB Product Code(s): D-ICEB22-23 Note: This product is unavailable in Russia, Belarus