MODELLING AND SIMULATION OF ABSORPTION SOLAR AIR CONDITIONING SYSTEM

Teclemariam Nemariam

Department of Technology, Royal Institiute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden

email: nemariam@egi.kth.se

Aim
To obtain best system performance of a solar assisted absorption cooling system
Solar fraction Overall system efficiency Total cost Initial cost Maintenance cost Operational cost

Methodology
TRNSYS simulation program
Transient Systems Simulation Program

EES
Engineering Equation Solver

System Description

Energy source

Refrigeration cycle

Load

System Description
sun relief valve heater

Solar collector Thermal storage tank Auxiliary heater Absorption refrigeration chiller with cooling tower Building Diverter Tee-piece Relief valve Piping system

collector

storage tank

tee-piece diverter

pump

absorption chiller

building

pump

Trnsys Block Diagram

Pressure relieve valve TYPE 13 Tee-piece TYPE 11h Auxiliary heater TYPE 6 cooling tower

Collector TYPE 1 TYPE 71

Thermal storage tank TYPE 38

Absorption chiller TYPE 7

Building TYPE 19

Controller TYPE 2b Pump TYPE 3 Diverter TYPE 11b Pump TYPE 3

Absorption Refrigeration System

output heat
Pcon

condenser
liquid refrigerant

vapour refrigerant

input heat

generator

weak solution in refrigerant

expansion valve

heat exchanger valve

vapour refrigerant strong solution in refrigerant

pump

Pev

evaporator
input heat
Tev

absorber
output heat
Tcon, Tab Tg

Absorption Refrigeration System

Refrigerant
water

Stages
Single-effect
G. temp 80 100 C COP 0.6 0.8

Absorbent
Lithium bromide

Double-effect
Gen. Temp 100 160 C COP 1.0 1.2

Triple-effect
Gen. Temp 160 240 C COP ABOUT 1.7

Absorption Refrigeration System

Strong refrigerant
Pressure
(x =1 )

Poor refrigerant
(x pu re re fri g
generator
p

nt

(x

er a

fri g

pu re

evaporator

P2

absorber

crystallisation

t2

tabs=t1

pu re

P1

re

condenser

re

fri g

er a

tgen

er a

nt

nt

Absorption Refrigeration System

Drawbacks
Water
Temperature greater than zero High water vapour pressure Large volume

Lithium bromide
Precipitate at low temperature

Building
Details of a building are:
Location: latitude, longitude, altitude Type: Office, recidential, hospital,... Size: volume, area of walls, roof, floor, windows, door, ..etc Types of construction materials Outside design conditions Inside design conditions Internal gains

Work done so far

More than 75% course work More than 80% literature survey Modelling and simulation of a complete system using standard TRNSYS components

Sample Simulation Results

Solar collectors:
Evacuated collector, high quality flat plate collector and ordinary flat plate colector

Storage tank: cylinderical, vertical stand Heater: gas fired Single-effect absorption machine
Refrigerant water and absorbent lithium bromide Capacity 24.44 kW

Sample Simulation Results

Building:
Location: Assab, Eritrea. Latitude 13.07 N, longitude 42.6 E, altitude sea level Type: two storey office Size: volume, area of walls, roof, floor, windows, door, ..etc are given in detail Types of construction materials Outside design conditions Inside design conditions Internal gains

Every detail is given

Sample Simulation Results

System Optimization
e.g. collector slope
2.50E+08 ESC DGC SGC

solar energy gain (kJ)

2.00E+08 1.50E+08 1.00E+08 5.00E+07 0.00E+00 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 collector slope (degree)

Sample Simulation Results

Solar fraction as a function of colector area and storage volume e.g. using evacuated collector

80 70

solar fraction (%)

60 50 40 30 20 10 0 10 20 30 40 50 collector area (m 2) V1=1.0m3 V2=2.0m3 V3=3.0 m3 V4=4.0m3 V5=5.0m3 60 70 80

Sample Simulation Results

System efficiency as a function of colector area and storage volume
e.g. using evacuated collector
60

system efficiency (%)

50 40 30 20 10 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 collector area (m 2) V1=1.0m3 V2=2.0m3 V3=3.0 m3 V4=4.0m3 V5=5.0m3 70 80

Sample Simulation Results

Solar fraction and system efficiency as function of collector area for a given storage volume
ESC sysef f DGC solf r 70 60 50 ESC solf r SGC sysef f DGC sysef f SGC solf r

efficiency

40 30 20 10 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 s olar colle ctor (m 2)

Sample Simulation Results

Yearly insolation energy, max possible solar heat gain and cooling load
QIRT ESC QLOA D DGC SGC

4.00E+07 3.50E+07 3.00E+07

energy (kJ)

2.50E+07 2.00E+07 1.50E+07 1.00E+07 5.00E+06 0.00E+00 1 3 5 7 tim e (m onth) 9 11

Notice
The sample simulation result is extracted from a paper presented in the ISES Conference June 14-19 2003 in Gtemberg, Sweden. If you have more interest please refer the paper.
Thank you.