Study of a frost-less heat pump
Heat pumps, used as primary residential space conditioning systems in many temperate climates, have inherent requirements for defrosting of the outdoor evaporator coil during the winter heating season when frost forms. This paper describes a new concept and the results of the new technology that minimizes evaporator coil frosting to ambient temperatures as low as 33 F, and that reduces or eliminates the need for reverse cycle defrosting at many conditions. By strategically adding controlled heat to the liquid stored in the accumulator, the evaporator temperature is increased. Depending on the amount of heat added, an evaporator temperature increase of 7 F can be realized. This increased coil temperature acts to decrease frosting in the ambient temperature range that has high frosting propensity, 33 F to 41 F. Proof-of-concept experiments were performed in both a baseline configuration and with the new frost-less technology on an of-the-shelf two-ton residential heat pump. Results are shown for outdoor air temperatures from 33 F to 41 F with relative humidity kept at 80%.
- Research Organization:
- Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (US)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- OSTI ID:
- 20030546
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Renewable and advanced energy systems for the 21st Century, Maui, HI (US), 04/11/1999--04/15/1999; Other Information: 1 CD-ROM. Operating system required: Windows i386, i486, Pentium or Pentium Pro, MS Windows 3.1, 95 or NT3.51; Macintosh, Power Macintosh with a 68020 or greater processor, System software version 7.1, 3.5 MB RAM; UNIX; PBD: 1999; Related Information: In: Renewable and advanced energy systems for the 21st century, RAES'99: Proceedings, by Hogan, R.; Kim, Y.; Kleis, S.; O'Neal, D.; Tanaka, T. [eds.], [1125] pages.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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