Residential solar-absorption chiller thermal dynamics

Technical Report · Sun Mar 01 04:00:00 EST 1981

OSTI ID:5900604

Guertin, J M; Wood, B D; McNeill, B W

Research is reported on the transient performance of a commercial residential 3 ton lithium bromide-water absorption chiller designed for solar firing. Emphasis was placed on separating the chiller response from that of the entire test facility so that its transient response could solely be observed and quantified. It was found that the entire system time response and thermal capacitance has a major impact on performance degradation due to transient operation. Tests run to ascertain computer algorithms which simulate system isolated chiller performance, revealed processes hitherto undocumented. Transient operation is simulated by three distinct algorithms associated with the three phases of chiller operation. The first phase is start up time. It was revealed during testing that the time required to reach steady state performance values, when the chiller was turned on, was a linear function of steady state water supply temperatures. The second phase is quasi steady state performance. Test facility's performance compared favorably with the manufacturer's published data. The third phase is the extra capacity produced during spin down. Spin down occurs when the hot water supply pump is turned off while the other system pumps remain operating for a few minutes, thus allowing extra chiller capacity to be realized. The computer algorithms were used to generate plots which show the operational surface of an isolated absorption chiller subjected to off design and transient operation.

• Research Organization: Arizona State Univ., Tempe (USA). Coll. of Engineering and Applied Sciences
• DOE Contract Number: AC03-79CS30203
• OSTI ID: 5900604
• Report Number(s): ERC-R-81013; ON: DE82005590
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY
140901* -- Solar Thermal Utilization-- Space Heating & Cooling
ABSORPTION REFRIGERATION CYCLE
ALGORITHMS
BUILDINGS
COMPUTER CODES
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
EQUIPMENT
MATHEMATICAL LOGIC
OPERATION
P CODES
PERFORMANCE TESTING
RESIDENTIAL BUILDINGS
SIMULATION
SOLAR COOLING SYSTEMS
SOLAR EQUIPMENT
STEADY-STATE CONDITIONS
TEMPERATURE DEPENDENCE
TEMPERATURE EFFECTS
TEST FACILITIES
TESTING
THERMODYNAMICS
TRANSIENTS