Performance of an experimental solar-driven absorption air conditioner. Annual report, July 1975--September 1976
An important pathway for the use of solar energy for space conditioning of buildings is the development of a heat-actuated air conditioner that can operate with the temperatures available from flat-plate solar collectors and use air cooling for disposal of the waste heat. The solar heating and cooling program of the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory is exploring the use of the ammonia-water absorption cycle for this purpose. Results of the initial tests of an experimental system that has been fabricated to provide basic engineering data on the operation of the ammonia-water absorption cycle under such conditions are presented. A nominal three-ton, continuous operation, heat-actuated water chiller has been fabricated by drastic modification of a commercial gas-fired unit. The major modifications included designing a new water-heated generator, adding a preheater to the solution circuit, and increasing the flow rate of solution by a factor of about three. The unit was instrumented for measurement of temperatures, pressures, and solution concentrations at points in the circuit. Twenty-two experimental runs have been made and the results analyzed. An analysis of the thermodynamic cycle which includes the finite effectiveness of heat transfer at various points in the cycle is shown to predict with good accuracy the measured values of COP. The measured coefficient of performance agreed with the calculated values over the range 0.4 to 0.75 as the conditions of individual runs were varied. The agreement with the calculated values was within about 5 percent.
- Research Organization:
- California Univ., Berkeley (USA). Lawrence Berkeley Lab.
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-48
- OSTI ID:
- 7101391
- Report Number(s):
- LBL-5911
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
140901* -- Solar Thermal Utilization-- Space Heating & Cooling
AIR CONDITIONERS
AMMONIA
APPLIANCES
AQUEOUS SOLUTIONS
DISPERSIONS
ELECTRIC APPLIANCES
ENERGY TRANSFER
FLAT PLATE COLLECTORS
GAS APPLIANCES
HEAT TRANSFER
HYDRIDES
HYDROGEN COMPOUNDS
MIXTURES
NITROGEN COMPOUNDS
NITROGEN HYDRIDES
PERFORMANCE
PERFORMANCE TESTING
PRESSURE DROP
SOLAR AIR CONDITIONERS
SOLAR COLLECTORS
SOLAR COOLING SYSTEMS
SOLUTIONS
SPECIFICATIONS
STABILITY
TESTING
THERMODYNAMIC CYCLES