Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Lab 2 Thermal
Lab 2 Thermal
01-2017
Lab Report
Experiments Tittle
Refrigeration is the achievement of temperatures below that of the local environment. The
main purpose of refrigeration is thermal conditioning (e.g. for food preservation or air
conditioning), and the basic apparatus is a refrigerator, a thermal machine producing cold. Other
names for special types of refrigerators are freezers, chillers, cryo-coolers, as well as the informal
word fridge. Small refrigerators usually comprise the cabinet to be cooled (e.g. the fridge), but
larger refrigerators are placed in machinery rooms outside the cold storage (applicable to air
conditioners too). Refrigeration is one of the major application area of thermodynamics.
The history of refrigeration is very interesting since every aspect of it, the availability of
refrigerants, the prime movers and the developments in compressors and the methods of
refrigeration all are a part of it. In olden days refrigeration was achieved by natural means such as
the use of ice or evaporative cooling. In earlier times, ice was either by transported from colder
regions, harvested in winter and stored in ice houses for summer use or made during night by
cooling of water by radiation to stratosphere.
THEORY
Four components involved the vapor compression refrigeration cycle which are
compressor, condenser, expansion valve or throttle valve and evaporator. It is a compression
process, whose purpose is to raise the refrigerant pressure, as it flows from an evaporator. The
high-pressure refrigerant flows through a condenser before attaining the initial low pressure and
going back to the evaporator.
For this particular experiment, the energy transfer equation used for:
a) Compressor
q4-1 = h4 h1 + w4-1
Power requirement, P = (h1 h4), where is the flow rate of working fluid per unit time.
b) Condenser
q1-2 = h2 h1 + w
c) Expansion Valve
q2-3 = h3 h2 + w
therefore h2 = h3.
d) Evaporator
q3-4 = h4 h3 + w
q h3
COP 3 4
h4
ref
w h h
1 4
APPARATUS
1. The valve AVS-3 and AVS-5 consist of air is opened use as heat source. Then START button was
clicked.
2. The water flow rate was adjusted at condenser to 5 L/m and set the air flow of evaporator until
50% of the maximal flow.
3. The button COMPRESSOR was clicked.
4. Wait the system until stable state, then start the recording by pressed the START SAVING
5. Sampling rate was set at 180 second per sample.
6. The data were recorded for 15 minutes ( 5 sample @ 900 second),and clicked STOP SAVING.
7. For second experiment, the evaporator load was set to 100% by repeat step 1 to step 6.
1. The valve AVS-3 and AVS-6 consist of air is opened use as heat source. Then START button was
clicked.
2. The water flow rate was adjusted at condenser to 5 L/m and set the air flow of evaporator until
50% of the maximal flow.
3. The button COMPRESSOR was clicked.
4. Wait the system until stable state, then start the recording by pressed the START SAVING
5. Sampling rate was set at 180 second per sample.
6. The data were recorded for 15 minutes (3 sample @ 900 second), and clicked STOP SAVING.
7. For second experiment, the evaporator load was set to 100% by repeat step 1 to step 6.
DATA AND RESULT
Qevap
COP =
Time (s)
Qevap/ (SW-
(m3/s) (m3/kg) = Vref/v2 (kJ/kg) (kJ/kg) mref (h4 -
1/1000)
h3)
Average COP
0.0974
a
180 8.26E-06 0.0010097 8.18E-03 74.1977 102.5389 0.2318 0.1144
Average COP
0.0950
Qevap COP =
mref
Vref v2 (table) h3 h4 (kW) = Qevap/
Time (s)
Exp #
(kg/s) =
(m3/s) (m3/kg) (kJ/kg) (kJ/kg) mref (h4 - (SW-
Vref/v2
h3) 1/1000)
Average COP
b
180 9.01E-06 0.0010114 8.91E-03 85.9656 112.2240 0.2339 0.1189
3
27.509468 25 () 2 0.001003 ( )
= 3
30 25 () 0.001004 0.001004 ( )
3
2 = 0.0010083( )
mref = vref / v2
= 7.58E-03 (m3/kg)
b) Evaporator cooling load, Qevap (kW).
ST-3 = 15.142533oC
20 15.142533 () 83.915 3 ( )
=
20 15 ()
83.915 62.982( )
3 = 63.5787( )
ST-4 = 21.763905oC
21.763905 20 () 4 83.915 ( )
=
25 20 ()
104.83 83.915 ( )
3 = 91.2934( )
Thus evaporator cooling load, Qevap
= 0.2100kW
To find COP we need to devide SW-1 by 1000 and insert the value into this equation.
SW-1 = 485.638275
= 0.1020
From the result we get, as the evaporating cooling load is increased, the COP or coefficient of
performance is decreased. This is because by referring to equation of COP of refrigerant, the COP
is inversely proportional to COP, the higher the wattage produced , the lower the COP of the
system.
The term load is the amount of heat energy that would need to be removed from a space (cooling)
to maintain the temperature in an acceptable range. In real application, the actual load is a room
full of student or a space in a factory that if the temperature in the space does not have a air
conditioning, the space will become hot.
When the cooling medium is set as water, the COP of the refrigeration system is higher than when
the cooling medium is air. This is because; water has a higher heat transfer coefficient at 1 atm
that cause the refrigerant to cool after being compressed and can move through the expansion valve
at a lower temperature.
The compressor pumps the refrigerant to a higher temperature and pressure. Then the refrigerant
flow into the condenser, where it loses energy (heat) to the outside, cools, and condenses into its
liquid phase. Then by the time it go through expansion valve, the temperature of the fluid goes
down and the pressure also goes down. From the table of data summary table, ST-2 is always
higher than ST-3 where ST-2 is the temperature reading before the refrigerant flow into expansion
valve while ST-3 is the temperature reading before the refrigerant flow into expansion valve. Then
the liquid refrigerant flow through an evaporator to evaporate the refrigerant to allow it flow into
the compressor. At ST-4, we can observe that the temperature reading after the evaporator is
increased. This allow for the refrigerant to vaporize into room temperature before flow into the
compressor.
If we observe, the enthalpy at T3 are lower than T4, this is because, at T4, it has absorbed energy
from the evaporator so that the refrigerant flow into the compressor at a vapor state.
At 50% vapor cooling load, with condenser is water and air at evaporator, the COP is 9.7% then
when vapor cooling load is 100% with same medium of cooling used, the COP decreased to 9.5%.
this indicate that where the vapor cooling load has increased, the COP will gradually decrease as
the system need to work harder.
When the cooling is both chosen both as air, the COP decreased to 9.17 that indicates that water
is a better cooling medium compared to air.
Since this process is computerized, there are very few mistakes that can be made during the
experiment, one of it is, we might start the saving process too early that the machine not yet stable
and can affect our reading.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, water is a better cooling medium in this system as water has better heat transfer
coefficient at this particular experiment condition compared to air.
The application of this experiment is when for instance in a factory, we wanted to maintain its
temperature and humidity so that the people in the environment are comfortable to work in the
space. Air conditioning also crucial in a car system as we want to maintain a comfortable condition
in the car so that the driver comfortable to drive the car.
APPENDIX
REFERENCE
4) https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/77453/The-3-Types-of-Heating-and-Cooling-
Loads. Retrieved 4 October 2017.
5) http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-refrigeration-load.htm. Retrieved 6 October 2017