Nomenclature:

Symbols
cp - specific heat capacity
Δq - refrigeration effect
H - specific enthalpy
P - pressure Q - heat
transfer capacity s -
specific entropy
T temperature

Subscripts
c critical
L saturated liquid
vap vaporization

Acronyms
ASHRAE American Society of Heating,
Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning
Engineers
COP coefficient of performance
DESC double expansion subcooler
DOE Department of Energy
EEV electric expansion valve
FTSC flash tank and subcooler
IHX internal heat exchanger
PR pressure ratio
SLHX suction line heat exchanger
TXV thermostatic expansion valve
VCC vapor compression cycle
INTRODUCTION
Energy saving has become an important issue due to the limited energy
resources and ever increasing demands. In the US, the energy use by a space cooling,
space heating, water heating, and refrigeration represents about 76% of total energy
consumption for the residential buildings, in which energy systems are mainly relying on
a vapor compression cycle (VCC). This VCC has inherent thermodynamic losses as
compared to an ideal reverse Carnot cycle. Those are thermodynamic losses
associated with single phaseGas compression and isenthalpic expansion.The first loss
results in high discharge refrigerant temperature, high compression work, and high
condenser heat release. The second loss results in large throttling losses and low
refrigeration capacity. To reduce these thermodynamic losses, many researchers
investigated the improved cycle options, such as subcooling cycles (suction line heat
exchanger, thermoelectric subcooler, and mechanical subcooler),expansion loss
recovery cycles (expander and ejector), multi-stage cycles (a vapor or liquid refrigerant
injection cycle, two-phase refrigerant injection cycle and saturation cycle). In this paper,
each cycle options are reviewed in terms of performance improvement. (Department of
Energy, 2015)

HISTORY OF VAPOR COMPRESSION CYCLE

In 1805, American inventor Oliver Evans described in detail, but never built, a
refrigeration system based on the vapor-compression refrigeration cycle.
An American living in Great Britain, Jacob Perkins, improved upon the design
proposed by Oliver Evans and obtained the first patent for a vapor-compression
refrigeration system in 1834. Perkins built a prototype system and it actually worked.
According to the drawing in Perkins' patent, liquid ether (C4H10O) was contained in an
"evaporator vessel" where it was vaporized under a partial vacuum maintained by the
suction of a crude hand-operated compressor. The evaporator vessel was
submerged in a liquid from which the heat required to vaporize the ether was
extracted, thereby cooling the liquid. The compressed ether vapor from the
compressor discharge was then condensed back into liquid either by flowing through
piping coils submerged in water. The liquid ether then returned through a pressure
reduction valve (i.e., an expansion valve) into the partial vacuum of the evaporator
vessel. Clearly, Perkins' system included the four principal features uses by modern
vapor-compression refrigeration systems, namely an evaporator, a compressor, a
condenser and an expansion valve. Unfortunately, Perkins had no success in
commercializing his system. (Norman Selfe 1900)
In 1842, an American physician, John Gorrie, designed the first system for
refrigerating water to produce ice. He also conceived the idea of using his
refrigeration system to cool the air in the rooms of a Florida hospital used for treating
yellow-fever and malaria patients. His system compressed air, then partially cooled
the hot compressed air with water before allowing it to isentropically expand while
doing part of the work required to drive the air compressor. The isentropic expansion
cooled the air to a temperature low enough to freeze water and produce ice, or to
flow "through a pipe for effecting refrigeration otherwise" as stated in his United
States patent granted in 1851. Gorrie, who had given up his medical practice, built a
working prototype and sought to raise money to manufacture his machine, but the
venture failed and his system was a commercial failure. (U.S. Patent Office, Patent
8080, 1851)
Alexander Catlin Twining, a professor of engineering, mathematics and
astronomy at Middlebury College in Connecticut, began experimenting with vapor-
compression refrigeration in 1848 and obtained British and American patents in 1850
and 1853 for a vapor-compression system capable of using either carbon dioxide
(CO2), ammonia (NH3) or ether. He is credited by many with having initiated
commercial refrigeration in the United States by building an ice plant in 1855 at
Cleveland, Ohio that produced about 2000 pounds (900 kilograms) of ice per 24
hours. Meanwhile in Australia, engineer James Harrison built a commercial ice-
making machine in 1854 and his patent for a vapor-compression refrigeration system
using liquid ether was granted in 1855. Harrison introduced commercial vapor-
compression refrigeration to breweries and meat packing houses, and by 1861 a
dozen of his systems were in operation. (Harrison, James)
Carl von Linde, an engineering professor at the Technological University
Munich in Germany, patented an improved method of liquefying gases in 1876. His
new process made possible using gases such as ammonia, sulfur dioxide (SO2) and
methyl chloride (CH3Cl) as refrigerants and they were widely used for that purpose
until the late 1920’s. By then, a number of accidents related to the use of those
refrigerants convinced manufacturers that a more stable element was needed. That
led to the development and widespread use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) until it
was found that CFCs led to damaging of the Earth's ozone layer and their use was
largely phased out in favor of refrigerants that do not contain any chlorine (Cl).
Artificial cooling is not a particularly new technology. The practice of using
icestore houses and iceboxes to preserve food dates back to the early 19 th century.
Harvesting ice in areas like New England for shipment to places like the American
south and the Caribbean islands was big business for much of the 19 th century.
However, the technology used to keep things cool has changed greatly over the last
hundred years. The main advancement was the development of vapor-compression
cycle refrigeration systems in the early 1900’s. This advancement in refrigeration and
cooling had a huge impact on life in the 20 th century and beyond. Refrigeration
changed the way we eat, where we live, and the way our cities are built.
Vapor-compression refrigeration has dominated the industry since the early
20th century. At its core, the process is extremely simple: circulate a cold fluid around
the object to be cooled, allowing that fluid to absorb heat from the object and carry it
away. Using this principle, you can create a closed system that continuously creates
cooled fluid to generate constant refrigeration. This is the crux of the vapour
compression cycle. The system uses a compressor to pressurize a vaporized
refrigerant (which nowadays is usually R-134a in the U.S., which replaced Freon in
the 1990s after Freon was found to be degrading the ozone layer). The refrigerant is
pumped through a condenser, were it is converted from a high pressure, high
temperature vapor into a high pressure liquid. Heat is generated from the phase
change, which the condenser dissipates. The high pressure liquid is then run through
an expansion valve to create a pressure drop, which greatly reduces the temperature
of the refrigerant. The last step in the process is to send the cold refrigerant through
the evaporator coils, where the refrigerant returns to vapor form while absorbing heat
from the surrounding areas, cooling them. (Von Linde, Carl, 2014)
While R-134a is much safer and has lower ozone depletion potential than
previous refrigerants (e.g. ammonia and Freon), the environmental impact is not zero.
Therefore, methods of cooling without relying on a vapor compression cycle are very
desirable, and research into these methods represent a growing technological field.
Yet another way to cool an area without the use of a refrigerant is with a
thermoelectric cooler (also called a Peltier cooler). Thermoelectric coolers work by
running a direct electric current between two parallel semiconducting plates. As the
current travels between the plates, it carries heat from one side to the other. If the
“cold” side is connected to an area to be cooled (say, the inside of a refrigerator), and
the “hot” side is connected to a heat sink, then this system can produce results similar
to a traditional vapor compression system. (Von Linde, Carl, 2014)

1.0 PRINCIPLES OF VAPOR COMPRESSION CYCLE

THE VAPOR COMPRESSION CYCLE:

The Vapor Compression Cycle is the most important refrigeration cycle from the
standpoint of commercial acceptance. It is one in which a fluid alternately evaporates
and condenses, with one of the intervening processes being a compression of the
vapour.

1.1 FOUR COMPONENTS OF VAPOR COMPRESSION SYSTEM

1. Evaporator
2. Compressor
3. Condenser
4. Expansion valve
The evaporator in a refrigeration system is a heat exchanger which transfers heat
from the substance being cooled to a boiling refrigerant. The purpose of the
refrigeration system is to remove heat from air, water, or some other substance, this
removal is performed by the evaporator. Compressor is the heart of the vapor
compression system. This is where the compression takes place to raise the
temperature and refrigerant pressure. Condenser receives superheated refrigerant
from the compressor, remove the superheat and then liquefy the refrigerant. It is the
ultimate point of heat rejection from the refrigeration system. Expansion
valve/device acts as a regulator which separates the high pressure and low pressure
side. The purpose of the expansion device is twofold: (1) it must reduce the pressure
of the liquid refrigerant, and (2) it must regulate the flow of the refrigerant to the
evaporator.

1.2 PRESSURE-ENTHALPY & SCHEMATIC DIAGRAMS OF THE CYCLE

2.0 PROCESSES OF THE STANDARD VAPOR COMPRESSION CYCLE:

Process 1-2: Reversible and adiabatic compression from the saturated vapor to the
condenser pressure.
Process 2-3: reversible rejection of heat at constant pressure desuperheating and
condensation
Process 3-4: irreversible expansion at constant enthalpy from the saturated liquid to
the evaporator pressure.
Process 4-1: reversible addition of heat at constant pressure in evaporation.
3.0 ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF VAPOR COMPRESSION CYCLE
Vapor compression cycle allows cooling to below ambient temperatures,
increasing performance, and reliability and allowing operation in higher temperatures.
Its COP is high ranging from around 2 to 3. It has an ability to remove very large heat
loads. It’s compressor and fan only moving parts is widely available, stable and reliable.
Much like heat pipes, vapour compression uses high heat vaporizations of the working
fluid to remove large amount of heat. Therefore, low mass flow rates required.
Vapor compression refrigeration system compress the gas, and the inherent
energy of the gas molecules into a smaller space. This leads to an increase in
temperature per volume. Some heat may have been added by the work done by the
compressor, but in the main, the energy as stated above was inherent to the gas in the
first place.
Another advantage of the vapour compression system is that the amount of heat
that can be removed, and which is replaced in another part of the cycle, well the amount
of energy removed can be 3, 4, 5 or even 6 times the energy required for the
compression. This method levers the power supplied to the compressor for a 3, 4, 5, or
6 fold return on the energy investment.
However the disadvantages are the cost of employing system may be 10-
20% of the cost of entire system. And there is a large space and input power. The
cooling system has to be weighed with the large advantages. A lot of times, the
traditional methods of cooling like air cooling is not feasible so a VCC is required. But
when the cooling requirements can be satisfied with traditional techniques, the
traditional techniques are preferred cooling method. (Derek Auret, 2018)

4.0 LATEST ADVANCEMENTS ON VAPOR COMPRESSION CYCLE

SUBCOOLING CYCLES
Typically, the state of the refrigerant entering the expansion device in the VCC
is subcooled liquid, so that liquid can be expanded in the expansion device and
provides a stable refrigerant flow rate. When the degree of subcooling is increased,
the typical expansion process, the isenthalpic process approaches to the isentropic.
Moreover, increased subcooling degree can increase the refrigeration effect (Δq) and
potentially improve the coefficient of performance (COP). Any other heat sink of
appropriate temperature could be used to increase subcooling, but the following three
methods are mainly applied; a suction line heat exchanger (SLHX), mechanical
subcooler, and
thermoelectric subcooler.
A. SUCTION LINE HEAT EXCHANGER
The use of the SLHX has been widely applied to VCCs.The SLHX or internal
heat exchanger (IHX) is often employed as ameans for protecting system
components. The SLHX ensures subcooled liquid refrigerant to be supplied to the
expansion device inlet and superheated vapor refrigerant to the compressor inlet.
The condenser outlet and expansion valve inlet and between the evaporator outlet
and compressor inlet. Cold refrigerant from the suction line is used to cool down the
refrigerant at condenser outlet. Reduced refrigerant temperature of the condenser
outlet decreases the enthalpy of the evaporator inlet. In turn, this increases the
evaporator capacity. However, the increased temperature of the compressor inlet
decreases the compressor efficiency, which degrades the system performance. The
increase of the suction temperature decreases the compressor volumetric efficiency
which is proportional to the inverse of the suction temperature. Therefore, these two
aspects should be considered in the application with the SLHX.
The benefit of the SLHX application depends on a combination of operating
conditions and fluid properties for the refrigerants. The results showed that the COP and
volumetric capacity of the VCC system with the SLHX are greatly affected by fluid
properties. (Domanski, 1994)
The influence of the SLHX on the performance of the refrigeration cycle using a
new dimensionless group for various refrigerants was investigated. (Klein, 2000)
The effect of the SLHX on the refrigeration capacity was correlated in terms of
the temperature lift and a dimensionless grouping equal to the enthalpy of vaporization
(h ) at the evaporator temperature divided by the product of the specific heat capacity
vap

(C ) of saturated liquid refrigerant at the evaporating temperature and the critical

p,L

temperature (T ).
c

The relationship between the relative capacity index and this dimensionless
quantity is shown in Fig. 3, which represents that the VCC with SLHX would be more
useful for refrigerants having a relatively small lvalue of Δh (C T ) under the condition of
vap p,L c

the large temperature difference between condensing and evaporating temperature.

As results, the SLHX was detriment alto system performance in systems using R-22,
R-32, and R-717, whereas it was useful for systems using R-507A, R-134a, R-12, R-
404A, R-290, R-407C, R-600, and R-410A.
Particularly, performance improvement by applying the SLHX has been
extensively studied in a CO2 cycle.
showed The COP improvement by using the SLHX to reduce throttling losses.
Several researchers represented performance variations of a CO 2 cycle with the SLHX
by comparing their characteristics with those of other conventional refrigerant systems.
(Lorentzen and Pettersen 1993)
A 7% increase of the COP by applying the SLHX into a singlestage
compression cycle, and an 18% increase of the COP by applying the SLHX into a two-
stage compression cycle. (Hwang et al. 2001)
The cooling COP increased from 2.1 to 2.27 , and the optimal compressor
discharge pressure reduced from 9.2 to 8.7 MPa with the application of the SLHX. Cho
et al. (2007)
In automotive air conditioning systems, the influence of the SLHX using R-
1234yf as working fluid was analyzed by previous studies (Jarall, 2012; Lee et al.,
2011; Zhao et al., 2012; Zilio et al., 2011).
R-1234yf has been proposed as a replacement for R-134a in mobile air
conditioning systems due to their similar thermophysical properties. However, the
cooling capacity of the R-1234yf system was smaller than that of the R-134a system
when the same size compressor is used. It is because the latent heat of evaporation of
R-1234yf in the evaporator is smaller than that of R-134a by 21-28% at the same
saturation temperature. Therefore, the SLHX is applied to R-1234yf VCCs. (Cho et al.,
2012)
The effects of the SLHX on the performance of VCC system using R-
1234yf.Tube-in-tube type heat exchanger was used and the effectiveness of the SLHX
ranged from 17 to 25%. Experimental results showed that the cooling capacity
increased by 2–9% with the SLHX application. (Navarro-Esbrí et al. 2013)
The cooling capacity and COP of the R-1234yf system without the SLHX
decreased by up to 7% and 4.5%, respectively, as compared to those of R-134a
system. However, those of the R-1234yf system with the SLHX decreased by 1.8%
and 2.9%, implying that similar performance could be achieved by the SLHX. (Cho et
al. 2013)
An experimental study about the effect of condenser subcooling on the
performance of an air conditioning system operating with R-134a and R-1234yf. The
results showed the use of both the condensing subcooling and the SLHX
simultaneously yielded more efficient performance improvement, especially for R-
1234yf. (Pottker and Hrnjak 2015)
The performance of an R134a automotive prototype air-conditioning system
with the SLHX was tested. Tube-in-tube type heat exchanger was applied and the
effectiveness of the SLHX was between 55 and 65%. At a higher condenser air
temperature of 40 °C and a restrictive idling air flow rate of 1.0 m s −1, the COP and the
capacity increased on the order of 5–10% with a SLHX with 60% effectiveness.
(Preissner et al. 2000)

B. MECHANICAL SUBCOOLER
Mechanical subcooling cycles utilize a small cooling system to improve the
main refrigeration cycle and result in improvement of the cooling capacity.
 An ideal mechanical subcooling cycle from Carnot theory and heat transfer
relations was developed. In this study, the improvement in overall COP through the
use of a subcooler was found to be approximately 10% over a range of conditions
representing supermarket applications. (Thornton et al. 1994)
The integrated subcooler cycle which is coupled to the main cycle at exit of the
condenser for rejecting the heat as shown in Fig. below. The COP of the system was
increased by 7.5% in maximum when the subcooler saturation temperature was
about arithmetic mean between the condensation and evaporation temperatures.
Figure shows that the dedicated mechanical subcooler cycle provides subcooling to
the main cycle and both the main cycle and the subcooler cycle have their own
condensers. (Khan and Zubair, 2000)
The performance characteristics of different refrigerant combinations in the
dedicated mechanical subcooler cycle was studied on 2012. The refrigerants such as
R-134a, R-410A, R-407C, R-717, and R-404A were considered as alternatives for
different applications. R-134a and R-410A are often used for the applications from
high temperature to medium temperature range. Therefore, these refrigerants were
used in the subcooler cycle as they have relatively elevated operating temperatures
as compared to the main cycle. In this study, when R-134a was used as a refrigerant
in the main cycle, the subcooler cycle produced thebest results in terms of COP.
(Qureshi and Zubair, 2012)
A new subcooling cycle based on the expansion power recovery as shown Fig.
4c and Fig. 5. This proposed system applied the expander to drive the compressor in
the mechanical subcooler cycle. The amount of the enthalpy gain including expander
power and subcooling capacity resulted in performance improvement better than the
conventional mechanical subcooling system. The proposed system achieved higher
COP by 19.72% than the conventional mechanical subcooling system when R-744
was used as the refrigerant in the main refrigeration cycle and R-12 was employed
for the subcooler cycle. (She et al. 2014)
C. THERMOELECTRIC SUBCOOLER

The working principle of thermoelectric cooling is based on the Peltier effect.

Thermoelectric modules are solid-state electronic devices that directly convert
electricity to temperature difference. Thermoelectric devices have no moving parts
and, therefore, are inherently reliable and require little maintenance. However, the
use of thermoelectric devices and systems has been limited by their relatively low
energy conversion efficiency. The COP decreases rapidly with increasing
temperature lift while thermoelectric cooling is very well suited for small temperature
lifts where it achieves very high COPs. (Winkler et al., 2006)
Therefore, it is possible to use thermoelectric technology to improve the
performance of conventional VCC systems instead of utilizing a full-fledged
thermoelectric cooling system. In this hybrid system, the thermoelectric subcooler is
installed between the outlet of condenser and the inlet of expansion device and
reported that the use of thermoelectric subcooler in CO2 system increased the
cooling capacity by 20% and the system COP by 16% through the simulation. The
use of the staged thermoelectric subcooler yielded more system COP improvement
as compared to a single thermoelectric subcooler in theoretical study. (Radermacher
et al. 2007)
The performance improvement potential of the thermoelectric subcooler in a
CO2 cycle was investigated. As shown in Fig. 6, the thermoelectric subcooler
consists of three main components, which are the thermoelectric modules, a cold-
side heat exchanger with a microchannel, and a hot-side heat exchanger with
working as a thermosyphon evaporator. This study showed that this hybrid system
improved the COP of the CO2 cycle by 3.3% with a corresponding 7.9% capacity
increase when the thermoelectric subcooler was effectively controlled to maximize
the system COP. (Schoenfeld et al. 2012)

The energetic as well as exergetic analyses and optimizations of the CO2

refrigeration cycle with a thermoelectric subcooler. As results, the improvements of
maximum cycle COP and the second law efficiency at optimum CO2 subcooling are
0.86% and 17.18%, respectively as compared to the cycle without the thermoelectric
subcooler. (Sarkar 2013)
The use of the thermoelectric subcooler in CO2 refrigeration system not only
improved the cycle cooling COP at optimum conditions, but also reduced the system
highside pressure, compressor pressure ratio and compressor discharge
temperature. Furthermore, another application of the thermoelectric device was
attempted as a thermoelectric generator to reduce the compressor power
consumption.
Fig. 7 shows the schematic diagram with the option of the thermoelectric
generator. In this study, thermal analysis of the combined cycle, consisting of a
refrigerator and thermoelectric power generator, was presented. The influence of the
location of thermoelectric generator, in the combined system, on the cycle
performance was investigated. The author reported that the location of the
thermoelectric generator in between the condenser and the evaporator results in
lower coefficient of performance of the combined system. This is because the heat
rejected from the thermoelectric generator increases the heat transfer to the
refrigeration system. On the other hands, the location of the thermoelectric generator
in between the condenser and its ambient improves the coefficient of performance
the combined cycle. The operating parameters had significant effect on the
performance characteristics of the combined system. (Yilbas and Sahin, 2014).
5.0 RECOVERY OF EXPANSION LOSSES
The typical VCC uses one of them such as a capillary tube, thermostatic
expansion valve (TXV), and electric expansion valve (EEV) to expand a high
pressure refrigerant exiting from the condenser. Theoretically, the expansion process
is considered as an isenthalpic process which causes thermodynamic loss. To
recover this thermodynamic loss, an isentropic process is required in the expansion
process. An expander or an ejector as the expansion device can be used to generate
isentropic condition in the throttling process.

5.1 EXPANDER CYCLE

Fig. 8 shows the schematic diagram and P–h diagram of the expander
cycle.An expander can be seen as a compressor operating in reverse. Therefore, any
compressor mechanism can be used as the expander in principle.The expander
enables to improve the COP of the system in two ways by increasing the cooling
capacity through an isentropic process and by utilizing the recovered expansion
losses for assisting the compressor, which results in a reduced compressor power
consumption.
The performance of positive displacement expanders in CO2 application was
investigated using a work extracting expansion process instead of the isenthalpic
throttling process can improve the cycle performance significantly and may help
make CO2 competitive with conventional refrigerants. First law estimations show
potential improvements of the COP in the order of 40%–70% and 5%–15% for the
capacity. With the expander coupled directly to the compressor shaft, the control of
the high-side pressure requires special attention. Fig. 9 shows the circuitry options for
high-side pressure control in expander systems. Option (a) is in a system with
independent compressor and expander speeds. In options (b) and (c), the high-side
pressure may be adjusted by increasing the total flow resistance across the
expansion section by introducing an additional, adjustable pressure drop. Option (d)
adjusts the flow resistance across the expansion section by introducing an adjustable
by-pass to the expander. In options (e) and (f), the compression is divided into two
sections. The expander speed is determined by the operating conditions. The low
stage compressor (e) or the high-stage compressor (f) is independent of the
expander speed. (Huff et al. 2002)

FIG. 9
 After the integration of a three stage expander into a CO 2 refrigeration system
was presented, The COP was improved and the discharge pressure of the main
compressor was lowered. When the discharge pressure was 10 MPa and the suction
pressure was 3 MPa, the improvement of the system COP compared with the throttle
cycle was larger than 40 %.(Nickl et al. 2005)
A simulation study on a novel vane type expander with internal two-stage
expansion process for R-410A refrigeration system was conducted on 2012. The study
showed that the proposed expander obtained built-in volumetric ratio up to 7.6 with the
isentropic efficiency of 55.9% at 2000 rpm and theoretically improved the COP from
4.0 to 4.56, by 14.2%, under design operating condition (condensation temperature:
54.4 °C, and evaporation temperature: 7.2 °C). (Wang et al. 2012)
An economic analysis of the expander cycle on to existing vapor compression
cooling systems, particularly medium scale air conditioners was reported. Assuming
that the compressor and the expander efficiencies are 75% and 50%, respectively, the
payback periods are less than 5 years for all the systems.
The expander cycle has a great potential to improve the VCC performance.
There are several options to extract the work by the expander. (1) The shaft of the
expander can be combined with that of the compressor. (2) The generated electricity
can be used for the compressor. (3) The multiple expanders can be utilized to recover
the expansion loss more efficiently. The limitation on the expander cycle is the low
expander efficiency. Moreover, due to thel arge pressure differences inside the
machine one has to minimize the possibilities for internal leakage. (Subiantoro and
Ooi, 2013)

5.2 EJECTOR CYCLE

Fig. 10 shows the schematic diagram and P–h diagram of the ejector cycle. An
ejector is also known as a jet, injector or jet pump in different literatures.
The ejector is mainly compose of a nozzle, mixing chamber and diffuser.
Basically, the ejector is designed to mix the high pressure fluid with low pressure
fluid. The refrigerant from the condenser flows through the ejector and exits the
nozzle, which creates a low pressure at the nozzle outlet. The low pressure draws a
refrigerant from the low temperature evaporator outlet. High pressure fluid from the
condenser and low pressure fluid from the low temperature evaporator could be
mixed in the mixing chamber. The pressure of mixed refrigerant recovers at the
diffuser section. The ejector is an energy converter that transforms expansion losses
into kinetic energy and then back to an increase pressure so that the compression
work is reduced. (Jiautheen and Annamalai, 2014).
Ejector was also named as an alternate two-phase ejector cycle. In this cycle, the
liquid at the outlet of the condenser is split into two separate streams. One stream is
sent to the motive nozzle of the ejector and the other is isenthalpically throttled and
sent to an evaporator. The two streams are mixed in the ejector mixing section and
enter a second evaporator, where they are vaporized before returning to the
compressor and condenser. This alternate ejector cycle enables to relax the
constraints between the ejector entrainment ratio and the quality of the ejector outlet
stream. (Lawrence and Elbel, 2014 and Boumaraf et al. (2014)

Showed that the dual evaporator ejector cycle has an improvement in the COP
more than 17% at Tc = 40 °C for both. When it was applied to R-1234yf, the COP
was increased more than R134a, especially at high condensing temperatures.
However, R-134a represented slightly higher values of COP for both the conventional
VCC and the dual evaporator ejector cycle. In the experimental results. The dual
evaporator ejector cycle showed maximum COP improvements of 12% with R-1234yf
and 8% with R-134a as compared to a two evaporation temperature expansion valve
cycle. (Lawrence and Elbel, 2014),
The efficiencies and capacities for an R-744 supermarket system layout with
ejectors as shown in Fig. 12. Heat from the freezing part of the system is rejected to
the medium temperature part. From this part the heat is released to the different heat
recovery units and external heat rejection devices like gas cooler and inter-stage
cooler. The medium temperature compressors are drawing the gas from the first
separator (SP-1) downstream of the ejectors. The ejectors are applied to maintain a
certain pressure difference between the separator (SP-2) and the separator (SP-
1).Themultiejector system showed a significant COP increase as compared to the
reference system (booster system with flash gas bypass and heat recovery) for both
cooling and heating modes. For different climate conditions, the COP in the cooling
mode increased by 5–17% and also the COP in heating mode increased between
20% and 30% as compared to the reference system. (Lawrence and Elbel 2013,
2014).
 In 2014 experimental investigation for the performance of an adjustable ejector
used in a multi-evaporator refrigeration system as shown in Fig. 13 was carried
out.The adjustable ejector with a spindle to adjust the area of the nozzle throat was
applied to deal with the considerable variation in primary cooling load for air
conditioning system.

In Fig. 13, the refrigerant flow is divided into three streams which enter
evaporators 1, 2, and 3 after pressure reduction in the electronic expansion valves
EEV1, EEV2, and EEV3, respectively. The refrigerant from evaporator 3 at state (8)
and evaporator 2 at state (7) enter ejector 2 as primary and secondary flows,
respectively. Then the two streams are mixed and leave the ejector at state (9). The
mixed flow leaving ejector 2 is entrained in ejector 1 by the primary flow coming from
evaporator 1. After pressure improved, the refrigerant leaves ejector 1 at state
(1).The authors described that the adjustable ejector applied in the multi evaporator
refrigeration system could be used to control the primary inlet pressure for better
pressure recovery property.

For the expander cycle, the throttling loss is recovered and transferred to the
compressor, but total compressor work is not changed. Therefore, the expander
efficiency is the most important factor. For the ejector cycle, the compressor work
decreases with increase of the suction pressure. Moreover, heat transfer capacity
increases with the use of the separator. However, the performance improvement can be
limited by the ejector efficiency. Moreover, the ejector geometry is fixed for one
operating condition so that the novel design should be developed for the wide range of
operation. (Lin et al. 2015)

6.0 Multi Stage Cycle

As the temperature difference between evaporation and condensation increases

under the condition of either very low or high ambient temperatures, the performance
and reliability of the heat pump could be deteriorated. This is because the increase in
irreversibility during the compression process and the reduction in the mass flow rate.
Among several technologies to overcome its disadvantage, a multi-stage cycle has
rapidly developed in recent years.

6.1 Two-Stage Cycle

The injection techniques can be divided into liquid, vapor, and two-phase
injection according to the state of the injected refrigerant. In the study of liquid
injection, reported the influence of liquid injection on the performance of a scroll
compressor, the discharge temperature of which decreased as the injection ration
increased.
Winandy and Lebrun investigated experimentally and theoretically for an R-22
heat pump with liquid and vapor injection. The main effect of the liquid injection was to
decrease the compressor discharge temperature by about 1.2 °C for each injection
ratio. The vapor injection cycle can be separated into the flash tank and subcooler
vapor injection cycle. For the flash tank cycle, refrigerant vapor for injection was
provided by phase separation inside the flash tank. The flash tank cycle shows
unexpected flooding in the compressor at high speeds due to the difficulty of
accurately controlling the amount of injection. On the other hand, injected vapor in the
subcooler cycle was generated by heat exchange using the temperature difference
between before and after the high-stage expansion device in the subcooler. The
subcooler cycle yields a lower heating performance than the flash tank cycle even
though it allows for more stable and precise cycle control through the variation of the
injected amount. (Dutta et al. 2009 and (Cho et al. 2010)
In 2010 studied the heating performance of the flash tank cycle using R-410A.
The COP and heating capacity of the flash tank cycle were enhanced by up to 10%
and 25%, respectively, at the ambient temperature of −15 °C as compared to those of
the non-injection cycle. (Heo et al. 2010)
There is also an expirement with the heating and cooling performance of the
flash tank and subcooler cycles using R-410A. The flash tank and subcooler cycles
showed the performance improvement over the noninjection system. In the operation
condition of maximum cooling, the cooling capacity and COP were improved by 15 %
and 2%, respectively, at an ambient temperature of 46.1 °C.The heating COP was
improved up to 23% by the flash tank cycle at an ambient temperature of −17.8 °C.
(Wang et al. 2009)
The heating performance of the heat pumps in which novel vapor injection
techniques of a combined flash tank and subcooler (FTSC)

cycle and a double expansion subcooler ( DESC ) cycle were applied as shown in Fig.
14.
The DESC cycle was a modified subcooler cycle by adding an electronic
expansion valve at the condenser exit to allow pressure control in the subcooler. The
FTSC cycle included both a flash tank and a subcooler to increase the enthalpy
difference in the evaporator due to the removal of flash gas in the flash tank and allow
precise control of the injected amount.
 The author compared the average performance for each cycle option with that of
the subcooler cycle as shown in Fig. 15.
The average heating capacities of the flash tank, FTSC, and DESC cycles were
higher by 14.4%, 6.0%, and 3.8%, respectively, than that of the subcooler cycle. The
average COPs of all the cycle options were very similar.The author suggested the
heating performance of the flash tank cycle was certainly superior to that of each of the
other cycle options. However, when stable and precise cycle control is a major concern
in system design, the FTSC cycle is the best selection as an alternative cycle because
the flash tank cycle can experience unexpected flooding in the compressor at high
speeds due to the difficulty in precise control of the injected amount. (Heo et al. 2011)
A vapor injection flash tank heat pump system, and proposed a novel cycle
control strategy was investigated.Through experiment,the proportional–integral–
derivative (PID) controller was able to provide accurate control of the electronic
expansion valve (EEV) to reach the target superheat. It was reported that the injected
vapor’s superheat can be effectively used as the control signal of the upperstage
expansion valve. (Xu et al. 2011a, 2011b, 2013)

6.2 Saturation Cycle

The saturation cycle was proposed to enhance the VCC performance by

reducing thermodynamic losses associated with single phase gas compression and
isenthalpic expansion.In order to approach the saturation cycle, the saturation
expansion and saturation compression processes were used simultaneously together
with evaporation and condensing processes. (Lee et al. 2015)

Fig. 15 – Comparison of the average performance for each cycle option

Fig. 16 showed i-stage refrigerant injection VCCs, which can approach the ideal
saturation vapor compression and expansion cycle. The refrigerant injection process
could be repeated in many steps as long as the compressor design allows.
As the stage number increases, the compression and expansion processes
approach the saturation lines as shown in Fig. 17.
When either the partially expanded two-phase refrigerant is separated in the
phase separating tank or the partially expanded sub-stream of twophase refrigerant is
heated by the main stream refrigerant from the condenser, all of separated cold vapor
and a part of liquid are used for two-phase refrigerant injection to the compressor, and
the low enthalpy liquid is further expanded to the following bottoming stage. The author
described the saturation cycle would be able to improve not only the capacity but also
the coefficient of the performance. In addition, the twophase injection technique was
applied to the saturation cycle. The refrigerant state after mixing with two-phase
refrigerant could be controlled by P-T sensors.

The COPs of two different working fluids under five different operating
conditions as shown in Fig. 18 and Table 1.As the stage number is increased, the
COPs increase. In the results, the heating COP of the four-stage cycle was higher by
42.4% for R-410A and 38.2% for the propane as compared to those of their respective
single stage cycle. (Lee et al. 2015)
7.0 SUMMARY

In recent years, the research and development have been made to improve the
performance of the VCC. This paper presents the improved cycle options and
comprehensively reviewed them. The improved cycle options include subcooling,
recovery of expansion loss, and multi-stage cycle. The following conclusions are
summarized from the reviewed works:

For the application of the SLHX, it can be categorized in two groups: one group
has positive effect in the COP improvement (R-507A, R-134a, R-12, R-404A, R-290, R-
407C, R-600, R-744, R-1234yf and R-410A) and the other group has no COP
improvement (R-22, R-32, and R-717).
The use of thermoelectric device as the subcooler needs the multi-staged
arrangement due to the rapid decrease of the COP with increasing temperature lift.
The performance of the ejector cycle can be increased at the low heat sink
temperature. The application of the adjustable ejector enables the potential of the
energy savings in multiple-evaporator refrigeration system.
In the vapor injection cycle, the flash tank cycle has the possibility of unexpected
flooding in the compressor despite its superior performance.When considering the
stable and precise cycle control, the FTSC cycle would be the best selection as an
alternative cycle.
The saturation cycle shows the best performance improvement among advanced
cycle options.When the saturation cycle technique is applied by using four-stage cycle,
the heating COPs of R-410A and the propane cycles are improved by 42.4% and
38.2%, respectively.
These findings could direct the following future researches. The expander cycle
has a great potential to improve the VCC performance. The limitation on the expander
cycle is the low expander efficiency. Moreover, due to the large pressure differences
inside the machine one has to minimize the possibilities of internal leakage. The ejector
applied VCC has a large potential to improve the performance but there are some
limitations such as a narrow range of operation due to the fixed geometry. When
advanced vapor compression cycles are applied, the complexity of the cycles and the
cost of the system increase due to the additional new components. Therefore, economic
analysis on each cycle option would be recommended. Currently, the saturation cycle
promises the best performance improvement, which needs more research on
temperature measurement and controls. Moreover, two-phase injection compressor
needs to be developed and optimized.
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