Performance and Evaluation of Air Conditioning Unit in CEA – Faculty Room

Introduction

Air conditioning is a system that uses air to fulfill the home’s comfort demands,

providing cool air to make it more pleasant. The thermodynamic process can be utilized

to alter the characteristics of indoor air. The word “air conditioning” refers to a method of

modifying the temperature, humidity, or overall quality of air. To put it another way, it

can be used to cool your locations in a closed system by rejecting heat energy from our

locations, transferring the heat outside, and then exchanging the air inside your

locations with cooler air.

Objectives

The main objective of the study is to understand how the air conditioner controls not

only the temperature, but the humidity, how the refrigeration cycle of the room air

conditioner works and also, to evaluate the cooling capacity and power consumption

under different operating conditions.

 To observe and understand the changes in air properties as it is treated in a

basic air – conditioning unit.

 To educate participants with energy technology concepts and principles while

also solving a practical problem.

Theories

It discusses the theories of air – conditioning system.

Central Air Conditioner

Palani (1992). This paper discusses the measured degradation in performance of

a residential air conditioning system operating under reduced evaporator air flow.

Experiments were conducted using a R-22 three-ton split-type cooling system with a

short-tube orifice expansion device. Results are presented here for a series of tests in

which the evaporator air flow was reduced from 25 to 90% below what is normally

recommended for this air conditioner. At present, very little information is available

which quantifies the performance of a residential cooling system operating under

degraded conditions such as reduced evaporator air flow. Degraded performance

measurements can provide information which could help electric utilities evaluate the

potential impact of system-wide maintenance programs.

Ductless Mini - Split

Roth (2013). Field tests were conducted in two homes in Austin, TX to evaluate

the comfort performance of ductless mini-split heat pumps (DMSHPs), measuring

temperature and relative humidity measurements in four rooms in each home before

and after retrofitting a central HVAC system with DMSHPs.

Window Air Conditioner

E. Hajidavallo (2007). Reduction of energy consumption is a major concern in the

vapor compression refrigeration cycle especially in the area with very hot weather
conditions (about 50 °C), where window-air-conditioners are usually used to cool

homes. In this weather condition performance of air condenser window-air-conditioners

decrease sharply and electrical power consumption increase considerably. These

problems have activated the research programs in order to improve the performance of

window-air-conditioners by enhancing heat transfer rate in the condenser. In this article,

a new design with high commercialization potential for incorporating of evaporative

cooling in the condenser of window-air-conditioner is introduced and experimentally

investigated. A real air conditioner is used to test the innovation by putting two cooling

pads in both sides of the air conditioner and injecting water on them in order to cool

down the air before it passing over the condenser. The experimental results show that

thermodynamic characteristics of new system are considerably improved and power

consumption decreases by about 16% and the coefficient of performance increases by

about 55%.

Portable Air Conditioner

Ravindra Garud Akhilesh (2016). Heat as always been a problem in every

country such as Malaysia. Doing work in a hot summer day can be tiring and are prone

to make silly and unwanted mistakes. A proper air conditioner would be good item to

have during these times. When doing work or event, the place could become stuffy and

uncomfortable for technician or engineer. However, air conditioners are mostly

marketed as fix and hard to change places portable air conditioners are dime a dozen

but somehow are very expensive to have. In this project, we aim to make a portable air

conditioner that is affordable and reliably cool small confined for a limited amount of

time and space.

Floor Mounted Air Conditioner

Peng Lui (2011). Air conditioners possess a large proportion of the energy

consumption in a building for both heating and cooling functions. The purpose of this

paper is to present the work in progress which uses simple and cheap sensor nodes

mounting on the external unit of air conditioners to automatically sense the usage

pattern. This work is part of the project called Cyber IVY, which provides means of

building surveillance using Surface Mounted and Energy-harvesting Wireless Sensor

Networks. By this implementation, the precise working status of air conditioners can be

monitored. The paper describes the hardware design, node deployment, and

networking issues of this wireless sensor network. The performance of practical

experiments shows that our system is applicable and robustness for the purpose of

energy waste monitoring. Usage pattern, unusual behavior and other issues can be

detected.

Smart Air Conditioner

Aeknarin Aroon (2017). In this work, a smart Air Conditioner scheme is

proposed and its adaptation to a Smart Home system is presented. Firstly,

working principles of conventional Air Conditioner and the proposed smart Air

Conditioner are explained and compared. Then, Petri net model of the smart

Air Conditioner is developed in order to enable a good general view of the

operation of the smart-Air Conditioner and its adaptation to Smart Home.

Moreover, for monitoring and controlling the smart Air Conditioner, a program

is prepared by using Keysight VEE 9.3 software. Experimental results

demonstrate that the proposed scheme provides a significant savings in

electricity bills as well as improving user comfort.

Geothermal Air Conditioning System

S. Roseik (2012). This paper describes a shallow geothermal system that was

designed as an alternative to the cooling tower in a solar-assisted air-conditioning

system installed in southern Spain (Almería). The core idea of this solar-assisted air-

conditioning system is to cover the cooling and heating load of the Solar Energy

Research Centre (CIESOL), minimising its environmental impact. In this study, the

cooling mode was further investigated. The shallow geothermal system has been

operating since May 2010, providing groundwater at 22 °C via a 20-m-deep supply well

as a cooling carrier medium. The shallow geothermal system application improves the

solar-assisted air-conditioning system’s efficiency, thereby reducing its electricity and

water consumption. The results demonstrate that during one cooling period, the

seasonal shallow geothermal system uses 31% less electrical energy than a cooling

tower system. It also achieves savings of 116 m3 in water consumption throughout the

summer period.

Hybrid / Dual Fuel Air Conditioner

K. Tung (2019). Hybrid residential HVAC system, comprising of with a natural

gas furnace and an air-source heat pump (ASHP), is gaining interest as a more

environmentally friendly alternative to conventional HVAC system with a natural gas

furnace and central air-conditioner. Such hybrid HVAC systems could take advantage of

the relatively clean and cost competitive time-of-use (TOU) electricity pricing to meet

heating demand with the ASHP during milder winter temperature and off-peak hours.

Current hybrid systems rely on a pre-set outdoor temperature set point for heating

source switching, thus making such system inflexible and not optimal. In the current

study, the NZEH model was experimentally validated using collected data and an

extensive sensitivity analysis was performed. The Smart Dual Fuel Switching System

(SDFSS) was simulated to operate in different scenarios including different major cities

in Ontario (Canada), different types of residential houses, operate under the proposed

federal carbon tax and operate with different new time-of-use electricity pricing

schemes. The different scenarios demonstrate the benefits and flexibility of such Smart

Duel Switching System in terms of reducing the space heating energy consumption and

associated operating cost and greenhouse gas emission on an annual basis.

Methods

The performance analysis of the air-conditioning system was carried out using

data collected through parameters.

Table 1. Measured Parameters

Parameters Value

Temperature (⁰C)

Humidity (%)

Flow rate (m³/s)

Voltage (V)
 Current (A)

Power (kW)

Power Factor

EER

COP

Discussion and Results

Conclusion

References

Palani, M.; O'Neal, D.; Haberl, J. (1992). The Effect of Reduced Evaporator Air Flow on

the Performance of a Residential Central Air Conditioner. Energy Systems Laboratory

(http://esl.eslwin.tamu.edu). Available electronically

from https://hdl.handle.net/1969.1/92896.

Roth, K, Sehgal, N, & Akers, C. Ductless Mini-Split Heat Pump Comfort Evaluation.

United States. https://doi.org/10.2172/1071978

6. Aeknarin Aroon, Chaitouch Maneeinn, Surin Khomfoi, "Reactive power compensation

using inverter air-condition for smart home application", Electrical

Engineering/Electronics Computer Telecommunications and Information Technology

(ECTI-CON) 2017 14th International Conference on, pp. 290-293, 2017.

8. Tung et al 2019. Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd IOP Conference

Series: Earth and Environmental Science, Volume 238, 4th Asia Conference of
International Building Performance Simulation Association 3–5 December 2018, Hong

Kong