Experimental Investigation of a Mechanical Vapour Compression Chiller at Elevated Chilled Water Temperatures

Thu, Kyaw; Saththasivam, Jayaprakash; SAHA, Bidyut Baran; Chua, Kian Jon; Srinivasa Murthy, S.; Ng, Kim Choon

Experimental Investigation of a Mechanical Vapour Compression Chiller at Elevated Chilled Water Temperatures

Files

1-s2.0-S1359431117321531-main.pdf (1.69 MB)

Type

Article

Authors

Thu, Kyaw
Saththasivam, Jayaprakash

SAHA, Bidyut Baran
Chua, Kian Jon
Srinivasa Murthy, S.
Ng, Kim Choon

KAUST Department

Biological and Environmental Sciences and Engineering (BESE) Division
Environmental Science and Engineering Program
Water Desalination and Reuse Research Center (WDRC)

Online Publication Date

2017-05-18

Print Publication Date

2017-08

Date

2017-05-18

Abstract

The performance of a Mechanical Vapour Compression (MVC) chiller is experimentally investigated under operating conditions suitable for sensible cooling. With the emergence of the energy efficient dehumidification systems, it is possible to decouple the latent load from the MVC chillers which can be operated at higher chilled water temperature for handling sensible cooling load. In this article, the performance of the chiller is evaluated at the elevated chilled water outlet temperatures (7 – 17° C) at various coolant temperatures (28 – 32° C) and flow rates (ΔT = 4 and 5° C) for both full- and part-load conditions. Keeping the performance at the AHRI standard as the baseline condition, the efficacy of the chiller in terms of compression ratio, cooling capacity and COP at aforementioned conditions is quantified experimentally. It is observed that for each one-degree Celsius increase in the chilled water temperature, the COP of the chiller improves by about 3.5% whilst the cooling capacity improvement is about 4%. For operation at 17° C chilled water outlet temperature, the improvements in COP and cooling capacity are between 37 – 40% and 40 – 45%, respectively, compared to the performance at the AHRI standards. The performance of the MVC chiller at the abovementioned operation conditions is mapped on the chiller performance characteristic chart.

Citation

Thu K, Saththasivam J, Saha BB, Chua KJ, Srinivasa Murthy S, et al. (2017) Experimental Investigation of a Mechanical Vapour Compression Chiller at Elevated Chilled Water Temperatures. Applied Thermal Engineering. Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2017.05.091.

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the Kyushu University Program for Leading Graduate School, Green Asia Education Center and the National Research Foundation (NRF), Singapore, under the research grant (R-265-000-466-281) for their financial support to conduct this study.