Experimental Investigation of Small Capacity Vapor Absorption Refrigeration System

Abstract

Vapor absorption refrigeration is widely used in industrial applications to cater big cooling load in chilling plants. As it does possess the ability to take care of bigger cooling loads ranging from 10TR to 3500TR according to which their size and construction changes. It also uses waste heat as a heat source which is mostly available in industries. The main challenge is to lessen the capacity of the system by building the state-of-the-art Vapor Absorption System and explore the possibility of utilizing non-conventional source of energy to run the system. Hence the present study was related to develop a domestic air conditioning system having a capacity of 1TR using LiBr-Water vapor absorption refrigeration system. In the present work, LPG fuel based prototype has been fabricated to check the technical feasibility of the designed system. In the existing small capacity vapor absorption refrigeration system, there were issues related to vacuum, which required special attention to maintain the system pressure. Also there were issues related to choking of the flow in expansion device, hence the designing of expansion device as well as heating system was redone. Also design rating was redone for a change in concentration of the LiBr-Water solution from 58% to 55% concentration. The behavior and characterization of the system was also undertaken. The COP of the existing system was observed to be 0.62.