Experimental study on thermal performance of a closed heat pump drying system

Abstract

The compressor speed, expansion valve opening and drying temperature are critical to the thermal performance improvement and control logic optimization of the closed heat pump drying (CHPD) system. This paper investigates the effects of the three parameters on the thermal performance of the CHPD system by the single factor experiment method. According to the experimental findings, as the compressor speed of the system increased, the heating capacity grew by 11.4%, but the coefficient of performance (COP) declined by 41.3%. As the expansion valve opening of the system increased, the heating capacity and COP grew by 73.5% and 82.9%, respectively. As the drying temperature of the system rose, the heating capacity grew by 3.1%, but the COP dropped by 25.3%. It can be concluded that reducing the compressor speed and drying temperature, and increasing the expansion valve opening could effectively enhance the thermal performance of the CHPD system.

Keywords

• Heat pump drying
• Thermal performance
• Compressor
• Expansion valve
• Drying temperature