Dynamic investigation of the diffusion absorption refrigeration system NH3-H2O-H2

Abstract

This paper reports on a numerical and experimental study of a diffusion absorption refrigerator. The performance of the system is examined by computer simulation using MATLAB software and Engineering Equations Solver. A dynamic model is developed for each component of the system and solved numerically in order to predict the transient state of the diffusion absorption refrigeration. The experiment set included 0.04 m3 commercial absorption diffusion refrigerator working with the ammonia-water-hydrogen (NH3-H2O-H2) solution. The transient numerical results were validated with the experimental data. The investigations are focused on the dynamic profile of the temperature of each component. The results obtained agree with the experiment; the relative error between numerical and experimental models doesn’t exceed 15% for all temperatures of each component. The increase of the average ambient temperature from 23.04 °C to 32.56 °C causes an increase of the condensation temperature from 29.46 °C to 37.51 °C, and the best evaporation temperature obtained was 3 °C, with an ambient temperature of 23.04 °C. The results show that a minimum starting temperature of 152 °C and 63.8 W electric power are required to initiate the decrease of evaporation temperature.

Keywords

• Diffusion absorption chiller
• Transient state
• Electrical heater
• Water-ammonia-hydrogen
• Experimental