Investigation of Vapor Ejectors in Heat Driven Ejector Refrigeration Systems

Abstract: Refrigeration systems, air-conditioning units and heat pumps have been recognized as indispensable machines in human life, and are used for e.g. food storage, provision of thermal comfort. These machines are dominated by the vapor compression refrigeration system and consume a large percentage of world-wide electricity output. Moreover, CO2 emissions related to the heating and cooling processes contribute significantly to the total amount of CO2 emission from energy use. The ejector refrigeration system (ERS) has been considered as a quite interesting system that can be driven by sustainable and renewable thermal energy, like solar energy, and low-grade waste heat, consequently, reducing the electricity use. The system has some other remarkable merits, such as being simple and reliable, having low initial and running cost with long lifetime, and providing the possibility of using environmentally-friendly refrigerants, which make it very attractive. The ERS has received extensive attention theoretically and experimentally.This thesis describes in-depth investigations of vapor ejectors in the ERS to discover more details. An ejector model is proposed to determine the system performance and obtain the required area ratio of the ejector by introducing three ejector efficiencies. Based on this ejector model, the characteristics of the vapor ejector and the ERS are investigated from different perspectives.The working fluid significantly influences the ejector behavior and system performance as well as the ejector design. No perfect working fluid that satisfies all the criteria of the ERS can be found. The performance of nine refrigerants has been parametrically compared in the ERS. Based on the slope of the vapor saturation curve in a T-s diagram, the working fluids can be divided into three categories: wet, dry and isentropic. A wet fluid has a negative slope of the vapor saturation curve in the T-s diagram. An isentropic expansion process from a saturated vapor state will make the state after the expansion to fall inside the liquid-vapor area of the T-s diagram which will result in droplet formation. Generally, an isentropic expansion for a dry fluid will not occur inside the liquid-vapor area, and consequently no droplets will form. An isentropic fluid has a vertical slope of the vapor saturation curve in the T-s diagram and an isentropic expansion process will hence follow the vapor saturation curve in the T-s diagram, ideally without any droplet formation. However, when the saturation condition is close to the critical point, it is possible that the isentropic expansion process of a dry fluid and an isentropic fluid occurs inside the liquid-vapor area of the T-s diagram, resulting in formation of droplets. In order to avoid droplet formation during the expansion, a minimum required superheat of the primary flow has been introduced before the nozzle inlet. Results show that the dry fluids have generally better performance than the wet fluids and the isentropic fluid. Hence the thesis mostly focuses on the features of vapor ejectors and the ERS using dry fluids.Exergy analysis has been proven to be very useful to identify the location, magnitude, and sources of exergy destruction and exergy loss, and to determine the possibilities of system performance improvement. This method is applied to the ejector and the ERS. The ejector parameters are closely interacting. The operating condition and the ejector area ratio have a great impact on the ejector overall efficiency and system COP. The ejector efficiencies are sensitive to the operating conditions, and they significantly influence the system performance. A so-called advanced exergy analysis is adopted to quantify the interactions among the ERS components and to evaluate the realistic potential of improvement. The results indicate that, at the studied operating condition, the ejector should have the highest priority to be improved, followed by the condenser, and then the generator.Thermoeconomics, which combines the thermodynamic analysis and economic principles, is applied to reveal new terms of interest of the ERS. The economic costs of the brine side fluids (fluids that supply heat to the generator and evaporator and remove heat from the condenser) play very essential roles in the thermoeconomic optimization of the ERS. Depending on different economic conditions, the system improvement from a thermodynamic point of view could be quite different from the thermoeconomic optimization. The ERS is economically sound when using free heat sources and heat sink.An ejector test bench has been built to test the entrainment ratio of different ejectors. Although the experiments do not achieve the desired results, they could still be discussed. The insignificant effect of the superheat of the secondary flow found in the theoretical study is validated. The assumption of neglecting the velocities at the ejector inlets and outlet are confirmed. The quantification of the ejector efficiencies shows that they largely depend on the operating conditions and the ejector dimensions.