Experimental and Analytical Study for Condenser Shading Effects on Air-Conditioning System Performance
An experimental and analytical study was done to investigate the performance of an air conditioning unit when the condenser was shaded from the sun rays. The experimental study investigated a 3 ton-refrigerant (TR) unit installed in a two story residential house. The surface temperature of the refrigerant tubes exiting the condenser unit was measured and recorded along with the evaporator temperature. A tent was used to project shade into the condenser unit of the air conditioning system of the selected house. The study looked into improvement in the coefficient of performance (COP) of the cycle. To expand the investigation, the paper simulated the COP for a 3 TR unit and for a wider range of air-conditioning unit capacities ranging from 80 to 370 TR. The experimental and analytical simulation results for the 3 TR unit were compared. The study looked into the temperatures between June and September while maintaining the evaporator temperature at approximately 5°C, 8°C, and 10°C. Averages of the COP for each day were compared for shaded versus unshaded cases. Uncertainty analysis taking into consideration the random and the bias uncertainties was performed using progression uncertainty analysis.
Outdoor daily averaged temperatures ranged between 18-32°C. The experimental results for the 3 TR unit showed 12-39% improvement in the COP of the cycle under various evaporator temperatures with uncertainty levels between ±1.63-13.6%. The simulated results for the same capacity (3 TR) showed higher improvements than the experimental ones. However, for larger capacities, the simulated cases had lower improvement than the 3 TR unit and ranged between 10-14% for the various capacities and cases.
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Experimental and Analytical Study for Condenser Shading Effects on Air-Conditioning System Performance
Category
Technical Paper Publication
Description
Session: 09-06-01 Fluid Mechanics, Heat Transfer, Experiments and Energy Systems & General Topics
ASME Paper Number: IMECE2020-23215
Session Start Time: November 18, 2020, 03:45 PM
Presenting Author: Maher Shehadi
Presenting Author Bio: Dr. Shehadi is an Assistant Professor of mechanical engineering technology in the School of Engineering Technology at Purdue University. His academic experience have focused on learning and discovery in areas related to HVAC, indoor air quality, human thermal comfort, and energy conservation. While working in industry, he oversaw maintenance and management programs for various facilities including industrial plants, high rise residential and commercial buildings, energy audits and condition surveys for various mechanical and electrical and systems. He has conducted several projects to reduce CO2 fingerprint of buildings by evaluating and improving the energy practices through the integration of sustainable systems with existing systems. Professor Shehadi has interests in air pollution reduction and in providing healthier environment by analyzing the various pollutants that are present in outdoor and indoor air. His current research focuses on sustainable and green buildings and energy conservation. He is currently investigating various ways to reduce energy consumption in office buildings.
Authors: Maher Shehadi Purdue University