Transient 1D Heat Exchanger Model For The Simulation of Domestic Cooling Cycles Working With R600a
Transient 1D Heat Exchanger Model For The Simulation of Domestic Cooling Cycles Working With R600a
Purdue e-Pubs
International Refrigeration and Air Conditioning
School of Mechanical Engineering
Conference
2014
Martin Heimel
Graz University of Technology, Austria, [email protected]
Stefan Posch
Graz University of Technology, Austria, [email protected]
Raimund Almbauer
Graz University of Technology, Austria, [email protected]
Martin Eichinger
Graz University of Technology, Austria, [email protected]
Berger, Erwin; Heimel, Martin; Posch, Stefan; Almbauer, Raimund; and Eichinger, Martin, "Transient 1D heat exchanger model for
the simulation of domestic cooling cycles working with R600a" (2014). International Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Conference.
Paper 1434.
http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/iracc/1434
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2294, Page 1
Erwin BERGER1*, Martin HEIMEL2, Stefan POSCH3, Raimund ALMBAUER4, Martin EICHINGER5
1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Institute for Internal Combustion Engines and Thermodynamics, Graz University of Technology,
Inffeldgasse 19, 8010 Graz, Austria
1
[email protected] +43 316 873 30234
2
[email protected] +43 316 873 30235
3
[email protected] +43 316 873 30233
4
[email protected] +43 316 873 30230
5
[email protected] +43 316 873 30234
* Corresponding Author
ABSTRACT
Generally, domestic refrigerators and freezers are running in non-continuous operation mode most of the time,
which is a necessity to match cooling capacity to thermal loads. In currently available domestic appliances this
matching is realized either by on/off or variable frequency control of the hermetic compressor, leading to a repetitive
and transient change of the system state. In case of longer compressor runtimes when cooling capacity demand is
high (e.g. pull down cycles, initial operation) steady state operating conditions might be reached.
The cycling transients cause losses in system efficiency, thus they should be reduced or avoided. To understand the
complex transient physical processes and to optimize the cooling system efficiency, the use of numerical methods
has turned out to be a promising approach.
For this reason, a 1D heat exchanger model, which has been successfully implemented in a domestic cooling cycle
simulation tool, is presented in this work. The heat exchanger model is a further development of the model being
presented in Berger et al. (2012). The same mathematical framework is used for modeling the evaporator and
condenser. In order to compute the void fraction, the pressure drop and the heat transfer in case of evaporation and
condensation special empirical models, which are proposed in literature, have been implemented. Finally, the
numerical predictions are compared to experimental data gained from a purpose-built test rig.
The heat exchangers of refrigeration devices – no matter whether they are integrated in domestic or commercial
appliances – are the main components to influence the transient thermal performance of the whole system. The
working process within the heat exchangers can be described as a complex 3-dimensional fluid flow with strong
non-linear phase transitions of the refrigerant, which are caused by a combined heat transfer including convection,
radiation and heat conduction. Furthermore, the working fluid is not a pure refrigerant but actually a
refrigerant/lubrication oil mixture, whose composition is unknown and hardly detectable. Regarding on/off
controlled systems, the phase changes during start-up and shut-down are highly transient and consequently crucial
for all further responses of the system.
The handling of these severe transients is the major challenge in developing a transient heat exchanger model.
Generally, heat exchanger models can be classified into single component models (component level analysis) and
models which are implemented in cycle simulation tools (system level analysis). The system approach requires a
compromise between computation accuracy and computation speed because the results of one component are given
as boundary condition for the adjacent components (Berger et al., 2012).
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The development of refrigeration cycle simulation tools, and therefore transient heat exchanger models, began in the
late 1970s (detailed summaries can be found in Philipp, 2002 or Hermes and Melo, 2008). Nowadays, typically used
cycle simulation tools are non-commercial and simplified combinations of 0-dimensional and 1-dimensional
modeling approaches to approximate the real 3-dimensional working process with an appropriate accuracy. Even
though computer power has increased significantly in recent years, 3-dimensional simulations with commercially
available software packages have only been used to investigate the air flow in the refrigerator cabinet but not for the
computation of the two phase flow in the heat exchangers – neither for steady state conditions nor for transient
conditions (Laguerre et al., 2007, Gupta et al., 2007).
The following literature review is a representative summary of research activities dealing with transient heat
exchanger modeling and the experimental validation within the last 30 years.
In 1988, Melo et al. presented their numerical and experimental investigation of the dynamic behavior of a vapor
compression refrigerator. Condenser and evaporator were modeled by three and two control volumes, respectively.
Experiments were carried out using a top-mount refrigerator and a comparison between simulation data and
experimental data was shown for the suction and discharge pressure as well as for the air temperature in the freezer
and in the cabinet. No transient thermal information about the heat exchangers was presented.
A moving boundary element approach for the heat exchangers can be found in Janssen et al. (1988) in their
theoretical and experimental investigation of a dynamic model for small refrigerating systems. An upright freezer
with evaporator shelves was used for the experimental validation. Regarding the heat exchangers, their measured
temperatures differed considerably from the simulated data especially during the highly transient start-up phase.
This fact was explained thereby that the model was adjusted with steady-state experimental data.
In his study on energy optimization of refrigeration systems, Jakobsen (1995) chose a lumped parameter approach to
describe the physics of the heat exchangers. He compared the simulated results with experiments of an R134a
charged refrigerator, which had a built-in hot-wall condenser and a roll-bond evaporator. Because of the simple
lumped parameter approach, temperatures, especially the wall temperatures, were not directly comparable with the
measured ones. Nevertheless the predicted trends seemed to be quite reasonable.
A general moving boundary formulation was shown by Willatzen, Pettit and Ploug-Sorensen (1998a, 1998b) for the
dynamic simulation of evaporators and condensers in refrigeration. The mathematical framework was described in
detail – however no experimental validation was carried out. The authors stated that the simulation results matched
their experiences with refrigeration systems and experimental work.
A numerical simulation of a variable speed refrigeration system, which was charged with R12 or R134a was carried
out by Koury et al. (2001). The heat exchangers were modeled using the distributed parameter method. Concerning
the experimental validation no data of the transient evolution of temperatures and pressures in the evaporator or in
the condenser was shown.
In a comprehensive study, Philipp (2002) used numerical methods to optimize domestic refrigerators. Philipp used
the moving boundary approach for modeling the condenser and the evaporator. He compared the simulation data
with experimental investigations of an R600a charged refrigerator which was equipped with a roll-bond evaporator
and a finned-tube condenser. During compressor shut-down the simulated mean wall temperature of the evaporator
deviated by 5K but when the compressor was running, the deviations decreased to 3K.
The transient response of a finned-tube condenser in a household refrigerator was investigated by Porkhial et al.
(2006). The authors applied the distributed parameter method with an efficient two-level iteration method. For the
experimental validation a top-mounted household refrigerator working with R12 was used. The comparison of the
measured data and computed data yields that the predicted temperatures deviate about 10% from the measured ones
especially at the inlet and the outlet of the condenser.
A first-principles simulation approach was introduced by Hermes and Melo (2008, 2009) to assess the energy
performance of household refrigerators including the start-up and the cycling transients of household refrigerators.
An R134a charged frost-free top-mount refrigerator with a tube-fin evaporator and a wire-and-tube condenser was
used for their experiments. The only presented transient data compare suction and discharge pressure, air
temperature in freezer and cabinet and the compressor power. No information about the transient thermal evolution
of the heat exchangers was presented.
The dynamic behavior of a vapor compression cycle including the shut-down and start-up was investigated by Li
and Alleyne (2010). The authors applied the moving boundary element method with an advanced switching scheme
to capture the dynamic transition of the refrigerant state within the heat exchangers. Different validation cases were
carried out with a special experimental system which consisted of a tube-and-fin evaporator and a tube-and-fin
condenser. The experimental results were agreeing well with the computed ones.
Nan Liang et al. (2010) presented a dynamic simulation of variable capacity refrigeration systems under normal and
abnormal conditions. The authors developed a moving boundary model for evaporator and condenser. For the
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validation of the model a specific testing system was built. Calculated values from the mathematical model show
reasonable accordance to the experimental data.
To sum up, various modeling approaches, ranging from the simple lumped parameter approach, the moving
boundary approach to the distributed parameter approach, have been applied by researchers. It has to be mentioned
that many works lack a validation of the thermal behavior of the model because in many cases only the transient
evolution of the resulting pressure was presented but no information on the thermal evolution of the heat exchangers
was shown. An as accurate as possible prediction of the pressure is absolutely essential but considering cycle
simulations also the thermal conditions are important because the states at the inlet and the outlet of the heat
exchangers serve as boundary conditions for the adjacent components. In very few papers, a good holistic
conformity between the computed and simulated data was presented.
Therefore, the aim of this work was the further development of the transient, 1-dimensional heat exchanger model,
which was presented by Berger et al. (2012). A distributed parameter approach was chosen and the authors paid
peculiar attention to the implementation of recently published works in order to describe the pressure drop, the heat
transfer mechanisms and the void fraction mathematically. Experiments were carried out on a purpose-built test rig
to validate the predictive capability of the heat exchanger model. In this study the focus was put on the high pressure
side of the refrigeration cycle and thus on the thermal behavior of the condenser.
Based on these general model simplifications, different empirical models which account for the condensation and
evaporation effects in the heat exchangers were implemented. Recently published correlations for the computation
of the void fraction and the two phase heat transfer coefficient were chosen. In contrast to the majority of works on
this topic, the pressure drop in the heat exchangers was not neglected in this work, as experiments have shown that
the pressure drop, especially in the evaporator, can be significantly high. With the negligence of the pressure drop in
the evaporator, the simulation would over-predict the suction pressure of the compressor and thus the discharged
mass flow rate.
The following semi-empirical correlations were implemented in the condenser model:
- The void fraction was computed using the model proposed by El Hajal et al. (2003).
- For the calculation of the heat transfer coefficient in the two phase region, the flow pattern based heat
transfer model by Thome et al. (2003) was chosen.
- The pressure drop model proposed by Quiben and Thome (2007) was implemented.
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- A combined radiative and natural convection heat transfer coefficient approach according to Philipp (2002)
was used to model the heat transfer at the condenser surface.
Because of the different physics of condensation and evaporation, other correlations were implemented in the
evaporator model:
- The Steiner horizontal tube version of the vertical tube expression of Rouhani-Axelsson void fraction
model was integrated (Steiner, 2006).
- The heat transfer coefficient during evaporation was computed by the flow pattern based heat transfer
model proposed by Wojtan et al. (2005a, 2005b).
- The pressure drop model proposed by Quiben and Thome (2007) was implemented.
- The radiation in the refrigerator compartment was neglected.
The heat exchanger model was developed to be implemented in a cycle simulation tool. Thus different strategies
were elaborated and advices mentioned in literature were considered to increase the computation performance:
The properties of the working media R600a at the saturation lines were approximated by cubic splines. All the other
property correlations of the working media, which were needed during the computation, were provided in look-up
tables.
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A hybrid Regula-falsi/Newton’s method iterative solver was developed and programmed in order to guarantee high
stability as well as a good speed of convergence. To further accelerate the computation, extrapolation algorithms in
time and space were implemented to improve the start values of the iteration loops.
Finally, an automatic adaption of the time step, which had a minimum of 0.5 seconds and a maximum of 2.5
seconds, respectively, was integrated.
The coil condenser was equipped with carefully chosen sensor technology. To get the mass flow rate at the inlet of
the condenser, a coriolis mass flow meter was placed there. To compute the enthalpy of the refrigerant at the
condenser inlet, an absolute pressure transducer and a thermocouple were mounted at the outlet of the mass flow
meter. A differential pressure transducer was installed to determine the pressure drop of the condenser. One
thermocouple was added to the condenser surface in its middle to get information about the wall temperature. The
pressure at the outlet of the condenser was computed with the absolute inlet pressure and the measured pressure drop
value. Another thermocouple was placed in front of the filter drier.
All measurement data was collected via a NI Data Acquisition System (NI cDAQ 9188) and recorded by a
LABVIEW routine.
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3.3 Results
Figure 3 shows the mass flow rates at the inlet and the outlet of the condenser, which are defined as boundary
conditions. The mass flow rate at the inlet was derived from experiments. The mass flow rate at the outlet was
computed by means of the capillary tube model by Heimel et al. (2014). This validation approach is justified by the
fact that the mass flow rates at the inlet and the outlet become identical after a certain period.
Because of the difference between the two mass flow rates, refrigerant is caught in the condenser. The transient
increase of the refrigerant is also depicted in Figure 3. An experimental validation of the accumulated mass is
extremely time-consuming (see Björk and Palm, 2006) and therefore it was not carried out. Nevertheless, the
pictured trend is quite reasonable and meets the authors’ expectations.
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Figure 3: Transient mass flow rates and refrigerant mass in the condenser
In Figure 4, the time variation of different temperatures during the start-up is depicted. Two temperatures of the
refrigerant and one wall temperature in the middle of the condenser are compared. It can be seen, that the measured
data matches the simulated data fairly well. The simulated wall temperature is higher than the measured temperature
because the thermocouple is mounted on the surface of the coil condenser. Therefore the thermocouple is partly
cooled by the ambient air.
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The deviations of the refrigerant temperatures at the inlet and the outlet of the condenser can be explained by errors
in the heat transfer predictions because of the uncertainties of the implemented models.
The transient pressure trend is shown in Figure 5. Especially in the first 100 seconds, a remarkable agreement
between simulation and experiment can be seen. The deviation after 200 seconds can be explained by errors in the
computation of the heat transfer and the mass flow rate at the condenser outlet.
Figure 5: Transient pressure trends at the condenser inlet and at the condenser outlet
4. CONCLUSION
In this work a detailed heat exchanger model based on a distributed parameter approach was presented. The
experimental validation has shown truly satisfying agreement with the predicted data. The minor deviations between
experiment and simulation can be explained on the one hand by the simplifying assumptions, which were listed in
chapter 2 and on the other hand by the major uncertainty factor in the computation of thermodynamic systems which
is the approximation of the real heat transfer.
An essential part of this work was the extensive literature review on modelling the evaporation and condensation
processes. Recently published correlations for refrigerants were chosen and implemented in the model to account for
the different physical effects of condensation and evaporation. The high complexity of these models causes a high
programming effort and it is extremely time-consuming to get them executable, especially in the case of a cycle
simulation. As the comparison of the experimental data with the simulated data has shown already a truly satisfying
agreement with the chosen correlations, no analysis of the sensitivity of the model concerning other correlations for
condensation and evaporation was carried out up to now.
Regarding numerical issues it has to be emphasized that the convergence of the simulation is mainly influenced by
the highly transient state changes during the star-up and the shut-down of the compressor. For this reason an
adaption of the time step which depends on the mass flow rate of the compressor and of the capillary tube was
integrated.
In future, this model is going to be implemented in a refrigeration cycle simulation tool and experimental validations
with different heat exchanger designs (wire-and-tube condensers, forced convection condensers, finned-tube
condenser) are going to be carried out.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This work has been carried out within the framework of ECO-COOL, a research project initiated and funded by the
FFG (Austrian Research Promotion Agency). Furthermore the authors particularly acknowledge the technical
support by Secop Austria GmbH, formerly ACC Austria GmbH and Liebherr-Hausgeräte Lienz GmbH.
15th International Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Conference at Purdue, July 14-17, 2014