ADSORPTION REFRIGERATION

SYSTEM FOR CABIN COOLING OF

TRUCKS
PROJECT PHASE I REPORT
Submitted by:
Mr. VISHNU.M.V
Mr. ADARSH KANNAN.K.S
Mr. JITHIN JOSE
Mr. AMALDEV.K.S
Mr. HARIKRISHNAN.T.V
Mr. SANDEEP.K
in partial fulfilment for the award of the degree
of
B. TECH DEGREE
IN
MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

At
SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING
COCHIN UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY
COCHIN
OCTOBER 2018

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 Adsorption Refrigeration System For Cabin Cooling Of Trucks

ADSORPTION REFRIGERATION
SYSTEM FOR CABIN COOLING OF
TRUCKS
PROJECT PHASE I REPORT
Submitted by:
Mr. VISHNU.M.V
Mr. ADARSH KANNAN.K.S
Mr. JITHIN JOSE
Mr. AMALDEV.K.S
Mr. HARI KRISHNAN.T
Mr. SANDEEP.K
in partial fulfilment for the award of the degree
of
B. TECH DEGREE
IN
MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

At
SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING
COCHIN UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY
COCHIN
OCTOBER 2018

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 Adsorption Refrigeration System For Cabin Cooling Of Trucks

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

We would like to express our gratitude and appreciation to all those who gave us the
possibility to complete this report. A special thanks to our final year project coordinator,
Dr AJIN C SAJEEVAN, whose help, stimulating suggestions and encouragement,
helped us to coordinate our project especially in writing this report.
We would also like to acknowledge with much appreciation the crucial role of, Dr
JACOB ELIAS, who has shown a keen interest in guiding us throughout this project.
With his wide knowledge and years of experience, we are expecting great result in
future.
Last but not least we would thank our Head of Mechanical department, Dr GIREESH
KUMARAN THAMBI, who gave us this opportunity to do this project

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 Adsorption Refrigeration System For Cabin Cooling Of Trucks

ABSTRACT

This project presents the main characteristics of an innovative cooling system for the
airconditioning of a truck cabin, as well as a first estimation of its performance during a
standard driving cycle, obtained with a specifically developed vehicle-engine-cooling
system overall model. The innovative cooling system consists of a carbon-ammonia
adsorption-desorption system, which employs the waste heat from the engine to produce
the cooling of the vehicle cabin. The developed global model is completely dynamic
and is able to reproduce the operation of the engine through a standard driving cycle,
evaluate the waste heat available at the engine hydraulic loop; calculate the sequential
operation of an adsorption-desorption system, calculate the condensed water per cycle,
the cooling effect produced at the evaporator, and finally, the temperature and humidity
evolution of the air inside the cabin.The refrigerant used in this proposed system is
ammonia, which has excellent properties as refrigerant, but is hazardous for human
health if inhaled beyond certain limit. Hence, the layout of the proposed system has
been designed in such a way that the refrigerant (ammonia) would not be exposed to the
cabin of truck.
The model was validated by experimental data. The experimental tests were performed
in a lab scale adsorption chiller prototype specifically designed and realized to be driven
by the low grade waste heat (80-90ºC) from the engine coolant loop of a truck. The
experimental activity carried out showed that the chiller is able to generate up to 5 kW
of peak cooling power at 10ºC (35ºC of condensation temperature) with a COP of 0.6.
The obtained results show that the system could be able to provide a significant amount
of the required cooling.

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LIST OF CONTENTS
SL.NO TOPIC PAGE NO
 ACKNOWLEDGMENT 3
 ABSTRACT 4
 LIST OF CONTENTS 5
 LIST IF FIGURES 6
 ABBREVIATIONS 7
1. CHAPTER 1

1.1 INTRODUCTION 8
1.2 NEED OF THE PROJECT 9
1.3 OBJECTIVE OF THE PROJECT 10
2. CHAPTER 2

2.1 LITERATURE REVIEW 11

2.2 ADSORPTION SYSTEM 12
2.3 SYNOPSIS OF WORKING SYSTEMS 13
3. CHAPTER 3

3.1 WORKING PRINCIPLE OF PROPOSED SYSTEM 14

3.2 PROPOSED SYSTEM PROTOTYPRE 16
3.2.1 ADSORBER 16
3.2.2 CONDENSER 17
3.2.3 EVAPORATOR 17
4. CHAPTER 4

5. CONCLUSION 18
 REFERANCE 19

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 Adsorption Refrigeration System For Cabin Cooling Of Trucks

LIST OF FIGURES

1. SCHEMATIC REPRESENTATION OF WORKING CYCLE

2. SCHEMATIC LAYOUT ON TRUCK

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 Adsorption Refrigeration System For Cabin Cooling Of Trucks

ABBREVIATIONS

1. VAR Vapour Absorption Refrigeration System

2. MAC Mobile Air Conditioning
3. HFC Hydro Fluoro Carbon
4. HER Exhaust Heat Recovery
5. RE Refrigerating Effect
6. COP Coeffecient Of Performance

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CHAPTER 1

1.1 INTRODUCTION

World is making a huge effort to reduce Greenhouse gas emissions. The recent
European Union directive on mobile air conditioning (MAC) phases out systems using
HFC-134a as refrigerant for new cars placed on the EU market from 2008 onwards.
The end date of the phase-out period is proposed was 2012. Thus new solutions must
be found, one direction is the use of CO2 as refrigerant, while a medium term solution
could be the use of adsorption systems.
Compared to traditional air conditioners, an adsorption machine can utilize water as
refrigerant and is driven by the waste heat from the engine without losing mechanical
energy. The adsorption machine can be operated by the low temperature energy
coming from the engine coolant loop, which limits the maximum temperatures
available for desorption of the adsorbent material. For cars the maximum temperature
is usually limited to 90-95 ºC while for trucks the maximum temperature is usually
limited to lower values 80-85 ºC in order to increase the life of the engine.The
potential use of adsorption systems for automotive applications has been already
investigated.
Now usually for automobile air conditioning normally vapour compression
refrigeration cycle is used. The cycle run on engine power and consumes around 10%
of the total power produced by the engine and thereby increases the fuel consumption.
In case of truck large amount of heat of input around 30% of the total heat supplied is
going away with exhaust gases at very high temperature and around 25%to 30% is
going away with cooling water. This can be effectively used to develop a heat
generated cooling system.

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 Adsorption Refrigeration System For Cabin Cooling Of Trucks

1.2 NEED OF THE PROJECT

It is well known that energy shortage and environmental pollution have become global
issues of common concern. As the most widely used source of primary power for
machinery critical to the transportation, construction and agricultural sectors, engine
has consumed more than 60% of fossil oil. On the other hand, the amount of CO2 gas
released from engine, just for transportation applications, makes up 25% of all human
activity related CO2 emissions. Thus, energy conservation on engine is one of best
ways to deal with these problems since it can improve the energy utilization efficiency
of engine and reduces emissions [1]. Given the importance of increasing energy
conversion efficiency for reducing both the fuel consumption and CO2 gas emissions
of engine, scientists and engineers have done lots of successful research aimed to
improve engine thermal efficiency, including supercharge, lean mixture combustion,
etc. However, in all the energy saving technologies studied, engine exhaust heat
recovery (EHR) is considered to be one of the most effective means and it has become
a research hotspot recently

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 Adsorption Refrigeration System For Cabin Cooling Of Trucks

1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT

Efficiency of diesel engine is about 35-40 % remaining energy go waste. Maximum

energy wastes in exhaust. In diesel engine 30-32% energy go waste in exhaust. So it is
important to recover energy from exhaust.
Approximately 15% of all the electricity produced in the whole world is employed for
refrigeration and air conditioning system. During recent years research aimed at the
development of technologies that can offer reductions in energy consumption, peak
electrical demand and energy costs without lowering the desired level of comfort
conditions has intensified.
By reason that absorption refrigeration technologies have the advantage that the peaks
of requirements with the availability of the waste heat. My aim is to recover heat from
exhaust gas and use it for absorption refrigeration system.

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 Adsorption Refrigeration System For Cabin Cooling Of Trucks

CHAPTER 2

2.1 LITERATURE REVIEW

The first refrigerator automobile air conditioning system was vapour compression
refrigeration system and was introduced by packer in 1939. In the last 70 years,
automobile air conditioning system was undergone gradual and continual improvements
in performance and efficiency as a result of improvements in individual components.
Alternative system powered by heat which can be used in automobiles are solid
adsorption cooling systems, thermo acoustic refrigeration, active magnetic regenerator
system, thermo electric devices and vapour absorption refrigeration (VAR) systems.
VAR system is found to be more suitable and efforts have been made to develop (VAR)
systems. The feasibility proved theoretically for automobiles but very little could be
done to demonstrate it practically for mobile applications. At present no VAR system is
available in market for capacities up to 10 KW

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 Adsorption Refrigeration System For Cabin Cooling Of Trucks

2.2 ADSORPTION SYSTEMS

Solid vapour adsorption is similar to liquid vapour absorption system, except that the
refrigerant is adsorbed at the surface of another solid known as adsorbent. Series of
carried experimental results suggest about the feasibility of adsorption systems.
Ammonia – activated carbon has been suggest as refrigerant – adsorption pair.
Saha el al (2003) in presented work have demonstrated dual mode silica gel water
adsorption chillers design along with various temperature ranges and obtained
optimum results for temperature ranges of 50C and 55C comparison of cop has been
presented for three stage mode and single stage multiple modes. Simulation has been
presented and the COP is in the range of 0.2 and 0.45 respectively. Wang in his work
claimed to obtain COP of 0.15 for solar application. In the review work the details of
performance of adsorption system for different applications with COP has been
presented in a tabular form. the COP in the range 0.3 to 0.6.
Maggio el al in 2006 presents the results of a predictive two dimensional
mathematical model of an adsorption cooling machine consisting of a double
consolidated adsorbent bed with internal heat recovery. Internal heat recovery
enhances the COP. It is suggested that adsorbent thickness should be limited to 2 and
3 mm for optimum results.
Wang el al in 2006 has presented a design of an adsorption air conditioner for
locomotive train cabin, powered by 350c- 450c exhaust gases. the cooling power and
COP is 5 KW and 0.25 respectively. Some innovative methods like fuzzy controller,
heat pipe, additives in adsorber bed, suction pump with adsorber have been
demonstrated in some papers to enhance the performance of adsorption systems.

2.3 SYNOPSIS OF WORKING SYSTEMS

The above review is of some selected recent paper. The other referred work is also in
same direction. It is clear that the vapour adsorption systems has strong potential to be
used as an alternative cooling system. Some problems can be solved by implementing
the suggested improvements mentioned in the review. The surface area volume ratio is
higher for activated carbon and the latent heat of ammonia is maximum after water, so
this pair is suggested as suitable adsobent and refrigerant pair.

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 Adsorption Refrigeration System For Cabin Cooling Of Trucks

CHAPTER 3

3.1 WORKING PRINCIPLE OF PROPOSED SYSTEM

The exhaust of an I.C. engine test rig is used to supply the necessary heat to the
adsorber. The schematic diagram of the system is shown in Figure 1. The set up
consists of two adsorber, two condensers and one evaporator. The condensers are
connected to the evaporator through control valves. Two adsorber beds are proposed
one in heating mode and another in cooling mode. One of the adsorber is charged with
refrigerant ammonia. Two condensers, one evaporator .two control valves and one
evaporator are connected as shown in Fig. 2.The condensers and evaporator is fitted
with a fan for forced air circulation.
The Engine exhaust gases enter the adsorber filled with ammonia to heat the adsorber
bed at constant mass. Adsorber rejects the refrigerant with the adsorption of heat as
the adsorptivity is a function of rise in temperature. The refrigerant gets compressed
because of heating at constant mass. The compressed refrigerant passes to condenser
through control valve. The refrigerant which is in gaseous state is condensed in the
condenser at high pressure depending on the atmospheric temperature.
On one side of control valve the pressure is high and on the other side of control valve
the pressure is low. The control valve outlet is connected to the other adsorber in
cooling mode through evaporator and other condenser. The control valve (number 6 in
figure) is opened very gradually so that pressure in the adsober (number 1) remains
constant. The liquid refrigerant starts getting converted to vapour at low pressure and
refrigerating effect is produced. The vapour at low pressure enters the adsorber
(number 2) through condenser (number 4).
The adsorberabsobs the refrigerant, ammonia. The adsober is in cooling mode and is
cooled by water. Cooling of adsorber is essential to maintain the adsorptivity of the
adsorber. The pressure in the adsober gradually increases. The cooling effect at the
condenser is continued till there is a pressure difference in adsorber on and adsober 2.
Once the theadsorber is filled with ammonia. The heating is stopped and adsorber one
is cooled with water and the cycle is repeated by heating adsober 2.

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 Adsorption Refrigeration System For Cabin Cooling Of Trucks

Fig.1: Schematic Representation Of Working Cycle

1&2 –Adsorbers
3&4 – Condensors
5 – Evaporator
6&7 – Control Valves
8 – Fan
9 – Heat Input
10 – Heat Output
11 – Cooling Water Outlet
12 – Cooling Water Inlet

Fig.2:Schematic Layout On Truck

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 Adsorption Refrigeration System For Cabin Cooling Of Trucks

3.2 PROPOSED SYSTEM PROTOTYPE

The main system components are adsorbers, condenser, and evaporator and control
valves. These are basically heat exchangers and are designed by using heat transfer
equations and thermal correlations. The cooling load for a transport truck is obtained
considering the following points.
The cooling load required for a medium size truck has been calculated as around 3, so
a cooling system of 1 TR should be sufficient to maintain the desired conditions. The
useful heat available in the engine exhaust of transport truck is calculated and is more
than 50 kW, for a small size truck considered for reference. Whereas the required heat
to operate the cooling system with minimum COP of 0.2 is 17.5 kW. So the exhaust
potential to drive the system is justified.
It is decided to first develop a prototype to study the effect of different variables and
optimization of the system parameters. A scale of 3.5: 1 is decided and a prototype of
1 kW capacity is designed and developed in the Laboratory. The adsorber and
refrigerant are selected as activated carbon granules and Ammonia. Considering the
temperature of exhaust gases and high latent heat of Ammonia this combination is
found to be suitable. The adsorbers, condenser, evaporator and the control valves are
the main components of the system. The adsorber has been designed and developed to
enhance the heat transfer. The other components are readily available like the
evaporator and condenser for automobiles and the control valves used in ammonia
refrigeration systems.

3.2.1 ADSORBER
In adsorption refrigeration system adsorber is the most important component Adsorber
works like generator as well as absorber both of an absorption system. It is a shell and
tube double pipe heat exchanger as shown in Figure 2. There are three concentric
tubes of stainless steel. The adsorbing material is filled between the gap of inner tube
and the middle tube. The adsorbing material is activated charcoal and the refrigerant is
ammonia. End covers are fitted at the ends of these tubes to hold the adsorbing
material. The exhaust gases flow through the inner tube and the annular space between
the outer tube and the middle tube. The adsorbing material is heated from both side i e
from inside and outside. Fins are provided from outside of the middle tube and to the
inner tube from inside to enhance heat transfer from exhaust gases to the adsorbing

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 Adsorption Refrigeration System For Cabin Cooling Of Trucks

material. 10 % aluminum chips by weight are added to the adsorbing material to

enhance the conduction in the adsorber bed. The adsorbing material is closely packed
in the space. The adsorptivity of activated carbon at 60 oC is 30% and that at 160 oC
is around 0 %. The system is designed for heating and cooling time of 450 s.
Adsorber temperatures are decided as Tad,max = 160 oC and Tad,min = 60 oC.
Designed refrigerating effect (R.E.) = 1 kW, latent heat of evaporation of ammonia
(L) at evaporator pressure is 1035 kJ/kg. Amount of ammonia is obtained by dividing
the R.E. by latent heat as 0.45 kg. Mass of adsorber, mad is obtained as 1.65kg.
Density of adsorbing materi
Volume of adsorber, is calculated, Vad = 0.005 m3.. Heat required to heat or cool
adsorber between 60 oC and 165 oC is the summation of sensible heat and latent heat
of refrigerant at evaporator pressure. It is given by “equation (1)” and “equation (2)”.

Qlatent heating = [mad (X2 - X1) x (H2 - H1)] ÷ Δt(2)

Qadsorber = Qasensible,heating + Qlatent heating (3)
From “equation (3)”, The heat required to heat or cool the adsorber (Qad,heating) is
calculated. Qad,heating = 2 kW for getting a cooling effect of 1 kW.
The heat transfer area is calculated from the following equation.

The overall heat transfer coefficient, Uodepeds upon the inside and outside heat
transfer coefficients and the conductance through steel tubes and adsorbing material.
It is calculated using overall heat transfer through a compound cylinder. The area
required for heat transfer to supply the heat of 2 kW to the adsorber is calculated as
Aad = 0.6 m2. The area available for heat transfer in this case is 0.45 m2. Fins are
provided on the middle shell and inside the central tube increases the area to around
0.8 m2. This area should be sufficient for heat transfer.
The theoretical COP is calculated as 0.5. The pressure drop in the adsorber heat
exchanger is given by following equation [5];
P
f = e (0.57-0.19lnRe) (6)
Pressure drop is obtained as 0.42 Pa, the design is safe, as allowable pressure drop is 4
kPa.

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3.2.2 CONDENSER
Condenser will be exposed to atmospheric air striking with truck velocity.
Temperature difference is assumed to be 7 0C. Qc = 2 kW. The standard condenser
used in automobiles has been used for the experimentation. A fan is fitted to the
condenser for condensing the refrigerant in the condenser. Condensers are two in
number and are connected to each adsorber.
The outlet of the condenser is connected to control valves. (Photo condenser).

3.2.3 EVAPORATOR
The evaporator is a cross flow box type compact heat exchanger. It is exposed to the
cabin to be cooled. In the experimental set up the evaporator is provided with a fan.
The designed cooling temperature is 30 0C. The evaporator is connected to both the
condensers through control valves. It has been designed to have a temperature
difference of around 15 0C. The evaporator of this system has to work in both
directions as the refrigerant will be coming as inlet from one side as well as from other
side also depending upon heating and cooling mode of the adsorbers. It is fitted with a
fan for forced air circulation.

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Design summery and important features of 3.5 KW

adsorption refrigeration system
Refrigerant used Ammonia
Adsorbing material (coconut shell) Activated charcoal 4 mm granule size
Exhaust gas inlet temperature 350Oc
Mass of adsorbing material in each 5.8 kg
adsorber
Mass of refrigerant 1.6 kg
Weight of each adsorber 25kg
Length and diameter of adsorber 1.5 m and 120 mm.
Weight of condenser with fan 2.4 kg
Weight of evaporator 2.4 kg
Overall weight of the system 70 kg
Refrigerant control valves Automatic pressure on off control two
in number
Exhaust flow control valve Automatic on off at set time
Condenser Box type cross flow compact with fins
on tubes
Evaporator Shell and tube heat exchanger with 10
mm dia. tube of 8 m
Cooling coil with fan (Box type heat 300 mm x 200 mm x 60 mm designed
compact cross flow heat exchanger) with 66 tubes (22 tubes per row)

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CHAPTER 4
4.1 CONCLUTION
The engine power required to run an air conditioning system can be saved by using
waste heat powered cooling system. After literature review in the field of alternative
cooling systems powered by heat, adsorption air cooling systems with activated carbon
and NH3 as adsorbent refrigerant pair is selected and used in the present system. In the
present system solid material is used as adsorber which makes the system suitable for
mobile applications. The design COP of the system is around 0.5 for a cooling capacity
of 1 kW. The overall weight of the system for cooling capacity of 1 TR is estimated as
30 kg. The system is quite compact and can be installed in a truck. The reduced number
of valves makes the system more reliable and leakage free. The innovative heat
exchanger as adsorber reduces the heating and cooling time. The mass of ammonia in
the system is 600 gms.

ESTIMATED COST OF THE PROPOSED SYSTEM

Component Number Cost (Rs.) Weight (kg)

quantity
Adsorber 2 8000 20
Condenser 2 2000 2
Evaporator 1 2000 2
Cooling coil 1 8000 3.5
with pump
Valve 2 650 1
Pressure 2 750 0.20
gauges
Activated 11 kg 1100 9
carbon
Piping and 6 3000 0.5
connections
Total 25500 36.2

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REFERANCE

1. International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering (ISSN

2250 2459, Volume 2, Issue 10, October 2012). Harish Tiwari, Dr. G. V. Parishwad
2. Modelling of an adsorption system driven by enginewaste heat for truck cabin a/c.
Performance estimation for a standard driving cycle M. Verde, L. Cortés, J.M.
Corberán, A. Sapienza, S. Vasta, G. Restuccia
3. Alam, S, 2006, A Proposed model for Utilizing Exhaust Heat to run Automobile
Air-conditioner, The 2nd Joint International Conference on Sustainable Energy and
Environment 21-23 November 2006, Bangkok, Thailand.
4. Aprachi, V., Kao S. H., Selamet A., “Introduction to Heat Transfer”, 1999, Prentice
Hall, Inc. Upper Saddle River, NJ, U.S.A
5. Johnson, V. H., 2002, Heat-Generated Cooling Opportunities in Vehicles,SAE
technical paper, 2002–01 - 1669.
6. Jakob, U., Eicker. U., Schneider, D., and Teuber, A., 2007, Experimental
Investigation of Bubble Pump and System Performance for a Solar Driven 2.5 KW
Diffusion Absorption Cooling Machine.
7. Mathur, M. and Sharma,R., 2001, A corse in Internal combustion engines,
DhanpatRai and Sons Pvt. Ltd.
8. Saha B., Komaya, S., Kashiwagi, T., kisawa, A.A., Ng, K., and Chau, H., 2003,
Waste heat driven dual mode, multistage, multiplied regeneration absorption system,
International journal of refrigeration.

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