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Solar Absorption Refrigeration System for Air-Conditioning of a Classroom

Building in Northern India

Article · October 2015

DOI: 10.1007/s40032-015-0180-2

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A case study on solar absorption refrigeration system for air-conditioning of a
classroom building in northern India

Abstract

Air-conditioning is a basic tool to provide human thermal comfort in a building space. The
primary aim of the present work is to design an air-conditioning system based on vapour
absorption cycle that utilizes a renewable energy source for its operation. The building under
consideration is a classroom of dimensions 18.5m13m4.5m located in Hamirpur district of
Himachal Pradesh in India. For this purpose, cooling load of the building was calculated first by
using Cooling Load Temperature Difference (CLTD) method to estimate cooling capacity for the
air-conditioning system. Coefficient of performance (COP) of the refrigeration system was
computed for various values of strong and weak solution concentration. In this work, a solar
collector is also designed to provide required amount of heat energy by the absorption system.
This heat energy is taken from solar energy which makes this system eco-friendly and
sustainable. A computer program was written in MATLAB to calculate the design parameters.
Results were obtained for various values of solution concentrations throughout the year. It has
been shown that COP of up to 0.9 can be achieved theoretically by adjusting the weak and strong
solution concentrations. Cost analysis has also been carried out to compare absorption
refrigeration system with conventional vapour compression cycle based air-conditioners.

Keywords: Solar-absorption refrigeration, solar collector, lithium-bromide water, cooling load

calculation.

Nomenclature:

Ib: Beam radiation intensity, W/m2

Id:Diffusedradiation intensity, W/m2

Ig:Globalradiation intensity, W/m2

rb: Tilt factor for beam radiation

rd: Tilt factor fordiffusedradiation

rr:Tilt factor forreflectedradiation

FR: Collector heat removal factor

Ul: Total loss coefficient, W/m2-K

Tfi: Inlet fluid temperature, K

Ta: Ambient temperature, K

Ap: Plate area, m2

Mass flow rate, kg/s

: Collector efficiency factor

Cp: Specific heat capacity, kJ/kg-K

COP: Coefficient of performance

COPC: Carnot Coefficient of performance

S: Solar flux incident being absorbed by the plate, W/m2

x: Solution concentration

TG: Generator temperature, K

TC: Condenser temperature, K

TE: Evaporator temperature, K

TA: Absorber temperature, K

1. Introduction:

Energy consumption of a building significantly depends upon the heating, ventilation and air
conditioning (HVAC) system installed in it. Conventional HVAC systems consume
approximately 50% of the total building energy consumption [1]. Therefore, reducing energy
usage inside the building envelope has been an area of interest in the developing countries like
India. In summer season, HVAC system is employed to tackle the various heat sources such as
solar heat gain, heat gain by occupants, appliances etc. However, the cost of such a system for
human comfort should not be excessive and energy wastage should be minimal. As pointed out
by Union Ministry of Power of India that an annual financial loss of Rs 1.5 billion is caused by
government buildings’ electricity consumption because of unsuitable design of energy systems
[2]. Conventional air-conditioners based on vapour compression cycle consume electricity
produced mostly by burning fossil fuels. These are therefore neither eco-friendly nor sustainable
[3]. On the other hand, absorption refrigeration systems are based on vapour absorption cycle
consuming low grade energy i.e. heat energy. Furthermore, it is possible to use waste energy
and/or solar energy making it more ecofriendly and sustainable. The fundamental difference
between an absorption refrigeration system and a conventional refrigeration system is that the
absorbent-refrigerant liquid mixture is pumped in the former cycle while refrigerant vapour is
compressed in the later one thus resulting in the huge work requirement for the conventional
refrigeration system.

Design of an air-conditioning system for a building is based either on vapour compression cycle
or vapour absorption cycle. It requires calculation of cooling loads of the building. This
calculation yields parameters such as the capacity of air-conditioning system, temperature to be
maintained inside the building envelope etc. which forms the basis for the design of HVAC
system. However, for vapour absorption refrigeration system, design of generator which takes
heat input for the operation of this system might be required which in the case of vapour
compression based air-conditioners is not required. Instead, work is directly fed in the form of
electricity to compressor for its operation.

Cooling load calculations and their parametric study has been done by many researchers. Aktacir
et al. [4] has studied the influence of different thickness of insulation applied to the sample
building located in Adana in Mediterranean region. It has been observed that a decrement of 33%
takes place in maximum cooling load because of thermal insulation. Suziyana et. al [5] has
carried out cooling load calculations for a computer laboratory and excellence center of an
educational institution in Malaysia. The existing air-conditioning system in the building was
found to be over designed and hence consuming more electrical power than required. Shariah et
al. [6] studied cooling and heating loads on residential buildings in Jordan. Ceiling and wall
insulation was the primary parameter which had been studied. It was concluded that when both
walls and ceilings were insulated, heating and cooling loads were reduced by almost 44%.
Kulkarni et al. [7] optimized cooling load of a lecture theater by using different type of glazing,
providing false ceiling on roof, providing cool roof, insulating the walls with wooden board and
by using energy efficient lamps. It was found out that retrofitting result in up to 19.8% reduction
in cooling loads which results in approximately 9 kW reduction in the cooling capacity of the
existing air-conditioning system. Building parameters that influence heating and cooling loads
for apartment building in Turkey were studied by Yusuf et al. [8] It was observed that different
floors are sensitive in different way while total window area, heat transfer coefficient and solar
heat gain coefficient (SHGC) are more critical parameters.

Lansing [9] has modeled a single stage lithium-bromide water absorption refrigeration system on
computer. An analytical expression was proposed for this system which was easy to program and
reduced computational time and effort. Mittal et al. [10] has studied solar absorption cooling
system and discussed about single effect and double effect lithium-bromide water absorption
refrigeration system with usage of refrigerant and hot water storage. It was concluded that the
generator inlet temperature of the chiller is the most critical parameter in the fabrication and
design of a solar powered absorption refrigeration system.

The main aim of the present study is to estimate various heat gains and cooling loads in a
classroom building located in a composite climate of Hamirpur district of Himachal Pradesh in
India. This analysis has been done for the month of July. Out of various methodologies available
for cooling load calculations, cooling load temperature difference (CLTD) method is employed
to find the various cooling loads. This total cooling load is then used to design an absorption
refrigeration system which should maintain the building envelope at the desired conditions of
temperature and humidity. For this purpose, lithium-bromide water absorption refrigeration is
considered. In the present work, a solar collector is designed which will extract the heat energy
from solar energy which shall further be used for operation of this absorption refrigeration
system. Finally the cost analysis for this HVAC system is done to compare the economic aspects
of the absorption system with that of the air conditioners based on conventional vapour
compression cycle.

2. Geographical data and classroom description:

The classroom investigated in the present study is situated at National Institute of Technology
Hamirpur. Hamirpur is district town in the state of Himachal Pradesh and experiences a cold
weather from October to April while the months of May to September are generally hot and
humid. Since, the studied area is not actively used during May and June, therefore the analysis
has been done forth month of July. The details of location of classroom are shown in Table 1. It
shall be mentioned here that the dimensions of this classroom is 18.5m in length, 13m in width
and 4.5m in height. Six glass windows of dimensions 2m in length and 1m in height are provided
at the side walls. On an average, there are 90 students in a class and classroom is occupied for
about 9 hours.

Table 1: Geographical data related to the building under investigation

S. No. Particulars Value

1 Latitude 31.68
2 Longitude 76.52
3 Elevation above sea level (m) 738
4 ASHRAE International climate zone 1

3. Design methodology:

Design methodology has been explained in brief in section 1 of which flowchart is shown in Fig.
1. This section also presents detailed design procedure.
 Fig 1. Flowchart of the design procedure

3.1 Cooling load calculations:

To propose a suitable air conditioning system for this classroom building, it is essential to
compute cooling loads on it. Based on these cooling loads, design parameters such as capacity of
air conditioning system, heat input to the generator, mass flow rates, collector area etc. were
calculated. Several methods to estimate the building cooling loads due to various heat sources
have been developed over the years [11-13]. Apart from the standard methods established by
ASHRAE, researchers have proposed various approaches to calculate building cooling loads
[14,15]. There are also software packages and simulation tools such as TRNSYS [16],
DesignBuilder [17], and Autodesk Ecotect [18] which are being used to estimate cooling load.

In this study, cooling load temperature difference (CLTD) method has been employed to
calculate the cooling loads on the classroom. This method is very widely used for manual
calculations and estimation of building cooling loads. Definition of various cooling loads
according to CLTD method is presented in Table 2.Completeinformation about the methodology,
applicability and limitations of CLTD method can be found in ASHRAE fundamental handbooks
[12, 13]. Parameters that have been measured in order to perform cooling load calculations are
room’s specifications, ambient and room’s temperature and relative humidity.

Table 2: Definition of cooling loads as per CLTD method

Type of Load Expression Definition of variables

Conduction through roofs, U: Design heat transfer
walls and glasses coefficient
A: Area of the surface
CLTD: Cooling load
temperature difference
Solar load through glass SC: Shading coefficient
SCL: Solar cooling load factor
Internal load (People) N: Number of people in space
SHG: Sensible heat gain
LHG: Latent heat gain
CLF: Cooling load factor
Internal load (Lights) W: Watt input
Ful: Lighting use factor
Fsa: Special allowance factor
Ventilation and infiltration Q: Ventilation rate
load h: air enthalpy, inside and
 outside

3.2 Single Effect Lithium-Bromide Water Absorption Refrigeration System

Absorption refrigeration is employed at places where there is an availability of low grade energy.
It utilizes low grade energy such as solar energy, heat energy contained in fossils or water etc.
[19].The single effect absorption chiller is primarily used for cooling of a building where chilled
water is fed at 6-7°C. These operate at a generator temperature in the range of 70-95°C.
Generally the coefficient of performance (COP) ranges from 0.6 to 0.8 [20].Lithium-bromide
water absorption refrigeration system has been found suitable for air-conditioning purposes.

A single effect lithium-bromide water absorption refrigeration system is shown in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2. Schematic of an absorption refrigeration system operated by solar energy

It should be noted here that an absorption refrigeration system is similar to that of a conventional
vapour compression refrigeration system during process 7-8-9-10. However after the evaporator,
vaporized refrigerant is absorbed by the absorbent thus resulting in a liquid solution which is
then pumped to the generator. In generator, heat is given to this absorbent-refrigerant mixture to
separate the two. Refrigerant vapour is then brought to condenser which is condensed to
saturated liquid while absorbent is brought back to absorber. Since, the refrigerant is water the
minimum evaporator temperature must not go below 5°C to avoid problems in operation of the
refrigeration system. To design such system, basic assumptions and input values must be
considered. Mass balance and energy balance across various components constitutes the basic
equations needed to calculate the unknown. These equations are presented in Table 3. It should
be mentioned here that the mass balance equations are valid for refrigerant, absorbent and for
refrigerant-absorbent mixture as well. However, enthalpies are taken at state points. During state
points 7, 8, 9 and 10, enthalpy must be taken for water while for other state points; enthalpy of
the mixture has to be taken. Some of the enthalpy values can be obtained from the known
conditions of pressure, temperature and/or concentration while the unknown enthalpies are
calculated using conservation equations. Similarly, mass flow across evaporator is easily known
by knowing evaporator capacity and enthalpy drop across evaporator which is generally known
as evaporator temperature is fixed. Mass flow across pump is then the only unknown mass flow
rate variable which is calculated using conservation equations.

Table 3: Mass and energy balance equations for absorption refrigeration system

Component Mass balance Energy balance equation

equation
Evaporator
Absorber
Generator
Condenser
Heat exchanger

Apart from the energy analysis based on the first law of thermodynamics, it is equally important
to consider analysis based on the second law. For an absorption refrigeration system with lithium
bromide and water as working pair, Carnot coefficient of performance is given as [21]:
Based on this COP which is the maximum performance that can be achieved from an absorption
refrigeration system, another term associated with performance is efficiency ratio (τ) which is
defined as the ratio of actual COP to the Carnot COP.

3.3 Solar collector design:

The heat requirement of the generator of this refrigeration system was met by a liquid flat plate
solar collector which converts solar energy into required amount of useful heat. A flat plate
collector essentially comprises of a glass cover, absober plate and an insulated frame. Tubes
which carry the liquid to be heated are attached to the absorber plate.Amount of incident solar
flux absorbed by this plate is given as:

(1)

However, this amount does not equals the actual heat energy that is transferred to the liquid
inside the tubes because of losses associated with heat transfer from plate to tubes.Amount of
useful heat obtained from a flat plate collector is expressed as

(2)

Further, collector heat removal factor FR is defined as

(3)

Generally the design process involves calculation of useful heat for a given area of flat plate
collector. To accomplish this, heat removal factor is calculated first from Eq. 3 where other
variables are known from the conditions of the liquid to be heated. It is then substituted in Eq. 2
to calculate the amount of useful heat. However, in the present case, plate area is the uknown
parameter and therfore the process has to be modified. By assuming a suitable value of Ul,
collector efficiency factor can be calculated for known values of geomterical parameters such as
tube inside and outside diameter, centre to centre distance between two tubes. Values of mass
flow rate ( , inlet fluid temperature (Tfi) and specific heat capacity (Cp) are known from the
thermodynamic analysis of absorption system. Thus for various values of area of plate (Ap),
useful heat gain, qu can be calculated iteratively until qu equals the heat input to the generator.
This area corresponding to useful heat gain is the required plate area.

4. Results and discussion:

A program was written in MATLAB R2010a to automate this iterative calculation procedure.
Validation of this code is done wherever necessary and is discussed below in detail.

4.1 Cooling loads:

CLTD method was used to calculate various cooling loads of the classroom building. For
calculations, it is assumed that the classroom has to be maintained at 20˚C.Table 4 presents the
various components of cooling load throughout the working hours. Internal loads are assumed to
be constant throughout the day which includes occupants, appliances and lightings. Internal loads
along with infiltration and ventilation loads contribute maximum of 33.6 kW towards the total
cooling load among all components. It was found from this procedure that maximum cooling
load on this classroom was equivalent to 15TR. Since this load has been calculated from the
correlations developed by ASHRAE, it does not need any validation. Once this quantity has been
calculated, it was used to proceed to the design of refrigeration system.

Table 4: Cooling loads on the classroom

Time Heat conduction Heat conduction Solar radiation

through Wall through glass through glass
8AM 2288.59 251.51 4929.84
9AM 2761.25 285.51 5018.4
11AM 3508.22 340.38 3778.56
12PM 4501.71 440.33 2971.68
1PM 5454.25 499.06 2755.2
2PM 6845.48 673.46 3630.96
3PM 7555.52 751.38 4309.92
4PM 8627.89 863.69 5146.32
5PM 10094.76 1005.37 5362.8

4.2 Absorption refrigeration system:

As discussed in section 3.2, design of absorption system needs solving the fundamental
equations of mass and energy balance. It is to be emphasize here that the curve fitting equations
used in the code to calculate enthalpy of the refrigerant-absorbent mixture are valid only
if . The code was validated by comparing the results with that of experimental
work carried out by Kalogirou [20]. These results were found to be satisfactory and are presented
in Table 5.

Table 5: Validation of results of absorption system’s calculations

Parameter Kalogirou [20] Current work Variation (%)

Generator Heat, Qg 1.35 1.325 1.85
Absorber Heat, Qa 1.28 1.275 0.4
COP 0.74 0.754 1.89

Based on this validation, results were obtained for different concentration levels of weak and
strong solutions. These results are shown in Fig. 3 and Fig. 4. It was found that theoretically
COP decreases if the weak solution concentration is increased for a particular strong solution
concentration and increases if the strong solution concentration is increased for a particular value
of weak solution concentration. It must be noted before choosing the concentration values that
they affects operating temperature and pressure and therefore are crucial in the operation of
refrigeration system. For the present case, to design an absorption system to take 15TR cooling
load, the design parameters are tabulated in Table 6.For this design, it is assumed that condenser
is at a temperature of 35˚C while the absorber is at a constant temperature of 40˚C. Heat
exchanger is assumed to have an effectiveness of 0.9 while the work input to the pump is
assumed negligible as compared to the amount of heat transfer across the system.
Fig. 3. Variation of COP with Weak solution concentration

Fig. 4. Variation of COP with Strong solution concentration

In literature, COP of absorption refrigeration systems has been reported up to 0.8 [21, 22]. In this
study, it has been theoretically calculated up to an improved value of 0.9 owing to different
values of weak and strong solution concentration. However, it is yet to verify whether these
designs are practically possible for operation of an absorption refrigeration system.

Table 6: Design parameters for the absorption refrigeration system

Design parameter Value

Temperature of solution entering generator, T3(˚C) 55
Temperature of solution leaving generator, T4(˚C) 75
Temperature of vapour entering condenser, T7(˚C) 70
Temperature of evaporator, Tevaporator (˚C) 5
Strong solution concentration (%) 60
Weak solution concentration (%) 55
Coefficient of Performance, COP 0.7483
Generator Heat addition, Qg (KJ/kg) 70.1549
Absorber Heat rejection, Qa (KJ/kg) 67.4618
Condenser Heat rejection, Qc (KJ/kg) 55.1931
Mass flow rate through pump, m1 (kg/s) 0.2672
Mass flow rate through evaporator, m10 (kg/s) 0.0223
Refrigeration capacity, TR 15

For this case, Carnot coefficient of performance comes out to be 0.932 and therefore the
efficiency ratio is 0.8.

4.3 Solar collector:

Using this code,iterative calculations for required plate area as discussed in section 3.3 were
performed under different conditions of solution concentration for various months, system
specifications etc. It was validated againstthe theoretical example illustrated in Sukhatme [23].
Results of this comparison was found to be in good agreement and are presented in Table 7.

Table 7: Validation of results for solar collector’s calculation

Parameter Sukhatme [24] Current work Variation (%)

Incident Flux 600.4 601.45 0.17
Abdorbed
Collector heat 0.8501 0.8502 0.01
removal factor
 Area of plate 1.5 1.49 0.66

After validation, results were obtained for absorber plate area required for possible values of
solution concentration entering generator of absorption refrigeration system. Since there is
change in beam and diffuse radiation intensity throughout the year which can also have
significant effect on the area of collector plate required to obtain a particular value of useful heat.
This collectively is shown in Fig. 5. It can be seen that weak solution concentration must be
below 55% otherwise the absorber plate’s area required will be greatly higher than that of what it
would have been with a weaker solution. Final design parameters are shown in Table 8. This
design is based on an ambient temperature of 35˚C and with solution concentration of 55%.

60

For month of July

55

Solution Concentration
12 For concentration 55%
11
Month

10 50
9
8
7
6
5 45
4
3
12 Variation with month
1 Variation with concentration
0 40
150 175 200 225 250 275 300 325 350 375 400
Plate Area Required (sq. m)

Fig. 5.Plate area required for various months and solution concentration
 Table 8: Design parameters for solar collector

Design parameters Value

Collector tilt (degree) 31.68
Number of glass covers 2
Inside diameter of tube (m) 0.015
Outside diameter of tube (m) 0.025
Center to center distance between tubes (m) 0.15
Thermal conductivity of plate (W/m-K) 35
Overall loss coefficient (W/m2-K) 6
Plate area required (m2) 200

5. Cost analysis:

To justify use of absorption refrigeration, it is crucial to do a cost analysis to compare it with the
conventional air-conditioning system. On an average, 1.5 Tonnes air-conditioner is available in
Indian market at a price of Rs 35,000.00 therefore the price of conventional 15TR is estimated to
be Rs 3,50,000[24] while the electricity price in Himachal Pradesh is Rs 3.25 per kWh
consumption [25]. The daily operating cost of vapor-compression cycle based air-conditoner is
thus the product of electricity cost, total cooling capacity and hours of operation. Cost of an
absorption chiller for a cooling capacity of 15 TR is estimated to be Rs 26,00,000 [22,26] while
the price of solar collector is estimated to be Rs 5,250 per sq. meter which is mentioned in
Sukhatme [23]. It is assumed that the operating cost of solar collector based absorption
refrigeration system is negligible throughtout the day as compared to the conventional vapour
compression cycle based air conditioner. These values gives a payback period of 2150 days
(nearly 6years) which is quite reasonable.

Conclusions

Cooling loads for a classroom building located in Hamirpur district of Himachal Pradesh were
calculated. Based on this cooling load, a vapour absorption refrigeration system was designed
using lithium-bromide water as the working pair. To support the operation of this system, a solar
collector was designed to provide the necessary heat to this air-conditioning system.It can be
concluded from the results that if the strong and weak solution concentrations are hold to their
maximum and minimum values respectively, then COP is expected to have maximum value.
Payback period of this solar absorption refrigeration system comes out to be nearly six years
under ideal conditions. Such refrigeration systems can be used in places where there is
abundance of solar energy and/or scarcity of electrical energy which is needed for traditional
refrigeration systems.

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