Accepted Manuscript

Experimental investigation on a transcritical CO2 ejector expansion refrigeration

system with two-stage evaporation

Lixing Zheng, Jianqiang Deng

PII: S1359-4311(17)34486-1
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2017.07.056
Reference: ATE 10724

To appear in: Applied Thermal Engineering

Received Date: 30 August 2016

Revised Date: 26 May 2017
Accepted Date: 7 July 2017

Please cite this article as: L. Zheng, J. Deng, Experimental investigation on a transcritical CO2 ejector expansion
refrigeration system with two-stage evaporation, Applied Thermal Engineering (2017), doi: http://dx.doi.org/
10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2017.07.056

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 Experimental investigation on a transcritical CO2 ejector expansion

refrigeration system with two-stage evaporation

Lixing Zheng a,b, Jianqiang Deng a,

a
School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China

b
Department of Power Engineering, Shanxi University, Taiyuan 030013, China

Abstract: Adding a two-stage evaporator in the transcritical CO2 ejector expansion refrigeration system can not

only regulate the quality equilibrium of system refrigerant but also improve the system performance. This paper

presents an experimental study on the transcritical CO2 ejector expansion refrigeration system with two-stage

evaporation under variable operating conditions. Some key performance indicators such as gas cooler pressure, mass

flow rate, entrainment ratio and pressure lift ratio of ejector, cooling capacity and COP of system were evaluated

through varying the volumetric flow rate of the second evaporator chilled water Vte,wa, area ratio of ejector At/Amix,

compressor speed N and expansion valve opening EV. The present results indicated that the second evaporator played a

significant role in improving the system performance, and such improvement was more evident for smaller entrainment

ratio. Greater gas cooler pressure, pressure lift ratio of ejector and cooling capacity of system could be obtained by

increasing the volumetric flow rate Vte,wa, and compressor speed. The small area ratio of ejector was conducive to high

gas cooler pressure, great entrainment ratio of ejector as well as large cooling capacity and COP of system. This study

provides an approach for the improvement of ejector expansion refrigeration system.

Keywords: ejector expansion refrigeration system; two-stage evaporation; system performance; operation conditions;

experiment

 Corresponding author, Tel.: +86-29-82663413. Fax: +86-29-82663413. Email: dengjq@mail.xjtu.edu.cn

1
 Nomenclature

A area, m2 Greek symbols

COP coefficient of performance λ pressure lift ratio

EERC ejector expansion refrigeration cycle µ entrainment ratio

EERS ejector expansion refrigeration system x quality

EERS-TE EERS with two-stage evaporation Subscripts

EV expansion valve opening c compressor

m mass flow rate, g s-1 e evaporator

N compressor speed, r min-1 gc gas cooler

NXP nozzle exit position, mm mix mixing section of ejector

P pressure, MPa t throat

Q cooling capacity, W te two-stage evaporator

V volumetric flow rate, L min -1 wa water

1 Introduction

The use of an ejector as expansion device is deemed to be the alternative way of improving the performance of

transcritical CO2 refrigeration cycle [1,2]. Many theoretical analyses and experimental studies have shown that the

transcritical CO2 ejector expansion refrigeration system (EERS) can improve the system COP by 6%-22% compared

with the conventional transcritical CO2 system [3-6].

Moreover, several detailed experimental studies on EERS were reported. Elbel and Hrnjak [7] introduced an

adjustable ejector by installing a needle in the motive nozzle to regulate the area of nozzle throat and investigated the

system performance. The results showed that the COP and the cooling capacity of system could be maximized by

2
changing the area of nozzle throat. In a follow-up study of Elbel [8], the EERS performances were sequentially

investigated at different working conditions and a linear relation between the optimum gas cooler pressure and ambient

temperature was established. Chen et al. [9] also designed an adjustable ejector and analyzed the parameters indicators

including the throat area of motive nozzle, primary flow pressure, suction flow pressure and back pressure. They

pointed out that using the adjustable ejector, the EERS could work well in a wide range of working conditions and

achieved high performance. Lee et al. [10] conducted the experimental study to investigate the effecting parameters of

the system performance, such as motive nozzle throat diameter, mixing section diameter and motive nozzle exit position

(NXP) with respect to the mixing section inlet. They observed that there exist optimum value for each of these

parameters. Lee et al. [11] continued the study to discuss the optimum system COP and ejector entrainment ratio for

different ambient temperatures, compressor speeds and expansion valve openings. In addition, the experimental test by

Lucas and Koehler [12] used the compressor speed to control high-side pressure, and analyzed the effects of the

pressure and outlet temperature of gas cooler on the ejector efficiency and entrainment ratio. Liu et al. [13] also utilized

an adjustable ejector to investigate the effects of ejector geometries and working conditions on system performance,

involving the diameter of nozzle throat, NXP and outdoor air temperature. They observed the optimum NXP to

maximize the system COP.

Except for investigations of ejector structures and operation conditions on the system performance, the advanced

ejector refrigeration systems were proposed and studied. Multi-temperature refrigeration systems are attractive due to

their potential applications in different range of cooling temperature. Elakdhar et al. [14] theoretically analyzed the

ejector refrigeration system with dual evaporation under several refrigerants. The liquid refrigerant from the separator

bottom was convert to gas phase by the second evaporator. Then it was entrained by the gas from the separator top into

an ejector and sucked into the compressor. The results showed the hybrid cycle can reach a higher COP compared with

the standard cycle. Lawrence and Elbel [15] compared two types of dual-evaporator ejector refrigeration system with

3
the conventional EERS. In one dual-evaporator system, there was no the separator and a part of outlet flow of condenser

entered into the low temperature evaporator and the outlet of ejector connected with the high temperature evaporator. In

another system, the two-phase flow of ejector outlet was divided into two streams and one flowed into the higher

temperature evaporator and another entered into the low temperature evaporator. They pointed out that the double

evaporation ejector cycle offered advantage compared with the conventional cycle. Moreover, Lin et al. [16] carried out

the experimental investigation for the performance of a multi-evaporator ejector refrigeration system. In their system,

the outlet of condenser connected in parallel with multiple evaporator by expansion valve. They found that the change

of nozzle throat area was a promising approach for multi-evaporator refrigeration system with significant energy saving.

Then Li et al. [17] further research based on the study of Lin et al.[16], and the critical area ratio of ejector was

proposed to indicate the pressure recovery and energy saving status.

Moreover, as we know, the steady running of EERS requires that the entrainment ratio of ejector μ keeps an

equilibrium relationship with the vapor quality of the ejector outlet x: (1+μ) x=1 [3, 18-20, 22, 23]. Both the too high

quality and too lower one can cause the vapor or liquid accumulation in the separator, which affects the efficient

operation of system [21]. Li and Groll [22] have proposed a modified transcritical CO2 EERS to deal with the situation

of (1+μ) x>1. Then, He et al. [23] presented a novel transcritical CO2 ejector expansion refrigeration cycle with

two-stage evaporation (EERS-TE) to cope with the situation of (1+μ) x<1. The advanced system could not only regulate

the quality equilibrium of system refrigerant, which was benefit to weak the excessive accumulation of liquid

refrigerant in the separator, but also improve the system performance based on the two-stage evaporation. They

conducted the theoretical analyses based on the first and second laws of thermodynamics to investigate the effect of

operating condition on the system performance. As the results presented in research [23], with the addition of the

second evaporator, the COP and the cooling capacity of EERS-TE was increased compared with that of EERC,

especially at the smaller entrainment ratio, as shown in Fig. 1.

4
 Fig. 1 Steady performances of the EERS-TE presented in literature [23]

Subsequently, Zheng et al. [24] presented a dynamic model of the EERS-TE according to the first principle of the

mass and energy conservation. The system dynamic characteristics were investigated under the disturbances of

compressor speed, expansion valve opening, throat area of ejector and flow rate of chilled water. For the same

adjustment method, the EERS-TE presented distinct advantage in the improvement of system performance compared

with that of the conventional EERS. Although the above theoretical analyses show that the EERS-TE is potential to

improve the system performance, the model assumptions and simulation conditions are different from the actual

operation. A systematic experimental study is urgently needed to prove the improvement effect of system performance.

This paper presents an experimental study on the transcritical CO2 ejector expansion refrigeration system with

two-stage evaporation. The effects of cooling load of the second evaporator with different area ratio of ejector on the

system parameter and performance were investigated. Moreover, the system performance under other operational

parameters including the compressor speed and the expansion valve opening were studied.

2 Introduction of EERS-TE

A transcritical CO2 EERS-TE is constituted by a compressor, a gas cooler, a separator, an ejector, an expansion

valve and two evaporators (one is located at the downstream of expansion valve, called the first evaporator and the

other is lied between the ejector and the separator, call the second evaporator), as showed in Fig. 2 (a). The whole cycle

can be divided into two subcircuits according to the pressure distribution. One is high pressure subcircuit including the

5
compressor, the gas cooler, the ejector, the second evaporator and the separator. The other is low pressure subcircuit

including the expansion valve, the first evaporator, the ejector, the second evaporator and the separator. The ejector, the

second evaporator and the separator are the overlapped components for the two subcircuits, which are both interaction

and relatively independent. The corresponding P-h diagram is also showed in Fig. 2 (b). In practice, the two evaporators

could be integrated and acted as the indoor unit, and the others are placed in the outdoor unit, forming a new

refrigeration device to create a comfortable environment.

Fig. 2 (a) Schematic of the EERS-TE (b) corresponding P-h diagram

3 Experimental test facility

The schematic diagram of the experimental setup and adjustable ejector is showed in Fig. 3. In the experimental

setup (Fig. 3(a)), the compressor was a prototype semi-hermetic reciprocating type compressor by Dorin company, and

the nominal rotation speed is 1450 r min -1 at 50 Hz as well as its frequencies could be changed by an inverter, which

also could read the time-averaged input power of the compressor. The expansion valve opening was regulated by a

stepper motor. The gas cooler and both two evaporators were the counter-flow type heat exchanger with concentric dual

tubes, which were made of copper and all wound into spiral coils. The experimental ejector was adjustable as shown in

Fig. 3(b). The throat area of primary nozzle was regulated by a needle, which was controlled by a stepper motor. In this

study the primary nozzle was not a convergence-divergence but only a convergence section, and the throat area of

6
nozzle was the difference between the cross section area of nozzle and the cross section area of needle. The primary

nozzle exit position (NXP) relative to the mixing section could be adjusted by screwing the NXP adjustment section.

Moreover, the primary nozzle and the mixing and diffuser section could be replaced. The main structural dimensions of

ejector are given in the Fig. 3(b). During the experiment the diameter of mixing section maintained at 2.5mm, the throat

area of nozzle was regulated to change the area ratio of ejector (the ratio of throat area of nozzle to the mixing section

area). Besides, the NXP was kept at 6.4mm. Except the parameters of ejector, other geometric parameters of the

experimental components were displayed in Table 1.

Fig. 3 (a) Schematic diagram of experimental setup for EERS-TE

Fig. 3 (b) Experimental adjustable ejector

7
 Table 1 Some geometric parameters of the experimental components
Parameters Unit Value Parameters Unit Value
Compressor The first evaporator
3 -1
Displacement m h 1.46 Length m 6.0
-1
Nominal rotation r min 1450 Internal/external diameter m 0.007
Separator of inner tube /0.01
Diameter m 0.164 Internal/external diameter m 0.015
High m 0.35 of outer tube /0.018
Gas cooler The second evaporator
Length m 10.0 Length m 1.8
Internal/external diameter m 0.006 Internal/external diameter m 0.006
of inner tube /0.01 of inner tube /0.01
Internal/external diameter m 0.013/ Internal/external diameter m 0.013
of outer tube 0.016 of outer tube /0.016

Additionally, many sensors were provided for a variety of measures during data collection. The pressure and

temperature was measured by the thermocouples, resistance temperature detectors (RTDs) and pressure transducers.

The accuracy of the thermocouple and RTDs was ±0.5°C and ±0.15°C, respectively, and the accuracies of pressure

transducers were ±0.075% of the full scale, and the absolute accuracies for the pressure of gas cooler, the first

evaporator, separator, ejector outlet and compressor inlet were ±11.25kPa, ±4.5kPa, ±4.5kPa, ±4.5kPa and ±4.5kPa,

respectively. The mass flow meters based on the coriolis effect were used to measure the primary flow rate and the

suction flow rate, whose accuracy was ±0.1% of the full scale and their absolute accuracies were ±0.097 g s-1 and

±0.069 g s-1, respectively. When the system reaches steady state, the flow rate of primary flow is equal to the

compressor flow rate and the suction flow rate is consistent with the mass flow rate of the first evaporator. The current

and voltage of compressor were tested by the inverter and their accuracy was ±0.1V and ±0.1A, respectively. For the

circulating water system, the refrigerant outlet temperatures of evaporator and gas cooler were controlled by adjusting

the inlet temperature and flow rate of chilled water and cooling water, where their temperature were implemented by

temperature controller. In the experiment, the chilled water was supplied by a water tank, and the cooling water was

supplied by another water tank. The accuracy of volumetric flow rate of water was ±4% of the full scale. The

acquisition instrument transmitted data with the computer over the RS 232 interface.

8
 In the experiment, the direct system parameters including the pressure, the temperature and the flow rate were took

the average of the twenty data when the system reached to stable state. Moreover, the entrainment ratio of ejector,

namely the ratio of suction flow rate to the primary flow rate, was obtained based on the test of primary flow rate and

suction flow rate and the accuracy was± 0.005. The pressure lift ratio of ejector, which refers to the ejector outlet

pressure to the suction flow inlet pressure, was obtained by the first evaporator pressure and ejector outlet pressure, and

the accuracy was ±0.028. The cooling capacity and heating capacity were calculated based on the temperature

difference and flow rate of the circulating water through the evaporator and gas cooler, while the compressor power was

measured by the inventor to calculate the system COP.

In this study, the improvement of system performance was firstly investigated with the change of volumetric flow

rate of the second evaporator chilled water under different area ratio of ejector. For comparison purposes, when the

volumetric flow rate of the second evaporator chilled water was 0 L min-1, the second evaporator was not regarded as

working and the system was considered as the conventional transcritical CO2 ejector expansion refrigeration system.

Then the effect of the compressor speed and the expansion valve opening on the system performance were evaluated

under different area ratios of ejector. The specific values of these parameters were listed in Table 2. We presented three

compressor speeds and three expansion valve openings were considered for the reason of the working conditions and

performances of system.

During the experiment, the temperature and volumetric flow rate of cooling water of gas cooler were maintained at

24.0 °C and 1.25 L min-1. The temperature and volumetric flow rate of chilled water of the first evaporator was kept at

24.0 °C and 3.0 L min-1, and the inlet temperature of the chilled water of the second evaporator was the same with that

of the first evaporator. When testing the change of cooling load of the second evaporator, the compressor speed and

expansion valve opening remained 1200 r min-1 and 68.4 % respectively. For the analysis of the compressor speed, the

volumetric flow rate of chilled water of the second evaporator was maintained constant at 1.0 L min-1 and expansion

9
valve opening is 68.4%. For the analysis of the expansion valve opening, the volumetric flow rate of chilled water of the

second evaporator was maintained constant at 1.0 L min -1 and compressor speed is 1200 r min-1.

Table 2 The values of the variables in the experiment

Variables Values
Volumetric flow rate of chilled water of
0 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 -
the second evaporator Vte,wa / L min-1
Area ratio of ejector At /Amix 0.0478 0.0541 0.0609 0.0681 0.0756 0.0836
-1
Compressor speed N/ r min 1200 1300 1400 - - -
Expansion valve opening EV / % 68.4 73.7 78.9 - - -

4 Results and discussions

4.1 Analysis on cooling load of the second evaporator and area ratio of ejector

Fig. 4 shows the variation of gas cooler pressure Pgc and compressor flow rate mc for the change of volumetric

flow rate of the second evaporator chilled water Vte,wa under different area ratio of ejector At/Amix. To change the

volumetric flow rate of the second evaporator chilled water means to vary the corresponding cooling capacity. From

Fig. 4 (a), when Vte,wa was larger than 0 L min-1, corresponding to the EERS-TE, the gas cooler pressure was higher than

that of volumetric flow rate equaling to zero, where the system is EERS, therefore, it meant that with the addition of the

second evaporator, the gas cooler pressure of EERS-TE increased compared with that of conventional EERS. Moreover,

with the increase of flow rate Vte,wa, the gas cooler pressure Pgc also increased for a certain area ratio At/Amix. However,

when the area ratio of ejector increased, the gas cooler pressure decreased. The reasons were that with the increase of

flow rate Vte,wa, the heat exchange of the second evaporator was raised, resulting in the increase of vapor phase

percentage and pressure inside the second evaporator, and the separator pressure and gas cooler pressure also increased

accordingly. When the area ratio of ejector increased, the flow area of nozzle throat increased, leading to the decrease of

fluid storage in the gas cooler and the decline of gas cooler pressure accordingly. Thus, both the increase of flow rate

Vte,wa and the decrease of area ratio At/Amix improved the gas cooler pressure.

10
 Fig. 4 Gas cooler pressure Pgc and compressor flow rate mc for the change of Vte,wa and ejector area ratio At/Amix

Meanwhile, with the increase of Vte,wa and At/Amix, the mass flow rate of compressor increased as showed in Fig.

4(b). This is because that when the Vte,wa increased, the input pressure of compressor namely separator pressure raised,

resulting in the mass flow rate of compressor increasing. For the increase of the area ratio of ejector, the flow area of the

ejector primary flow increased and separator pressure raised, then the compressor flow rate also increased.

Fig. 5 gives the variation of entrainment ratio μ and pressure lift ratio λ for the change of volumetric flow rate Vte,wa

and ejector area ratio At/Amix. From Fig. 5 (a), it could be found that the entrainment ratio μ decreased with the increase

of Vte,wa and At/Amix. With the second evaporator running, the inlet quality of the separator increased, therefore the flow

rate of the high pressure subcircuit increased and the flow rate of the low pressure subcircuit reduced, then the

entrainment ratio decreased. When the area ratio of ejector increased, the gas cooler pressure decreased and the

entrainment ability of ejector weakened, leading to the decrease of entrainment ratio. For the area ratio of ejector was

0.0478, the ejector entrainment ratio decreased from 0.52 to 0.44 when Vte,wa increased from 0 L min-1 to 2.5 L min-1

with 15.4% decrement. And the entrainment ratio decreased by 14.7% as the ejector area ratio increased from 0.0478 to

0.0836, for Vte,wa equaling to 2.5 L min-1. Thus, the effect of the change in cooling load of the second evaporator on

entrainment ratio could be equal to that of variable area ratio on entrainment ratio. From Fig. 5 (b), the pressure lift ratio

λ improved with the increase of Vte,wa and At/Amix, and the trends were opposite to that of entrainment ratio. Taking the

maximal area ratio of ejector(0.0836) as example, when Vte,wa increased from 0 Lmin-1 to 2.5 Lmin-1, the pressure lift

11
ratio increased from 1.09 to 1.12. Therefore, although EERS-TE caused the entrainment ratio decrease, the pressure

recovery effect was improved.

Fig. 5 Entrainment ratio μ and pressure lift ratio λ for the change of Vte,wa and ejector area ratio At/Amix

Fig. 6 shows the variation of the system cooling capacity Qe and COP with the change of Vte,wa and At/Amix. It is

worth noting that the system cooling capacity Qe is the sum of the cooling capacity of the first evaporator and the

second evaporator one. From Fig. 6, with the increase of Vte,wa, the cooling capacity and COP all increased, while they

decreased with the increase of ejector area ratio. Based on the experimental data, when Vte,wa increased, the cooling

capacity of the first evaporator decreased while the cooling capacity of the second evaporator increased, while the

increased part of the latter was larger than the decreased part of the former, resulting to the increase of total cooling

capacity of system. Specifically, when Vte,wa increased from 0 L min-1 to 2.5 L min-1, the cooling capacity Qe and COP

increased by 15.1% and 12.2%, respectively, with the area ratio of ejector as 0.0478. Besides, when the area ratio of

ejector was 0.0836, the system Qe and COP increased by 27.2% and 21.7% respectively for the same variation of Vte,wa.

In general, the second evaporator play a significant role in improving the system performance. Moreover, combining

Fig 5(a), the larger area ratio of ejector corresponded to the smaller entrainment ratio, thus, the improvement of system

performance was more evident for the small entrainment ratio, which was fully conformed with the simulation analysis

of the literature [23].

12
 Fig. 6 Cooling capacity Qe and COP for the change of Vte,wa and ejector area ratio At/Amix

4.2 Analysis on compressor speed and expansion valve opening

The previous experimental results show the EERS-TE has advantage to improve the system performance, then the

effects of operation conditions on EERS-TE were further investigated. In our experiment, when the compressor speed

was lower than 1200 r min-1, the system would not reach the steady state in a smaller ejector area ratio and the COP was

decreased severely, which was little sense to analyze the system performance. When the compressor speed was higher

than 1400 r min-1, big noise of the compressor valve was observed and the high side pressure exceeded the system safe

pressure for a smaller ejector area ratio. Therefore, we chose three integers (1200 r min -1, 1300 r min-1 and 1400 r min-1)

to investigate the effects of compressor speed on system performances. In addition, for EERS-TE, the pressure lift ratio

of ejector can be regard as the ratio of inlet pressure and outlet pressure of the expansion valve, ignoring the pressure

loss in the second evaporator. It could be deduced that the smaller expansion valve opening was, the lower the

entrainment ratio became. When the expansion valve opening was less than 68.4%, in particular, the entrainment ratio

declined obviously. Moreover, when the expansion valve opening was 78.9%, the minimum pressure lift ratio was

relatively lower. Thus, three value of expansion valve opening (68.4%, 73.7% and 78.9%) were presented to discuss its

effects on system performances. Thus, the adjustable range of compressor speed and expansion valve opening chosen

by this experiment is an adaptable range, not its maximum range. This adaptable range is determined by the specific

characteristic of an ejector system.

13
 Fig. 7 gives the curves of gas cooler pressure Pgc and compressor flow rate mc with the variation ejector area ratio

At/Amix under three compressor speeds N and three expansion valve openings EV separately. From Fig 7 (a), the larger

compressor speed corresponded to the higher gas cooler pressure, while for the different expansion valves, the

corresponding gas cooler pressure presented little diversity. Moreover, as showed in Fig. 7(b), the higher compressor

speed corresponded to the larger compressor flow rate, and the difference of compressor flow rate corresponding to the

three expansion valve openings was not obvious. It could be analyzed that with the compressor speed increased, the

compressor flow rate increased, leading to the raise of gas cooler pressure. And when the expansion valve opening

increased, although the mass flow rate of low pressure subcircuit increased, its effect on the high pressure subcircuit

was weak and the diversity of gas cooler pressure and compressor flow rate for difference expansion valves were

smaller. Hence, at this point, this phenomenon of an ejector system is different from the behavior of a conventional

vapor compression refrigeration system.

Fig. 7 Gas cooler pressure Pgc and compressor flow rate mc with the variation of ejector area ratio At/Amix
under the change of compressor speed N and expansion valve opening EV

Fig. 8 shows the change of entrainment ratio μ and pressure lift ratio λ for the variation of ejector area ratio At/Amix

under the change of compressor speed N and expansion valve opening EV. The higher compressor speed or smaller

expansion valve opening corresponds to the smaller entrainment ratio and larger pressure lift ratio. With the increase of

compressor speed, the mass flow rate of ejector primary flow increased, resulting in the decrease of flow rate of suction

flow and the entrainment ratio. A lower entrainment ration corresponded to a higher pressure lift ratio. While when the

14
expansion valve opening increased, the suction flow rate increased and the entrainment ratio raised. Due to the

entrainment ratio increase, the pressure lift ratio decreased. When the ejector area ratio was 0.0478, the entrainment

ratio increased 9.8% and the pressure lift ratio decreased 2.2% respectively, when the compressor speed decreased from

1400 r min-1 to 1200 r min -1. For other ejector area ratios, the deviation of change rate of entrainment ratio and pressure

lift ratio was larger. When the ejector area ratio was 0.0836, the entrainment ratio increased 19.1% and the pressure lift

ratio decreased 2.8%, when the expansion valve opening increased from 68.4% to 78.9% for compressor speed 1200 r

min-1. While for the little ejector area ratio, the change rate of pressure lift ratio became smaller. In general, the increase

of expansion valve opening was conductive to the rise of entrainment ratio, particularly at larger ejector area ratio. The

data also showed that when expansion valve opening was more than 78.9%, it had lost obvious effect on the

entrainment ration and pressure lift ratio.

Fig. 8 Entrainment ratio μ and pressure lift ratio λ for with the variation of ejector area ratio At/Amix
under the change of compressor speed N and expansion valve opening EV

Fig. 9 gives the curves of system cooling capacity Qe and COP with the variation of ejector area ratio At/Amix under

the change of compressor speed N and expansion valve opening EV. Due to the increase of compressor speed, the

system cooling load increased, and the rise of compressor power was discordance with that of the cooling capacity

resulting in the COP decrease. The adjustment range of expansion valve opening for EERS-TE was limited and resulted

in the change of system performance with the expansion valve less obvious. When the compressor speed increased from

1200 r min-1 to 1400 r min-1, the cooling capacity increased by 12.0% and COP decreased by 9.5% respectively, as the
15
ejector area ratio was 0.0478. The smaller compressor speed caused lower cooling capacity and higher COP, thus, it

would be better to apply a suitable speed in the present values to improve the comprehensive performance of system.

Moreover, the ejector area ratio has significant influence on the cooling capacity and COP in comparison. It could be

found that when the expansion valve opening was 68.4%, the cooling capacity and COP increased by 60.5% and 35.8%

respectively, as the ejector area ratio decreased from 0.0836 to 0.0478.

Fig. 9 Cooling capacity Qe and COP for with the variation of ejector area ratio At/Amix
under the change of compressor speed N and expansion valve opening EV

5 Conclusions

In this paper, the experimental investigation on the transcritical CO2 ejector expansion refrigeration system with

two-stage evaporation (EERS-TE) was carried out under different operation conditions. The improvement of system

performance was evaluated for the variation of volumetric flow rate of the second evaporator chilled water Vte,wa under

different ejector area ratio At/Amix. And then the system performance were tested under different compressor speed N

and expansion valve opening EV.

The experiment results showed that with the increase of Vte,wa, the system parameters such as the compressor flow

rate and the pressure lift ratio of ejector increased, while the entrainment ratio of ejector decreased, and the trends were

similar due to the increase of ejector area ratio. Moreover, the second evaporator played a significant role in improving

the system cooling capacity and COP, and the improvement was more evident for the small entrainment ratio. The effect

16
of the change in cooling load of the second evaporator on entrainment ratio could equal to that of variable area ratio on

entrainment ratio.

In addition, the gas cooler pressure, compressor flow rate, ejector pressure lift ratio increased with the rise of

compressor speed. The changes of compressor speed and ejector area ratio are effective ways to vary the system cooling

capacity and COP. By comparison, the effect of expansion valve openings on the high pressure subcircuit was weak.

And the increase of expansion valve opening is conductive to the rise of entrainment ratio, particularly at larger ejector

area ratio. Based on the advisable adjustments, EERS-TE can present more excellent system performance.

Acknowledgment

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51676148).

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Figure Captions

Fig. 1 (a) Schematic of the EERS-TE (b) corresponding P-h diagram

Fig. 2 Steady performances of the EERC-TE presented in literature[24]

Fig. 3 (a) Schematic diagram of experimental setup for EERS-TE

Fig. 3 (b) Experimental adjustable ejector

Fig. 4 Gas cooler pressure Pgc and compressor flow rate mc for the change of Vte,wa and ejector area ratio At/Amix

Fig. 5 Entrainment ratio μ and pressure lift ratio λ for the change of Vte,wa and ejector area ratio At/Amix

Fig. 6 Cooling capacity Qe and COP for the change of Vte,wa and ejector area ratio At/Amix

Fig. 7Gas cooler pressure Pgc and compressor flow rate mc with the variation of ejector area ratio At/Amix under the

change of compressor speed N and expansion valve opening EV

Fig. 8 Entrainment ratio μ and pressure lift ratio λ for with the variation of ejector area ratio At/Amix under the change of

compressor speed N and expansion valve opening EV

Fig. 9 Cooling capacity Qe and COP for with the variation of ejector area ratio At/Amix under the change of compressor

speed N and expansion valve opening EV

Tables

Table 1 Some geometric parameters of the experimental components

Table 2 The values of the variables in the experiment

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Highlights

► The off-design performances of EERS-TE were investigated by experimental study.

►EERS-TE is conducive to improve the system cooling capacity and COP.

►The second evaporator load has similar effect with ejector area ratio on EERS-TE.

►The ejector area ratio has significant effect on the system cooling capacity and COP.

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