Energy and Buildings 41 (2009) 175–181

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Energy and Buildings

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Modeling solar-driven ejector refrigeration system offering air conditioning

for office buildings
J. Guo *, H.G. Shen
School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Donghua University, 2999# North Renmin Road, Shanghai 201620, PR China

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Article history: A lumped method combined with dynamic model is proposed for use in investigating the performance
Received 26 June 2008 and solar fraction of a solar-driven ejector refrigeration system (SERS) using R134a, for office air
Accepted 18 July 2008 conditioning application for buildings in Shanghai, China. Classical hourly outdoor temperature and solar
radiation model were used to provide basic data for accurate analysis of the system performance. Results
Keywords: indicate that during the office working-time, i.e., from 9:00 to 17:00, the average COP and the average
Solar-driven ejector refrigeration
solar fraction of the system were 0.48 and 0.82 respectively when the operating conditions were:
Lumped method
generator temperature (85 8C), evaporator temperature (8 8C) and condenser temperature varying with
Dynamic model
COP
ambient temperature. Compared with traditional compressor based air conditioner, the system can save
Solar fraction upto 80% electric energy when providing the same cooling capacity for office buildings. Hence, the system
offers a good energy conservation method for office buildings.
ß 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Energy is considered as a major agent in the generation of
wealth and an important factor in economic development. With
the sharp increase in the cost of the energy and the high energy
consumed by the conventional air conditioners, the solar-driven
ejector refrigeration system has recently received considerable
attention as alternative refrigeration for residential and commer-
cial space cooling application. An ejector driven by solar energy can
be used to replace the compressor which makes the refrigeration
system to consume much less electric power than traditional
compressor based air conditioner. Moreover, the SERS is simple,
reliable, and convenient for integration with buildings and can use
environmentally friendly working fluid. In addition, they utilize
solar energy which is essentially non-hazardous, unlimited and
always available.
Since the idea of a SERS was advanced in the beginning of 1990s
[1–3], a great deal of numerical and experimental works as well as
system optimization works have been reported in literatures [4,5].
Various experimental studies [6–11] have examined the effect of the
operation conditions such as the generator temperature, evaporator
temperature and condenser temperature, the geometrical condi-
tions such as the area ratio (the cross section area ratio of constant
area tube to the nozzle throat), the distance of the nozzle exit to the
inlet of the constant area tube, the system conditions such as
refrigerant and collector selections on the performance of the
system and presented abundant experimental data for reference
during system design. Other researchers [12] have presented
numerical methods of simulating the ejector and studied the
parametric effect on the system performance. System optimization
investigations [13–15] have focused on various combined ejector
refrigeration systems for performance improvement.
An accurate SERS performance forecasting is an important
precondition for the optimal control and energy saving operation of
air conditioning systems. Numerous prediction techniques, which
mainly include thermodynamic method, dynamic method, lumped
method, exergy analysis method and the use of artificial neural
network (ANN) have been applied to predict the performance of
SERS. Dynamic method is widely accepted as a technique which can
describe in details what happens in the ejector while lumped
method offers a good way to tackle complex problems in actual
situations. The advantage of the dynamic method with respect to
other models is its ability to model the choking, shock and mixing
phenomena occuring in the ejector and can give detailed informa-
tion on the mass flow along the ejector. In this paper, the lumped
method combined with dynamic model was used to forecast the
performance of a solar-driven ejector refrigeration system.
2. System description

* Corresponding author. The SERS is shown in Fig. 1. It comprises of two loops, one is
E-mail address: shuheguo@163.com (J. Guo). solar collection loop which is the main energy source of ejector

0378-7788/$ – see front matter ß 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.enbuild.2008.07.016
176 J. Guo, H.G. Shen / Energy and Buildings 41 (2009) 175–181

(named entrained fluid hereinafter) from the evaporator and the

Nomenclature two fluids mix together in the mixing chamber. In the diffuser, the
velocity of the mixed fluid is stepped down and the pressure is
A area (m2) lifted to the condenser pressure.
COP coefficient of performance
Cp specific heat of gas at constant pressure (kJ/(kg K)) 3. Mathematical model
D diameter (mm)
Being driven by solar energy, the performance of the SERS is
f solar fraction
affected not only by geometrical parameters of the ejector, but also
h enthalpy (kJ/kg)
by local climatic conditions. Taking these into considerations, a
I solar radiation (W/m2) lumped method combined with dynamic model was developed to
m mass flow rate (kg/s) investigate the performance of the SERS. The environmental
M Mach number friendly refrigerant R134a was used as the working fluid. And the
P pressure (Pa) climatic conditions of Shanghai were used for field modeling.
Q heat (W) The designed cooling capacity of the system was 6 kW with
R gas constant (kJ/(kg K)) evaporation temperature at 8 8C. A vacuum tube collector of 15 m2
T temperature (K) was employed for analysis.
V velocity (m/s)
3.1. Modeling the ejector performance

Greek symbols The main geometrical parameters of the designed ejector are
g specific heat ratio shown in Fig. 2. The dynamic model of ejector performance
h coefficient prediction similar to that given in reference [16] with the outlet of
Fm isoentropy coefficient of mixture the convergent–divergent nozzle located at somewhere in front of
v entrainment ratio, v = me/mm the constant area tube was adopted to analyze the system with real
gas property derived from NIST REFPROP (Version 6.01) [17].
Subscripts Suppose two chokes occur for both the motive and the
entrained fluids, then the mass flow follows the gas dynamic
AS after shock
equations:
c cooling
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
DO diffuser outlet  ðg þ1Þ=ðg 1Þ
P in At gh 2
e entrained fluid m¼ p ffiffiffiffiffiffi
ffi (1)
T in R g þ1
HR heat required
I calculation step " #ðg þ1Þ=2ðg 1Þ
2
in inlet Aiþ1 M i 1 þ ððg  1Þ=2ÞMiþ1
¼ (2)
m motive fluid Ai M iþ1 1 þ ððg  1Þ=2ÞMi2
mt mixture
!r=ðr1Þ
NO nozzle outlet 2
Pi 1 þ ððr  1Þ=2ÞMiþ1
¼ (3)
t nozzle throat P iþ1 1 þ ððr  1Þ=2ÞMi2
y section y–y
3 constant area tube For a given ejector, the area is known, and the Mach number and
pressure PNO at convergent–divergent nozzle exit can be obtained
by Eqs. (2) and (3). Assuming that the entrained fluid mixed with
the motive fluid at section y–y, where it forms the ‘‘dynamic
refrigeration system (ERS) and the other is ejector refrigeration throat’’ for the entrained fluid, i.e., Mey = 1. For a given inlet
loop which supplies useful cooling to the user. stagnant pressure Pe, the pressure of the entrained fluid (Pey) at the
The solar collection loop is composed of collector, a hot water mixing section can be calculated by Eq. (3). Also, supposing the
storage tank, an auxiliary heater and a circulating pump. The motive fluid and the entrained fluid mixed at section y–y with
auxiliary heater is located between the hot water storage tank and uniform pressure, i.e. Pmy = Pey, known the convergent–divergent
the generator of the ejector refrigeration loop. When the hot water nozzle outlet Mach number and with pressure obtained as
temperature in the tank is not high enough to drive the ejector mentioned above, the Mach number of the motive fluid at section
refrigeration loop, the auxiliary heater will start automatically. y–y can be calculated by Eq. (3) if PNO > Pey. Otherwise, shock
The ejector refrigeration loop consists of two subsystems: the happens at the outlet of the convergent–divergent nozzle, and the
power subsystem, and the refrigeration subsystem. In the power flow abides by the shock wave theory. Then the cross-section area
subsystem, the refrigerant flows through the generator, the ejector, of the motive fluid core Amy at section y–y and that of the ejector at
the condenser and the circulating pump, and finally flows back to section y–y Ay can be obtained from Eq. (2) and the geometrical
the generator to supply high pressure motive fluid to the ejector. In parameter of the ejector, and consequently, the cross-section area
the refrigeration subsystem, the refrigerant flows through the of the entrained fluid Ay at section y–y is given by:
ejector, the condenser, the expansion valve, the evaporator, and
then back to the suction of the ejector to supply the required Aey ¼ Ay  Amy (4)
cooling capacity. The main part of the ejector refrigeration loop is
The mass flow of the entrained fluid me can be calculated by Eq. (1)
the ejector (Fig. 2), which is composed of a convergent–divergent
and the entrainment ratio is:
nozzle, suction chamber, mixing chamber and a diffuser. The
motive fluid is first accelerated to supersonic velocity in the me
v¼ (5)
convergent–divergent nozzle, which entrains the evaporated fluid mm
 J. Guo, H.G. Shen / Energy and Buildings 41 (2009) 175–181 177

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of solar-driven ejector refrigeration system.

According to gas dynamic equations (6) and (7), the temperature generator and the performance of the ERS are:
and velocity of motive and entrained fluids are:
Q c ¼ me ðh2  h6 Þ (10)
T in g1 2 Q HR ¼ mm ðh1  h5 Þ (11)
¼1þ My (6)
Ty 2 Qc h2  h6
COPERS ¼ ¼v (12)
Qg h1  h5
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi Under the condition that the motive fluid undergoes a shock wave
V y ¼ My g RT y (7)
at the outlet of the nozzle, the pressure and Mach number after the
shock wave are described by Eqs. (13) and (14).
Based on energy and momentum conservation of the motive,
entrained and the mixed fluid, and taking the energy loss into P AS 2g
¼1þ ðM 2  1Þ (13)
consideration, the parameters of the mixture are: PNO g þ 1 NO
2
2 1 þ ððg  1Þ=2ÞMNO
Fm ½mm V my þ me V ey  ¼ ðmm þ me ÞV mt (8) MAS ¼ (14)
! ! 2
g MNO  ððg  1Þ=2Þ
2 2
Vpy Vey
mm C p T my þ þ me C p T ey þ
2 2
 2
 3.2. Modeling the performance of the system
V
¼ ðmm þ me Þ C p T mt þ mt (9)
2 Once the performance of the ejector and its refrigeration system
is obtained, the performance of the SERS can be described by:
Call for the database NIST REFPROP (Version 6.01) for the
properties of the gas, the cooling capacity, heat required by the COPSERS ¼ COPERS hcol (15)

Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of ejector geometry.

178 J. Guo, H.G. Shen / Energy and Buildings 41 (2009) 175–181

Where, hcol is the efficiency of the solar collector, given by: Then the effective solar energy gain and the solar fraction can be
calculated by the following equations:
T col  T a
hcol ¼ F R ðat Þ  F R U L (16)
Q col ¼ Acol I hcol (17)
I

Where, FR is the heat transfer factor, t and a are the solar incident heat geained from solar energy Q col
f ¼ ¼ (18)
ratio and absorption, respectively. UL is the total heat loss heat required for the generator=h Q HR =h
coefficient of collector, Tcol is the water temperature of the
collector, and Ta is the ambient temperature. where, Acol is the collector area, m2, I is solar radiation, W/m2.

Fig. 3. Schematic schedule of the program.

 J. Guo, H.G. Shen / Energy and Buildings 41 (2009) 175–181
Fig. 4. Validation of the model.
Based on the assumption that: (1) the power consumed by the
circulating pumps and that by the control system is neglectable;
(2) the velocity at the ejector inlet, outlet and evaporator outlet is
neglectable; (3) the condenser temperature is 5 8C higher than
the ambient temperature; and (4) the collector temperature is
10 8C higher than the generator temperature, then the perfor-
mance of the system can be predicted by the program descript
in Fig. 3.
4. Results and discussions
4.1. Performance of the ejector and its refrigeration system
For a given ejector, the performance can be calculated based
on the mathematical model mentioned in Section 3.1. For
validation, the results calculated by the model were compared
with the experimental values and also with the one-dimension
model by Huang et al. [16], and with that calculated by CFD
software package Fluent 6.2 [18]. The deviations are shown in
Fig. 4. The results were found to be in good agreement with
experimental values with deviations no more than 10%, which
means the model is effective for analysis the performance of
the ejector and can be used as basis for performance analysis of
the SERS.
Fig. 5. Entrainment ratio of the designed ejector.
179
Fig. 6. COP of the ERS under various generator temperature.
The entrainment ratio of the ejector used for the system
analysis is shown in Fig. 5. For a given ejector, higher generator
temperature means higher motive fluid pressure, which leads to a
higher velocity at the exit of the convergent–divergent nozzle and
more fluid from the evaporator is entrained. When the inlet
temperature of the motive fluid is higher than the designed
temperature, shock wave will happen. With energy loss during the
shock wave, the entrainment capacity of the motive fluid after the
shock wave is decreased sharply.
The COP of the ERS is shown in Fig. 6, and it has a similar trend
as the entrainment ratio of the ejector because the performance of
the system is greatly affected by the entrainment ratio of the
ejector. More refrigerant fluid entrained by the ejector means the
system supplies more cooling capacity, with a small increase in
heat requirement for heating the motive fluid. Hence, the system
offers better performance.
Fig. 7 shows the cooling capacity of the designed ejector
under critical condenser pressure. The critical cooling capacity
of the ejector increases with increasing generator temperature.
Under the design condition of generator temperature at 85 8C,
the cooling capacity reaches maximum. After that, shock wave
happens at the exit of the nozzle which leads to energy loss,
consequently, the performance and the cooling capacity of the
ERS decrease sharply.
Fig. 7. Cooling capacity of the ERS under various generator temperature.
180 J. Guo, H.G. Shen / Energy and Buildings 41 (2009) 175–181
Fig. 8. Hourly ambient temperature variations in Shanghai (July).
Fig. 9. Hourly solar radiation in Shanghai (July).
4.2. Performance of the SERS
The climate conditions of Shanghai were used for the
performance prediction of the SERS. Figs. 8 and 9 show the hourly
outdoor ambient temperature and total solar radiation on a typical
Fig. 10. Variation of COP of ERS with time.
Fig. 11. Variation of COP of the SERS with time.
day in July calculated from the model proposed by Liu and Jordan
[19]. Given the performance of the ejector as mentioned above and
the climate conditions as shown in Figs. 8 and 9, the hourly
performance of the ERS and SERS can be obtained (Figs. 10 and 11).
Fig. 10 shows the hourly COP of the ERS with the evaporator
temperature at 8 8C and the condenser temperature varying with
the ambient temperature. Under fixed inlet pressures of motive
fluid and entrained fluid, the mixed fluid is easier to flow through
with higher condenser temperature, therefore, more refrigerant
fluid can be entrained and the entrainment ratio of the ejector
increases, consequently, the cooling capacity and the COP of the
ERS also increase.
Comparing Figs. 8–10, although the solar radiation reaches
maximum at 12:00, the ambient temperature and the entrainment
ratio of the ejector reach maximum at 14:00. It indicates that the
condenser temperature has greater effect on the performance of
the ERS than the generator temperature. As the condenser
temperature not only determines the condenser pressure which
in turn influences the entrainment ratio and COP of the ERS as
mentioned above, but it also influences the heat required by the
generator. Under a higher condenser temperature, the ejector
entrains more refrigerant and supplies more cooling capacity.
Furthermore, a higher condenser temperature causes a decrease in
the heat required by the generator when it generates the same
quality and quantity of motive fluid.
Fig. 12. Hourly solar fraction.
 J. Guo, H.G. Shen / Energy and Buildings 41 (2009) 175–181
Considering the efficiency of the solar collector, heat loss of the
storage tank and pipes as well as the heat transfer efficiency in the
generator, the hourly overall performance of the SERS is as shown
in Fig. 11. From 8:00. to 16:00, the system worked under steady
performance between 0.43 and 0.53 with cooling capacity of 6 kW.
During other times, the solar radiation intensity weakens and
the ambient temperature drops, therefore, the overall COP of the
system decreases sharply. From the view of this character, the
system exerts its best performance when being used in daytime.
Therefore, it’s appropriate for the system to supply air conditioning
for office buildings.
The hourly solar fraction of the system is shown in Fig. 12. With
more solar energy gain from 10:00 to 13:00, the solar fraction
during this period is more than 1.0, which means no additional
electric energy is needed (except that used for the instrument and
circulation pumps) for the system to supply air conditioning.
During other hours at daytime, the solar fraction of the system is
between 0.45–0.94 except at 17:00, the solar fraction drops to as
low as 0.15. When the system is equipped in office buildings, and
the office time is from 9:00 to 17:00, the average solar fraction of
the system is 0.82. That is to say, only 18% electric energy is needed
to provide the same cooling capacity. Compared with traditional
compressed air conditioning system, the SERS can conserve more
than 75% of electric energy.
5. Conclusions
In this study, the lumped method combined with dynamic
model for performance prediction of solar-driven ejector refrig-
eration system for providing air conditioning to office buildings
was investigated. The results of the mathematical simulation have
demonstrated that the solar-driven ejector refrigeration system
can be designed to meet the cooling requirements of air
conditioning for office buildings. The following conclusions were
obtained:
(1) For the studied case, the condenser temperature influences
more on the performance of the SERS than the generator
temperature.
(2) From 9:00 to 17:00, on typical clear sky days, the average COP
of the system is 0.48 with most of the daytime remaining
steady between 0.43–0.53, except at 17:00, when it drops as
low as 0.29. The average solar fraction is 0.82.
181
(3) Compared with traditional compressor based air conditioner,
the SERS conserves more than 75% of electric energy when it is
used to supply air conditioning during daytime for office
buildings.
(4) The system offers a good energy conservation method for air
conditioning of office buildings.
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