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Article history: In this paper, the key ejector geometry parameters for an air-cooled ejector cycle using R134a with cool-
Received 3 May 2011 ing capacity of 2 kW are designed by 1D analysis. Through enlarging the designed area ratios by connect-
Received in revised form 1 September 2011 ing the replaceable nozzles with a main body, optimum area ratios under air-conditioning working
Accepted 3 September 2011
conditions are studied experimentally. Three parameters, namely, the entrainment ratio, COP and cooling
Available online 1 October 2011
capacity are evaluated, and the results show that the optimum area ratios are from 3.69 to 4.76 that are
lower than those mentioned in other studies. With a fixed area ratio, experiments also show that the
Keywords:
influence of the ejector area ratio on the ejector performance largely depends on the operating condi-
Ejector refrigeration cycle
Air-cooled condenser
tions. Consequently, the effects of operating conditions such as primary flow pressures on the ejector sys-
Area ratio tem performance are evaluated.
Entrainment ratio Crown Copyright Ó 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Coefficient of performance
Cooling capacity
1. Introduction and the primary nozzle throat [13–15,17–20] nozzle exit position
to constant area section inlet (NXP) [13,15,21] length of constant
Low temperature heat energy is the energy generated by heat area mixing section [13,22] and converging angle of constant pres-
with temperature between 80 and 150 °C, which is easily available sure mixing chamber [21]. These studies showed that area ratio is
from sources such as automobiles, industrial processes, geothermal the most sensitive parameter on the ejector system performance.
and solar energies [1–3]. An effective way of utilizing the low tem- By using water (R718) as working fluid and a water-cooled con-
perature heat energy is to convert them into cooling by means of denser, Varga et al. [13] analyzed area ratio on the ejector perfor-
either mechanical compressor-based cooling or non-mechanical mance with CFD simulation. The authors indicated that ejectors
cooling systems. Although it is generally possible to run mechani- with area ratios varying from 13.5 to 26.4 can achieve entrainment
cal compressor-based cooling systems by heat generated electric- ratios from 0.18 to 0.38. They have also pointed out that the ejector
ity, this method requires additional energy input and suffers has different optimal area ratio for different operating conditions,
from low overall efficiency and high initial cost. Non-mechanical for example, the optimal area ratio is 22 with entrainment ratio
cooling systems, on the other hand, rely on heat as their prime en- of 0.31 if a condenser temperature is at 29 °C, but the optimal area
ergy without fossil fuel consumption, are therefore good candi- ratio becomes 14 with entrainment ratio of 0.18 at the 33 °C con-
dates for produce cooling economically [4,5]. denser temperature while ejector area ratio of 22 will fail to oper-
Among several technologies currently available, ejector cooling ate at such operating condition. Ma et al. [14] also investigated an
system (ECS) utilizing low temperature heat energy to generate ejector system using water as refrigerant and with a water-cooled
cooling possesses several advantages over vapor compression condenser by experimental studies where the primary nozzle of
refrigeration systems such as no moving parts, little maintenance, the ejector is controlled by a spindle such that area ratio can be
long lifespan, and high reliability [6–12]. Although the coefficient varied. The experimental results showed that there exists an opti-
of performance (COP) is relatively low, ECS has attracted intensive mum entrainment ratio but the variable area ratios are from 3.38
research interests, owing to the high cost of energy and the de- to around 15 which are less than those of Varga’s ejector system
crease of energy resources. One of the hot topics in the field of re- at almost same designed working conditions. Furthermore, the
search is the influence of geometry parameters on the ejector ranges of entrainment ratios which are also less than those of for-
system performance such as: area ratio between throat section mer one vary from 0.31 to 0.34 when the spindle positions vary
from 0 mm to 30 mm.
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +65 6790 6862; fax: +65 6793 3318. Even though water is the most environmental friendly working
E-mail address: ewjcai@ntu.edu.sg (C. Wenjian). fluid for ECS, it requires higher temperature heat sources for the
0196-8904/$ - see front matter Crown Copyright Ó 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.enconman.2011.09.002
Y. Jia, C. Wenjian / Energy Conversion and Management 53 (2012) 240–246 241
system to work properly. To find solutions for low grade heat en- focus on the ejector area ratios (from 4 to 10). The testing results
ergy sources, low boiling temperature working fluids such as showed that the ejectors with area ratios between 7 and 8 have
R141b and R123 have drawn some research attentions. With good performances. However, the water-cooled condenser pro-
refrigerant R141b, designed for air-conditioning working condi- vides a low back pressure working condition, and the results ob-
tions (evaporating temperatures from 8 °C to 12 °C) as well as tained in such working condition may not be applicable to higher
water-cooled condenser, Huang et al. [23,24] studied the perfor- back pressures when air-cooled condenser is used.
mance of 11 ejectors which with area ratios from 6.4 to 10.6 with In this paper, the works on design and testing of an ejector
a one-dimensional ejector model, it was revealed that the ejectors refrigeration system using environmentally friendly refrigerant
with area ratios higher than 8.3 have least loss coefficient. Yacipi R134a and air-cooled condenser is described. First, the ejector
[15] studied the performance of R123, still with air-conditioning key geometry parameters for cooling capacity of 2 kW and higher
working conditions, by using six configurations of ejector over a back pressures are designed using one-dimensional analysis meth-
range of the ejector area ratio from 6.5 to 11.5. It concluded that od. Second, replaceable nozzles with varying ejector area ratios
the optimum area ratio nearly linearly increases with the generator from 2.74 to 5.37 are used to find for the optimum area ratios.
temperature in the ranges from 83 °C to 103 °C. Third, an experimental ejector system is assembled to determine
The ejector refrigeration systems using refrigerants R718, the optimum ejector area ratio and the system performance under
R141b and R123, however, usually employ water-cooled condens- various operating conditions. Through large amount of experi-
ers due to their lower condensation pressures. The use of air- ments, the best system performance can be achieved for the area
cooled condenser unable the vapor refrigerant fully condense to li- ratios from 3.69 to 4.76.
quid refrigerant due to the higher on-way resistance of air-cooled
condenser compared to water-cooled condenser. Consequently,
the ejector performance will drop dramatically because the 2. Ejector geometries
increased pressure drop between the back pressure and the
secondary flow pressure due to the higher on-way resistance. A schematic view of an experimental setup for ejector based
Among comparable refrigerants for ejector systems, such as refrigeration system is shown as in Fig. 1. The working process of
R134a, R245fa and R365mfc [2,8,16], R134a has several advanta- the system is described as below:
ges: (1) its Ozone Depletion Potential (ODP) is 0; and (2) its High pressure superheated R134a vapor generated in the Gen-
condensation pressure is much higher (770 kPa) than those of erator passes through a (converging/diverging) nozzle, drawing
R245fa (177.8 kPa) and R365mfc (69.2 kPa). However, it is very dif- low pressure R134a vapor into the ejector from the Evaporator.
ficult to build the testing system, as a suitable liquid circulating The two streams mix in the Ejector and leave it after a recovery
pump with low flow rate and high boost pressures is hard to find of pressure in the diffuser part of the Ejector. Then, heat is rejected
on the market due to its higher generating pressure requirement. from the fluid to the surroundings, resulting in condensate at the
Among the very few reports available in the literature, Selvaraju exit of the Condenser. The condensed R134a is divided into two
and Mani [17] developed an ejector refrigeration system with streams: one enters the Evaporator after a pressure reduction in
water-cooled condenser to study the system performance using the Electronic expansion valve and the other enters the Generator
six ejectors with different geometrical dimensions but mainly after a pressure rise in the Liquid pump to start another cycle.
T7 V8 P1
Ejector
P7 T1 Condenser
V7
P2 T2
V6
Generator Liquid indicator
V1
Hot
water
bath Liquid
T6
P6 receiver
Room
Liquid indicator
Water pump R.H. 1 T8
Evaporator Dryer-filter
P4 T4 T5
F2 R.H.2 T9 V5
P5 V2
F
Electric EEV
Liquid pump F1
V3 Evaporator V4 F
P3
T3
2.2
3.8
4.8
Primary fluid Outflow
30 7
8 20 70
Secondary fluid
Fig. 3. Ejector assembly: (a) whole ejector; (b) replaceable nozzle; (c) main body.
The key geometry parameters of the experimental ejector are and subroutines (NIST) [25]. For a rated cooling capacity of 2 kW
initially calculated by 1-D constant pressure flow model with the and specific designed air-conditioning working conditions: evapo-
following assumptions: rating pressure of 4.14 bar (evaporating temperature 10 °C), critical
back pressure of 8.4 bar (air-cooled condenser temperature 33 °C)
The primary and secondary fluids supplied to the ejector are at and generating pressure of 23.5 bar (generating temperature
zero velocity. 75 °C), the ejector geometry parameters are obtained as:
The two fluids begin to mix with a uniform pressure at the mix-
ing section. nozzle diameter Dt = 2.2 mm;
Both the primary and the secondary flows are ideal gas inside nozzle exit diameter D1 = 3.8 mm;
adiabatic ejector walls. constant area section diameter Dm = 4.8 mm;
Pressure and temperature of both the primary and the second- nozzle exit position to constant area section inlet NXP = 8 mm;
ary flows are uniformly distributed inside the ejector. constant area section length Lm = 20 mm;
The isentropic relations hold in calculating friction losses. diffuser length Ld = 70 mm;
nozzle convergent section length Lc,n = 20 mm;
Based on these assumptions, the conservation equations for nozzle divergent section length Ld,n = 7 mm.
mass, momentum and energy are successively applied to a control
volume in the primary nozzle; the suction chamber; the mixing Other geometry parameters such as the converging angle of
chamber as well as the diffuser. The calculation of R134a thermo- constant pressure mixing section are obtained by the approaches
dynamics properties is supplemented by the use of NIST database given in ASHRAE [26] and Zhu et al. [27]. The 1-dimentional
Y. Jia, C. Wenjian / Energy Conversion and Management 53 (2012) 240–246 243
_ s =m
k¼m _p ð1Þ
Fig. 4. Photograph of ejector refrigeration system. where k is the entrainment ratio of the ejector, m_ s is the mass flow
rate of the secondary fluid, m _ p is the mass flow rate of the primary
fluid.
ejector geometry is shown as in Fig. 2, which gives the area ratio
As the ejector refrigeration system is for air-conditioning appli-
of 4.76.
cations, the evaporating temperature should not be too high for
Since the area ratio is a very important parameter for the ejector
cooling purpose even though higher evaporating temperature
performance, the ejector is designed with replaceable nozzles for
resulting higher cooling capacity. On the other hand, the entrain-
convenience in investigation. By connecting a nozzle to the main
ment ratio will be very low or even fail to work if the evaporating
bodies with different dimensions, different area ratios can be ob-
temperature is too low. During the tests, therefore, we vary the
tained as shown in Fig. 3. To prevent against leakage of refrigerant,
evaporating temperatures among 8 °C, 10 °C and 12 °C which cor-
an O-ring is placed between the contact surfaces when the two
responding to the secondary flow pressures at 3.88 bar, 4.14 bar
parts are matched with screws.
and 4.43 bar, respectively. In addition, we adopt the typical operat-
Combining three Dt of 2.2 mm, 2.5 mm and 2.8 mm and two Dm
ing conditions for the primary flow pressures which varying from
of 4.8 mm and 5.1 mm, six ejectors with different area ratios can be
resulted for our studies which are listed as in Table 1.
3. Experimental setup
a generator;
an ejector;
an air-cooled condenser;
a liquid receiver;
a liquid circulating pump;
an electronic expansion valve (EEV);
an air-cooled evaporator;
an electric evaporator;
a monitoring and control system. Fig. 5. Variation of entrainment ratio with area ratio (Pg = 22 bar, Pc = 7.9 bar).
244 Y. Jia, C. Wenjian / Energy Conversion and Management 53 (2012) 240–246
Qe ¼ We ð3Þ
and
COP ¼ W e =W g ð4Þ
Fig. 10. Variation of entrainment ratio with back pressure. Fig. 11. Variation of COP with area ratio (Pe = 4.43 bar, Pc = 7.9 bar).
246 Y. Jia, C. Wenjian / Energy Conversion and Management 53 (2012) 240–246
Acknowledgments
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