Applied Thermal Engineering 159 (2019) 113901

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Applied Thermal Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apthermeng

Research Paper

Performance evaluation and prediction for electric vehicle heat pump using T
machine learning method
⁎
Yufeng Wanga, Wanyong Lia, Ziqi Zhanga, Junye Shia,b, Jiangping Chena,b,
a
Institute of Refrigeration and Cryogenics, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai, China
b
Shanghai High Efficient Cooling System Research Center, Shanghai, China

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: A method to predict the performance of R134a heat pump with EVI (Economized Vapor Injection), is proposed in
Electrical vehicle the present study. Models using SVR (Support Vector Regression) as the base estimator and Adaboost.R2 as the
Heat pump ensemble method, are established to predict the heating capacity and COP of the heat pump. Different feature
Refrigerant injection sets for the model input are formed, based on the working principle of the heat pump system and correlation
Machine learning
analysis. Parameters of the models are optimized to improve prediction performance. The simulation results are
SVR
compared with the experimental results, and the relative errors for heating capacity and COP prediction are
Adaboost.R2
within 8.5%. Moreover, the impacts of injection pressure on the EVI heat pump system are discussed and si-
mulated using the model established. The optimum injection pressure of the heat pump system can be obtained
from the model under different working conditions.

1. Introduction superheated in the economizer. The injected refrigerant will increase

Electrical vehicles (EV) are becoming increasingly popular recently.
Unlike traditional vehicles, waste heat from combustion engines cannot
be utilized to warm up the passenger chamber in electric vehicles [1].
Positive Temperature Coefficient heater utilizes materials that exhibit a
positive resistance change in response to the increase in temperature.
The material allows current to pass when it's cold and restricts current
to flow as the threshold temperature increases. It is a simple solution to
the heating problems but at the cost of high energy consumption, which
can severely damage the driving range, causing a decrease up to 50%.
Air Source Heat Pump (ASHP) is a promising way to meet the re-
quirement of climate control and save energy at the same time [2–5].
However, ASHPs using R134a suffer from significant performance
decrease under extreme ambient temperatures (lower than −20 ℃) [6].
The low evaporating pressure leads to a low density of compressor
suction, and the high-pressure ratio leads to low volumetric efficiency
of the compressor [7]. Both of them do harm to the mass flow rate of
the heat pump system, which decreases the heating capacity. The in-
troduction of EVI (Economized Vapor Injection) into the heat pump is a
promising solution to this problem [8]. As is shown in Fig. 1, EVI means
injecting a middle-pressure refrigerant into the compression port of the
compressor [9]. Refrigerant at the condenser outlet is separated into
two branches, and the injected refrigerant is first throttled and then
the mass flow rate into the condenser, thus improving the heating ca-
pacity of the system. Also, the injected refrigerant will cool down the
compression process, making compressor discharge temperature lower
[10]. Studies have been performed to prove that heat pumps with EVI
perform better than heat pumps without EVI under low temperatures
[6,11,12].
A numerical model is necessary for predicting the heat pump per-
formance. Generally, there are two kinds of models, namely, the white
box model and the black box model. The white box model is based on
physical principles. Details of the system should be taken into con-
sideration and appropriate assumptions should be made when mod-
eling. Jung and Kwon [13,14] used such strategy to simulate the
heating performance of EVI heat pump systems, and they concluded
that a COP improvement is achieved using EVI. However, in such
models, numerous attributes and detailed physical processes are re-
quired, increasing the complexity of the model. Also, semi-empirical
relationships, whose accuracy cannot be guaranteed, are needed to
calculate the heat transfer process or refrigerant properties, making the
model less accurate.
Black box model mainly uses machine learning methods. With the
adaption of advanced modeling algorithms, black box model can model
nonlinear or complex relationships. Hence, the black box model is of
better practical use and is widely used in the refrigeration system.

⁎
Corresponding author at: Institute of Refrigeration and Cryogenics, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai, China.
E-mail address: jpchen_sjtu@163.com (J. Chen).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2019.113901
Received 1 January 2019; Received in revised form 7 May 2019; Accepted 1 June 2019
Available online 01 June 2019
1359-4311/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Y. Wang, et al. Applied Thermal Engineering 159 (2019) 113901

Nomenclature cond condenser

dis discharge
C Penalty parameter in inlet or indoor
Cp specific heat [kJ/kg-K] inj injection
E expectation main main loop
h enthalpy [J/kg] out outlet or outdoor
I current [A] ref refrigerant side
k Kernel function sat saturation
m number of samples sc subcooling
MFR mass flow rate [kg/s] sh superheat
N rotary speed [RPM] suc suction
P pressure [MPa]
p probability Abbreviation
Q capacity [kW]
T temperature [K] AC air conditioning
U voltage [V] ASHP air source heat pump
w weight of samples BV bypass valve
W work [W] COND condenser
COP coefficient of performance
Greek letters EV electrical vehicles
EVAP evaporator
α Lagrange multiplier EVI economized vapor injection
β weight of machines EXV expansion valve
γ RBF kernel coefficient FS feature set
ε deviation HVAC heating, ventilation, and air conditioning
μ mean value HX heat exchanger
ξ slack variable RBF radial basis function
π pressure ratio RMSE root mean square error
ρ correlation coefficient SVR Support Vector Regression
σ standard deviation T1/T2 outdoor/indoor temperature
φ mass flow rate ratio

Subscripts

air air-side

Rasmussen [15] used Linear regression, random forest, and SVR (Sup-
port Vector Regression) algorithms to forecast the electrical load of
supermarket refrigeration systems. Shi [16] developed a model for
detecting refrigerant charge fault using Bayesian neural network. Guo
[17] compared the performance of SVR, BPNN (Back Propagation
Neural Network), ELM (Extreme Learning Machine) algorithms in
forecasting energy demand of building heating system. Apart from
predicting system performances, the machine learning method is also
capable of investigating the detailed working status of the refrigeration
system [18,19] and finding an optimal control strategy for the system
[20,21]. However, former applications of machine learning method in
the refrigeration field mainly focus on domestic or commercial re-
frigeration and heating systems. When it comes to automotive air
conditioning or heat pump, few researches have been found.
In this study, models to predict the heating capacity and COP of
R134a EVI heat pump for electric vehicles are established. The models
use SVR as the base estimator and Adaboost.R2 as the ensemble
method. First, different feature sets for the model input are formed
based on the working principle of the heat pump system and correlation
analysis. Then parameters of the models are optimized to improve
prediction performance. The simulation results computed from the
optimized model are compared with the experimental result. Finally,
the impacts of injection pressure on the EVI heat pump system are
discussed and simulated using the model established. Hence optimum
injection pressure of the heat pump system can be achieved from the
model.

2. Experimental setup

2.1. System structure

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of EVI heat pump system [2].
The structure of the EVI heat pump system is shown in Fig. 2. The
system is capable of both air conditioning and heating. When in AC (Air
Conditioning) mode, condenser inside the HVAC (Heating, Ventilation,
and Air Conditioning) module is blocked on the air side. BV1 is open
and the refrigerant flows through it without throttling. The outside HX
functions as a condenser. BV3 is closed and the refrigerant has to be
throttled by EXV3. The inner evaporator is in charge of cooling the air

2
Y. Wang, et al. Applied Thermal Engineering 159 (2019) 113901

Fig. 2. Experimental setup for EVI heat pump performance test.

entering HVAC. When in heating mode, BV1 is closed and the re-
frigerant is throttled by EXV1. The outside HX functions as an eva-
porator this time. The opening of BV3 and EXV3 depend on whether
dehumidification is required. When BV2 is closed, there is no vapor
injection into the compressor. When BV2 is open, the refrigerant split
from the condenser outlet is first throttled by EXV2 and then heated by
the economizer. The opening of EXV2 can control the injection pressure
and mass flow rate into the compressor. In our case, we investigated the
heat pump performance with EVI working.
2.2. Test facility
The test facility is shown in Fig. 2. The inner condenser and inner
evaporator are packaged in an HVAC module, installed in the indoor
chamber. Compressor, separator, and outside HX are installed in the
outdoor chamber. The location of sensors is shown in Fig. 2. The ca-
pacity (Q) of the tested EVI heat pump was determined by the average
of air-side and refrigerant side heat transfer rate using Eq. (1). The air
side heat transfer was calculated using Eq. (2). The refrigerant side heat
transfer rate was obtained by the enthalpy difference calculation, using
Eq. (3). The properties of the R134a refrigerant were calculated ac-
cording to the NIST REFPROP 9.1. The work consumption is the pro-
duct of compressor voltage and input current, and the overall system
COP was determined by Eq. (4). Analysis of the experimental results
indicated that the errors between the heat transfer rate for the air side
and the refrigerant side were within ± 5%.
Uncertainty analysis is performed in order to verify the measured data
of the cooling/heating capacity and COP using Eq. (5) [22]. Propagated
uncertainties are estimated while calculating the final results from the
experimental measurements. Overall uncertainty is represented as δE,
and δXi represents the uncertainty of its affecting factors. After calcu-
lation, the relative uncertainties for Q and COP are 5.5% and 6.3%
respectively.
δE N ∂E
E
= 2 ∑i =1 ( ∂Xi δXi )2 (5)
2.3. Test conditions
The test conditions are designed to investigate the EVI heat pump
system under different outdoor temperatures, indoor temperatures, and
compressor speeds. There are totally 14 test conditions, as is concluded
in Table 3. In each condition, the injection pressure is adjusted by EXV2
to 5 levels to investigate the impact of injection pressure on the system
heating performance.
3. Methodology
3.1. Feature selection method
Choosing appropriate features as the input is vital for the machine

Q = (Qair + Qref )/2 (1) Table 1

Sensor type and uncertainty.
Qair = ṁ air Cp (Tair , out − Tair , in) (2)
Items Range Uncertainty
Qref = ṁ ref (href , out − href , in ) (3) Temperature sensors −50–200 ℃ ± 0.05 ℃
Pressure sensors 0–4 MPa ± 10 kPa
COP = Q/ W (4) Mass flow rate (Coriolis type) 0–200 kg/h ± 1.2 kg/h
Current sensors 0–25 A ± 0.05 A
The uncertainty of the sensor used in the experiment and the in- Voltage sensors 0–400 V ± 0.1
formation of the composition applied is presented in Tables 1 and 2.

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Y. Wang, et al. Applied Thermal Engineering 159 (2019) 113901

Table 2
Component information.
Components Information

Compressor 34 cc/r. 1000–8500 rpm.

Outside HX 660 × 500 × 16 (mm)
Inner Condenser 225 × 125 × 27 (mm)
Evaporator 232 × 239.5 × 38 (mm)
HVAC Max 400 m3/h @Foot Mode
Economizer 290 × 73(L × W, mm),12 plate
EXV1 Ф9.2 mm
EXV2 Ф1.65 mm
EXV3 Ф5.5 mm

learning model. When the number of input features is small, it is likely

to cause underfitting problems, meaning that the information provided
by the data is not enough for the model to make good predictions.
Adding additional features to the model or feature engineering are re-
commended under such circumstances. When too many features are
feeding to the model, overfitting occurs due to the increasing model
complexity. Choosing appropriate features relies not only on the com-
prehensive understanding of the system but a good mathematical
method to determine whether a feature is important to the prediction
outcome or not.
In our study, six features will determine the system working status,
including three environment features: outdoor temperature, indoor
temperature, and indoor air mass flow rate; one feature for the most
important device: compressor speed; and two features for the control-
ling devices: the opening of EXV1 and EXV2. When the six features are
fixed, the heat pump heat system will finally converge to a steady state.
That means at least six features should be chosen as the input features.
In real cases, operating parameters, such as discharge pressure,
compressor suction pressure and so on, are often used to investigate the
heat pump performance, instead of the opening of the electric expan-
sion valve. Hence, operating parameters which have stronger influences
on the system heating capacity and COP, can be used to replace the
opening of EXV1 and EXV2 as input features, or be added to the model.
Correlation analysis is hence performed.
In this paper, the Pearson correlation coefficient method [23] is
used to determine which parameter have stronger correlations with the
other one. The expression is shown in Eq. (6), where x and y represent
two different features, μ represents mean value, and σ represent stan-
dard deviation. The value of the Pearson correlation coefficient is be-
tween [−1,1]. The larger the absolute value of the Pearson correlation
coefficient, the stronger connection between the wo features.
E ((x − μx ) ∗ (y − μ y ))
ρx , y =
σx ∗ σy
As is illustrated in Fig. 3, the EVI heat pump system consists of two
loops: the main loop and the second loop. EXV1 is in charge of con-
trolling the operating parameters along the main loop, and EXV2 is in
charge of controlling those on the second loop. Using Pearson corre-
lation coefficient method, operating parameters along the main loop,
which has larger Pearson correlation coefficient with Q or COP than
EXV1, can be used to replace the EXV1 feature, or be added to the
Fig. 3. Schematic diagram of the main loop and second loop.
model. Feature engineering can be performed in this process to build
new features that are related to the system performance in physical
meaning. The same method applies to the second loop. Fig. 4 shows the
correlation coefficients of different features with Q and COP. Different
feature sets can be formed using the idea mentioned above, as pre-
sented in Table 4.
Features in Table 4 such as πmain, πinj and Tsh,inj can be calculated
using the present features without being further collected from the
experiment test bench. The expressions are presented below:
πmain = Pdis / Pevap, in (7)
πinj = Pdis / Pinj (8)
Tsh, inj = Tinj − Tsat (Pinj ) (9)
3.2. Machine learning method
3.2.1. SVR algorithm
SVR (Support Vector Regression) is a powerful machine learning
tool which is firmly grounded in the framework of statistical learning
theory [24]. In this study, ε -SVR with Gaussian RBF (Radial Basis
Function) kernel is proposed to predict the EVI heat pump performance.
In ε-SVR, our goal is to find a function f (x) that has at most ε deviation
from the actually obtained targets y for all the training data, and at the
same time is as flat as possible [25]. The introduction of kernel function
into SVR makes the model capable of addressing nonlinear problems.
The kernel function can transform data into another (usually larger)
dimension to be more separable. The Gaussian RBF kernel used in this
(6) study is expressed in Eq. (10).
k〈x i , x j 〉 = exp(−γ ||x i − x j ||2 ) (10)
The SVR algorithms can be expressed in the form of a convex op-
timization problem shown in Eq. (11). The equation can be considered
as a combination of empirical risk and structure risk.
m
1
Min ||ω||2 + C ∑ lε (f (x i ) − yi )
2 i=1 (11)

Table 3
Test conditions.
Index Outside HX facing velocity (m/s) Indoor air volume (m3/h) Tout door (°C) Tin door (°C) Compressor speed (RPM) Injection pressure level

1 4 300 0 0 5500 5
2 0 20 5500
3 −10 0 4000/5500/7000
4 −10 20 4000/5500/7000
5 −20 −7 4000/5500/7000
6 −20 20 4000/5500/7000

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Y. Wang, et al. Applied Thermal Engineering 159 (2019) 113901

MFR_inj
R134a Q P_inj
R134a COP
T_sc T_inj
ʌ_ inj Q
T_sh,inj EXV2-Opening
COP T_suc
T_dis T_sc
ij_inj EXV1-Opening
T_cond,out P_suc
EXV1-Opening T_sh,inj
ʌ_ main P_evap,in
P_dis ij_inj
EXV2-Opening MFR_main
T_inj T_sh,dis
T_sh,dis MFR_inj
P_inj ʌ_ inj
T_suc T_dis
MFR_main P_dis
P_suc T_cond,out
P_evap,in ʌ_ main
0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8
Absolute Correlation Coefficient Absolute Correlation Coefficient

Fig. 4. Absolute correlation coefficient with Q and COP.

Table 4
Feature sets for the model input.
Name Including features Feature numbers Collected feature numbers

FS1 N, Tout, Tin, MFRair,in, EXV1-Opening, EXV2-Opening 6 6

FS2 N, Tout, Tin, MFRair,in, Pdis, Pinj, πinj 7 6
FS3 N, Tout, Tin, MFRair,in, Pdis, Pinj, πinj, Pevap,in, πmain 9 7
FS4 N, Tout, Tin, MFRair,in, Pdis, Pinj, πinj, Pevap,in, πmain, Tinj, Tsh,inj 11 8
FS5 N, Tout, Tin, MFRair,in, Pdis, Pinj, πinj, Pevap,in, πmain, Tinj, Tsh,inj, Tdis, Tcond,out 13 10

0.25

1.00

0.20

0.95

Score R134a Train 0.15

R2_score

RMSE
Score R134a Test
0.90 RMSE R134a Train
RMSE R134a Test 0.10

0.85
0.05

0.80 0.00
1 2 3 4 5
Feature Sets

Fig. 6. Performances of different feature sets for (a) heating capacity prediction
and (b) COP prediction (b).

Introduced with slack variables ξ , Eq. (11) can be rewritten as:

Fig. 5. Flow chart of the machine learning procedure. m
1
Min ||ω||2 + C ∑ (ξi + ξi∗)
2 i=1 (13)
Table 5
Optimization range of SVR and Adaboost.R2 parameter.
Parameter Range ⎧ f (x i ) − yi ≤ ε + ξi ⎫
⎪ ⎪
Constraints: yi − f (x i ) ≤ ε + ξi∗
C [0.1, 0.2, 0.5, 0.8, 1, 2, 5, 8, 10, 15, 20] ⎨ ⎬
ε [0.01, 0.02, 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.5] ⎪ ξi, ξi∗ ≥ 0 ⎪
⎩ ⎭
γ [1/50, 1/40, 1/30, 1/20, 1/15, 1/10, 1/8, 1/7, 1/6, 1/5]
n_round [25, 50, 100, 200]
The dual optimization problem is shown below. The kernel function
is applied in this process.
The ε -insensitive loss function can be expressed as such: m
Max αi∗, αi ∑i = 1 yi (αi∗ −αi ) − ε (αi∗ +αi )
0, if |x| ≤ ε 1 m m
∑i = 1 ∑ j = 1 (αi∗ −αi )(α∗j −αj ) k〈x i , x j 〉
l∊ (x ) = ⎧ − 2 (14)
⎨
⎩|x| − ε , otherwise (12)

5
Y. Wang, et al. Applied Thermal Engineering 159 (2019) 113901

3.5 (a) 3.5 (b)

Simulation Capacity Simulation COP
3.0 +10% 3.0 +10%

Simulation Capacity (kW)

-10% -10%

Simulation COP
2.5 2.5

2.0 2.0

1.5 1.5

1.0 1.0

1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0
Experiment Capacity (kW) Experiment COP

Fig. 7. Comparison between simulation result and experiment result (a) Heating capacity (b) COP.

0.5 50
They have to be fine-tuned to improve model performance. The C
2.4 Q(kW) parameter is regarded as the regularization coefficient. The γ parameter
ij_inj defines how far the influence of a single training example reaches, with
0.4 45
T_cond,in (
small values meaning ‘far’ and large values meaning ‘close’. The larger
C and larger γ have the same influence on the model: more support
T_cond,in (°C)

2.0 0.3 40 vectors, more complexity, and more chances of overfitting. If they are
Q (kW)

ij_inj

too small, the model is too ‘flat’, and underfitting occurs. The ε para-
meter defines the maximum deviation that can be tolerated by the SVR.
0.2 35
When ε is small, it has the same effect as a large C and large γ .
1.6

0.1 30
3.2.2. Adaboost.R2 algorithm
Boosting is an ensemble method often used in machine learning to
1.2 0.0 25 build a committee of regressors that may be superior to a single re-
0.20 0.25 0.30 0.35 0.40 gressor. Adaboost.R2 [26] is a famous boosting algorithm for regres-
Injection Pressure (Mpa) sion, and it is applied in this paper for regression tasks.
Briefly, the Adaboost.R2 algorithm is intended to adjust the weights
Fig. 8. Effect of injection pressure on the heat pump system (@-10/20 ℃,
4000RPM).
for training samples. If the predicted value of a certain sample deviates
from its true value, then the weight of it will be increased in the next
round, making the sample paid more attention to by the model. The
m ∗
⎧ ∑i = 1 (αi −αi ) = 0 ⎫ machines are trained sequentially in this algorithm. The calculating
Constraints:
⎨ 0 ≤ αi∗,αi ≤ C ⎬ procedure can be expressed as followed.
⎩ ⎭
In the first round, the weight of each sample in the training set is
And the function that we obtain from the optimization problem is: initialized as 1. And the probability that training sample i is in the
training set is regarded as pi.
m
f (x ) = ∑ (αi∗ −αi) k〈xi , x〉 + b wi = 1i = 1, 2, ⋯, m (16)
i=1 (15)
wi
pi =
The penalty parameter C, the deviation ε and the kernel coefficient m
∑i = 1 wi (17)
γ are 3 important hyper-parameters during the SVR calculating process.

EXP@4000RPM EXP@4000RPM
SIM@4000RPM SIM@4000RPM
3.2
EXP@5500RPM (a) EXP@5500RPM (b)
SIM@5500RPM 2.4 SIM@5500RPM
EXP@7000RPM EXP@7000RPM
2.8
SIM@7000RPM SIM@7000RPM

2.0
2.4
Q (kW)

Q (kW)

2.0
1.6

1.6
1.2

1.2
0.15 0.20 0.25 0.30 0.35 0.40 0.45 0.10 0.15 0.20 0.25 0.30 0.35
P_inj (Mpa) P_inj (Mpa)

Fig. 9. Effect of injection pressure on the heating performance (a) @-10/20 ℃ (b) @-20/20 ℃.

6
Y. Wang, et al. Applied Thermal Engineering 159 (2019) 113901

A machine is trained using the weights. And a mapping from input
features xi to outcome f(xi) is established using the machine in each
round. The loss of each training sample is Li, and the maximum de-
viation of all the training data is D. And linear loss function is used in
this study.
D = sup |yi − f (x i )| i = 1, 2, ⋯, m (18)
|y − f (x i )|
Li = i
D (19)
The average loss L̄ and the weight for each machine β can be de-
termined.
m
L¯ =
∑ Li pi
i=1 (20)
L¯
β=
1 − L¯ (21)
In the next round, the weight for each sample can be updated, and
the new weights are used to train a new machine.
wi = wi β1 − Li (22)
The Adaboost.R2 algorithm will not stop until the maximum
training rounds n_round (exactly the number of trained machines) that
we set is reached or L̄ exceeds 0.5. The final prediction of the model is
the weighed median of all the values predicted by machines, instead of
the weighted mean.
The reason why we choose Adaboost.R2 as the ensemble method in
performance prediction of refrigeration or heat pump system is that the
system operates under very different conditions. Data obtained under
regular conditions (regular compressor speed, regular ambient tem-
perature, etc.) are much more than those obtained under irregular ones.
The Adaboost.R2 algorithm can cope with data nonuniformity and
sparsity issues. With the application of Adaboost.R2, data obtained
under irregular conditions can be more attended to, and the overall
prediction errors can be decreased.
3.3. Model performance evaluation
Two performance indexes are used to evaluate model performance
in this study, namely r2score and RMSE (Root Mean Square Error).
m lished are applicable under almost all the experiment conditions, which
∑i = 1 (f (x i ) − yi )2
r 2score = 1 − m
∑i = 1 (y¯ − yi )2 (23)
m 5.2. Effect of the injection pressure
∑i = 1 (f (x i ) − yi )2
RMSE =
m (24)
The r2score is less than 1. The closer value of r2score to 1, the better
model regression performance is achieved. Meanwhile, the smaller the
value of RMSE also indicates better model prediction performance.
4. Machine learning modeling
The machine learning procedure can be summarized as the flow
chart shown in Fig. 5.
4.1. Data preprocessing
As is described in Section 2.3, there are totally 14 test conditions.
Under each test conditions, the injection pressure is adjusted to 5 levels.
Therefore, 70 samples are available. 80% of the samples are randomly
separated into the train set, and the remaining 20% are separated into
the test set.
Data standardization is needed before we can proceed with machine
learning modeling. Standardization means to rescale your data to have
a mean of zero and a standard deviation of one. Standardization can
prevent one feature from far outweighing another one. In regression
tasks, standardization can help reduce multicollinearity issues for
models containing interaction terms.
4.2. Feature selection & model optimization
The method for feature selection can be referred to in Section 3.1.
Five feature sets as described in Table 4 are selected as the model input
to test their performances. The model used for each feature set is op-
timized, and the optimization target is maximum r2score of the test set.
The optimized parameters are C, ε, γ and n_round respectively, and the
optimization range of them are presented in Table 5.
Fig. 6 shows the performances of different feature sets for heating
capacity and COP prediction. A higher r2score and a lower RMSE suggest
better prediction performance. As indicated in Fig. 6, with growing
numbers of feature input from FS1 to FS5, the r2score of the train set
tend to increase, which states that more feature input is likely to in-
crease the ability of the model to fit the train set. In heating capacity
prediction, the r2score of FS2 is the highest. In COP prediction, the r2score
of FS3 is the highest, but the r2score of FS2 is only a bit lower. This
suggests that FS2 is an appropriate feature set for both heating capacity
and COP prediction. Also, FS2 requires the least features that have to be
collected from the system (same as FS1) among these feature sets,
which makes it more applicable when it comes to practical use. A larger
number of features seems disadvantageous to the model performance
for the test set. This may be attributed to the fact that more features
increase the model complexity, and overfitting may occur. The opti-
mized parameters (C, ε, γ and n_round) for the heating capacity pre-
diction model (FS2 as the input) are 20, 0.01, 0.02 and 25. For the COP
prediction model, parameters are 5, 0.01, 0.05 and 25.
5. Result and discussion
5.1. Comparison with the experiment results
A comparison between the simulation results and experiment results
(including both train set and test set) is carried out. As illustrated in
Fig. 7, the simulation results are in good agreement with the experi-
ment results. The maximum errors for capacity and COP prediction are
8.25% and 8.33% respectively. This indicates that the models estab-
are quite complex.
The major difference between a conventional heat pump and an EVI
heat pump lies in the second loop described in Fig. 3. Hence, the in-
jection parameters along the second loop should be studied to under-
stand their influence on the system performance. Among them, the most
critical one is the injection pressure Pinj [27]. The injection pressure has
an impact on the condenser inlet temperature, as well as the injection
mass flow rate. The experiment shows the effect of the injection pres-
sure, as described in Fig. 8. φinj indicates the injection ratio, and the
expression of it is shown in Eq. (25).
φinj = MFRinj/MFRmain (25)
The expansion valve on the second loop (EXV2 in Fig. 2) controls
the injection pressure. When the opening of the valve is larger, the
injection pressure grows, and as a result the injection mass flow rate
increases, which is beneficial to the heating capacity. A larger injection
ratio is also observed due to this effect. However, as the injection ratio
grows to some point, the compressor may be further cooled down and
the discharge temperature decreases. This is disadvantageous to the
heating capacity because the temperature difference between the re-
frigerant side and air side in the condenser is hence decreased.

7
Y. Wang, et al.
Therefore, there exists an optimum injection pressure, where the system
heating capacity reaches its maximum.
However, it’s difficult to find the optimum injection pressure be-
cause it varies greatly under different working conditions. Also, the
working conditions of EVI are quite complex, and the operating para-
meters of the system are heavily coupled, making us hard to find which
parameters we should count on to find the optimum injection pressure.
The model established in this study may find a solution to this problem.
As illustrated in Fig. 9, the simulated results of injection pressure’s ef-
fect share a similar trend with the experiment results: initially, in-
creasing injection pressure leads to a larger heating capacity; when the
injection pressure is beyond the optimum one, the heating capacity
starts to decrease. Also, there is not much difference between the op-
timum injection pressure simulated by the model and found in the ex-
periment. Hence the optimum injection pressure can be roughly esti-
mated using the machine learning model.
6. Conclusion
A method to predict the performance of an EVI heat pump is pro-
posed in the present study. The procedure of this method is as the
following: data standardization, train/test split, feature selection,
model optimization, and performance prediction. SVR and Adaboost.R2
are applied in the modeling process. The conclusions are summarized
below:
(1) FS2 (including N, Tout, Tin, MFRair,in, Pdis, Pinj, πinj) is the best feature
set for model input.
(2) The models established can predict the heating capacity and COP
within an error margin of 8.25% and 8.33% respectively.
(3) The effects of injection pressure on the heat pump system can be
simulated and optimum injection pressure for the system can be
estimated using the model established.
In conclusion, the machine learning model is a powerful tool to
predict the performance of EVI heat pump system. Meanwhile, it poses
some potential in finding the optimum operating parameters of the
system.
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