A comparative experimental study on the performance of the air‐conditioning system through effective condenser cooling and preheating the refrigerant

Abstract

A comparative study was made on air conditioning system performance improvement by effective condenser cooling and preheating the refrigerant. This study was described with the experimental investigation through a test rig fabricated from car air conditioning components. In which slight modifications were made such as compressor has to run by the electric motor with provision to measure power consumption during functioning and condenser fan has to replace with exhaust fan enclosed by the cooling pad in which water is supplied with a controlled flow rate using a water pump. Preheating of refrigerant is done using engine exhaust gas with counterflow heat exchanger setup. Air conditioning test rig was run to achieve the desired cooling effect for two processes. The coefficient of performance (COP) was calculated in both operating conditions for the same cooling effect and comparative study was made. The conclusion revealed that a new cooling method showed higher COP than preheating. By this approach, the percentage increase in heat removal rate up 37% was achieved which results in decreases the compressor running time thus mileage of vehicle can be improved significantly.