Thermoeconomic Analysis of Vapor Compression Refrigeration System With Dedicated Subcooler for High-Temperature Lift Applications

Abstract

A single-stage vapour compression refrigeration system becomes inefficient and impractical when the temperature lift between the evaporator and the condenser becomes large. Under the high temerature lift, different losses in the system increase and more refrigerant vapour is formed at the end of the throttling process. The authors have attempted to analyze a vapour compression refrigeration system with dedicated subcooler for high-temperature lift applications using R134a in the main cycle and four low GWP refrigerants in the subcooler cycle. The modelling of the proposed system has been carried out in EES considering the energy, exergy and economic aspects for the simulation of the system. The predicted results show that the use of the proposed system is more beneficial from both performance and economy point of view for high temperature lift. Nearly 27% improvement in both energetic and exergetic performances are noted whereas cost is reduced by 2% when the proposed system is used instead of a typical refrigeration system. Finally, the present investigation concludes that the use of refrigerant R1234ze is much efficient than the other investigated refrigerants due to its low GWP and compressor discharge temperature, in spite of achieving better thermo-economic performances using R152a as subcooler refrigerant.

Thermoeconomic Evaluation and Optimization of Using Different Environmentally Friendly Refrigerant Pairs for a Dual-Evaporator Cascade Refrigeration System

“…The coefficient of performance (COP) is used as a criterion to evaluate the thermodynamic performance of the cascade refrigeration cycle [30,31]…”