The adsorption solar-powered cooling system is one of several types of solar-powered cooling systems currently under development. Increasing the efficiency and decreasing the cost of this system will make it a commercially viable alternative to traditional refrigeration systems. The objective of this project was to optimize the adsorber in the adsorption system. A mathematical model of the refrigerant distribution within a cylindrical adsorber was developed using equations from Chua et al. [1]. The simulation revealed effects of varying design parameters on the theoretical refrigerant mass flow rate, which is directly proportional to the system refrigeration capacity. These results indicated parameter values to be used in designing the adsorber. It was found that decreased particle radius, decreased bed porosity, increased pipe radius, increased adsorber radius, and increased fin thickness all positively affect the performance of the adsorption system. Further simulation and experimental trials are recommended to verify these results.

Volume Subject Area:
Heat Transfer
Keywords:
Adsorption, optimization, silica gel-water, solar refrigeration
Topics:
Cooling systems, Optimization, Refrigeration, Solar power, Design, Refrigerants, Simulation, Flow (Dynamics), Particulate matter, Pipes, Porosity, Solar energy, Water
1.
Chua
H. T.
,
Ng
K. C.
,
Wang
W.
,
Yap
C.
, and
Wang
X. L.
,
2004
, “
Transient modeling of a two-bed silica gel-water adsorption chiller
,”
International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer
,
47
, pp.
659
–
669
.
2.
Chua
H. T.
,
Ng
K. C.
,
Malek
A.
,
Kashiwagi
T.
,
Akisawa
A.
, and
Saha
B. B
,
1999
, “
Modeling the performance of twobed, silica gel-water adsorption chillers
,”
International Journal of Refrigeration
,
22
, pp.
194
–
204
.
3.
Zhang
X. J.
,
Liu
H. X.
,
Wang
R. Z.
, and
Shi
F.
,
2002
, “
Numerical simulation of heat transfer in regenerator of solid adsorption refrigeration system
,”
Renewable Energy
,
26
, pp.
599
–
610
.
4.
Weisstein, E.W., 2005, “Sphere packing,” MathWorld — A Wolfram Web Resource, Retrieved March 23, 2005 from World Wide Web: http://mathworld.wofram.com/SpherePacking.html.
5.
Wagner, W., and Kruse, A., 1998, “Properties of Water and Steam, the Industrial Standard IAPWS-IF97 for the Thermodynamic Properties and Supplementary Equations for Other Properties,” Berlin: Springer-Verlag.
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