Transient Simulation of a Flat Plate Solar Powered Adsorption Refrigeration System

Abstract

The modeling and simulation of a solar powered adsorption refrigeration system using flat plate solar collector, with activated carbon/methanol as the adsorbent/adsorbate pair has been undertaken in this study.A study of the adsorption bed was carried out to determine the effects of generation, evaporation and condensation temperatures on the performance of the cooling system. This was then used in the optimization of the solar thermal system in the sizing of the collector area and hot water storage tank. A transient simulation of the cooling system with an evaporator temperature of 0oC and condenser temperature of 25oC was subsequently carried out with the TRNSYS 16 software over a period of a typical year.The Flat plate collector system gave average values of refrigeration effect of 4814.83 kJ, solar coefficient of performance (COPs) of 0.024, a cooling coefficient of performance (COP) of 0.608 and a heating efficiency of 0.46. The system was able to achieve a cold room temperature of about 1oC.

Keywords

• transient; simulation; flat plate; adsorption; refrigeration

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