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Experimental Investigations on the Improvement of an Air Conditioning System with a Nanofluid-Based Intercooler

  • Research Article - Mechanical Engineering
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Abstract

The present work is aimed to reduce the compressor load in a domestic air conditioning system, by introducing a shell-and-coil type heat exchanger as an intercooler. The intercooler uses initially a binary mixture of ethylene glycol:water at 30:70 ratio as a shell-side base fluid and later uses nanofluids with Al2O3 nanoparticles of different volume concentrations. The coefficient of performance (COP) of the system was estimated at different shell-side fluid flow rates of 1, 1.5 and 2 LPM. COP was found to increase with the decrease in the refrigerant temperature at the compressor inlet, due to the reduction in the compressor work input. A highest increment in the COP of around 31 % was observed for the base fluid and 49.32 % was observed for the 0.75 % nanofluid with a flow rate of 2 LPM compared with the case without intercooler. An appreciable reduction in power consumption of 12.24 % was also observed.

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Abbreviations

COP:

Coefficient of performance

NF:

Nanofluid

BF:

Base Fluid

IC:

Intercooler

SC-HEX:

Shell-and-coil heat exchanger

I:

Electric current

m ref :

Mass flow rate, kg/s

LPM:

Liter per minute

c:

Compressor

p:

Pump

f:

Fan

ref:

Refrigerant

1:

Compressor inlet

2:

Compressor outlet

3:

Intercooler outlet

4:

Condenser outlet

5:

Evaporator inlet

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Sathyabama University, Chennai, 600 119, Tamil Nadu, India

    N. Balaji

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Saveetha Engineering College, Saveetha Nagar, Thandalam, Chennai, 602 105, Tamil Nadu, India

    N. Balaji

  3. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Madha Institute of Engineering and Technology, Chennai, 600 122, Tamil Nadu, India

    P. Suresh Mohan Kumar

  4. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Institute of Energy Studies, Anna University, Chennai, 600 025, Tamil Nadu, India

    R. Velraj

  5. Academic Research, Dhanalakshmi Srinivasan Engineering College, Thuraiyur Road, Perambalur, 621 212, Tamil Nadu, India

    N. Kulasekharan

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  1. N. Balaji
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  2. P. Suresh Mohan Kumar
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  3. R. Velraj
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  4. N. Kulasekharan
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Correspondence to N. Balaji.

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Balaji, N., Kumar, P.S.M., Velraj, R. et al. Experimental Investigations on the Improvement of an Air Conditioning System with a Nanofluid-Based Intercooler. Arab J Sci Eng 40, 1681–1693 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13369-015-1644-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13369-015-1644-7

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