Analysis on the performance of steam absorption chiller at various operating conditions

Abstract

Steam Absorption Chiller (SAC) is the main component of Cogeneration Plant which provides chilled water by utilizing the steam as system input for the cooling purpose. In this paper, the performance of a double effect lithium bromide-water steam absorption chiller was analyzed by conducting the energy and exergy analysis. An excel spreadsheet program was developed to calculate the exergy destructions within the systems and total exergy loss of the system in guiding future improvement of the plant. Various operating conditions like steam inlet temperature, chilled water inlet temperature and load factor were analyzed in detail. The result showed that the highest exergy destruction occurred at the high temperature generator followed by the absorber. Increasing the load factor, steam and chilled water inlet temperature will increase the system performance.