The effect of heat exchanger geometry on adsorption chiller performance

Abstract

The adsorption technology applied to cooling production is one of the possible means of waste heat utilization and it therefore contributes to a reduction of power consumption in air-conditioning and desalination facilities. Increasing the performance of the adsorption chiller can be achieved by the intensification of heat transfer in the sorption bed which in turn is directly influenced by heat exchanger geometry. The carried out research utilized numerical methods to define the correlation between the fin-tube heat exchanger design and the main factors influencing adsorption chiller performance such as gradient of heating water temperature, logarithmic mean temperature difference, effective mass factor of silica gel, silica gel average temperature and spatial temperature distribution in the sorption bed. The obtained correlations can be used by sorption bed designers to balance the thermal effectiveness of the device and its overall dimensions and mass.