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PII: S1359-4311(16)31988-3
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2017.01.023
Reference: ATE 9787
Please cite this article as: R. Zhao, D. Huang, Y. Leng, Z. Zhang, Effect of water
maldistribution in multi-circuit
evaporator on superheat control dynamics of thermostatic-expansion-valve refrigeration
system, Applied Thermal
Engineering (2017), doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2017.01.023
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Effect of water maldistribution in multi-circuit evaporator
on superheat control dynamics of thermostatic-expansion-
valve
refrigeration system
Rijing Zhao, Dong Huang, Yongqiang Leng, Zhenya Zhang
Engineering,
Abstract
may
In
TEV
system was studied experimentally. The evaporator had two circuits, with the
overall
Circuit 2 (F2) from 36.9% to 9.1%, the system underwent the stable period (F2
from
36.9% to 27.0%) and the hunting period (F2 from 21.2% to 9.1%) sequentially. In
the
latter period, temperature and pressure parameters of the evaporator oscillated over
TEV
superheat
oscillation dynamics were also analyzed at both circuit outlets and the overall
outlet,
and we found that evaporator overall outlet superheat was highly influenced by the
non-uniform water distribution and the final merging of the paralleled circuits.
d_huang@mail.xjtu.edu.cn
1
1. Introduction
However,
systems
under some conditions. In this case of operation, the opening and closing of the
TEV
such
TEV-controlled systems [1]; therefore it has been widely discussed in the last
decades.
Generally, there are two different views towards the possible causes of
hunting.
The first one is the inherent unstable nature of the two-phase refrigerant flow. Zahn
[2]
Then,
Wedekind and Stocker [3], Wedekind [4] demonstrated that the transition plane
oscillation would cause temperature fluctuations on the evaporator tube wall where
the TEV-bulb was located, thus evoking the hunting behavior. Huelle [5] found
that
the evaporator outlet temperature would fluctuate if the degree of superheat was
below a critical value, and introduced the MSS (minimal stable signal) theory.
Yasuda
et al. [6] found that the transition plane oscillation would cause changes in
refrigerant
side heat transfer coefficient, which might be the reason of hunting. Chen et al. [7]
evaporator. Results showed that the heat transfer mechanism in refrigerant side
2
changed from nucleate boiling to forced convection boiling once the
evaporator
superheat dropped below a critical value, and the greatly reduced coefficient might
lead to the hunting behavior. On the other hand, the TEV-evaporator system
operating
studies
transportation
lag [8], TEV time constants [9-12], and the static superheat setting [13, 14].
Results
showed that all these parameters above influenced the stability of the TEV-
controlled
evaporator,
whose outlet superheat was merely a result of the refrigerant flowrate and its
capacity.
Currently, the multi-circuit evaporator is more widely used due to its energy-
saving
superheat is determined by not only the refrigerant flowrate and the capacity of
each
circuit, but also the merging of refrigerant from all circuits. Besides, the multi-
circuit
and
capacity
proposed
air/water
authors
[25, 26] showed that under certain conditions, liquid refrigerant was not
completely
evaporated and flowed out of the circuits with smaller air/water flowrate.
However,
the superheated vapor from other circuits provided only sensible heat and could
3
hardly evaporate the liquid refrigerant. Therefore, the overall outlet was of a
smaller
superheat than the necessary MSS of TEV, evoking hunting in the feedback control
loop.
concerning
hunting mainly focused on its possible reasons, but little attention was paid
specially
evaporator outlet, and the oscillatory opening and closing of TEV in turn
aggravates
parameter
in system stability, and its control dynamics should be explored deeply, especially
real appliances, and the refrigerant distribution and merging among circuits would
make the hunting behavior more complicated and influential. However, little work
has
in
multi-circuit evaporators, and its effect has been studied extensively regarding
the
systems, but few studies were found in open literature except for the two by
the
authors [25, 26]. Finally, it is notable that most researches on the effect of air/water
distribution would change the overall flow resistance, thus inevitably altering the
4
overall flowrate. Moreover, the changed overall flowrate often exerts
additional
article was a pertinent study of the previous work [26], but with different
evaporator, while Ref. [26] paid special attention to its heat transfer performance.
Therefore, this article mainly focused on the hunting period of the system, but
Ref. [26] covered both the stable period and the hunting period to conduct a
comparative study. Besides, the superheat control dynamics were studied in this
tested TEV loop, two environmental simulation rooms and a set of data acquisition
The specifications of main components in the test loop are listed in Table
1,
including the compressor, the condenser, the TEV and the evaporator. The
evaporator
had two circuits coiled up from two double-pipes with the same length. Water
flowed
inside the inner pipe while refrigerant flowed in the annulus in the same direction.
Besides, a regulating valve was installed downstream of one circuit, labelled Circuit
2,
to alter water flow percentages between the paralleled two circuits. The TEV was
an
the
5
valve diaphragm during working: the spring pressure P 3, the evaporating pressure
P0
detected at the overall outlet of the evaporator and the bulb pressure P 1
converted
from the overall outlet temperature of the evaporator through the sensing medium
in
the bulb. The static superheat (SS), which is the minimum superheat that could just
offset the initial tension of the spring and force TEV to open, was 5 K in this
research.
Under stable working conditions, these forces reach balance, i.e. P 1=P0+P3.
Therefore,
refrigerant superheat at the overall outlet should be larger than the SS, depending
on
the heat load of the evaporator. The evaporating temperature limit for TEV was
-40~10 . Detailed information about the test loop and the environmental rooms
data
during the tests. Temperature sensors, pressure sensors and water flowmeters
were
temperature
sensors were T-type thermocouples with the relative error of 0.2 over the
effective
0~25
bar was 0.25%, while that of water flowmeters was 0.50% with the water
flowrate
below 0.28 kgs-1. Uncertainties reported in this article were summarized in Table
2,
where the relative error for calculated parameters was estimated following the
method
The refrigerant was R22, and its charge 1.3 kg was determined when
maximum
capacity of the evaporator was achieved under Chinese Standard GB/T 7725-2004,
6
without exceeding the limit of evaporating temperature for TEV. Note that
the
Standard GB/T 7725-2004 was established for the split-type room air conditioner,
but
also applied well for our setup. The reason was that in practical application, the
refrigerant plant would be placed outside the living space to generate cold
water,
while the fan-coil unit inside the living space to release the cooling capacity stored
in
the cold water. The ambience for the refrigeration plant and the fan-coil unit was
similar with that for the outdoor and indoor coils of the split-type air
conditioner,
conditions
in our research.
water
in Ref. [26]. The studied 7 sets of water percentages were shown in Table 3. It
was
notable that the overall water flowrate decreased slightly with F2. It was inevitable,
because the local resistance in Circuit 2 increased due to the closing of the
flow
higher
water flow velocity. As a result, the overall water flow resistance increased and
reduced the overall water flowrate slightly under the constant 115-W water pump
power.
3 Results and discussion
3.1 TEV control stability
Stability of the TEV control loop was covered in the previous study [26].
Generally speaking, the system underwent the stable period (F2 from 36.9% to
27.0%)
and the hunting period (F2 from 21.2% to 9.1%) sequentially with water
7
maldistribution rate increased. The latter hunting period was triggered by the
smaller superheat at the evaporator overall outlet than the MSS of TEV, because
unevaporated liquid refrigerant from Circuit 2 with smaller water flowrate was
hardly evaporated by the superheated vapor from Circuit 1 with F2 below 27.0%,
which would inevitably evoke hunting in the TEV control loop according to the
overall
variations
respectively,
including the overall inlet pressure, the overall outlet pressure and the overall
outlet
temperature. The same moment was taken as 0 min for all curves in each figure.
Note
that valleys and peaks in the overall inlet pressure curve could denote the time
TEV
started to open and close, respectively, because the pressure sensor was located
close
to the TEV.
Fig.3~6 showed that pressure and temperature at the evaporator overall outlet
instantly each time TEV started to open or close, respectively. However, the
overall
outlet temperature always responded later. When F2 was 9.1% (Fig.6), for
example,
the overall outlet temperature ascended 5~10s after TEV closing, and descended
20~25s later than TEV opening within the illustrated period. Obviously, there
existed
a hug lag in temperature responses at the evaporator overall outlet behind TEV
actions.
Besides, the lag for TEV opening was larger than that for TEV closing, and the
greatly
8
the evaporator might be the reason. The other three cases when F2 was 21.2%,
17.6% and 13.7% had similar trend, which would not be repeated here.
Several factors might account for this lag. First, it took some time for
refrigerant to flow from the inlet to the outlet of the evaporator, since each circuit
was 5.7-meter long. Second, it also needed some time for the evaporation of
refrigerant to actually cool down the evaporator tube wall, because the steel
thermocouple to the temperature change on the evaporator surface was not instant
because of the contact resistance between them. For the actual TEV bulb, this
contact resistance also exists. Besides, the thermal capacity of the bulb and the
capillary resistance in the pipe connecting the bulb and the valve diaphragm would
systems.
Assuming the occasion when TEV has opened enough for the adequate refrigerant
to
relieve the starvation of the evaporator. Since it would be several seconds later that
the
evaporator outlet temperature could response to this opening and the evaporator
outlet
superheat right now was still higher, the TEV had to open wider until the
moment
evaporator outlet superheat reached the target value. Then, the over-opened
TEV
subsequent
over-closing of TEV would result in starvation in the evaporator again due to the
lag.
Consequently, the TEV would open and close in an oscillatory manner, i.e. hunting
took place.
3.3 Superheat control dynamics
Fig.7~9 showed the calculated superheat at the overall outlet and both circuit
9
outlets under the representative 4 sets of water percentages. Not surprisingly, the
other
parameters, i.e. steady with F2 from 36.9% to 27.0%, but oscillated when F2 was
from
21.2% to 9.1%. It was noteworthy that the calculated superheat in this article was
larger than the actual one, because the higher tube wall temperature was used to
defined as the difference between the maximum and minimum values under
hunting conditions, was relatively accurate and meaningful for exploring the
both
circuit outlets and the overall outlet under different water percentages. With F2
from
36.9% to 27.0%, all the three curves overlapped and shared the value close to
zero
due to stable system operation. With F2 from 21.2% to 9.1%, by contrast, the
that at Circuit 2 outlet, which increased first but levelled off then after F2 was below
outlet was the largest under hunting conditions, followed by that at the Circuit 2
under
hunting conditions: the variation in refrigerant supply, and the unstable nature of
two-phase refrigerant at the evaporator outlet. Fig.7 showed that the overall
outlet
superheat generally decreased with F2. The reason was that the increased water
10
maldistribution rate created more liquid refrigerant exiting Circuit 2 with
smaller
water percentage, which was hardly offset by the increased superheat at Circuit
outlet because the sensible heat of refrigerant was smaller than the latent
heat.
Therefore, the overall outlet superheat reduced, though TEV closed in response
and
compensate for part of its reduction. Under hunting conditions, the decrease in the
overall outlet superheat would call for the wider regulation of TEV and then a
larger
refrigerant
at Circuit 2 outlet and the overall outlet would randomly hit the tube wall and
vaporize, thus reducing its surface temperature and the calculated superheat
there.
Since the liquid refrigerant existed only when the evaporator outlet superheat
was
Circuit 1 outlet was superheated under all the 7 sets of water percentage;
hence,
the superheat oscillation amplitude there could only increase with larger fluctuation
in
outlet
and the overall outlet, by contrast, the superheat oscillation there was also affected
by
the unevaporated liquid refrigerant under hunting conditions. With F2 from 21.2%
to
17.6%, the liquid refrigerant increased at both Circuit 2 outlet and the overall
outlet,
which could enlarge refrigerant droplets or enhance the frequency of their hitting
the
tube wall; thus, the superheat oscillation amplitude increased due to the
combined
effect of the increased liquid refrigerant fraction and the larger fluctuation
in
refrigerant flowrate. With F2 from 17.6% to 9.1%, however, the liquid fraction at
11
Circuit 2 outlet might have exceeded a critical value where the liquid-vapor two-
phase refrigerant low turned into more stable regime. The continuous contact
between the liquid refrigerant and the tube wall declined the magnifying effect
outlet levelled off under the trade-off between the stable flow regime and the
overall outlet never reached this critical value, because the refrigerant flowrate was
amplified after the merging of two streams from both circuits. Besides, some liquid
distribution rate.
Moreover, since the overall outlet had the largest variation in refrigerant
flowrate,
and stable two-phase regime hardly formed, the superheat oscillation amplitude
there
was the largest under hunting conditions, followed by that at Circuit 2 outlet. Circuit
liquid
4 Conclusions
experienced the stable period (F2 from 36.9% to 27.0%) and the hunting period
(F2 from 21.2% to 9.1%) sequentially. Detailed conclusions were drawn as below:
12
further reducing the overall outlet superheat below the MSS of TEV and
actions induced the oscillatory opening and closing of TEV under hunting
conditions.
first increased, but then levelled off due to the trade-off between lager
variation in refrigerant supply and more stable two-phase flow after the liquid
(4) The overall outlet never reached the critical value due to the evaporation
of some liquid refrigerant and the amplifying effect of refrigerant flowrate after
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16
Figure Captions
Tables
parameters