Theoretical analysis of the atomization of liquid refrigerant in the cylinder of a refrigeration reciprocating compressor

J E Schreiner, J R Barbosa Jr, C J Deschamps Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil

ABSTRACT One of the main challenges in the design of compact reciprocating compressors is the effective management of the high temperature levels resulting from the reduced surface area available for heat dissipation. A possible alternative for achieving some degree of cooling of the compressor parts under extreme operating conditions is the atomization of liquid refrigerant inside the compression chamber. As the droplets change phase during the compression process, latent heat is transferred from the surrounding superheated vapour and the overall compressor thermal profile is decreased. This work advances a model to simulate the effect of the atomization of liquid refrigerant in the cylinder of a reciprocating compressor on the heat transfer during the compression cycle. The overall thermodynamic and efficiency parameters of the compressor are calculated and a parametric analysis is presented so as to identify potential benefits and drawbacks of this cooling strategy.

NOMENCLATURE Roman A area (m2) cv specific heat capacity (kJ/kg.K) Gev droplet interfacial mass flux (kg/m2.s) h specific enthalpy (kJ/kg) h heat transfer coefficient (W/m2K) k thermal conductivity (W/mK) m mass (kg) m mass flow rate (kg/s) N number of droplets (-) p pressure (kPa) Pr Prandtl number (-) Q r R Re t T v heat transfer rate (W) radial distance (m) droplet radius (m) Reynolds number (-) time (s) temperature ( oC) specific volume (m3/kg)

volume (m3) velocity (m/s) power (W) compressibility factor (-)

V
W Z

Greek viscosity (kg/m.s) density (kg/m3) Subscripts c condensation C cylinder d discharge ev evaporation f droplet family G vapour o droplets s droplet interface, suction

_______________ IMechE, 2009

357

INTRODUCTION

Continuous improvement of existing technologies often leads to more compact equipment capable of performing a certain duty at a fraction of the overall material cost. When work consuming systems such as refrigeration compressors are subjected to a size reduction, an increase of the temperature profile of the system components is often observed due to the reduction of the area available for heat dissipation. The resulting temperature increase is detrimental to the performance and reliability of the compressor and should be dealt with effectively during the system design. It is widely acknowledged (1-3) that increasing refrigerant superheating along the suction path decreases the volumetric efficiency due to a reduction of the gas density. However, very little has been discussed about thermal management strategies to manage effectively the compressor thermal profile behaviour. Kremer et al. (4-5) showed that, ideally, an isothermal compression of R-134a can be as high as 16% more efficient than an isentropic compression. In their studies, a heat transfer model for the atomization of oil droplets in the cylinder of a reciprocating compressor was proposed in order to estimate the temperature of the gas during compression. They showed that the resulting cooling effect contributed to lowering the overall thermal profile of the compressor parts and, consequently, the initial compression temperature. Dutta et al. (6) and Ooi (7) investigated the effect of liquid refrigerant injection during compression in scroll and rolling-piston compressors, respectively. The present work advances a theoretical model for predicting the effect of phase change heat transfer due to the evaporation of liquid refrigerant droplets atomized in the cylinder of a refrigeration reciprocating compressor. The main objective of this cooling strategy is to decrease the gas temperature during compression so as to reduce the temperature distribution in the compressor components (e.g., suction plenum, cylinder block, electric motor etc.). The model was incorporated into a calculation methodology to determine the compressor thermal profile and the behaviour of the overall thermodynamic and efficiency parameters as a function of the refrigerant injection flow rate into the cylinder. As will be seen, the resulting cooling effect can be significant (as large as 25oC for the suction plenum and 15 oC for the electric motor). However, as the system cooling capacity is reduced and the compression power is increased, there is an intrinsic performance penalty associated with the in-cylinder atomization technique. Therefore, it should be considered only when it is vital to reduce the size of the compressor for some specific applications.
Cylinder Wall

S . Q

S3
Piston

dRf dt S4

S1 VG

. mshs

. W VPIS

Droplet

S2 . mevhG,sat

. mdhd

Figure 1. Vapour control volume in the compression chamber.

358

MODELLING

The control volume formulation of the compression process proposed by Ussyk (8) has been adapted to take into account the heat and mass transfer due to droplet evaporation (see Fig. 1). Neglecting gas leakage through the piston-cylinder gap, the mass and energy conservation equations and the equation of state for the vapour are given by, dmG dt mG cv,G dTG dt m ms md mev dmG dt pG TG dVG dt dmG TG dt (1)

QC

Qo

hG

mh

vG

(2)

vG

pG

mG Z TG VG

(3)

where the mass flow rates through the suction and discharge valves are calculated via effective force and effective flow areas derived from numerical simulations (9). The enthalpy transfer to the vapour and the convective heat transfer rates between the vapour and the cylinder walls and between the vapour and the droplets are given by, mh mevhG,sat mshs mdhd (4) (5)

QC Qo

hC A C TC
F

TG
F

Nf Qo,f
f 1 f 1

Nf hf A f TG

Tf

(6)

At any given instant, there are F families (subscript f) of Nf droplets in the cylinder, which have been atomized at successive time steps elapsed since the beginning of the cycle. Note that a blowing factor has been included in eq. (6) to take into account the mass transfer effect on the heat transfer rate. The Ackermann correction factor is defined as = Gevcp,L/hf. The heat transfer coefficient between the cylinder wall and the vapour was obtained from the Annand (10) correlation. The Whitaker correlation (11) was used to calculate the heat transfer coefficient between the vapour and the spherical droplets as follows,

hf 2R f kG

0.4 Re f

1 2

0.06 Re f Pr

2 3

1 4

0.4 G

G S

(7)

where the droplet Reynolds number was calculated based on the mean piston velocity. A mass balance on an individual droplet gives,
L

Af

dR f dt

Gev A f

mev,f

(8)

and the rate of variation of the mass of liquid in the cylinder is given by the difference between the injection flow rate (via a nozzle or atomizer) and the rates of evaporation and outflow via the discharge valve as follows,

359

dmL dt

minj
f 1

mev,f

mf ,d

minj

mev

mL,d

(9)

where the rate of droplet flow via the discharge valve is calculated assuming that there is no slip between the vapour and droplets and that the liquid mass fraction in the discharge stream is equal to the instantaneous liquid mass fraction in the cylinder. Thus, mL, d md mL mL mG (10)

where the instantaneous mass of liquid in the cylinder is given by the sum of the masses of individual droplets. Thus, by combining eqs. (9) and (10), one finds that the rate of change of the number of droplets in each family is given by, dNf dt Nf md mL mG (11)

As the droplets occupy a finite volume in the cylinder, a correction is applied to the instantaneous cylinder volume as follows,
F

VG

Vc
f 1

Nf Vf S Liquid Lquido Rf VL

(12)

n r

Vapour Vapor VG,f

(VL-VS)hL+qi

(VG,f-VS)hG+qo

Figure 2. Interfacial energy balance for a spherical droplet. The mathematical model takes into consideration the existence of thermal nonequilibrium between the vapour and the droplets and assumes that only the vapour-liquid interface remains at thermodynamic equilibrium. Thus, by applying interfacial mass and energy balances for each individual droplet (see Fig. 2), one finds that, dR f dt Qi,f Qo,f (13)

L A f hlv

where the rate at which heat is transferred to the interface from the inside of the droplet is given by, Qi,f A f kL Tf r (14)
r Rf

and Tf is the local temperature distribution inside the droplet. Neglecting the internal liquid circulation and assuming spherical symmetry, the energy equation for each individual droplet and the corresponding boundary conditions are given by,

360

Tf t

r2

r2

Tf r f(p(t))

(15) (16) (17)

Tf (R f , t) Tf r

Tsat (t) 0

r 0

Tf (r, t inj, f )

Tc

(18)

where t inj,f is the instant at which the fth family is atomized into the cylinder and Tc is system condensing temperature.

SOLUTION METHODOLOGY

The model for the in-cylinder vapour compression with liquid refrigerant atomization was coupled with an existing heat transfer model that integrates several compressor components (12). In this so-called hybrid model, the conduction of heat in the cylinder block and other solid components is solved via the finite volume method using a commercial CFD package (13). The in-cylinder compression model and the CFD model are coupled via the continuity of temperature of heat fluxes at the cylinder walls. The methodology is complemented by steady-state energy balance equations for each compressor component (suction muffler, discharge muffler, discharge line, compressor shell, electric motor, radial bearings), as described in Kremer et al. (4). A time step of 3 10-7s was employed in the explicit formulation of the differential equations of the in-cylinder vapour compression model. The simulation is initiated with the piston at the bottom dead centre, with the initial cylinder vapour pressure and temperature set equal to those at the suction plenum. The instants at which droplet families are atomized in the cylinder are evenly distributed along the 360 turn of the crankshaft angle. At each time step, an implicit calculation of the droplet radius and temperature is performed. The instantaneous interfacial temperature is equal to the saturation temperature at the instantaneous gas pressure in the cylinder. The droplet temperature profile for each family is solved numerically via the finite volume method, since the boundary conditions are non-homogeneous. The interfacial heat fluxes are calculated (via eqs. 6 and 14) and the new droplet radius is obtained from an integration of eq. (13). Convergence of this inner loop is assumed to have been attained when the variation of the droplet radius is less than 0.1% of the droplet radius at the previous iteration. The valve dynamics and the instantaneous suction and discharge mass flow rates are calculated and, with the rate of change of the droplet radius calculated as above, eq. (1) is solved to obtain the new value of the mass inside the cylinder. The new vapour temperature and pressure are then calculated with eqs. (2) and (3), respectively. The procedure is repeated until a cyclic steady-state is achieved, i.e., until when, at a given crankshaft angle, the thermodynamic properties inside the cylinder remain unchanged between successive cycles. The calculation procedure described above was incorporated into the hybrid model, which is responsible for updating the vapour temperature at the suction port and the temperature of the cylinder walls. The iterative procedure is repeated until all temperature variations calculated in the model are below 0.01 C.

361

RESULTS

The operating conditions of the compressor were established at 25C and 55C for the evaporation and condensation temperatures of R-600a, respectively. The average mass flux of atomized droplets is such that 40 families with an initial droplet radius of 7.5 m are injected into the cylinder at evenly spaced instants along the compression cycle. In total, six conditions have been simulated consisting of a baseline case (no liquid atomization) and five other cases with an increasing number of droplets in each family. The decrease of the in-cylinder temperature resulting from the latent heat transfer to the atomized droplets is illustrated in Fig. 3 for the case in which 2.5 104 droplets are injected per family. As can be seen, a reduction of approximately 70C is achieved at the top dead centre. From a system point of view, the droplets can be perceived as a heat sink for the heat generated in the compression process and in the compressor components. The resulting temperature decrease in the vapour compression affects other regions of the compressor which are, in principle, also directly Figure 3. Vapour temperature behaviour responsible for determining the along a compression cycle. temperature during compression. For instance, the vapour temperature in the suction plenum decreases by as much as 25C, as can be seen in Fig. 3. To illustrate this point further, the temperatures at several regions of the compressor are shown in Fig. 4. The compressor thermal profile decreases significantly with the Suction Plenum 140 increasing number of Cylinder Wall droplets per family (i.e., 130 atomization flow rate), as Discharge Plenum the increase in the latent 120 Electric Motor heat transfer augments the rate at which heat is 110 conducted through the 100 cylinder block and the heat transferred by 90 convection from the vapour flowing through 80 the internal components. Of particular importance 70 for the compressor under study is the electric 60 motor temperature, 0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000 whose operational limit Droplets per Family must be kept within Figure 4. Influence of the number of droplets specified boundaries. For per family on the temperature at specific a total of 1 106 droplets regions of the compressor. injected over the whole

362

cycle (2.5 10 4 droplets per family), the electric motor temperature falls to approximately 85C. Despite the remarkable temperature reduction produced by the in-cylinder liquid refrigerant atomization, it has been observed that the coefficient of performance, COP, defined by eq. (19), decreases significantly with the atomization of liquid refrigerant.
1 0,99 0,98 0,97 0,96 0,95 0,94 0,93 0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000 Droplets per Family

Figure 5. Behaviour of the coefficient of performance of the compressor. Qe W

COP

(19)

The reason for the deterioration of the system performance is due mainly to the mass of vapour generated during the evaporation of the droplets in the cylinder; work is consumed in the compression of the newly formed vapour, which is not utilized for producing the refrigeration capacity in the evaporator. This is because, in an actual refrigeration cycle, liquid refrigerant at high pressure needs to be extracted from the condenser for injection into the cylinder. In other words, it is improbable that high grade energy in the form of liquid refrigerant, capable of producing a cooling effect in the system, can be used for compressor cooling (at the expense of added compression work) without a performance penalty. For example, in the case where 1 10 6 droplets are injected over the whole cycle, 22% of the total compression power is used exclusively for compressing the vapour resulting from the evaporation of the droplets.

CONCLUSIONS

From the point of view of the overall reduction in the compressor thermal profile, the in-cylinder atomization of liquid refrigerant produces significant results, with temperatures potentially achieved during vapour compression as low as the instantaneous refrigerant saturation temperature. Critical regions such as the electrical motor, for example, experienced reductions of the average temperature of as much as 15C for cases where large quantities of liquid are atomized. Nevertheless, from the performance point of view, despite the increase in volumetric efficiency due to the reduction of the superheating along the suction path, a significant reduction of the COP was observed. The decrease in the COP is directly proportional to the mass of liquid which is evaporated during compression. Summing up, droplet atomization is effective as a means of reducing the compressor thermal profile. However, it must be borne in mind that it can reduce significantly the system performance. Therefore, it is recommended only for critical situations where conventional cooling technologies cannot be applied.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This study was carried out under the auspices of a technical-scientific program between the Federal University of Santa Catarina and EMBRACO. Financial support from FINEP and CAPES is also acknowledged. The authors thank the anonymous reviewer of the paper for his/her productive remarks and suggestions.

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