RESULTS FROM 20 KW VUILLEUMIER HEAT PUMP TEST PROGRAM Henrik Carlsen Laboratory for Energetics The Technical University

of Denmark DK-2800 Lyngby, Denmark Abstract Development of heat pumps based on the Vuilleumier cycle has been carried out for several years with the purpose of developing a gas fired heat pump for residential heating. More than 10 prototypes have been made. These have been designed as semi-hermetic units with the starter motor incorporated in the crankcase. Helium is used as working fluid at 12 MPa mean pressure. Natural gas is used for the burner. In order to increase the specific power, which is low for Vuilleumier heat pumps, heat exchangers and regenerators have been redesigned and the cold piston rod diameter increased. The result is that the heat output and cooling capacity have bcen increased by 15%. The heat output is now 21 kW and cooling capacity is 8 kW when the warm temperature is 42OC and the cold temperature is 12OC. Under these conditions the heat pump COP,,,,, is 1.6. Maximum COP,,,,, at the same warm and cold temperatures is 1.64 which is obtained at a reduced heater head temperature. More than 50 different combinations of hot, warm and cold temperatures and mean pressures have been tested and the results have been compared to results from a Vuilleumier machine simulation program. 1. Introduction The energy consumption for residential heating can be reduced considerably by replacing conventional boilers with natural gas or oil driven heat pumps. A suitable heat pump can be made by combining a small internal combustion engine with a conventional vapor compression heat pump, but with today's knowledge this solution has several disadvantages. Another possibility is gas driven heat pumps based on the Vuilleumier cycle. A Vuilleumier heat pump can be explained as a Stirling engine which has bcen integrated with a Stirling cooling machine. This technology has been developed at University of Denmark for several years. More than 10 prototypes have been built and tested. In the following, recent developments and results from tests in the laboratory are described.

A940 32037

2. The Vuilleumier heat DumD

Like the Stirling cycle the Vuilleumier is a closed cycle, where the working gas is kept inside the cylinders, and heat is added and removed through heat exchangers. Figure 1 shows a schematic Vuilleumier heat pump. It consists of a hot and a cold cylinder with a displacer piston in each cylinder forming four cylinder volumes. The cylinders are connected with a channel which indicates, that the cylinders share the same working gas. The Vuilleumier cycle is a gas cycle, which means that there is no evaporation and condensing. When the disp!acers move the working gas between the 4 cylinder volumes the working gas is moved between a hot temperature T,, (500C - 700C), a warm temperature T, (40C - 70C) and a cold temperature T, (-10C 15OC). When the gas is moved by the displacer between a volume with a high temperature and a volume with a low temperature the pressure will change. Work is then

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Copyright O 1994 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc. All rights reserved.

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generated in the cylinder volumes because of the phaseangle between pressure and volume. Heat must be added to the hot and cold heat exchangers at the temperatures Th and T, and heat will be rejected from the two warm heat exchangers at the warm temperature TwThe ideal Vuilleumier process has a COP equal to the equivalent Carnot process. The ideal process is based on the assumption that the cylinder volumes are isothermal, but in the real Vuilleumier machine the volumes are nearly adiabatic. This makes the maximum obtainable efficiency much smaller. The "adiabatic loss" is large for a process where the temperature ratio is small as in the cooling cycle. The "adiabatic loss" is also proportional to the pressure ratio and a high COP can therefore only be obtained at a low pressure ratio which again results in a low specific output. From fig. 1it can be seen that the piston rod in the cold cylinder acts as a small power piston as in a stirling engine. By proper design of the piston rod diameter it is possible to produce adequate power at the desired speed to compensate for power losses. The displacers are normaly connected to a crank mechanism which controls the stroke and phase angle but it is also possible to design a Vuilleumier heat pump as a free piston machine (1). Working principle and advantages and disadvantages of the Vuilleumier heat pump are described in more detail1 in (2).
3. The VP4 natural gas driven heat pump

Figure 2. Draft of the Vuilleumier heat pump VP4.

Figures 2 and 3 show the natural gas driven heat pump VP4, which has been developed at Technical University of Denmark (3). The heat pump is designed as a hermetic stand alone unit, where no cxternal electrically or mechanical power is necessary, apart from the electric driven blower and the circulation pumps. It will run by itself once it has been activated by the starter motor. Helium is used as working gas at 12 MPa mean pressure. Helium is an inert gas, which is not harmful to the environment. The two cylinders are arranged in a V in order to minimize vibrations. An annular design has been used for the heat exchangers and regenerators. Heat exchangers are of the tube and shell type except for the

Figure 3. The Vuilleumier heat pump VP4.

heater. The regenerators are made directly from stainless steel thread in a special process which has been developed. The hot top is designed as a half sphere which minimizes the severe mechanical and thermal stresses. The heater tubes are bent 180' and the outer row is finned. The natural gas burner incorporates a ceramic combustion chamber and an air preheater. The exhaust gas leaves the air preheater at 150C - 170C and the remaining energy is utilized for heating in an exhaust gas cooler which is connected to the warm temperature circulating system. The exhaust gas temperature is then approximately 10C above the warm temperature in the heating system when it leaves the heat pump. The burner system is surrounded by a water jacket so that the heat conducted through the combustion chamber insulation is guided into the circulating water and used for heating purposes. In this way only 200 - 300 W is lost in the overall energy balance maximizing the copheat. A special crank mechanism moves the displacer pistons with a phase angle at approximately 90'. The design of the crank mechanism results in a movement perpendicular to the stroke, which is less than 10% of the stroke. The guide forces on the displacer pistons are therefore nearly eliminated. Furthermore, the hot and cold cylinder can be placed very close, so that the connecting channel between the cylinders can be very short. Grease lubricated needle- and roller bearings are used and the bearings are designed for a lifetime of more than 30.000 hours. The starter motor, which is only activated for a few tenths of a second, is incorporated in the crank case. As the crank case is pressurized the heat pump is semi hermetic, and only static O-ring seals are used. Because the Vuilleumier cycle has no volumetric compression the specific heat output is low. If e.g. the same bore and stroke were used in a Stirling engine connected to a conventional heat pump, the heat output would be 2.5 times the heat output of the Vuilleumier heat pump. A low specific output results in a high specific price, and it is therefore important to maximize the heat output for a given design. The VP4 heat pump was originally designed to produce 20 kW of heat, but in practice the heat output was below 18 kW and the maximum observed cooling capacity was 6.8 kW. New

heat exchangers and regenerators have therefore been made in an attempt to maximize heat output without changing the basic machine design. Also the cold piston rod diameter has been increased so that a high rotational speed could be obtained. Table 1shows the detailed specifications for the VP4-2. The dead volumes include the sum of the inflow volumes to the heat exchangers and the volumes in the cylinders when the pistons are in top/bottom dead point. Table 1. VP4-2 specifications. Hot cyl.Cold cyl. Bore, mm Stroke, mm Piston rod diam., mm Heater, number of tubes internal diam., mm length, mm dead volume, cm3 Cooler, number of tubes internal diam., mm length, mm dead volume, cm3 Regen., flow area, cm2 length, mm thread diam., mm filler factor Mean pressure, MPa Maximum speed, rpm Heightlwidthldepth, m Weight, kg 4. Results from test program Figure 4 shows the results from tests made after approximately 100 hours of runningin. More than 50 different combinations of hot, warm and cold temperatures and mean pressures have been tested. The graphs shown are made from a regression analysis of the test results. The results cover the temperature range That: 520 - 680C, T,,,,,,: 40 - 70C, Tcold:4 - 15OC and the pressure P,,,,,: 7 - 12 MPa. The equations used for the regression analysis have the form: 12 (Helium) 1200

that large changes in warm and cold temperatures only result in a 10% change in heat output, which is an advantage to a heat pump. Figure 4.3 shows that maximum cooling capacity at the same temperatures as above is close to 8 kW and that the cooling capacity is as much as 5.7 kW at a temperature lift of 63OC corresponding to 5OC cold temperature and 68OC warm temperature. Figure 4.4 shows, that the maximum COPhe,, is 1.64 and that it is obtained at 600C heater temperature and not at maximum hot temperature 680C. This is a result of the changes which have been made in order to get a high specific heat output. Figure 4.8 shows COP,,,, as a function of the hot temperature. Maximum COP,,,,, is obtained at around 600C as a high heat output and cooling capacity has been obtained by changes in the heat exchangers and regenerators so that dead volume is reduced and speed is increased. The price has been a lower COP,,,, at full load. Figures 4.1 and 4.6 - 4.8 show heat output, speed, cooling capacity and COP,,,,, as a function of the hot temperature at the heater tubes. The results are shown for mcan pressures PI,,: 11.8 MPa and 8 MPa and warm temperature T,: 40C and cold temperature T,: 12OC and warm temperatures T,: 55OC and 70C and cold temperature T,: 5OC. As expected heat output, cooling capacity and speed increases with temperature, while COP,,,,, has a maximum at approximately 600C as explained above. Normally Vuilleumier machines have been designed

The function F can be any of the variables, which have been measured. The maximum deviation is 1.2% for COPh,,, and 0.8% for the other test results which have been analyzed. Figure 4 shows heat output Ow,cooling capacity Q,, speed N and COP,,,, as a function of warm and hot temperature Tw and Th at different mean pressures P, and cold temperatures T,. COP,,,,, is calculated from the overall heat output compared to the lower heat content of the natural gas consumption. Because only a few hundred watts are lost in the energy balance, the COPcooling only slightly above is COPheat- 1. Figure 4.2 shows the heat output Q, as a function of warm temperature T, at mean pressure PI,, = 11.8 MPa, hot temperature T, = 680C and 600C and cold temperature T, = 12OC and 5OC. Th = 680C is the maximum hot temperature, which can be tolerated because readily available stainless steel has ben used for the heater tubes. Maximum heat output is 21.1 kW at full load when the warm temperature is T, = 42OC and the cold temperature is T, = 12OC. From the figure it can be seen, that the heat output is nearly independent of the cold temperature, and that the heat output decreases from 21.1 kW to 19 kW when the warm temperature increases to 68 C. It is ifiteresting to observc

Legend. Pni

Tw/Tc

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Legend: Pm - T w / T c (MPo - C / C M Measured. C Calculated

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550

600

650

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Hot temperature,

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Figure 4.5.

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Legend: Th/Tc (C/C)

Legend: Prn - Tw/Tc (MPa - C/C) M: Measured, C: Calculated

700 500

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Hot temperature,

Warm temperature,

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Prn: 1 1.8 MPa, Legend: Th/Tc (C/C)

Figure 4.6.
Legend: Prn - Tw/Tc ( M P ~ C/C) M: Measured, C: Calculated

Warm temperature,

Hot temperature,

Figure 4.3.
Pm: 11.8 MPa. Legend: T w / T c

Figure 4.7.
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40

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55

60

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Warm temperature,

Hot temperature.

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Figure 4.8.

for quite low speeds, because it is the opinion that it will give a high COP. It will definitely give a low specific output and the first assumption is also questionable. If the machine is designed for high speed the heat transfer area must be larger. Also flow area in the heat exchangers and regenerators must be larger because of the increased mass flow resulting in larger dead volumes in the machine designed for high speed. Larger dead volumes means smaller pressure ratio. The potential COP will then increase. Another fact indicating an improved COP for a high speed machine is that as conduction losses are independent of speed these losses will then be smaller compared to the capacity of the machine. However, because of the need for larger dead volumes an increase in design speed of e.g. 25% will result in an increase in cooling capacity which is smaller than 25%. Nevertheless, the optimum speed for a Vuilleumier machine is maybe higher than normally expected. The heat pump has been tested for more than 5000 hours and only minor changes in performance have been observed.

6. Conclusion The Vuilleumier heat pump VP4, which was designed and tested in 90 - 91, has been redesigned in an attempt to improve the poor specific performance normally obtained with this type of heat pump. A 15% increase in heat output and cooling capacity was obtained and only a minor decrease in COP was observed. At full load and 30C temperature lift the output was increased from 18 kW to 21 kW and cooling capacity increased from 6.8 kW to 8 kW. Under these conditions the COP,,,,, is 1.6, but it can be increased to 1.65 at a lower heater head temperature. The design changes have resulted in a very stable performance which is less dependant on test conditions than previously. Heat output is nearly independent of cold temperatures and an increase in the warm temperature from 42OC to 68OC only results in a 10% decrease in heat output. This performance is well suited for heat pump application. The increased capacity has been obtained partly by increasing the design speed to nearly 1200 rpm at full load, which is a high speed compared to other Vuilleumier machines. The increased speed has not caused any problems, and its upper limit should be investigated in the future. The redesigned Vuilleumier heat pump is one of the most powerful of its kind, and it has shown to be very reliable. Acknowledeements The development of the Vuilleumier heat pump has been supported by the Danish Energy Agency. References H. D. Kuhl, S. Schulz, B. Thomas, H. Carlsen: Conversion of a Crank-driven Vuilleumier Heat Pump into a Free Piston Machine. Proc. 6th ISEC, Eindhoven 1993, No 93351, p. 2.609.
H. Carlsen: Development of a Gas Fired Vuilleumier Heat Pump for Residential Heating, Proc. 24th IECEC, Washington D.C. 1989, Vol. 5 no 899175. H. Carlsen: Development of a New 20 kW Gas Fircd Hcat Pump based on the Vuilleumier Cycle. Proc. 25th IECEC, Reno 1990, Vol. 2 p. 233.

5. Vuilleumier machine simulation vroeram

Figures 4.5, 4.6 and 4.7 also show a comparison between results from the regression analysis of the measurements (M:) and results from a Vuilleumier machine simulation program (C:). Figure 4.5 shows measured and calculated heat output from the two warm heat exchangers as the simulation program does not include the burner system. All calculated results are within 8% of the measurements over a wide range of input data. The results show, that the program is well suited for the design of Vuilleumier machines. The program solves the thermodynamic equations describing the Vuilleumier machine. The machine is divided into 4 heat exchanger volumes, two regenerator volumes and four variable volumes. The heat exchanger volumes are subdivided into smaller control volumes while the regenerators are described by a single volume each with a constant temperature gradient. Heat transfer in heat exchangers and regenerators are calculated from mass flow using common heat exchanger practice, and heat transfer between wall and gas in the cylinder volumes is also included. Parasitic losses as shuttle and wall conduction are added after a steady state soluh~n has been found.