Optimized transcritical CO

2
heat pumps: Performance
comparison of capillary tubes against expansion valves
Neeraj Agrawal, Souvik Bhattacharyya*
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur 721302, India
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 7 March 2007
Received in revised form
13 June 2007
Accepted 17 August 2007
Published online 25 August 2007
Keywords:
Heat pump
Carbon dioxide
Transcritical cycle
Comparison
Expansion
Tube
Capillary
Expansion valve
a b s t r a c t
A capillary tube based CO
2
heat pump is unique because of the transcritical nature of the
system. The transcritical cycle has two independent parameters, pressure and tempera-
ture, unlike the subcritical cycle. In the present study, a steady state simulation model
has been developed to evaluate the performance of a capillary tube based transcritical
CO
2
heat pump system for simultaneous heating and cooling at 73

C and 4

C, respectively
against optimized expansion valve systems. Capillary tubes of various congurations
having diameters of 1.4, 1.5 and 1.6 mm along with internal surface roughness of 0.001
0.003 mm have been tested to obtain the optimum design and operating conditions. Sub-
critical and supercritical thermodynamic and transport properties of CO
2
are calculated
employing a precision in-house property code.
It is observed that the capillary tube system is quite exible in response to changes in am-
bient temperature, almost behaving to offer an optimal pressure control. System perfor-
mance is marginally better with a capillary tube at higher gas cooler exit temperature.
Capillary tube length turns out to be the critical parameter that inuences system opti-
mum conditions. A novel nomogram has been developed that can be employed as a guide-
line to select the optimum capillary tube.
2007 Elsevier Ltd and IIR. All rights reserved.
Pompes a` chaleur au CO
2
transcritique optimise es :
comparaison de la performance des capillaires
et des de tendeurs
Mots cles : Pompe a` chaleur ; Dioxyde de carbone ; Cycle transcritique ; Comparaison ; De tente ; Tube ; Capillaire ; De tendeur
1. Introduction
Carbon dioxide was the preferred refrigerant from the late
1800s particularly in on-board ship refrigeration. However,
with the advent of the synthetic halocarbon refrigerants, car-
bon dioxide rapidly went out of use due to its low critical tem-
perature and high operating pressure problems. In the recent
past, there has been a renewed interest in natural refrigerants
* Corresponding author. Tel.: 91 3222 282904; fax: 91 3222 255303.
E-mail address: souvik@mech.iitkgp.ernet.in (S. Bhattacharyya).
www. i i i r . or g
avai l abl e at www. sci encedi r ect . com
j our nal homepage: www. el sevi er . com/ l ocat e/ i j r ef r i g
0140-7007/$ see front matter 2007 Elsevier Ltd and IIR. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ijrefrig.2007.08.006
i nt e r na t i o na l j our na l of r e f r i ge r a t i on 3 1 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 3 8 8 3 9 5
due to their benign environmental characteristics. CO
2
is one
of the few natural refrigerants, which is neither ammable
nor toxic. Carbon dioxide nds its major application share in
mobile air-conditioning and heat pumps for simultaneous
heating and cooling (Kim et al., 2004), the latter due to the
large temperature glide in the gas cooler.
Capillary tubes are extensively used in small size refrigera-
tion and air-conditioning systems. However, employing a cap-
illary tube for CO
2
transcritical heat pump systems is very
different fromsubcritical systems; here temperature andpres-
sure are twoindependent parameters unlike the subcritical cy-
cle. There exists an optimum pressure for a given gas cooler
outlet temperature where it exhibits the maximum COP due
to the unique behavioural pattern of CO
2
properties around
the critical point and beyond (Kauf, 1999). It would be interest-
ing to note whether an optimized capillary tube can be chosen
leading to an optimized gas cooler pressure. Most of the
reported simulation studies are for conventional vapour com-
pression systems (Chen and Prasad, 1999; Prasertsan et al.,
1996; Herbas et al., 1993). Only a few have been reported for
transcritical CO
2
systems, most of which are on systems
employing a control valve as the expansion device. Ortiz
et al. (2003) carried out CO
2
system simulation to evaluate the
performance of air-to-air-conditioners and heat pumps.
Casson et al. (2003) proposed a throttling system consisting
of a differential valve, a separator and a thermostatic expan-
sion valve to control the high side pressure optimally as well
as to control the superheat. The proposed system showed an
intrinsic self-adjusting capability that led to COP values quite
close to the maximum level when a xed suitable value of
the differential pressure is chosen, even if the temperature of
the secondary uid varied largely. Recently, Sarkar et al.
(2006) presented a simulation study on transcritical CO
2
heat
pump systems employing a controllable throttle valve as the
expansion device and considering an isenthalpic expansion
process. Madsen et al. (2005) carried out theoretical and exper-
imental studies of capillarytubes inatranscritical CO
2
refriger-
ation system. However, this simplied study did not include
heat transfer, uid owand internal surface effects of the cap-
illary tube. Lately, Zbigniew and Boguslaw (2006) reported
studies on a non-adiabatic capillary tube based transcritical
heat pump system. However, issues related to capillary tube
optimization were not addressed. Zimmermann and Maciel
(2006) presented test results on capillary tube optimization
with respect to refrigerant charge for a glass door merchan-
diser operating on a CO
2
transcritical cycle. However, second-
ary uid temperature effects were not included in their
study. In this paper, a steady state simulation model has
Nomenclature
A heat transfer area (m
2
)
A
c
inside cross-sectional area of capillary tube (m
2
)
d inner tube diameter (m)
D
c
capillary tube inner diameter (m)
f friction factor
G mass ux (kg m
2
s
1
)
h specic enthalpy (J kg
1
)
k thermal conductivity (Wm
1
K
1
)
k
w
wall thermal conductivity (Wm
1
K
1
)
L
c
capillary tube length (m)
LMTD log mean temperature difference (K)
_ m mass ow rate (kg s
1
)
Nu Nusselt number
P pressure
Pr Prandtl number
Q heat transfer (W)
Re Reynolds number
T, t temperature (K and

C)
u refrigerant ow velocity (ms
1
)
UA overall heat transfer conductance (WK
1
)
v specic volume (m
3
kg)
v
g,c
specic volume of saturated vapour, capillary
tube (m
3
kg)
v
l,c
specic volume of saturated liquid, capillary
tube (m
3
kg)
V
S
compressor displacement rate (m
3
s
1
)
x quality
X
tt
LockhartMartinelli factor
Greek symbols
a
w
waterside heat transfer coefcient (Wm
2
K
1
)
a
r
refrigerant side heat transfer coefcient (Wm
2
K
1
)
DL length segment (m)
3 internal surface roughness (mm)
h
V
compressor volumetric efciency
h
is;c
compressor isentropic efciency
m dynamic viscosity (Nm
2
s)
m
l;c
dynamic viscosity of saturated liquid, capillary
tube (Nm
2
s)
m
g;c
dynamic viscosity of saturated vapour, capillary
tube (Nm
2
s)
r density (kg m
3
)
f two phase multiplier
Subscripts
15 state points of refrigerant
c capillary tube
dis compressor discharge
ev evaporator
g gas/vapour
gc gas cooler
i inner
l liquid
o outer
ref/r refrigerant
rb refrigerant at bulk temperature
rw refrigerant at wall temperature
sp single phase
suc suction
tp two phase
w tube wall
Superscript
i segmental step
i nt e r na t i ona l j o ur na l o f r e f r i g e r a t i o n 3 1 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 3 8 8 3 9 5 389
been developed to evaluate the system performance of a tran-
scritical carbon dioxide heat pump system for simultaneous
heatingandcoolingat 73

Cand4

C, respectively. Anadiabatic
capillary tube is modelled as an expansion device in the simu-
lationincluding uid owand internal surface effects. Various
capillary tube congurations have been compared to obtain
the optimum combination. Furthermore, the performance of
the transcritical CO
2
heat pump system employing an opti-
mized capillary tube has been compared with the previously
reported (Sarkar et al., 2006) optimal system employing a con-
trollable expansion valve to justify the choice of a capillary
tube based system for transcritical CO
2
heat pumps.
2. Mathematical modelling
Fig. 1 shows the layout of a transcritical CO
2
system showing
the main components along with the corresponding cycle on
the temperatureentropy plane. Water at ambient tempera-
ture is employed as the secondary uid in both gas cooler
and evaporator. For the entire study, gas cooler water outlet
temperature T
gco
and evaporator water outlet temperature
T
evo
are maintained at 73

C and 4

C, respectively, by control-
ling the mass ow rate. Both gas cooler and evaporator are
double pipe counter ow heat exchangers, where the refriger-
ant ows through the inner tube and water ows through the
outer annular space. The adiabatic capillary tube is modelled
as an expansion device where expansion is not isenthalpic
due to change in refrigerant velocity (Agrawal and Bhatta-
charyya, 2007).
In the entire system, each component is modelled based on
an energy balance. Both the heat exchangers and the capillary
tube are discretized spatially to consider the lengthwise prop-
erty variation and momentumand energy conservation equa-
tions have been employed to each segment. To simplify the
analysis, the following assumptions were considered in the
simulation:
1. Heat transfer with the ambient is negligible.
2. Only single phase heat transfer occurs for secondary uid.
3. Compression process is adiabatic but not isentropic.
4. Pressure drop on waterside and in connecting pipes is
negligible.
5. Refrigerant is free from oil.
6. Heat transfer in the capillary tube is negligible.
7. Thermodynamic equilibrium (i.e. no metastable phenome-
non) occurs in capillary tube ow.
8. Homogeneous and one-dimensional steady ow occurs
through the capillary tube.
2.1. Compressor
A reciprocating single stage compressor is used in the system.
The mass ow rate, _ m
ref
, is proportional to the displacement
rate and the volumetric efciency and is inversely propor-
tional to the specic volume of gas entering the compressor
and is given by
_ m
ref

h
V
_
V
S
n
1
(1)
where volumetric efciency h
V
for the semi-hermetic com-
pressor is estimated from the empirical relation available
from the data reported (Ortiz et al., 2003):
h
V
0:9207 0:0756
_
P
dis
P
suc
_
0:0018
_
P
dis
P
suc
_
2
(2)
Isentropic efciency of the compressor is estimated by an
empirical correlation (Ortiz et al., 2003) given by
h
is;c
0:26 0:7952
_
P
dis
P
suc
_
0:2803
_
P
dis
P
suc
_
2
0:0414
_
P
dis
P
suc
_
3
0:0022
_
P
dis
P
suc
_
4
3
2.2. Gas cooler
As mentioned earlier, the gas cooler is segmented lengthwise
to accommodate the property variation. Heat transfer in the
ith segment of the gas cooler is expressed in terms of overall
heat transfer coefcient as
Q
i
gc
UA
i
gc
LMTD
i
gc
(4)
The overall heat transfer coefcient for the ith segment is
calculated considering all the thermal resistances:
1
UA
i
gc

1
a
r
A
r

ln
_
d
o
=d
i
_
2pDLk
w

1
a
w
A
w
(5)
Fig. 1 (a) Schematic layout of a transcritical CO
2
system and (b) the corresponding cycle on Ts plane.
i nt e r na t i o na l j our na l of r e f r i ge r a t i on 3 1 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 3 8 8 3 9 5 390
Gnielinski correlation with the Pitla et al. (2002) modica-
tion, incorporating both bulk and wall properties, for super-
critical in-tube carbon dioxide cooling is employed to
calculate the heat transfer coefcient. Pitla correlation is
given by
Nu
r

_
Nu
rw
Nu
rb
2
_
k
rw
k
rb
(6)
a
r

Nu
r
d
i
k
rb
(7)
Nusselt number is calculated by Gnielinski correlation
(Gnielinski, 1976) at the respective conditions:
Nu
f =8
_
Re 1000Pr
1:07 12:7
_
f =8
_
1=2_
Pr
2=3
1
_
(8)
where f is calculated as
f 0:79lnRe 1:64
2
(9)
The water side heat transfer coefcient is calculated by the
well known DittusBoelter correlation.
2.3. Evaporator
The evaporator is modelled in the same way as the gas cooler.
However, due to the presence of two phase ow, the convec-
tive heat transfer coefcient has been calculated using Watte-
letCarlo correlation (Boewe et al., 2001):
a
r
Fa
l
(10)
a
l
0:023
k
l
d
i
Re
0:8
l
Pr
0:4
l
(11)
F 1 1:925X
0:83
tt
where X
tt
is the LockhartMartinelli factor given by
X
tt

_
1 x
x
_
0:9
_
r
v
r
l
_
0:5
_
m
l
m
v
_
0:1
(12)
Similar to the gas cooler model, DittusBoelter correlation is
employed to calculate the waterside heat transfer coefcient.
The refrigeration side pressure drop for the ith segment is
estimated by
DP
ev;r

i
4
DL
ev
d
i
f
r
2
1 x
2
G
2
ev;r
r
l
f
2
l
(13)
The frictionfactor f
r
andtwophasemultiplier f
l
are expressedas
f
r
0:0791Re
0:25
l
(14)
and
f
l

_
1:376 7:242=X
1:655
tt

_
1=2
(15)
where X
tt
is the LockhartMartinelli factor.
2.4. Capillary tube
The capillary tube is discretized into a number of longitudinal
elements (Fig. 2), to enable the sharp changes in CO
2
property,
particularly near the critical point, to be captured in the
analysis.
Principles of mass, energy, and momentum conservation
are employed to each segment of the capillary tube. The con-
servation of mass for steady ow in an element of uid is
given by
d
_
A
c
u
c
v
c
_
0 (16)
Neglecting the elevation difference and the heat transfer in
and out of the tube, the energy conservation may be written as
dh
c

G
2
c
2
dv
2
c
0 (17)
From the conservation of momentum equation, the differ-
ence in forces applied to the element of uid due to drag
and pressure difference on opposite ends of the element
should be equal to that needed to accelerate the uid and is
expressed as
dp
c
f
c
dL
c
D
c
u
c
2
G
c
G
c
du
c
(18)
Hence,
dL
c

2D
c
f
c
_
dr
c
r
c

r
c
G
2
c
dp
c
_
(19)
Lin friction factor (Lin et al., 1991) is used to calculate the
two phase friction factor:
f
tp;c
f
tp;c
f
sp;c
_
v
sp;c
v
tp;c
_
(20)
where
f
tp;c

_
_
_
8
Retp;c
_
12

_
A
16
tp;c
B
16
tp;c
_
3=2
_
8
Resp;c
_
12

_
A
16
sp;c
B
16
sp;c
_
3=2
_
_
1=12
_
1 x
c
_
v
g;c
v
l;c
1
__
(21)
where
A
tp;c
2:457 ln
1
_
7
Retp;c
_
0:9
0:273=D
c
; B
tp;c

37; 530
Re
tp;c
;
Re
tp;c

G
c
D
c
m
tp;c
The McAdams model (McAdams et al., 1942) is employed to
estimate the two phase viscosity:
1
m
tp;c

1 x
c

m
l;c

x
c
m
g;c
(22)
Fig. 2 Longitudinal discretization for the capillary tube.
i nt e r na t i ona l j o ur na l o f r e f r i g e r a t i o n 3 1 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 3 8 8 3 9 5 391
3. Numerical methodology
A computer code has been developed for the steady state sim-
ulation to evaluate the system performance of a transcritical
carbon dioxide heat pump system for simultaneous heating
and cooling at 73

C and 4

C, respectively, employing various
congurations of an adiabatic capillary tube. Subcritical and
supercritical thermo-physical and transport properties of
CO
2
are estimated employing a precision property code CO2P-
ROP developed locally (Sarkar et al., 2004). Both the gas cooler
and the capillary tube are susceptible to abrupt property var-
iation of CO
2
near the critical region. To capture these abrupt
changes, both the capillary tube and the gas cooler are discre-
tized longitudinally. To yield greater accuracy, the evaporator
is spatially discretized as well. Each segment of gas cooler and
evaporator is modelled considering them to be a counter ow
heat exchanger. As shown in the ow-chart (Fig. 3), a certain
diameter and internal surface roughness are chosen for a cap-
illary tube and mass ow rate of water and suction superheat
are chosen as well. Initially capillary tube length is selected
and discharge and evaporator pressures are guessed and the
code solves iteratively for state point and system perfor-
mance. It may be noted that the gas cooler pressure is esti-
mated based on the chosen capillary tube length. Unlike
a controllable throttle valve based system, gas cooler pressure
is not an independent parameter with the capillary tube based
system once the tube length is specied. Length of the capil-
lary tube is selected based on the optimum system COP.
4. Results and discussion
Performance of the system being studied for simultaneous
heating and cooling applications is evaluated based on system
COPs for various conditions and capillary geometry. Results
are presented for the combined length of 25 m of the evapora-
tor and gas cooler of standard stainless steel inner tube of
9.525 mm OD and outer tube of 14.097 mm ID. Capillary tubes
in the range of 1.41.6 mm ID and having 0.0010.003 mm in-
ternal surface roughness are employed in the study. Capillary
tubes having ID smaller than 1.4 mm lead to choking and this
sets the limiting condition for selectionof optimal tube length.
A Dorin (model TCS 111H) CO
2
compressor with a rated speed
of 2900 rpm is chosen for the system. Internal heat exchanger
is not used in the analysis. However, suction superheat is
taken as 10

C within the evaporator. About 810% evaporator
length is utilised for suction superheat. Results are generated
for the compressor rated speed of 2900 rpm while water inlet
temperature varied from 20

C to 40

C and heat exchanger
area ratio (gas cooler-to-evaporator) varied between 1 and 3.
Fixing the water outlet temperature in gas cooler and evapora-
tor at 73

C and 4

C, respectively, the simulated mass ow
rate of water is calculated for each water inlet temperature
to suit the heat transfer requirement as per the design of gas
cooler and evaporator.
Results from the present simulation model are compared
with the published results from Madsen et al. (2005) for the
specied capillary tubes with D
c
2 mm, L
c
2/4 m,
D
c
1 mm, L
c
2 m, and D
c
1.8 mm, L
c
3 m. The evapora-
tor pressure, gas cooler exit temperature and the high pres-
sure are taken as 35 bar, 40

C and 100 bar, respectively. For
all the chosen capillary tubes, internal surface roughness 3 is
taken as 0.00576 mm. Experimentally measured refrigerant
mass ow rates closely match predicted mass ow rates of
the model presented here (Fig. 4).
Variation of performance parameters with area ratio and
capillary tube diameter for an internal tube roughness of
0.0015, a water inlet temperature of 30

C and a compressor
speed of 2900 rpm has been studied through the simulation
code and is exhibited in a nomogram (Fig. 5). It may be ob-
served that with increase in area ratio, cooling output reduces
due to decrease in refrigerant mass ow rate due to decrease
in suction density at lower optimum discharge pressures.
This may be attributed to the fact that at higher area ratio,
gas cooler outlet temperature decreases and that causes the
evaporator pressure to decrease as well for a given capillary
tube. Consequently, refrigerant mass ow rate decreases
L
*
= Simulated capillary tube length,
x
*
= Refrigerant quality at exit of the simulated capillary tube
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Optimum COP
If: L
c
= L
*
c
No
No
Output: state points, COP
max
, P
dis
, L
c
Update L
c
Update P
dis
Update P
6
If: x
5
= x
*
5
Input: Evaporator dimensions (d
i
, d
o
, D
i
, L
ev
),
Gas cooler dimensions (d
i
, d
o
, D
i
, L
gc
),
Compressor data; V
s
, N, Water: t
evi
, t
gci
,
Capillary geometry: D, .
Guess: evaporator outlet pressure (P
6
)
Guess: gas cooler pressure (P
dis
)
Input gas cooler model
Calculate find P
3
, t
3
Input evaporator model
Calculate P
5
, x
5
, h
4
Input capillary tube model
Calculate L
c
*
, x
*
5
Guess: Capillary length (L
c
)
m
evw
or t
evo
, m
gcw
or t
gco
, T
sucsuperheat
.
Calculate: mass flow rate, m
ref
Fig. 3 Flow-chart for the simulation model.
i nt e r na t i o na l j our na l of r e f r i ge r a t i on 3 1 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 3 8 8 3 9 5 392
due to decrease in suction density at a lower evaporator pres-
sure. With decrease in evaporator pressure, gas cooler pres-
sure also decreases. Hence, as shown in Fig. 5, system COP
rst increases and then decreases with a peak value of 3.72
at a gas cooler-to-evaporator area ratio of 1.5 for all the chosen
capillary tubes; this trend is very similar to that reported ear-
lier (Sarkar et al., 2006) for an expansion valve. At higher area
ratio, capillary tube length increases for a chosen diameter,
due to decrease in refrigerant mass ow rate (Fig. 5). The no-
mogram presented here is expected to help design the system
better. For example, when the water inlet temperature is 30

C
at a compressor speed of 2900 rpm, to attain a maximum COP
of 3.72, an 1.6 m long and 1.4 mm ID capillary tube is required
at an area ratio 1.5, and the system is expected to yield a cool-
ing output of 4.75 kW with a refrigerant mass ow rate of
0.0287 kg s
1
. All these system operating condition informa-
tion is extracted from a simple diagramgiven here as a nomo-
gram, as is illustrated in Fig. 5.
As exhibited in Fig. 6, COP rst increases with capillary
length increase to reach a peak and then decreases. However,
gas cooler pressure increases monotonically. Near the peak,
COP variation is at, implying that beyond a certain length,
the gain in COP is not very appreciable. Hence it is recommen-
ded that for a chosen capillary tube diameter and internal sur-
face roughness, capillary tube length should be selected on
the basis of optimum COP.
Fig. 5 Nomogram depicting the variation of performance parameters with area ratio and capillary diameter at
3 [0.0015 mm, compressor speed[2900 rpm and T
wi
[30 8C.
3.6
3.63
3.66
3.69
3.72
3.75
1.5 1.9 2.3 2.7 3.1
Capillary tube length (m)
S
y
s
t
e
m

C
O
P
108
111
114
117
120
123
G
a
s

c
o
o
l
e
r

p
r
e
s
s
u
r
e

(
b
a
r
)
system COP
Gas cooler pressure
Fig. 6 Variation of COP and gas cooler pressure with
capillary tube length at D
c
[1.5 mm, 3 [0.0015 mm and
area ratio [1.5.
0
0.01
0.02
0.03
0.04
0.05
0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05
Measured refrigerant mass flow rate (kg/s)
T
h
e
o
r
e
t
i
c
a
l

r
e
f
r
i
g
e
r
a
n
t

m
a
s
s

f
l
o
w

r
a
t
e

(
k
g
/
s
)
Madsen et al. (2005)
Our model
Fig. 4 Validation of the present model with the results of
Madsen et al. (2005).
i nt e r na t i ona l j o ur na l o f r e f r i g e r a t i o n 3 1 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 3 8 8 3 9 5 393
Water inlet temperature is subjected to change with ambi-
ent condition. For a chosen capillary tube, it is desired that the
system would run optimally even with varying water inlet
temperature. This needs to be inspected carefully employing
the simulation code. The effect of water inlet temperature at
a compressor speed of 2900 rpm, and an optimum area ratio
of 1.5 with various capillary tube congurations is shown in
Figs. 7 and 8. Fig. 7 shows the variation of COP and cooling ca-
pacity with respect to water inlet temperature and various ID
and length combination capillary tubes of internal surface
roughness 0.002 mm. Table 1 shows the various water mass
ow rates in the gas cooler and the evaporator for typical
test runs with a capillary tube diameter of 1.5 mm having
a surface roughness of 0.002 mm. As the water inlet tempera-
ture increases, mass ow rate of water in gas cooler increases
while in evaporator it decreases for constant water outlet tem-
peratures of 73

C and 4

C, respectively. It is observed that for
all the chosen capillary tubes, the systemoperates very nearly
at the optimum level at all the water inlet temperatures. The
reference optimum performance is chosen to be that of the
corresponding heat pump system employing a controllable
expansion valve instead of a capillary tube. It can also be ob-
served that COP decreases with increase in water inlet tem-
perature due to rise in gas cooler exit temperature causing
degradation in heat transfer properties. Fig. 8 shows that the
gas cooler pressure, which is not an independent parameter
in case of the capillary tube, remains close to the optimum
pressure obtained with an expansion valve at all the water in-
let temperatures and for all the chosen capillary tube lengths.
There is a marginal change in refrigerant mass ow rate with
varying water inlet temperature. However, the gas cooler
pressure increases rapidly with increase in water inlet tem-
perature (Fig. 8). This system behaviour with the capillary
tube and with varying water inlet temperature (in varying am-
bient temperature) shows that the capillary based systemis at
least as good as the controllable expansion valve based sys-
tem. This is quite encouraging since there has been a good
amount of scepticism in whether a capillary tube based sys-
tem would perform as well when there is an issue of setting
the optimum gas cooler pressure for all CO
2
transcritical sys-
tem heat pumps. Fig. 9 shows that as water temperature
increases, compressor work in an expansion valve based sys-
tem also increases due to increase in gas cooler pressure. A
very similar trend is also exhibited by the heat pump using
a capillary tube as the expansion device. It is also observed
that the optimum capillary length increases rapidly with
3.2
3.4
3.6
3.8
4
4.2
20 25 30 35 40
Water inlet temperature (C)
S
y
s
t
e
m

C
O
P
3.1
3.4
3.7
4
4.3
4.6
4.9
5.2
C
o
o
l
i
n
g

c
a
p
a
c
i
t
y

(
k
W
)
System COP (Exp. valve)
Dc = 1.4 mm, Lc = 1.4 m
Dc = 1.5 mm, Lc = 2.1 m
Dc = 1.6 mm, Lc = 3.0 m
Cooling capacity (Exp. valve)
Fig. 7 Capillary tube and expansion valve performance
comparison at varying water inlet temperature and various
capillary tube congurations with 3 [ 0.002 mm.
0.0284
0.0288
0.0292
0.0296
0.03
20 25 30 35 40
Water inlet temperature (C)
R
e
f
r
i
g
e
r
a
n
t

m
a
s
s

f
l
o
w

r
a
t
e

(
k
g
/
s
)
109
112
115
118
121
124
G
a
s

c
o
o
l
e
r

p
r
e
s
s
u
r
e

(
b
a
r
)
Mass flow rate (Exp. Valve)
Dc = 1.4, Lc = 1.4
Dc = 1.5, Lc = 2.1
Dc = 1.6, Lc = 3.0
Optimal gas cooler pressure
(Exp. valve)
Fig. 8 Mass ow rate and gas cooler pressure comparison
between capillary and expansion valve based systems
with respect to water inlet temperature.
3.25
3.3
3.35
3.4
3.45
3.5
3.55
20 25 30 35 40
Water inlet temperature (C)
C
o
m
p
r
e
s
s
o
r

w
o
r
k

(
k
W
)
Compressor work (Exp. Valve)
Dc = 1.4, Lc = 1.4
Dc = 1.5, Lc = 2.1
Dc = 1.6, Lc = 3.0
Fig. 9 Variation of compressor work with respect to water
inlet temperature for capillary tube and expansion valve
based systems.
Table 1 Variation of heat exchanger water mass ow
rate with inlet temperature
Test run Water inlet
temperature (

C)
Water mass
ow rate (kg/min)
Gas cooler Evaporator
1 20 2.27 4.64
2 25 2.43 3.33
3 30 2.63 2.54
4 35 2.89 2.01
5 40 3.24 1.62
i nt e r na t i o na l j our na l of r e f r i ge r a t i on 3 1 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 3 8 8 3 9 5 394
increase in capillary tube diameter. However, internal surface
roughness effect is less signicant on optimum capillary
length for the chosen diameters (Fig. 10). It may be noted
that change in optimum capillary tube length is more signi-
cant at lower internal surface roughness values due to the fact
that beyond a certain value of 3=D
c
ratio, friction factor de-
pends only on the size of the roughness elements. It is ob-
served that installation of a proper capillary tube length
replacing an expansion valve will result in a natural adjust-
ment of the gas cooler pressure, so that the systembalance al-
ways shifts to a favourable COP direction. At all the chosen
water inlet temperatures, system operates at balance condi-
tions using a proper capillary tube length as the expansion de-
vice. This novel nding regarding capillary tube based CO
2
heat pumps augurs well for such systems, particularly for
the smaller sized ones.
5. Conclusions
The steady state performance of a transcritical CO
2
heat pump
system for simultaneous heating and cooling employing an
adiabatic capillary tube has been compared with a non-
conventional optimal system using a controllable expansion
valve. For the transcritical cycle, pressure and temperature
are independent parameters and system behaviour is not
expected to be the same as in a conventional subcritical sys-
tem employing a capillary tube as the expansion device.
Capillary tube length turns out to be the deciding parameter
to enable the system to run optimally. Length of the capillary
tube should be selected on the basis of optimum gas cooler
pressure for a given tube diameter. It is observed that the op-
timum area ratio value of 1.5 is almost the same for a control-
lable expansion valve and for all the chosen capillary tubes. A
nomogram with capillary tube diameter as an independent
parameter and COP, capillary tube length and refrigerant
mass ow rate as output has been presented. Capillary tube
based system is shown to be quite exible regarding changes
in ambient temperature, almost behaving to offer an optimal
pressure control just like the controllable expansion valve.
System performance is marginally better with a capillary
tube at higher gas cooler exit temperature. It has been shown
in this study that capillary tubes can be a fairly effective
expansion device in smaller CO
2
based transcritical heat pump
systems where the system is able to operate optimally with
varying ambient conditions within a limited range.
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1.4
1.8
2.2
2.6
3
3.4
3.8
1.4 1.45 1.5 1.55 1.6
Capillary tube diameter (mm)
O
p
t
i
m
u
m

c
a
p
i
l
l
a
r
y

t
u
b
e

l
e
n
g
t
h

(
m
)
roughness = 0.001 mm
roughness = 0.0015 mm
roughness = 0.002 mm
roughness = 0.003 mm
Fig. 10 Optimum capillary tube length variation with
capillary tube diameter and internal surface roughness.
i nt e r na t i ona l j o ur na l o f r e f r i g e r a t i o n 3 1 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 3 8 8 3 9 5 395