Analysis and calculation to improve the performance of refrigerant cycle

Vapour compression refrigerant cycle

Basically, vapour compression refrigerant cycle are widely used in air conditioning for
building and car. Besides that, it is also used in domestic and commercial refrigerators, large-
scale warehouses for chilled or frozen storage of foods and meats, refrigerated trucks and
railroad cars, and a host of other commercial and industrial services. Oil refineries,
petrochemical and chemical processing plants, and natural gas processing plants are among the
many types of industrial plants that often utilize large vapour compression refrigeration
systems. So improvement of performance of system is too important for higher refrigerating
effect or reduced power consumption for same refrigerating effect.
Working operation of vapour compression refrigerant cycle are there have four main
component which are condenser, evaporator, compressor and expression valve or throttling
valve as show in figure 1 below. In an ideal of working operation of vapour compression
refrigerant cycle, the refrigerant enter the compressor as a saturated vapour and is cooled to the
saturated liquid state in condenser. It is the throttled to evaporator pressure and vaporizes as it
absorbs heat from refrigerant space. There have four processes it the vapour compression
refrigerant cycle which are at a point 1 to 2 the processes occur is isentropic compression then
at the point 2 to 3 constant pressure heat is rejected in the condenser. After that, at point 3 to 4
it is throttling in an expansion valve. Lastly, at point 4 to 1 at the constant pressure heat is
adding to the evaporator as show in figure 1.

Figure 1 Vapour compression refrigerant cycle.

Improve the performance of refrigerant cycle
In order to increase the performance of refrigerant cycle can be done by decreases
the temperature at inlet of condenser section and reduce the work in. From that it can be related
to the first law of thermodynamic which were at compressor the equation can be show as:

, = (2 1 )
For the condenser:

= (2 3 )
For the enthalpy at throttle valve are equal which mean same with 3 = 4
And lastly for the evaporator:

= (1 4 )
From all that equation that related to first law of thermodynamic it can be used to determine
coefficient of performance of refrigerant cycle which is the equation can be show as:

1 4
= =
, 2 1

For improve by lower the temperature of inlet condenser can increasing the coefficient of
performance of refrigerant cycle this is calculation step with the graph pressure enthalpy below
show that at different inlet temperature of condenser give different COP values at the same
temperature of inlet evaporator and outlet evaporator which were 20 and 40 .
At the 80 of inlet condenser temperature (light green)
454
1 20 =

244
4 40 =

2 = 500/

1 4
= =
, 2 1

454 244
= = = 4.6
, 500 454

At the 60 of inlet condenser temperature (Dark green)

454
1 20 =

244
4 40 =

2 = 484/

1 4
= =
, 2 1

454 244
= = =7
, 484 454

From the calculation above it can be prove that by decreasing the temperature of inlet of
condenser can increase COP values which is from 4.6 at 80 to 7 at 40.
Reference
INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF REFRIGERATION, November 2003
Improve the cop of Vapor compression cycle with change in Evaporator and Condenser
pressure, Shoyab hussan, 5, May-2015
Improving the Performance of Vapour Compression Refrigeration System by using Useful
Superheating Dharmendra Patel*1, Karanpal Singh2, Jagveer3, April, 2014]
Lab manual guide line