Numerical and experimental analysis of air to water heat pumps

Abstract

In the present work a numerical and experimental analysis of a R134a air to water heat pump is carried out. A numerical model has been developed and implemented to predict the heat pump thermal and fluid-dynamic behavior. The model is based on an object-oriented simulation tool called NEST where the whole system is modeled as a collection of different blocks linked between them. Each block represents a specific element of the system such as heat exchangers, compressors or expansion devices. The resolution procedure consists in solving all the blocks/elements iteratively until a converged solution is reached. In addition, a fully instrumented experimental facility has been built and commissioned in order to acquire experimental data and compare them against the numerical model predictions. In this work, the main aspects of the numerical model are presented together with a brief description of the experimental unit. The numerical results are compared against the experimental data and different numerical parametric studies are carried out.