Performance Enhancement of the Heat Pump Using the Refrigerant Subcooling System

냉매 과냉각 시스템을 이용한 열펌프의 성능향상에 관한 연구

The performance characteristics of heat pump system using the new refrigerant subcooling system were investigated. The new heat pump system has the ice storage tank to accumulate the latent heat of the refrigerant during the night-time. The heat is released to subcool the saturated refrigerant liquid at the outlet of a condenser in the daytime. The experimental apparatus is a well-instrumented heat pump which consisted of a refrigerant loop and a coolant loop. The test sections(condenser and evaporator) were made of tube-in-tube heat exchanger with the horizontal copper tube of 12.7[mm] outer diameter and 9.5[mm] inner diameter. The evaporating temperatures ranged from $-5[^{\circ}C]$ to $0[^{\circ}C]$ and the subcooling degrees of the refrigerant varied from $15[^{\circ}C]$ to $25[^{\circ}C]$. The test of the ice storage was carried out at evaporating temperature of $-10[^{\circ}C]$ and the ice storage mode is an ice-on-coil type. The main results were summarized as follows ; The refrigerant mass flow rate and compressor shaft power of the heat pump system were independent of the subcooling degrees. The cooling capacity o the heat pump system increases as the evaporating temperature and subcooling degree increases. The cooling capacity of the heat pump system is about 25 to 30% higher than that of normal heat pump system. The COP of the heat pump system which subcooled the refrigerant liquid at the outlet of the condenser is about 28% higher than that of the normal heat pump system.