PERFORMANCE EVALUATION AND ANALYSIS OF ACTUAL SOLAR POWERED 100kW TRIPLE EFFECT VAPOUR ABSORPTION AIR CONDITIONING PLANT

Abstract

Performance evaluation of an Air-Conditioning plant which is running for the last four and half year is presented in this thesis. This plant is actually a demonstration project installed by Thermax and Ministry of New and Renewable Energy at National Institute of Solar Energy for research purpose. Triple effect vapor absorption chiller is utilized to produce cooling and the input heat is provided by solar energy with the help of parabolic trough collector .Apart from understanding its complex design and working, energy and exergy analysis is done on vapor absorption chiller. Also optical and thermal analysis is carried out on parabolic trough collector. Both are being done separately. Mathematical modelling of vapor absorption chiller and parabolic trough collector is done for formulating the required relations for evaluation. Mass, concentration, energy and exergy balance equations of chiller are clearly presented. For parabolic trough collector, a general equation for obtaining efficiency is also proposed. The results of analysis of chiller shows that the two heat exchangers, (HX I) and (HX II) are the biggest source of exergy destruction, destroying 16.40 % and 8.60 % of exergy respectively. Deviating from the previous published results in literature, absorber is not the component where maximum exergy is destroyed. The components that need to be optimized are the three generators. The COP is also calculated from energy balance and it comes out to be 1.27. Exergetic efficiency of chiller obtained is 9.2 %.Optical study of parabolic trough collector reveals that the optical efficiency is 58 % but the incidence losses are not considered. Results from thermal analysis are presented in tabular form and various graphs have been drawn to discuss the results obtained and research findings. Future scope for further study on this plant or other is also discussed.