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EXPERIMENTAL EVALUATION OF A NOVEL FULL-SCALE EVAPORATIVELY COOLED CONDENSER
Citation:
Hwang, Y. AND R. Radermacher. EXPERIMENTAL EVALUATION OF A NOVEL FULL-SCALE EVAPORATIVELY COOLED CONDENSER. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C., EPA/600/R-97/079 (NTIS PB98-100506), 1997.
Impact/Purpose:
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Description:
The report compares the performance of a novel evaporatively cooled condenser with that of a conventional air-cooled condenser for a split-system heat pump. The system was tested in an environmentally controlled test chamber that is able to simulate test conditions as specified by ASHRAE Standard 116-1983. Soft optimization was conducted to determine optimum charge and short tube restrictor size. Design parameters of the evaporatively cooled condenser were also optimized experimentally to maximize performance. Using these optimum parameters, steady state and cyclic performance tests were conducted. The experimental results show that the evaporatively cooled condenser has a higher capacity by 1.9 to 8.1%, a compatible coefficient of performance (COP) ranging from 98.0 to 105.6%, and a higher seasonal energy efficiency ratio (SEER) by 11.5% than those of the baseline. Subtracting out the estimated appropriate parasitic power necessitated by the test setup, savings were determined to be 1.8 to 8.1% in capacity, 13. 5 to 21.6% in COP, and 14.5% in SEER over the baseline