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Applied Energy
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a r t i c l e
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Article history:
Received 18 October 2010
Received in revised form 17 March 2011
Accepted 2 April 2011
Available online 27 April 2011
Keywords:
Air-source heat pump water heater
Experimental research
Optimization
a b s t r a c t
In order to optimize design and operation strategy of air-source heat pump water heater, an experimental
set-up and simulation model were constructed. Also, a methodology of optimizing operation, which takes
into account thermostatic and timing control patterns, was presented and applied. Experimental results
indicated that the average COP ranged from 2.82 to 5.51 under typical conditions. The recommended outside area ratio of condenser coil to evaporator is 0.140.31 when the evaporator outside area is between
6.0 and 6.5 m2 for this set-up. The optimal start-up time was between 12:00 and 14:00 if there was no
electricity price difference between day and night, or it was near 22:00. The optimal setting water temperature should be adjusted according to the variation of seasonal ambient temperature. It was suggested
that, based on this set-up, setting water temperature should be set higher than 46 C in summer and 50 C
in other seasons.
2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
The proportion of water-heating in building energy consumption is about one-third. Nowadays, with more concern is taken to
building energy-saving, considerable importance has been placed
on the energy efciency of water heater in buildings [1,2]. The
air-source heat pump water heater (ASHPWH) system, a water
heating device with about one-third energy consumption of the
conventional electric resistance water heater, has attracted more
and more interests for its high efciency, energy-saving and environmental benign recently [3,4].
The thermal performance of the ASHPWH system is inuenced
by refrigerants, system structure, ambient temperature, water
temperature, etc [512]. And many achievements have been obtained by the researchers. Mei et al. [13] investigated the difference
of R22 and R407C in the practical ASHPWH system. Afterward,
they studied the effect of different style natural convection immersed condensers to the heat pump water heater [14]. Morrison
et al. [15] presented an ASHPWH seasonal performance assessment
method based on experimental results. Their research indicated
the effect of ambient temperature (surrounding air temperature)
on the system performance is more signicantly than the effect
of initial water temperature during the heating process. Rankin
et al. [16] presented a study about demand side management for
commercial building using an inline air-source heat pump water
heater methodology. Kim et al. [17] suggested that the tank size
Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 21 3420 6776; fax: +86 21 3420 6309.
E-mail address: jywu@sjtu.edu.cn (J.Y. Wu).
0306-2619/$ - see front matter 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.apenergy.2011.04.012
4129
Nomenclature
A
C
COP
d
f
f(t)
g(t)
h
j
k1, k2
_
m
M
n
P
p
Q_
r
s
t
T
U
v
V
Vd
W
W(t)
Subscripts
a
ambient; air
cmp
compressor
cond
condensation or condenser
consume consumed water
eva
evaporation or evaporator
n
i
l
load
lon
o
p
r
s
set
sc
sh
tap
tp
tra
tube
v
w
wi
n
inside; inlet
refrigerant liquid
hot water load
longitudinal tube
outside
constant pressure
refrigerant
sensible heat transfer
setting water temperature
subcooled
superheated
tap water
two-phase
transverse tube
heat transfer tube
volumetric; vapor
water
initial water
Superscripts
Dt
testing time step between the initial and end time
0
testing initial time
Greek letter
d
n thickness of evaporator, mm
g
efciency
a
heat transfer coefcient, kW/(m2 K)
k
thermal conductivity, kW/(m K)
n
dehumidifying coefcient
q
density, kg/m3
gn
general n efciency
f
delivery coefcient
Ds
duration of one time step in numerical calculation
getting warmer, the working process cycle will be updated accordingly, such as 30 40 10 20 30 .
2.2. Experimental facility and procedures
An experimental set-up of ASHPWH system was developed in
the lab. Fig. 3 and Table 1 show the details of indoor and outdoor
units.
In this experiment, the evaporator, TXV and the compressor
were mounted in an environmental chamber, as shown in Fig. 3a
and b. The rated input power of the rotary-type hermetic compressor was 0.93 kW. To avoid the overload, an overheated protector
and low-high pressure cut-off switches were connected to the
compressor. The evaporator was a n-tube heat exchanger. The
condenser was made up of a smooth copper helical coiled tube
(9.90 0.75), which was immersed in the water tank. The curvature radius of the coil was 0.16 m. The lterdrier and TXV were
installed downstream the condenser. The whole system was controlled by a micro-controller.
Before the experiment, the environmental chamber was adjusted at certain value (it represents ambient temperature), and
the tap water was charged into the 150 L water tank. Then, the
water was heated after the ASHPWH system started. If the water
temperature in the tank reaches to the setting point, the system
is stopped by the micro-controller. In the process of hot water consuming, the hot water was drawn from the top of the tank, and cold
tap water was recharged from the bottom of the tank.
4130
compressor
environmental
chamber
water tank
hot water
T
T
T
condenser
T
Pressure
Position
Temperature
Position
evaporator
TXV
P
P
tap water
filter-drier
Heat to the
water tank
3'
2'
3
logP
4'
4
Ambient energy
1'
h
Fig. 2. Heat pump cycle on a logp h diagram.
COP
C p;w Mw T Dwt T 0w
R Dt
Wtdt
0
As shown in Eq. (1), the COP is the ratio of heat transfer from the
condenser to water to the electric power consumption of compressor and fan. The tank water temperature (i.e. T Dwt or T 0w ) is represented by the average value of the three platinum resistance
thermometers (i.e. Pt100) set at the bottom, central and top of the
tank, as shown in Fig. 1. 0 and Dt represent the testing initial time
and time step between the initial and end time, in which there is
3 C increment in water temperature. The heating capacity is the
time average heat transfer from the condenser to water within
R Dt
3 C increment in the water tank. 0 Wtdt represents the electrical power consumption of compressor and fan within time step
measured by power meter unit, kJ. Eq. (1) represents COP at water
Dt
0
temperature T w 2T w .
When the water in the tank is heated from certain initial temperature (i.e. Twi) to the setting point (i.e. Tset), the average COP
during the whole process is
C p;w M w T set T wi
COP av e
Rt
Wtdt
0
Fig. 3. Experimental set-up of ASHPWH system: (a) indoor unit; (b) outdoor unit.
Rt
where t represents the duration of the whole process. 0 Wtdt represents the electrical power consumption of compressor and fan
measured by power meter unit during the whole process.
2.3. Error analysis
The power meter unit (with grade 0.5 accuracy, uncertainty
about 10 W) was used to measure the electrical power
4131
Type
Remarks
Compressor
Condenser/water
tank
Expansion valve
Evaporator/fan
Rotary
Pressure
resistance
TXV
Finned tube/
axial
In order to predict the operation performance of ASHPWH system and nd the inuence of various parameters on its operation, a
mathematical model has been formulated in this paper. Some
physical assumptions employed for the present model are:
(1) Compression of refrigerant vapor is assumed to follow a
polytropic process.
(2) Pressure drop is negligible in evaporator, condenser as well
as pipes.
(3) Expansion of refrigerant liquid is considered to be
isenthalpic.
"
Pcond
P ev a
n1
n
v1
where Utp,eva and Ush,eva denote the heat transfer coefcient of the
two-phase section and superheated section in the evaporator,
respectively, which are expressed as:
U tp;ev a
atp;ev a
di;ev a
do;ev a
1
Ai;ev a
ln
2ktube
di;ev a ao;s;ev a n gfin Ao;ev a
!1
di;ev a
do;ev a
1
Ai;ev a
ln
ash;ev a 2ktube di;ev a ao;s;ev a n gfin Ao;ev a
6
!1
7
_ r r cond
_ r T 2 T cond m
C r;sh;cond m
_r
_ r r cond
C r;sh;cond m
T cond T w
m
U sc;cond Ai;cond
ln
U sh;cond
T2 Tw
U tp;cond T cond T w
#
1
3
f 1 sV d gv
_ r h2 h3
Q_ cond m
_r m
_ cmp
m
_ r T 1 T ev a
C r;sh;ev a m
U sh;ev a
n
_ r P ev a v 1
_ r h2 h1 m
m
n1
_ r h1 h4
Q_ ev a m
_r
C r;sh;ev a m
Ta T1
T a T ev a
ln
U tp;ev a Ai;ev a
U sh;ev a
T a T ev a
T cond T 3
T w
ln T Tcond
3 T w
8
where Q_ cond is the condensing heat transfer rate, Utp,cond, Ush,cond, and
Usc,cond denote the heat transfer coefcient of the two-phase section,
superheated section and subcooled section in the condenser,
respectively, which are expressed as:
U tp;cond
atp;cond
di;cond do;cond
1 Ai;cond
ln
2ktube
di;cond aw Ao;cond
1
9
1
di;cond do;cond
1 Ai;cond
ln
2ktube
di;cond aw Ao;cond
1
1
di;cond do;cond
1 Ai;cond
ln
asc;cond 2ktube di;cond aw Ao;cond
U sh;cond
U sc;cond
ash;cond
10
11
where atp,cond, ash,cond and asc,cond represent the heat transfer coefcient of the two-phase section, superheated section and subcooled
section at the inside of condenser, and aw is the heat transfer
coefcient in the water side. The four heat transfer coefcients
are suggested as [26].
h3 h4
12
_ TXV k1 k2 T ev a
_rm
m
q
ql P cond Pev a
13
d
C p;w Mw T w Q_ cond Q_ load
dt
14
Before the hot water is delivered to the end user, the hot water ow
from water tank and cold supply water (tap water) would be mixed.
The energy conservation equation is expressed as
15
where g(t) is hot water ow rate from water tank, which depends
on the domestic hot water demand prole f(t). Where Tconsume is
the temperature of consumed hot water, and Ttap is the tap water
temperature.
3.6. Performance index
The COP of the system performance
Pn2
jn
COP Pn21
Q_ cond j Ds
jn1 Wj
Ds
16
Pn _
j0 Q cond j Ds
COP av e Pn
j0 Wj
Ds
17
where 0 and n are the rst and last time steps of the whole heating
process, respectively.
consumption, COP of the system and all the state points data (such
as, temperature, pressure, specic volume, specic enthalpy and
the mass ow rate), were calculated as output data. The properties
of the chosen refrigerant R22 were from REFPROP (version 6.01)
developed by NIST (National Institute of Standard and Technology).
4. Results and discussion
4.1. Experimental results and model verication
In order to learn the performance of the ASHPWH system, a series of experiments were carried out in the environmental chamber
under different ambient conditions based on the meteorological
data of Shanghai, as shown in Figs. 46 and Table 2.
In the experiments, the ambient temperature was set constant.
After the ASHPWH system starts, the 150 L water in the tank was
heated from initial temperature to 55 C, and then the system will
be stopped by the micro-controller.
Fig. 4 shows the variation of condensing and evaporating pressure when the water tank was heated from 15 C to 55 C in winter
(i.e. Ta = 5 C). The simulated results agree well with the experimental results. For the condensing pressure, the largest deviation
between the experimental and simulated results was less than
0.5Bar. For the evaporating pressure, the largest deviation between
the experimental and simulated results was less than 0.3Bar.
Fig. 5 shows the comparison of heating capacity variation when
water tank temperature was from 16.5 C to 53.5 C during operation. For winter case (i.e. Ta = 5 C), the experimental heating capacity decreased gradually from 2.46 kW to 1.99 kW. While for
summer case (i.e. Ta = 35 C), it increased from 4.18 kW to
4.57 kW rstly, and then decreased to 4.05 kW. For winter case,
with the increase of water temperature and condensing temperature, the enthalpy difference between the inlet and outlet of the
condenser was decreasing (Fig. 2), which led to lower heating
capacity. For summer case, when condensing temperature was
lower than the ambient temperature, the pressure difference between the condenser and evaporator was too small, which led to
lower heating capacity. With the increase of water temperature,
the pressure difference was increasing, and then yielded more
heating capacity. When the condensing temperature increased to
some value, the decrease of the enthalpy difference between the
inlet and outlet of the condenser dominated, which caused lower
heating capacity. Also, the gure shows that the simulation results
were in good agreement with the experimental data with maximum deviation of 9.8%. This attributed to actual pressure drop
and heat loss of the system.
Experimental
Simulated
24
21
18
4132
15
12
Pcond
Peva
3
15
20
25
30
35
Tw (
40
45
50
55
4133
5.5
5.0
Experimental
Simulated
4.5
4.0
Ta= 35
3.5
3.0
2.5
2.0
Ta= 5
15
20
25
30
35
Tw (
40
45
50
55
10
Experimental
Simulated
9
8
COP
Ta= 35
6
5
4
3
Ta= 5
15
20
25
30
35
Tw (
40
)
45
50
55
Table 2
Comparison of experimental and simulated average COP with variable Ta and Twi.
Ta
5
15
25
35
Twi = 10 C
Error (%)
Exp
Sim
3.32
4.02
4.80
5.51
3.45
4.13
4.98
6.00
3.9
2.7
3.8
8.9
Twi = 15 C
Error (%)
Exp
Sim
3.21
3.72
4.60
5.42
3.33
3.88
4.71
5.64
3.7
4.3
2.4
4.1
Twi = 20 C
Error (%)
Exp
Sim
3.00
3.62
4.31
5.01
3.10
3.75
4.48
5.31
3.3
3.6
4.0
6.0
Twi = 25 C
Error (%)
Exp
Sim
2.82
3.41
4.01
4.80
2.91
3.51
4.22
5.04
3.2
3.0
5.2
5.0
4134
4.2
Ta=15
; Twi=15
4.0
)
Ta (
COPave
3.8
2
3.6
3.2
3.0
5.0
5.5
6.0
6.5
7.0
7.5
39
36
Stage B
33
30
0.044US$/kWh
27
24
21
Summer
18
15
12
9
6
3
0
0 2 4 6
StageA
0.088US$/kWh
stage B
Transitional season
Winter
10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24
Ao,eva (m )
2.0
5.5
1.8
5.0
1.6
4.5
1.4
1.2
4.0
1.0
3.5
0.8
Energy consumption
Fee
COPave
0.6
0.4
0
10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24
COPave
-1
6.0
3.0
2.5
2.0
Fig. 9. Energy consumption, fee and average COP in a typical day (summer).
2.2
6.0
2.0
5.5
1.8
5.0
1.6
4.5
1.4
4.0
1.2
COPave
-1
2.2
water temperature to Tset and then turns off before domestic hot
water withdrawal. After the withdrawal, the water temperature
in the tank is lower than Tset until next start-up of ASHPWH system. As to the start-up times, it depends on the practical total
hot water consumption volumes of consumers. Since water in
the tank is always heated from initial water temperature to Tset,
but not almost kept at Tset like in the thermostatic control pattern,
thus, it is more energy-saving because higher system COP can be
obtained at relative lower water temperature [28]. The timing control pattern is suitable in some special sites (such as the consumer
has the xed domestic hot water consumption habit, the withdrawal frequency is low and interval between twice withdrawals
is long).
Therefore, the optimization operation strategy should be based
on different control patterns, and a methodology of optimization
analysis based on these two control patterns will be depicted in
the subsequent contents.
3.5
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0
Energy consumption
Fee
3.0
COPave
2.5
10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24
2.0
and 5.43 respectively when water tank was heated from 14:00
for the highest ambient temperature, and the system got the highest performance, while the valley electric fees of the whole day was
0.065 US$ at 22:00 for the valley electric power price. For the same
reason, the valley electric fees were 0.079 US$ and 0.094 US$
respectively, as shown in Figs. 10 and 11, both at 22:00. It was
4135
6.0
14
2.0
5.5
12
1.8
5.0
1.6
4.5
1.4
4.0
1.2
3.5
1.0
0.8
Energy consumption
Fee
COPave
0.6
0.4
0
10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24
2.2
COPave
-1
(a)
10
8
6
4
3.0
2
2.5
0
00
2.0
03
06
09
12
15
18
21
24
18
21
24
18
21
24
Fig. 11. Energy consumption, fee and average COP in a typical day (winter).
(b)
suggested that the optimal start-up time was near 22:00 for the
lowest electric power fees. However, if the electric power price
of the day and night was equal, the optimal start-up time should
be chosen between 12:00 and 14:00. It could be derived that the
operation strategy is affected by the price difference of peak and
valley electric power price. The smaller the price difference of peak
and valley, the more economic the operation is in the daytime. The
curves of fee in Figs. 911 also show that the electric power fee was
very near when the start-up time was from 22:00 to the next 4:00
in summer and transitional season, and from 22:00 to the next
2:00 in winter. According to the current policy of peak and valley
electric power price, the start-up time of ASHPWH system is better
to selected as close as possible to these time ranges. As to the startup times and total energy consumption, it depends on the practical
hot water consumption volume in some special sites.
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
00
03
06
09
12
15
(c)
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
00
03
06
09
12
15
Fig. 12 were assumed a typical day hot water demand prole f(t)
in summer, transitional season and winter, respectively. The heating performance of the ASHPWH system was shown in Figs. 1315,
which represent the typical seasonal performance.
An evaluating indicator called delivery coefcient (i.e. f) was
introduced, and it was dened as the ratio of actual heat the user
consumed hot water to the domestic hot water demand during a
day time, as below
R 86400 _
Q cond dt
0
f
C p;w V consume qw T consume T tap
18
4136
(a)
3.6
3.2
46
44
Tset=46
42
Tset=48
2.8
2.4
2.0
1.6
Tset=50
40
46
38
Tw,consume ( )
Tw,consume ( )
4.0
36
34
1.2
44
42
40
32
0.8
46
48
50
52
54
06
07
Time of day (hr)
08
30
56
00
Tset ( )
03
06
09
12
15
18
21
24
46
44
Tset=46
42
Tset=48
Tset=50
40
46
Tw,consume ( )
36
Tw,consume ( )
46
38
34
44
42
40
38
06
07
08
44
42
40
38
19
32
00
03
06
09
12
15
20
18
21
24
18
21
24
(c)
46
44
Tset=46
42
Tset=48
40
Tset=50
Tset=52
38
46
36
34
32
Tw,consume ( )
Tw,consume (
Tw,consume ( )
(b)
44
42
40
38
36
06
30
00
03
07
08
06
09
09
12
15
can not be too high and too low, and there will be an optimum value of Tset in every season for the ASHPWH system. Fig. 15 shows
the inuence of Tset on the daily average COP and delivery coefcient during a whole day of the system. According to the denition,
the delivery coefcient reects the hot water load satisfaction degree. If there is no hot water shortage during the whole day, the
delivery coefcient will be 100%, otherwise, the delivery coefcient
will be smaller than 100%. As shown in Fig. 15, the daily average
COP increased with the decrease of Tset for the lower water temperature and condensing temperature. While the delivery coefcient
5.1
(Winter)
(Transitional season)
(Summer)
COPave
4.8
COPave
COPave
4.5
108
104
100
3.9
96
3.6
(%)
COPave
4.2
92
3.3
3.0
88
2.7
84
2.4
46
48
50
Tset (
52
54
56
4137
)
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