American University of Beirut

MECH 677 Heat Pumps

Course Project
Bashir El-Fil and Sylvie Antoun
Submitted to: Dr. Kamel Ghali
Date: Monday, December 21, 2014

Contents
Synopsis........................................................................................ 3

Methodology.................................................................................4

Analysis of the Condenser..........................................................4

Implementation........................................................................... 10

Results........................................................................................ 13

Synopsis
A heat pump is a device that provides heat energy from a source of heat or
"heat sink" to a destination. On the other hand, in refrigerant cycles, we will
have these four components:
(1)Water cooled condenser
(2)Evaporator
(3)Compressor
(4)Capillary tube

Figure 1- Refrigeration Cycle having R-134a

Problem Statement Given:

Type of Refrigerant: R-134a
Mass flow rate:

m
= 0.015 kg/s

State 3: P3 = 1.4 MPa and T3 = 65C

Tevaporator = - 2C
Tambient = Tao = 40 C
The geometry of the condenser is as following:
Geometry
SL
ST
FL
FW
Nr

Dimensions (m)
0.0127
0.0254
0.4
0.2
2

0.009525

Methodology
Analysis of the Condenser
The condenser will be modeled as three heat exchangers. The first heat
exchanger will be a superheated heat exchanger, second two phase heat
exchanger, and third is sub cooled heat exchanger. The adopted method will
be the effectiveness and NTU method:

Part 1
The condenser inlet may be superheated refrigerant, thus the part of the
condenser area is in the de-superheating zone. Then we have that the
effectiveness of the heat exchanger is is given by the following:

This is solved by Newton Raphson Method:

function NewtonRaphsonMethod
i = 1;
p0 =50;
%initial conditions
N = 1000;
%maximum number of iterations
error = 0.01;
%precision required
f= @(x) (1-exp(x^0.22/(exp(-(x^0.78)-1))))
df =@ (x) ((0.78/(x^0.22)+(0.22/(x^(0.78))))*(exp(x^0.78+x^0.22+1)));
while i < N
p = p0 - (f(p0)/df(p0));
%Newton-Raphson method
if (abs(p - p0)/abs(p)) < error
when difference between iterations is below tolerance
fprintf('Solution is %f \n', double(p))
return
end

%stopping criterion

i = i + 1;
p0 = p;
end
end

Then, from the NTUdsh, we can find the fraction of superheat (fdsh). As it is
known that exist condition from the superheated heat exchanger will be the
saturated temperature at the pressure of 1.4 MPa.

Where the Udsh is given by:

Part 2
The inlet condition of the two-phase heat exchanger is at Saturated
Temperature at Pressure = 1.4 MPa, and since the R-134a is changing phase
from vapor to liquid, then Texist = TSAT (@P=1.4MPa).

Then to find corresponding temperatures, we can find the effectiveness since

we know the temperatures of the refrigerant and then we can find the outer
temperature of air.

We aim to find the fraction of the two phase refrigerant passing through this
part of the heat exchanger, which is ftp

In the two-phase section of the heat exchanger, there are two basic
possibilities. Either the outlet of the two-phase section is at some two-phase
quality (because there is no sub cooled section) or the outlet of the twophase section is at a quality of 0 (saturated liquid) because there is a sub
cooled section. The first step is to assume that the outlet of the two-phase
section is at a quality of 0 (x = 0) and calculate the required fraction of the
circuit length. The average refrigerant-side heat transfer coefficient is a
function of refrigerant outlet quality.
Similarly, the U-value will be calculated in the same method of the previous
section.

Then, after calculating the NTU and the effectiveness using various
algorithims, we finally calculate the fraction of the two-phase:

Part 3
Since we know the fraction parts of the condenser, we can find the fsp easily
by:

Then, finding the NTU of the sub-cooled region will yield the following:

The equation of the effectiveness is the same as that of the single phase
(liquid) stated before

After calculating , and knowing Tapo, the temperature at the outlet of the
sub-cooled region can now be calculated. This will be considered the inlet
temperature of the capillary coil.
To find the U, we need to calculate the heat transfer coefficients (hi) and (ho):
The outer convective coefficient ho is the term that will affect heat transfer
mechanism between the outer side of the tube and air flowing across it. This
term will depend on the velocity of the air passing between the fins that are
placed on the tube. As this velocity increases, ho will increase too.
Re =

4m

(internal flow) or Re =

VD

(external flow)

Then, we find the Nusselt number from the following correlation.

Then we get the following:

To get the internal coefficient of convection, we use another correlation:

In the two phase region:
Most of the experimental work done targeted convective coefficient on the
outer surface of the tube, so to compute the outer convective heat transfer
we will use the following correlation:

Where,

On the other hand, we need to compute the inner convective heat transfer
coefficient, this done using the following correlation in the two phase region:

Now, when the refrigerant is pure liquid (sub cooled) or pure vapor
(superheated) we will use the following correlations to compute the internal
convective heat coefficient (hi):
We will assume that our flow is fully developed and turbulent, thus to
calculate Nusselt number, we will use the following correlation:

Thus, after calculating Nusselt number, we can easily find (hi) from the
definition of Nusselt number:
hi=Nu D

k
D

Thus, we can now calculate the exit conditions of the condenser. These are
the inlet conditions to the capillary. The design of capillary is done by
assuming a logical value of the diameters (0.5 mm to 2 mm). First, we will

start by describing the approach we will adopt in finding the required length
to attain a pressure difference as required.
Kinetic Energy will NOT be neglected.
We will start by deriving the mass balance and then we will follow that by
momentum equation.

d ( pv )
The mass at (1) is v , and the mass at (2) is given by v+ dy y , thus

making the energy equation as following:

yield that

v+

d ( pv)
y A[ v ] A=0 , this will
dy

v=constant

From the momentum equation, we will have that at (1) we have vv , and
vv+

(2)

d ( pvv )
y . The pressure at (1) is given by P and at
dy

dP
(2) is given by P+ dy y . The momentum equation will be:

vv+

d ( vv )
dP
y r 2( vv ) ( r 2 )= r 2
y2 r y w
dy
dy

This will simplify to:

v

dv dP 2 w
=

dy
dy
r

After manipulating the equation using the fluid mechanics equations that are
related to pressure drop due to friction, we can simplify the following
equation to the following:

dv dP f V
=

dy
dy
2D

Since we proved that v=constant , then let v=G . Then we can simply get
the following:
2

G
G dv= dP+
(fv) dy
2D 1
1
1
Then, this will be:
G V = P+

G ( fV )MEAN
L
2D

The energy equation will be as following:

ho +

(V o)

=h i+

(V i )

Knowing that multiplying the specific volume (m 3/kg) by G, we will get

velocity:
h f (T

condenser

( G vT

condenser

=h f T t + x h f g

T t

(G [ v f T t + x v f g ] )

T t

Thus, we can fix the quality of the flow at each time step, and then we can
compute the corresponding Reynolds number since we need to know the
viscosity at each time step which will be in function of the quality x.
i= f + x fg
=

4m

Implementation
The previous section tackled the methodology of the problem, and how we
will approach it. This section will describe thoroughly the MATLAB code
implemented to reach a solution.

Moreover, we will implement the use of refprop to fix the states at specific
points.
clc
clear all
rho_a = refpropm('D','T',273.15,'P',101.325,'air.mix');
cpa=(refpropm('C','T',273.15,'P',101.325,'air.mix'))*10^-3;
Vdot_a=0.3;
mdot_a=Vdot_a*rho_a;
mu_a=refpropm('V','T',273.15,'P',101.325,'air.mix')
FL=0.4;
FW=0.2;
Nr=2;
d=0.009525;
ST=0.0127;
SL=0.0254;
Tai=40+273; %initial ait temperature inlet desuperheat
mdot_R=0.332;
TRi=39.1+273; % initial refrigirant temp, inlet desuperheat
cpR=1.0332;
Ca= mdot_a*cpa;
CR=mdot_R*cpR;
if CR>Ca
Cmax=CR;
Cmin=Ca;
else

end

Cmin=CR;
Cmax=Ca;

Cr=Cmin/Cmax;
Ntubes=FW/ST;
Ao=pi*d*FL*Ntubes*Nr;
Dh=4*(FW-d*Ntubes)/(Ao/(SL*Nr));
Ac=FL*(FW-(d*Ntubes));
% outer heat transfer coefficient assuming to be the same over the
% desuperheat, condensation and subcolled heat exhangers.
Vf=Vdot_a/(FW*FL);
Vmax=Vf*(ST/(ST-d));
Re_o=rho_a*Vmax*d/mu_a;
if Re_o>=0.4 &
C=0.989;
n=0.33;

Re_o<4

elseif Re_o>=4 &

Re_o<40

C=0.911;
n=0.385;
elseif Re_o>=40 &

Re_o<4000

C=0.683;
n=0.466;
elseif Re_o>=4000 & Re_o<40000
C=0.193;
n=0.618;
else
C=0.911;
n=0.385;
end
Pr_o=0.711;
ko=0.0271;
Nu_o=C*Re_o^n*Pr_o^(1/3);
ho=Nu_o*ko/d;
% desuperheated region, calculate fdsp
%get hi desuperheat at TR_i=65 C
mu_dsp=14.046e-6;
Pr_dsp= 0.8953;
k_dsp= 2.548e-7*(1.1776*65.113);
Re_dsp=4*mdot_R/(pi*d*mu_dsp);
Nu_dsp=0.023*Re_dsp^0.8*Pr_dsp^0.4;
hi_dsp= Nu_dsp*k_dsp/d;

U_dsp=1/(1/hi_dsp+1/ho);
% Tc=Tsat @P=800kpa
Tc= 52.43+273;
TR_i= 65+273;

TR_i

epsilon_dsp=CR*(Tc-TR_i)/(Cmin*(TR_i-Tai));
Tao=Tai-epsilon_dsp*Cmin*(TR_i-Tai);
% get hi for 2 phase and subcooled
hfg=273.4-125.26;
k_tp= 0.76;
mu_g= 1.724e-5;
g=9.81;
rho_g= refpropm('D','T',273.15+52,'Q',1,'R134a') ;

rho_f= refpropm('D','T',273.15+52,'Q',0,'R134a') ;
deltaT=52-((39+31)/2);
Tapo=Tao+mdot_R*hfg/Ca;
hi_tp= 0.555*k_tp^3*rho_f*(rho_f-rho_g)*g*hfg/(Ntubes*d*mu_g*deltaT);
epsilon_tp=Ca*(Tapo-Tao)/(Cmin*(Tc-Tao));
U_tp= (1/hi_tp+1/ho);
ftp=Ca/(U_tp*Ao)*(log((Tc-Tai)/(Tc-Tao)));
fsc=1-(ftp+fdsh);
Tc = Tri-episilon*Ca(Tao-Tai)/CR;
Q1=CR*(65+273-Tc);
D1=2;
Te=-2;
D=D1/1000;
Q=Q1*3516.8524639;
A=(pi*D^2)/4;
h1=refpropm('H','T',Tc+273.15,'Q',0,'R134a');
h2=refpropm('H','T',Te+273.15,'Q',1,'R134a');
mdot=Q/(h2-h1);
G=mdot/A;
K=G/(2*D);
[d0 h0 mu0 P0]= refpropm('DHVP','T',Tc+273.15,'Q',0,'R134a');
Re0=4*mdot/(pi*D*mu0);
if Re0<2300
fo=64/Re0;
else
f0=0.32*Re0^(-0.25);
end
v0=1/d0;
Ve0=v0*G;
P1=P0;
f1=f0;
Ve1=Ve0;
T=Tc;
deltal=1
L=0;
while deltal>0 && T>Te
T=T-1;
[hf df muf P]=refpropm('HDVP','T',T+273.15,'Q',0,'R134a') ;
[hg dg mug]=refpropm('HDV','T',T+273.15,'Q',1,'R134a');
vf=1/df;
vg=1/dg;
vfg=vg-vf;
mufg=mug-muf;
hfg=hg-hf;
a=(vfg^2)*(G^2)/2;
b=(G^2)*vf*vfg+hfg;
c=hf-h0+(G^2)*(vf^2)/2-(Ve0^2)/2;
delta=(b^2)-4*a*c;
x=(-b+delta^0.5)/(2*a);
v=x*vg+(1-x)*vf;
mu=x*mug+(1-x)*muf;

h=x*hg+(1-x)*hf;
Re=4*mdot/(pi*D*mu);
if Re<2300
f=64/Re0;
else f=0.32*Re0^(-0.25);
end
Ve=v*G;
deltaV=Ve-Ve1;
deltaP=(P-P1)*1000;
fvmean=(f*Ve+f1*Ve1)/2;
deltal=(-deltaP-G*deltaV)/(K*fvmean);
if deltal>0
L=L+deltal
else
disp('The flow is said to be choked-flow and the mass flow rate through the
tube has reached its maximum value for the selected tube diameter')
end
P1=P
Ve1=Ve
f1=f
end

Results
The Results:
L = 1.9325 m having a diameter of 1.63 mm
This capillary tube will be sufficient to drop the pressure of the refrigerant
coming out from the condenser and going in the evaporator at T evaporator = -2
degree C.