The Performance of a Heat Pump with a Variation of Expansion Valve at Various Charging Conditions

Constant area expansion devices such as capillary tubes, short tube orifices are being gradually replaced with electronic expansion valves (EEVs) because of increasing focus on comfort and energy conservation. In this study, the performance of a water-to-water heat pump as a function of refrigerant charge is investigated in steady state, cooling mode operation with expansion devices of a capillary tube and an EEV. The performance of the capillary tube system varies drastically according to the change of refrigerant charge amount and inlet temperature of the secondary fluid in the condenser. Cooling capacity and COP of the EEV system show little dependence on the refrigerant charge, while those are strongly dependent on the secondary fluid temperature at the condenser inlet. In general, for a wide range of operating conditions the EEV system shows much higher performance as compared with the capillary tube system. The performance of the EEV system can be optimized by adjusting EEV opening to maintain a constant superheat at all test conditions.

냉매 충전량과 팽창장치 변화에 따른 열펌프 시스템의 성능특성에 관한 연구