• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.395-400
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• 2019

Comparative studies between single- and two-stage refrigeration cycle using propane as a refrigerant have been performed for a vapor recompression refrigeration cycle. PRO/II with PROVISION release 10.2 from AVEVA company was used, and the Soave-Redlich-Kwong equation of state model with Twu's alpha function was selected for the modeling and optimization of the refrigeration cycle for the reliquefaction of BOG coming out from the LPG storage tank. In two-stage refrigeraton cycle, 24.8% of compressor power was reduced compared to that of single-stage refrigeration cycle through the optimization works.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.57 no.1
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• pp.51-57
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• 2019

A plant layout problem has a large impact on the overall construction cost of a plant. When determining a plant layout, various constraints associating with safety, environment, sufficient maintenance area, passages for workers, etc have to be considered together. In general plant layout problems, the main goal is to minimize the length of piping connecting equipments as satisfying various constraints. Since the process may suffer from the heat and friction loss, the piping length between equipments should be shorter. This problem can be represented by the mathematical formulation and the optimal solutions can be investigated by an optimization solver. General researches have overlooked many constraints such as maintenance spaces and safety distances between equipments. And, previous researches have tested benchmark processes. What the lack of general researches is that there is no realistic comparison. In this study, the plant layout of a real industrial C3MR (Propane precooling Mixed Refrigerant) process is studied. A MILP (Mixed Integer Linear Programming) including various constraints is developed. To avoid the violation of constraints, penalty functions are introduced. However, conventional optimization solvers handling the derivatives of an objective functions can not solve this problem due to the complexities of equations. Therefore, the PSO (Particle Swarm Optimization), which investigate an optimal solutions without differential equations, is selected to solve this problem. The results show that a proposed method contributes to saving the capital expenditures.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.1473-1478
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• 2011

In this study, simulation and optimization works for a demethanizer column have been performed to obtain ethane and heavier products from a pretreated natural gas stream. Pretreated natural gas feed stream is partially condensed after being precooled by exchanging heat with demethanizer top vapor stream and by using an external refrigeration cycle with a propane refrigerant. Vapor stream is furtherly cooled and partially condensed through a turbo-expander and the power generated from the expansion of turbo-expander was delivered to the compressor for the residue gas compression. Liquid stream is being cooled by Joule-Thomson expansion valve and is fed to the middle section of the demethanizer. Ethane recovery percent for feed natural gas was set to 75% and methane to ethane molar ratio was fixed as 0.015. Propane refrigeration heat duty was reduced by splitting the feed stream and to exchange heat with side reboiler.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.67-72
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• 2013

The LNG liquefaction plant which have a higher value-added business in the LNG value chain takes about 35% of total cost. Liquefaction process is core technology of liquefaction plant. Almost all of cost which was consumed from the liquefaction plant, using for operation energy of liquefaction process. The cost can be reduced by increasing efficiency of liquefaction cycle. C3MR(propane pre-cooled, mixed refrigerant cycle) which liquefies NG using propane and MR cycle has the high efficiency, so C3MR is mostly used liquefaction process in LNG industry. In this study, process simulation and analysis were performed for C3MR process. C3MR process variables were found through this simulation and analysis, and then the process optimization was performed. It is considered that the results of process analysis, process variables and process optimization study can be utilized to develope new liquefaction process.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.1032-1037
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• 2011

In this study, simulation and optimization works for a demethanizer column have been performed to obtain ethane and heavier products from a pretreated natural gas stream. Pretreated natural gas feed stream was partially condensed after being precooled by exchanging heat with demethanizer top vapor stream and by using an external refrigeration cycle with a propane refrigerant. Vapor stream was cooled further and partially condensed through a turbo-expander. The power generated from the expansion of turbo-expander was delivered to the compressor for the residue gas compression. Liquid stream was cooled by Joule-Thomson expansion valve and was fed to the middle section of the demethanizer. Recovery percent of ethane for feed natural was set to 80% and methane to ethane molar ratio was fixed as 0.0119. On the other hand, some of the cold heat could be recovered by splitting the feed stream and by exchanging heat with side reboiler in order to reduce the heat duty in the propane refrigeration cycle.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.312-319
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• 2006

In this study, performance of 2 pure hydrocarbons and 7 mixtures was measured in an attempt to substitute HCFC22 used in air-conditioners and heat pumps. The mixtures were composed of R1270 (propylene), R290 (propane), HFC152a, and RE170 (Dimethyl ether, DME). The pure and mixed refrigerants tested have GWPs of $3{\sim}58$ as compared to that of $CO_2$ and the mixtures are all near-azeotropic showing the gliding temperature difference (GTD) of less than $0.6^{\circ}C$. Thermodynamic cycle analysis was carried out to determine the optimum compositions and actual tests were performed in a laboratory heat pump test bench at the evaporation and condensation temperatures of 7.5 and $45.1^{\circ}C$ respectively. Test results show that the coefficient of performance (COP) of these mixtures is up to 5.7% higher than that of HCFC22. While propane showed 11.5% reduction in capacity, most of the fluids tested had the similar capacity to that of HCFC22. Compressor discharge temperatures were reduced by $11{\sim}17^{\circ}C$ with these fluids. There was no problem with mineral oil since the mixtures were mainly composed of hydrocarbons. The amount of charge was reduced up to 55% as compared to HCFC22. Overall, these fluids provide good performance with reasonable energy savings without any environmental problem and thus can be used as long term alternatives for. residential air-conditioning and heat pumping application.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.463-472
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• 1996

Experiments were carried out to study the operation characteristics of a regenerator with a thermo-syphon pump and a surface-flame burner for a lithium bromide (LiBr)-water absorption heat pump. A cylindrical-shape metal-fiber burner and commercial grade propane were used. The emission of carbon monoxide and nitric oxide was measured by a combustion gas analyzer. Ther regeneration rate of water vapor as a refrigerant was measured. It could be as a reference value showing the performance of the regenerator. The circulation rate of the LiBr-water solution was also measured from both the tanks for the weak-and the strong-solution. Using a refractometer, the LiBr concetration in the solution was calculated from the measured refractory index of the solution. Temperature of the solution and the condensed water was recorded at several points in the experimental apparatus with thermocouples, using a personal computer. This data collecting system for measuring temperature was calibrated with a set of standard thermometers. The generating rate of water vapor as refrigerant increased linearly with heat supplied. It was about 4.0g/s with the heat supplied at a rate of 16,500kcal/h. The circulation rate of LiBr solution also increases with the heat supplied. The difference in LiBr concentrations between the weak and the strong solution was in the range of 1 to 5% when the concentration of the strong solution was about 60%. It was dependent upon both the heat supplied and the circulation rate of the solution. The initial concentration and the level of the LiBr solution in the regenerator were measured and recorded before experiments. The effect of them on the generating rate of water vapor and the circulation rate of the solution was also studied. The generating rate of water vapor was not strongly dependent upon both the level of the LiBr solution and the initial LiBr concentration. However, the concentration difference of the solution increases with the initial level of the LiBr solution.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.226-233
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• 2023

In this study, we compared the performance of several refrigeration cycles using different refrigerants and utilizing the cold heat of liquefied natural gas (LNG) for the liquefaction of carbon dioxide. The final conditions for the liquefied CO₂ were set to -20℃ and 20 bar. The refrigerants used included R404a, ammonia, propane, and propylene using a vapor recompression refrigeration cycle. For the refrigeration cycle, the CO₂ at room temperature and pressure was compressed in a two-stage compression process with an intermediate cooling stage using a refrigeration unit. To compare with the liquefaction process using refrigeration, we compressed the CO₂ to 8 bar in a single compression stage and cooled it to around -50℃ using the cold heat of the LNG before liquefying it. Results showed that using ammonia as the refrigerant required the least amount of compressor power for the liquefaction process, and the heat transfer area of the evaporator was the smallest when using propylene as the refrigerant. Using the cold heat of LNG instead of refrigeration using R404a resulted in approximately 69% less energy consumption.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.47-53
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• 1994

Cycle simulation of the air-conditioner was carried out using a number of candidate alternatives to R22;R32/R125/R134a(30/10/60, by mass percent), R32/R125/R134a(10/70/20), R32/R134a(25/75), R32/R134a(30/70), R32/R125(60/40), R290(propane) and R134a. In this study, we considered only the basic parts of the air-conditioner such as the compressor, the evaporator, the condenser and the capillary tube, for the purpose of analysis. The performance characteristics of alternatives considered here were examined by comparing with the case using R22 at the constant volumetric flow rate condition. The results of our analysis revealed that the use of refrigerant mixtures, R32/R134a(30/70) and R32/R125/R134a(30/10/60), was appropriate for the alternatives to R22 in view of the cooling capacity and the COP. For the case of using R134a and R290, the COP was observed to increase under the same volumetric flow rate condition, but the cooling capacity was substantially decreased. Therefore the use of R134a and R290 should be accompanied with increasing considerably the size of compressor in order to maintain the same cooling capacity of R22.

• International Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.10-17
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• 2001

This study investigated the condensation heat transfer coefficients of R-22, R-290 and R-600a inside horizontal tube. Heat transfer measurements were performed for smooth tube with inside diameter of 10.07 mm and outside diameter of 12.07 mm and inner grooved tube having 75 fins whose height is 0.25 mm. Condensation temperatures and mass velocity were ranged from 308K to 323 K and $51kg/m^2s$ to $250kg/m^2s$, respectively. The test results showed that the local condensation heat transfer coefficients increased as the mass flux increased, and also the effects of mass velocity on heat transfer coefficients of R-290 and R-600a were less than those of R-22. Average condensation heat transfer coefficients of natural refrigerants were superior to that of R-22. The present results had a good agreement with Cavallini-Zecchin's correlation for smooth and inner grooved tubes.