The application of gas ejector for road transport air conditioning system

Abstract

The depletion of fossil fuel supply requires fuel and energy saving in energy utilization system. Therefore, these required the development of new and efficient technologies as to reduce fuel consumption especially in air conditioning of road vehicles. Currently, the air conditioning for road vehicles uses vapor compression system. Although the vapor compression system has high COP, the compressor is driven by vehicle engines, which take additional fuel consumption when the air conditioning system is in operation. In this study, the waste heat of radiator drives the ejector refrigeration for air conditioning. Although the ejector refrigeration system has low COP, the use of heat driven air conditioning will reduce the fuel consumption as compared with conventional system. This is because the systems do not use the mechanical engine load. The analysis of this study is based on the ejector refrigeration system using natural refrigerant (isobutene). The evaporation temperature is 10°C, condensation temperature is 35°C, generator temperature is 90°C with ejector isentropic efficiency of 0.7, and the COP system is 0.25. The heat released by the radiator of typical small road vehicles is between 60 to 100 kW and if the generator absorbs 20% of the heat, the heat contained in the generator is 12 to 20 kW. When the ejector air conditioning system has a COP 0.25, it will generate cooling capacity between 3 to 5 kW, compared with the conventional air conditioning of similar vehicles, which is approximately 2 to 4.4 kW.