Development and evaluation of an automotive air-conditioning test rig

Abstract

To evaluate an air-conditioning system performance on board of a car is quite cumbersome and tedious process due to the limitation of space in the engine compartment. This paper presents the process of designing and the result from the automotive refrigeration system simulation that have been integrated into the test rig. To perform the test on automotive refrigeration simulator the location for the temperature measurement selected and thermocouples were installed. The locations of the temperature probes are at the inlet and outlet of compressor, condenser outlet and the inlet of the evaporator. The gas pressure was measured at low and high pressure sides located at evaporator outlet and receiver-drier respectively. The test results were analyzed using the properties table of the refrigerant used. The coefficient of performance (COP), cooling load of the system and compressor power consumption were determined. The variable parameters used are the evaporator blower speed and the air velocity passes through the condenser. The experimental results obtained show that increasing the blower speed will reduce the COP of the refrigeration system. The maximum COP of the system is 4.3 at the lowest evaporator blower speed. The power consumption will be reduced when the air flow velocity through the condenser is varied from 0 to 70 km/hr respectively.