Abstract
A stream analysis model was developed to simulate the behaviour of accumulators and their influence on the automotive air conditioning (AC) systems. It allows a comprehensive steady-state simulation with a set of input conditions such as refrigerant vapour mass flow rate and pressure at the inlet of an accumulator. In this study, the refrigerant/oil mixture is R-134a and PAG oil which are totally miscible, but could be any air conditioning refrigerant/oil, including carbon dioxide (CO2)/oil. The model accounts for all major effects inside the accumulator, such as friction, bends, sudden expansion, sudden contraction and heat exchange. The outputs are vapour quality, pressure and temperature at various locations of accumulator. In order to verify the mathematical model, experiments are performed in an experimental setup made up of real-size automotive air conditioning components. The simulated results agree well with the experimental data. The simulation and experimental results show an important function of accumulators that is to determine the vapour quality into compressor, and thus has influence on the performance of whole automotive AC systems.
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Gu, J., Wang, S., Gan, Z. (2014). Two-Phase Flow in Accumulator. In: Two-Phase Flow in Refrigeration Systems. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8323-6_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8323-6_4
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