In the present study, adsorbent bed of an adsorption chiller with finned flat-tube heat exchanger has been simulated three dimensionally based on the heat and mass transfer model with finite volume method. To examine the inter-particle mass transfer resistance effects on the system performance parameters, two different configurations of adsorbent bed including rectangular and trapezoidal fins with identical length and adsorbent mass have been considered and the effects of bed length on the system performance for different fin height and fin pitch have been studied. Moreover, effects of bed length for different particle diameters and also heating source temperatures have been investigated. Results indicated that increasing of bed length (or in the other words increasing of inter-particle resistance) increases and decreases cycle time and specific cooling power, respectively, yet the coefficient of performance is not influenced. Also, increasing bed length reduces the difference between specific cooling power of rectangular and trapezoidal beds if there is any. Moreover it is clear that optimum particles size increase with bed length increase. Finally, it is shown that effect of higher heating fluid temperature on specific cooling power improvement for beds with smaller length is more significant than those with longer length.

Keywords: Adsorption chiller, Adsorbent bed, Inter-particle resistance, Numerical Modeling

Full-Text [PDF 1337 kb]   (5507 Downloads)