Analysis of a Direct Current Compressor for Solar Cooler

Abstract

Refrigeration systems have higher electricity consumption ratio in overall energy consumption especially in household utilization. On the other hand, these systems have an advantage of being powered by renewable energy sources such as solar or solar-wind hybrid systems because of their lower power demand. Since the efficiency improvement of refrigeration systems is crucial for domestic and industrial systems in the present study, solar energy powered compressor for vapour compression refrigeration systems have been investigated. Compressor is the most important part and often the costliest component of any refrigerant system. There are two different options for powering the compressor such as alternative current (AC) and direct current (DC).For that reason, this study focused on thermal analysis of critical component inside the novel DC compressor. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis has been realized to figure out the heat transfer mechanism inside the compressor components and also thermodynamics efficiency. Temperature distribution in the compressor during the operation was presented and the component of the compressor position re-designed with resulted parameter and discussed affects of the volumetric efficiency.Furthermore, in this study, experimental performance analysis of the novel DC type refrigeration compressor implemented in a 50 l refrigerator to show its cooling performance and compare well known DC compressor in the market. Energy usage reduction and operational improvement potential of the solar powered DC compressor via variable speed operation were investigated. The comparison showed that variable speed operation of the novel DC compressor can be much more efficient than constant speed operation.