Dynamic modeling and simulation of a double-effect absorption heat pump

Abstract

This paper presents a new dynamic model to study the transient thermochemical behavior of a double-effect absorption heat pump (DEAHP). It has been designed according to the experience with an experimental DEAHP totally integrated into a solar-assisted multi-effect distillation (MED) plant set up at CIEMAT – Plataforma Solar de Almería (PSA). The non-linear first-principles model was implemented using the equation-based object-oriented Modelica modeling language and is based on a mathematical formulation that describes the main heat and mass transfer phenomena in this kind of facilities. A modular and hierarchical modeling methodology has allowed a graphical modeling development. Submodels that wrap the different physical phenomena are interconnected between them, thus making a three level deep hierarchy. All the submodels have been calibrated and validated with experimental data. The numerical predictions show a good agreement with measured data.