Dynamic simulation study on regulation characteristics of transcritical CO2 multi-ejector refrigeration system

Abstract

This paper presents a dynamic model of transcritical CO2 refrigeration system with multi-ejector which is developed based on the real CO2 properties and considering the internal transonic flow, phase change and choking, and its predictions are in good agreement with experimental data from the literature. The transient response of the system is studied by adjusting the speed of compressor, water flow of heat exchanger, opening of expansion valve and combination of ejector as disturbance conditions. The presented results show that the developed dynamic model has similar response rules with the same type of system. Changes of cooling water flow of gas cooler and chilled water flow of flooded evaporator can cause significant response of other pressures in the system except low-temperature evaporator, and can regulate the cooling and heating load to some extent. Opening of medium and low temperature expansion valve plays a decisive role in the system's medium and low temperature refrigeration capacity respectively, and the low-temperature expansion valve is the only regulation means of the low-temperature cooling capacity. Optimal operating combination of multi-ejector maximizes the system performance and ejector pressure lift ratio. Furthermore, the optimal ejector combination of the system under the refrigeration capacity of 75∼115 kW is studied and compared, a control strategy of adjusting ejector combination by "nozzle mass flow rate" is put forward to adapt to the high-performance operation of the system under different loads. Under the research conditions, the optimal ejector combination satisfies that the nozzle mass flow rate is stable in 0.066∼0.070 kg·s-1.