Numerical Simulation of Ammonia-Water Solution Based Heat Absorber

Abstract

This article provides an insight into the numerical simulation of an ammonia-water solution-based plate heat absorber, which is a crucial part of an absorption chiller. These chillers could be used as part of a stratified chilled-water storage tank configuration for coupling to a small modular reactor. The common approach utilized in the process of designing the chiller is to call the absorber a "black box" without considering the processes inside. It follows that the resulting design must be highly oversized to ensure reliable operation of the system. This article focuses on the obstacles that needs to be overcome in order to simulate the processes inside the absorber, such as stream breakup into separate droplets or absorption of ammonia. Unfortunately, we do not have any experimental data we could use to validate our simulations and thus this article should be looked at as a "proof of concept" and a possible guideline for simulations of similar phenomenon.