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Heat Pump Lab Essay

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MECHANICAL ENGINEERING 449 SENIOR LAB

Test of a Heat Pump

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Executive Summary:

The purpose of this experiment was to determine the performance values of a Hylton Air and Water Heat Pump System. The system uses refrigerant 134a and water as the working fluids. The power input of the system was measured. The rate of heat output and the coefficient of performance are to be determined. A sketch of the vapor-compression cycle on a pressure-enthalpy diagram is also to be presented.
In order to perform this analysis the temperatures at the inlet and outlet of the condenser and evaporator were measured for …show more content…

The energy balances are to be verified over the condenser and evaporator. The efficiency of the compressor is to be determined. Lastly, an energy balance of the compressor is to be performed.

Apparatus:

Figure 1 depicts the cycle used in this experiment and its individual control volumes. The system uses water and refrigerant 134-a as the working fluids. The cycle operates between two different pressures, the high pressure of the condenser and the low pressure of the evaporator. The condenser is used to remove sufficient energy from the refrigerant to transform it completely into liquid. The evaporator is used to vaporize the refrigerant by adding energy supplied by the warm water. The throttling valve serves the purpose of reducing the pressure of the refrigerant resulting in isenthalpic expansion. The compressor supplies energy to the refrigerant, and under ideal conditions works in a quasistatic adiabatic manner.

Figure 1: Schematic of Heat Pump Cycle

Figure 2 depicts the Hylton Air and Water Heat Pump Systems used for this experiment. Viewing Figure 2, the incoming cold water splits into two separate lines. One line heads towards the evaporator and the other line heads towards the condenser. The flow rate of each line is measured as seen right after t5 for the condenser and t8 for the evaporator. The water line heading to the condenser is first routed through the compressor for

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