Abstract
Pressure exchanger is a device used to recover energy from high pressure working fluid in systems like Reverse Osmosis water desalination. The pressure exchanger enables the high-pressure fluid to transfer portion of its energy to the low-pressure fluid by transferring the fluid pressure. This working concept can be applied to systems where there is a significant pressure variation of the working fluid along the system. Trans critical CO2 refrigeration system is a good example for significant pressure variation during the flow path. The high-pressure CO2 exiting the condenser can be recovered by the low-pressure CO2 upstream of the compressor using a pressure exchanger to increase the system overall efficiency. The proposed research is to numerically simulate a prototype pressure exchanger for trans critical CO2 refrigeration system. The focus of this study is to understand the thermo-fluid behavior of the system when CO2 is used as the working fluid. Contour plots of velocity and pressure are presented for qualitative analysis.
| Original language | English |
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| Title of host publication | Energy |
| Publisher | American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 9780791859438 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2019 |
| Event | ASME 2019 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition, IMECE 2019 - Salt Lake City, United States Duration: Nov 11 2019 → Nov 14 2019 |
Publication series
| Name | ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition, Proceedings (IMECE) |
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| Volume | 6 |
Conference
| Conference | ASME 2019 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition, IMECE 2019 |
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| Country/Territory | United States |
| City | Salt Lake City |
| Period | 11/11/19 → 11/14/19 |
Funding
A pressure exchanger was modeled and simulated numerically to investigate its applicability as an energy recovery system for CO2 inside a trans critical VC system as a working refrigerant. First, the CFD model was validated against published experimental data and the model showed good agreement with the experimental measurements. The generated results showed the applicability of the PX to be used to recover energy from trans critical CO2 VC system. At the outlets, a uniform outlet velocity magnitude has been observed except for local areas on one side of the outlet ports. As a next step, the both the analytical and CFD models will be expanded and experiments will be conducted to explore the full potential of the technology. As a next step, the both the analytical and CFD models will be expanded and experiments will be conducted to explore the full potential of the technology. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Building Technologies Office (BTO). The authors wish to acknowledge Antonio Bouza, program manager, for funding and facilitating the project.