A new simulation approach of air source heat pump adopting the holistic process distributed parameter method and hybrid PID-bisection control algorithm

Air source heat pump (ASHP) faces problems of performance deterioration when operating at low ambient temperature due to the low compression ratio, high discharge temperature, frost accumulation, etc., and may even become nonfunctional at sub-zero-centigrade ambient temperature, requiring attention and tools for studying. This paper proposed a kind of holistic process distributed parameter simulation approach of ASHP system adopting the hybrid PID-bisection (PID: proportional-integral-derivative) control algorithm. Main components of the ASHP are modeled with the distributed parameter method. An adiabatic compression model of two-phase fluid based on thermodynamics is proposed. The PID-bisection control algorithm and variable speed integral PID & bisection control algorithm are proposed and applied to iterative computation of the model. A single/two-stage compression ASHP with an intercooler is simulated by this approach. The average deviation of simulation results of the model from experimental data is not more than 7 %, and the maximum deviation is not more than 18 %. For simulation of single-stage compression mode, the maximum error is not more than 4%. For simulation of two-stage compression mode under low-evaporating-temperature operating conditions, the maximum error is not more than 4%. Computational speed of the ASHP model is significantly improved by using the PID-bisection control algorithm, and could be further accelerated by using the variable speed integral PID & bisection control algorithm. The proposed simulation approach is not only effective in sophisticated simulation of performance of single-stage and two-stage compression ASHP, but also potential for research on the optimization of the ASHP in cold regions.