Performance evaluation and energy-saving potential comparison of a heat-powered novel compression-enhanced ejector refrigeration cycle with an economizer

In this paper, a novel compression-enhanced ejector refrigeration cycle with an economizer (CERCE) is proposed for the first time to further reduce the electric consumption of conventional compression ejection refrigeration cycle (CERC). A model is developed and validated to study the cycle. The proposed cycle (CERCE) is analyzed and compared with conventional compression-ejection cycle (CERC) based on COP and global COP (COPg). In the studied temperature ranges, the COP and COPg of CERCE are always higher than those of CERC. The maximum COP and COPg for CERCE (6.30, 2.40) are 21.95% and 5.48% higher than those of CERC (5.17, 2.27) respectively, which demonstrates the excellent energy-saving potential of CERCE and proves that CERCE can improve energy performance. Analysis shows that the improvement is mainly caused by the decrease in compressor mass flow rate, while the decrease in secondary flow rate and the increase in entrainment ratio also have positive but very slight effects. Based on COP, optimized operating parameters for both cycles are obtained as T-g = 75 degrees C and T-m = 7 degrees C. Based on COPg, the optimized operating parameters are T-g = 55 degrees C and T-m = 26 degrees C. These results provide direction for experimental study and practical operation. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.