Building thermal load management through integration of solar assisted absorption and desiccant air conditioning systems: A model-based simulation-optimization approach

Performance of standalone air-conditioning systems is affected while simultaneously handling both sensible and latent building loads. Model-based simulation and optimization is one of the best ways to analyze system's performance under load fluctuations at the initial design stages. Therefore, in the current study, seasonal transient simulations of an Integrated Absorption Desiccant System are carried out using TRNSYS to handle sensible (10.94 kW peak) and latent (4.44 kW peak) cooling load separately. Radiant cooling with chilled water from an absorption chiller mainly handles sensible cooling load, while the latent load is achieved by a solid desiccant dehumidification system. Initially, key components of the system are modeled in TRNSYS including a flat plate solar collector system, desiccant wheel, heat recovery wheel, and absorption chiller. Afterwards, the integrated model is coupled with GenOpt to optimize the solar fraction and thermal coefficient of performance by varying collector area, flow rate in the collector loop, flow rate in load side loop, and volume of storage tank. The resulted optimized value of solar fraction is 57.50%, and COPth is 0.55 for standalone absorption system, whereas the solar fraction of 56.20%, COPth of 1.52 are achieved for IADS. In addition, the effects of load variation in terms of sensible to latent load ratio on regeneration heat required for both IADS and conventional desiccant system are also analyzed. A critical value of load ratio of 0.75 is also observed in terms of heat regeneration requirements to compare the both systems. The proposed approach and analysis will be very helpful for HVAC designers for optimal system performance through separate load handling, especially at the initial design stage.