A Rotary Air-cycle Refrigerator With Thermally-active Liquid Pistons

This report summarizes the results from an investigation into the feasibility of a novel Ericsson-cycle refrigeration machine. The work included construction of a thermodynamic simulation model, together with supporting loss modeling, building and testing a breadboard (proof-of-concept) unit for code validation, and estimation of an optimized unit at 50 ton capacity. The breadboard unit was built and run, and the simulation code has been completed and exercised against the breadboard testing. Order-of-magnitude agreement with thermodynamic model predictions was achieved and loss models match very well with recorded test measures. The optimized unit for 50 tons is described in size and performance potential. Performance of the optimized unit is competitive, with a predicted C.O.P. of 3.2 at the rating point of 130/spl deg/F and 45/spl deg/F. Package & cost are also similar. This work has been sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy under the 1989 Small Business Innovative Research program, contract DE-AC01 -89 ER80825.