Performance investigation of automobile waste heat recovery system for ejector refrigeration cycle

In order to develop the ejector refrigeration systems (ERS) driven by waste heat of automobile, it is necessary to systematically investigate the potential waste heat recovery from automobile. In this paper, a performance analysis by the theoretical approach to evaluate and predict the heat recovery process is conducted. And a heat pipe heat exchanger (HPHE) based recovery experimental platform is built to validate the theoretical results. The results show that the proposed model can reflect the system performance with the maximum relative error less than ±8% under variable engine conditions. Furthermore, series of analyses are conducted to evaluate the effect of the HPHE arrangements on recovery system performance. It is shown that the enhanced recovery system performance can be achieved by cross HPHE arrangement.