Unit- 2:

Vapour Compression System

By: Akanksha Mishra

Assistant Professor
Mechanical & Automobile Engg Dept.

Vapor Compression Cycle

It is most widely used in commercial refrigeration. It is
the most practical form of refrigeration.

Cont..
The pressure is maintained at different levels in two parts of
the vapour compression system. The function of the
expansion valve is to allow the liquid refrigerant under high
pressure to pass at a controlled rate into the low pressure part
of the system. The liquid refrigerant absorbs its latent heat of
vaporization from the air, water or other material which is
being cooled. The function of compressor is to increase the
pressure & temperature of the refrigerant above atmospheric
which will be ready to dissipate the latent heat in the
condenser the refrigerant give up the heat which is absorbed
in evaporator plus the heat equivalent of the work done upon
it by compressor, this heat is transferred to the air or water
which is used as cooing medium in condenser. After that liquid
refrigerant goes to the expansion valve and cycle repeats.

Simple Vapour Compression Cycle on T-S

Diagram
Vapour is wet after
compression

Vapour is dry and saturated

at the end of compression

2
3

Vapour is superheated after

compression

Simple vapour compression

cycle on p-h diagram

Vapor
Cycle

Compression

Vapour compression cycle consists

following 4 processes.
Process 1-2: heat absorption in
evaporator at constant pressure.
2-3: isentropic compression.
3-4: heat rejection in condenser at
constant pressure.
4-1: an irreversible adiabatic expansion
through expansion valve i.e. enthalpy
is constant (isenthalpic process).
Refrigerating effect= (h2-h1)
Work done on compressor=(h3-h2)
COP of vapour compression system
is:

h2 h1
COP
h3 h2

Dry Verses Wet Compression

The compression process in
figure
(a)
involves
the
compression of wet refrigerant
vapour at 1 to dry saturated
vapour 2. It is called wet
compression. With a reciprocating
compressor wet compression is
not found suitable due to the
following reason:
(a) liquid refrigerant may be
trapped in the head of cylinder
and may damage the compressor
valves and cylinder itself.

Fig: (a)

Dry Verses Wet Compression

(b) liquid refrigerant droplets may wash away the
lubricating oil from walls of the compressor cylinder, thus
increasing wear.
Therefore it is desirable to have compression with
vapour initially dry saturated at 1 as shown in figure (a)
or even slightly superheated. Such type of compression
process is known as dry compression.
In other words, if the vapour is not superheated after
compression, the operation is called wet compression
and if the vapour is superheated at the end of
compression is known as dry compression.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Vapour

Refrigeration System Over Air Refrigeration
System

Advantages:
High COP. Its COP lies between 3 and 4.
Its running cost is 20% of air refrigeration system.
Required temperature can be achieved by adjusting
the throttle valve.
Disadvantages:
Investment cost is high
Major problem is to prevent leakage of the
refrigerant.

Factor Affecting the Performance of a

Simple Vapour Compression System
1. Effect of suction pressure (or
effect of evaporator pressure):
If suction pressure decrease:
Refrigerating effect is decreased
because (h1-h4)<(h1-h4).
Work required is increased
because (h2-h1)>(h2-h1).
The net effect is to reduce the
refrigerating capacity of the
system and COP .
Decrease in volumetric efficiency,
due to increase in pressure ratio.
Fig: (b)

Cont.
2. Effect of delivery pressure (or
effect of condenser pressure):

If delivery (condenser) pressure

increase:
Refrigerating effect is decreased
because (h1-h4)<(h1-h4).
Work
required
is
increased
because (h2-h1)>(h2-h1).
The net effect is to reduce the
refrigerating capacity of the system
and COP.
Decrease in volumetric efficiency,
due to increase in pressure ratio.
Fig: (c)

Cont.
3. Effect of superheating (or effect
of
superheating of vapour
before compression):

Refrigerating effect increases.

This increase in refrigerating effect
is at the cost of increase in amount
of work spend to attain upper limit.
Increase in work is more as
compared
to
increase
in
refrigerating effect.
Over all effect of the superheating
is to give a low value of COP.
Increase in specific volume of
suction vapour.
Fig: (d)

Cont.
4. Effect of sub cooling of
liquid (or effect of liquid
sub cooling):
Refrigerating effect increases
Work input is same
Overall effect of sub cooling
results in increase in COP

Fig: (e)

Actual Vapour Compression Cycle

Actual cycle differs from the theoretical cycle in several ways

because of the following reasons:
The liquid refrigerant is sub cooled before it is allowed to enter the
expansion valve and usually the gas leaving the evaporator is
superheated a few degrees before it enters the compressor.
Compression is although usually assumed to be in isentropic, may
actually prove to be neither isentropic nor polytropic.
Both the compressor suction and discharge valves are actuated by
pressure difference and this process requires the actual suction
pressure inside the compressor to be slightly below that of the
evaporator and the discharge pressure to be above that of
condenser.
Although isentropic compression assumes no transfer of heat
between the refrigerant and the cylinder walls, yet the cylinder walls
are hotter than the incoming gases from the evaporator and colder
than the compressed gases discharged to be condenser.
Pressure drop in long suction and liquid line piping.

Actual Vapour Compression Cycle

1-2: gain of latent heat of
vaporization
2-3:gain of superheat before
entering to compressor
3-4, 7-8: throttling action
5-6: compression of
refrigerant neither isentropic
nor polytropic
4-5, 6-7: heat transfer at
constant pressure
8-9: removal of superheat
9-10: removal of latent heat
10-11: sub cooling
11-1: expansion
Fig: (f)

Multistage Vapour Compression System

Systems with more than two pressures may arise either due to
multistage viz compound compression to minimize work or due to
feeding of refrigerant to a multistage evaporator.
Multistage compression is employed when low evaporator temperature
are required and when the pressure ratio is high. Refrigerant R22 is
used in a two-stage system up to -50oC and in a three stage system up
to about -65oC.

Flash chamber: Refrigerant vapour is separated from refrigerant

liquid and prevents flow of vapour into the evaporator and allows
liquid refrigerant only to flow through evaporator.

Intercooler: De-superheat the vapour coming out of compression in

multi compression system. Two methods employed for cooling
between stages are water intercooling and flash intercooling with
flash gas removal.

Multistage Vapour Compression System

Advantages of multistage vapour compression system are:
1. Energy saving: in multistage compression work of
compression is reduced due to cooling of gas before being
compressed in succeeding stage.
2. Leakage across piston: pressure difference in single stage is
much more than multistage. So the leakage is much less in
multistage compression.
3. Flywheel size: for multistage the cranks for HP (high
pressure) & LP (low pressure) side may be arranged at
different angles. Hence torque may be made more even
ensuring lighter flywheel due to less fluctuation in energy as
compared to single stage.
4. Size of condenser: size of condenser in multistage is less
than single stage.
Main disadvantage of multistage compression is due to increase
number of parts requiring more initial investment and
maintenance cost.

Flash Gas Removal

Fig: (g)

Flash Gas Removal

In compound compression the throttling expansion
of the liquid may also be done in stages as shown in
fig (g). The liquid refrigerant from the condenser at 6
first expand into a flash chamber to 7 at the
intermediate pressure pi. In flash chamber,
refrigerant vapour is separated from refrigerant
liquid and prevents flow of vapour into the
evaporator so that liquid from the flash chamber at 8
enters the evaporator through another expansion
valve and expands to 9 and the vapour refrigerant
coming from flash chamber(point 3) mixed with the
compressed vapour refrigerant coming from
compressor I at 4 and enters to compressor II.

Flash Gas Intercooler

Fig: (h)

Flash Gas Intercooler

For flash intercooling, the compressed vapours from the
lower stage compressor are led and bubbled through the
liquid in the flash chamber as show in figure (h). The
vapours are thus cooled to the saturation temperature at
the pressure of the flash chamber and a part of the liquid
evaporates which goes to the higher stage along with the
vapour from low stage. Fig (h) shows that the discharge
vapour from the lower stage at 2 are cooled to 3 by the
evaporation of a part of the liquid refrigerant from the
flash chamber. The vapours entering the high stage
compressor II, m2 comprises these vapours in addition to
the vapours m1 from the low stage. flash intercooling
commonly used in multistage ammonia plants.

Two stage compression system with flash

gas removal, water and flash intercooling

It may be noted that a part of the heat of low stage compression can be
removed by water intercooling, in case the discharge Temperature from the
stage is substantially higher than the cooler water temperature.

Limitations of Vapour Compression System for

the Production of Low Temperature
The use of a single refrigerant in a simple vapour
compression of low temperatures is limited by the
following reasons:
Limitation on Solidification temperature of refrigerant.
Extremely low pressure in the evaporator and large
suction volume if a high boiling refrigerant is selected.
Extremely high pressures in the condenser if a low
boiling refrigerant is selected..
Very high pressure ratio, therefore a low cop.
Difficulties encountered in the operation of any
mechanical equipment at very low temperature.

Cascade System
If the vapour compression systems are to
be used for the production of low
temperature, the common alternative to
stage compression is the cascade system
in which a series of refrigerant, with
progressively lower boiling points are used
in as series of single stage units. The
system provides a solution to all the above
problems except last one.

Cascade System
Cascade refrigeration system which is equivalent to two
independent simple vapour compression system combined
together in such a way that the evaporator of the high
temperature system becomes the condenser of the low
temperature system. But the working medium/fluid of the two
systems are separated from each other.

Fig: i

Cascade System Working

Working of cascade system:

Two
refrigeration
cycles
that
use
two
different refrigerants are linked by a heat exchanger.
The lower cycle is colder and it absorbs heat from
the refrigerated space. Lower cycle is called low temperature
cascade system.
The lower cycle rejects heat into the upper cycle through
the heat exchanger.
The upper cycle absorbs heat from the lower cycle through
the heat exchanger. Upper cycle is called high temperature
cascade system.
The upper cycle is hotter and can reject heat to another
reservoir.

Cascade System Working

Two
refrigeration
cycles
that
use
two
different refrigerants are linked by a heat exchanger.
The lower cycle is colder and it absorbs heat from
the refrigerated space. Lower cycle is called low
temperature cascade system.
The lower cycle rejects heat into the upper cycle through
the heat exchanger.
The upper cycle absorbs heat from the lower
cycle through the heat exchanger. Upper cycle is called
high temperature cascade system.
The upper cycle is hotter and can rejectheat to a very hot
reservoir.

Cascade System
intermediate heat exchanger is called a cascade
condenser or heat exchanger.
In cascade system cascade condenser serves as an
evaporator for the high temperature cascade system and
a condenser for the low temperature cascade system.
Each cascade works on a separate refrigerant. Each
refrigerant can be chosen in such a way that it operates
best with in the required narrow temperature limit. The
high temperature cascade uses a high boiling refrigerant
such as NH3 or R-22 where as the low temperature
cascade uses a low boiling refrigerant such as CO2,
ethylene, methane, etc depending on requirement.

Cascade System
COP of cascade system is:

m1 (h1 h4 )
COP
m1 (h2 h1 ) m2 (h6 h5 )
Heat rejected in the low temperature
cascade system = heat absorbed in
high temperature cascade system

i.e.

m1 (h2 h3 ) m2 (h5 h8 )
m1= mass of refrigerant in low
temperature cascade system.
m2= mass of refrigerant in high
temperature cascade system.

Applications and Advantages of Cascade

System
Applications: There are many industrial, medical
applications where very low temperatures are
required such as liquefaction of petroleum vapours,
liquefaction of atmospheric gases, dry ice
manufacture, etc. for example, the blood storage
needs as low as -80oC.
Advantages:
It permits use of two or more different refrients.
As each cycle is separately operating, there is no
difficulty of lubrication.
High COP

THANK YOU