STUDY OF HEAT PIPE BASED AUTOMOBILE AIR CONDITIONING SYSTEM

Mechanical Engineering

A heat pipe is a heat-transfer device which is used for the efficient transfer of heat between two solid interfaces. The refrigerant currently used in refrigeration industry has significant impact on the environment. Therefore, it is unmet need to come up with alternatives having less or no adverse impact on environment. Vapour absorption system is one of the alternative with zero impact on the GWP (Global warming potential) and ODP(Ozone depletion potential) when water and ammonia is used as refrigerant. Although vapours absorption refrigeration system has less COP (Coefficient of Performance) than vapour compression refrigeration system but it has advantage of utilizing the waste heat from the exhaust gases of automobile. This reduces the heat loss of the engine with no further power required to run the system in comparison to the VCRS (Vapour compression refrigeration system) which needs the mechanical power to run the compressor of the refrigeration system. The vapour absorption system needs bigger setup and more time in order to be effective as VCRS system. This limitation of vapour absorption system can be overcome by incorporating heat pipe along with the evaporator in the air conditioning system. It reduces the load on evaporator hence less amount of NH3 need to be circulated through the system. In nutshell use of vapour absorption system in combination with heat pipes can serve as next generation refrigeration technology for automobile with no detrimental effect on the environment. Heat pipe increases the dehumidification of air and heating of downstream air of evaporator without the loss of any mechanical power generated by the Engine. Therefore, output can be utilized to run the vehicle and engine components.Heat pipe reduce the air temperature by 5oF to 20o F before it enters the cooling coil (evaporator) and heat the downstream air of the evaporator by 5oF to 20o F. It results in increased dehumidification of the air and further heating result in increased in human comfort without increasing the flow of refrigerant through the system (evaporator coil). Hence heat pipe may substantial reduce the system size with increase effectiveness of the air conditioning system, though with low COP of vapour absorption refrigeration system. In the current review we summaries the working, components and advantages of heat pipe vapour absorption system.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.