Design and Fabrication of Five Ton Solar Based Absorption Chiller

Nowadays, the demand for cooling load increases day by day to fulfil this demand. Using a product whose input cost is meagre while the output is too much is necessary. There are multiple sources of energy before the environmental report. The world uses waste gas-fired Absorption chiller, but the sou

Project Title

Design and Fabrication of Five Ton Solar Based Absorption Chiller

Project Area of Specialization

Mechanical Engineering

Project Summary

Nowadays, the demand for cooling load increases day by day to fulfil this demand. Using a product whose input cost is meagre while the output is too much is necessary. There are multiple sources of energy before the environmental report. The world uses waste gas-fired Absorption chiller, but the source is expensive after a decade of years. So researchers go with the renewable part of the energy, which is solar. Which is relatively inexpensive, but the installation cost is very high. This project has multiple advantages, including input cost, environmental effects, unlimited usage during daylight, Etc. One of the problems or challenges we see with the cooling systems is that the capital investment is very high. While designing its responsibility, too much focuses on capital investment while choosing material and too little focused on the system's running cost.

The vapour absorption refrigeration system usually uses NH3 as a refrigerant and water as an absorber for the refrigeration process, and it also needs solar energy in the refrigeration process so this vapour absorption refrigeration system can be also termed an ammonia water cooling system.

Now let's take a look at the primary parts and components and the essential operation of a solar-powered vapour absorption refrigeration system first of all here In this Chiller, it has the most needful component for the absorber is the Absorber Tank inside this tank solution of NH3 and water and Solution Pump.

Project Objectives

The project is divided into 2 fronts. For the first part of the project, the existing absorption chiller unit present at IME needs to be repaired and restored to working order, so that the generator of the chiller can be modified and tested with solar powered mode and the calculations can be verified.

While the second part of the project includes the design of the complete absorption system having a 5 TOR capacity, which would be dual fired, meaning the mode of input to the generator will be gas as well as solar. Also, a molten salt bed needs to be designed for storing excess solar energy to be used in the times when sun is not available. It also includes the calculations of solar collector requirements.

Since the 5-ton absorption chiller unit was in an adverse condition, arrangements were made to restore it to working conditions. The chiller was under heavy utilization before it was decommissioned and the components of the chiller unit were made up of carbon steel, therefore there was a high chance of material deterioration and corrosion, which could have resulted in pin-holes and leakages throughout the components of the chiller. The first step in the restoration of the chiller was identifying and locating the leakages that were present in the components.

For leakage detection, nitrogen gas was used with the pressure, being increased gradually up to 10 bar. The reason for going with nitrogen is large because of its inert nature. Because the chiller was in industrial use earlier, the ammonia might have still been stuck inside the components and pipes, therefore nitrogen was used to make sure no chemical reaction would occur while testing. For the detection of leakages, foam of soap was applied all over the chiller unit, which would have given bubbles at the area of leakage. After leakage detection, argon welding was utilized to shut the leakages. For the bigger sized holes, cut out parts of carbon steel pipes were welded on the openings to increase the strength as well as maintain the heat transferability of the heat exchangers.

Ammonia charging points were then installed in the absorption chiller for the easy to access refilling of ammonia. For the design side of the project, the calculations were done for the dual fired generator and a 3d model was designed in CAD software.

Project Implementation Method

Because it is a renewable project so it's quite easy to implement this project because there are a lot of benefits to this project but for its implementation, we will establish a website and social pages through which we can engage our customers.

Benefits of the Project

One of the largest benefits of this unit in our project we can easily achieve somewhat in minus celsius which is quite low and this unit can be used in Schools, offices, markets etc.

On the other hand leakage detection is not a problem if in case ammonia will leak then easily deducted due to its smell. Most importantly it was the fact that the chiller unit was air-cooled. Taking into consideration the amount of water that has to be arranged and allocated to the dedicated cooling systems of the large-scale absorption systems, it would have been a hassle as well as a liability to use water in the condenser of the absorption chiller. Hence, the idea of an air-cooled condenser was inspired by this chiller and incorporated into our project.

Technical Details of Final Deliverable

After calculation work, our goal is to fabricate the Generator tank and InshaAllah we will achieve this task in near September insha'Allah.

Final Deliverable of the Project

Hardware System

Core Industry

Energy

Other Industries

Others

Core Technology

Others

Other Technologies

Clean Tech

Sustainable Development Goals

Affordable and Clean Energy

Required Resources

If you need this project, please contact me on contact@adikhanofficial.com