Conference Year
2018
Keywords
Heat pump, vapor injection, variable speed, experimental, control
Abstract
The market share of heat pump systems has grown significantly in Europe in the past decades and, in residential applications, air-source heat pumps (ASHP) are usually considered due to their relatively low cost. In the literature, it has been widely demonstrated that injection cycle can improve the system performance and operating range. This paper presents experimental results of an air-to-water residential heat pump using a variable speed scroll compressor with vapor injection. The first part of the paper focuses on the experimental results collected from a vapor injection and variable speed scroll compressor air-to-water residential heat pump. The unit is a 10 kW residential system working with R410a as working fluid and capable of providing floor heating and domestic hot water. It was tested in a controlled environment in order to achieve a wide range of outdoor and indoor conditions. The impact on the system performance of the vapor superheat degrees at both injection and suction ports is discussed. It is shown that a better control of these variables could improve the system COP and heating capacity by respectively 10 and 15%. It is also shown that the control of the superheat degrees is a coupled problem and the use of standard gain-scheduled SISO PIDs is not optimal. The second part of this paper presents a model of the system. Finite-volume models are used for the heat exchangers and the split lines. A thermodynamic model of the vapor injection scroll compressor is developed using empirical correlations for the volumetric efficiency, isentropic efficiency and the ratio between the injection and suction mass flow rates. A simple model is proposed for the four-way valve. Finally, a static decoupler-based controller is presented in order to take into account the coupling between both superheat degrees and shows increased performances compared to the SISO PID controller.