A Study of Optimal Refrigerant Charge Amount Determination for Air-Conditioning Heat Pump System in Electric Vehicles

Kang Li, Jun Yu, Mingkang Liu, Dan Xu, Lin Su and Yidong Fang
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Kang Li: School of Energy and Power Engineering, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093, China
Jun Yu: School of Energy and Power Engineering, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093, China
Mingkang Liu: School of Energy and Power Engineering, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093, China
Dan Xu: School of Energy and Power Engineering, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093, China
Lin Su: School of Energy and Power Engineering, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093, China
Yidong Fang: School of Energy and Power Engineering, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093, China

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 3, 1-18

Abstract: With regard to concerns about an electric vehicle’s driving range extension in a cold climate, an air-conditioning heat pump (ACHP) shows considerable advantage over thermoelectric heaters for battery energy conservation. The effect of refrigerant charge amount for cooling and heating performance of the ACHP system is significant. The optimal charge, realizing the optimal system performance, is usually determined by experiments of cooling and heating performance. In this paper, the optimal charge determination process based on a newly designed ACHP applied in electric vehicles was introduced. Relationships of characteristics with charge in two modes were investigated by experimental and theoretical methods. Firstly, the performance of the ACHP system was respectively investigated at different charge amounts in cooling and heating operating conditions according to key parameters of system cycles. Secondly, the intersection platforms of subcooling and superheat variation curves with refrigerant charge amount were obtained for determining optimal charge amount of the system further by comprehensive analysis. Finally, the theoretical calculation of charge with three instructive and classical void friction correlation models were applied for better comparisons. It was found that charge amount calculated by the Hughmark model proved to be most consistent with the comprehensive experimental results.

Keywords: cooling and heating performance; optimum refrigerant charge; charge determination modelling; void fraction correlation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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