Behaviour of ternary blends in heated suction accumulator

The results of an experimental study on the behaviour of azeotropic ternary refrigerant mixtures in heated suction accumulator are presented. The experiment set up was composed of a fully instrumented air‐source heat pump with a capacity of 36 000 BTUH and equipped with a heated suction accumulator. Standard test conditions were used at the condenser inlet; however, the refrigerant temperatures were varied at the evaporator entrance from 2 to −40°C, to simulate various conditions encountered in extreme air‐source heat pump applications. The primary parameters observed during the course of this study were mass flux, heat flux, and quality, evaporator and condenser thermal capacities, and power consumed and pressure ratios for the azeotropic refrigerant mixtures under investigation. The test results showed that heated suction accumulators enhance the evaporation of the more volatile component of ternary azeotropic refrigerant mixtures. Thus, increasing the mixture thermal capacity as well as the coefficient of performance (COP). Furthermore, experiments have also shown capacity increases of 27% with heated accumulator over unheated accumulator at −30°C outside air temperatures. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.