Absorber performance of a water/lithium–bromide absorption chiller

An absorber is one of the most important components of a lithium–bromide absorption chiller (LBAC) as its absorbing characteristics directly influence the performance of the whole chiller. It has been indicated that the absorbing efficiency and cooling capacity could be improved by increasing the solution concentration. In this paper, based on the mechanism of falling film absorption on horizontal tubes, the theoretical models of falling film absorption on horizontal tubes have been established. A series of programs used for computing the theoretical mathematical models, including simulation of LBAC cycle and falling film absorption, have been programmed. The models have been validated reasonably by the experimental data. The results show that the cooling capacity of the LBAC varies in parabola shape of curve with the solution concentration from 52.5% to 58.5%, and that the best coefficient of performance (COP) occurs at concentration of 57%. The investigation proposes the absorbing process of sub-steady thermodynamic equilibrium for the duality solution under increase absorbing pressure.