Search results for "Thermoeconomic Diagnosis"
showing 6 items of 6 documents
Critical analysis of conventional thermoeconomic approaches to the diagnosis of multiple faults in air conditioning units: Capabilities, drawbacks an…
2013
Abstract Faults diagnosis in air conditioning systems is a crucial activity, since malfunctions may induce heavy degradation of performance. Among the available techniques, thermoeconomic diagnosis has played a marginal role due to the difficulties encountered when applying the methodology to refrigeration plants. In this paper a critical analysis on capabilities and limits of thermoeconomic diagnosis is proposed. The reference plant is a 120 kWc air-cooled air conditioning system; a simulator is used to evaluate thermodynamic data under normal and faulty conditions, setting up “virtual experiments” to simulate each fault. Five malfunctions are imposed, either individually or simultaneously…
On Thermoeconomic Diagnosis of a Fouled Direct Expansion Coil: Effects of Induced Malfunctions on Quantitative Performance of the Diagnostic Technique
2017
Thermoeconomic diagnosis represents a promising technique for the detection of common faults in refrigeration systems, which are responsible of degradation in their energetic performance. Recently, the authors have carried out a sensitivity analysis of the performance of this method to the thermodynamic conditions of inlet air and to the geometry of the direct expansion coil, in case of degradation induced by evaporator fouling. The analysis showed that the method is able to detect this fault, but sometimes its quantitative assessments are not satisfactory. In order to understand more in-depth the origin of such results and identify margins for refinement of the technique, this paper is aim…
SETUP OF VIRTUAL EXPERIMENTS AND CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF CONVENTIONAL THERMOECONOMIC DIAGNOSIS OF MULTIPLE FAULTS IN AIR-CONDENSED ROOFTOP SYSTEMS
2012
The diagnosis of soft faults in vapor compression cooling systems is a crucial activity, since malfunctions may provoke heavy degradation in plant performance and increase the power consumption for space cooling. Among the various Faults Detection and Diagnosis techniques developed over the last two decades, thermoeconomic diagnosis has been playing only a marginal role due to the difficulties encountered when applying the conventional thermoeconomic approaches to vapor compression refrigeration plants. In this paper a critical analysis on capabilities and limits of thermoeconomic diagnosis of refrigeration systems is proposed. The reference plant assumed for this study is a 116 kWc air-con…
Thermoeconomic Diagnosis of Air conditioning Systems: an Innovative Approach for Improved Reliability of the Technique
2018
Thermoeconomic diagnosis is an exergy-based fault detection and diagnosis technique which has been recently extended to air conditioning systems. One of the main features of this technique is to provide quantitative information of the impact of each fault on the increased energy consumption of a system. This information is then used for programming cost-effective maintenance strategies. Only few papers have focused on it and a lot of work is needed for further improvements. In this work, the approach was developed by means of experimental activities carried out on a 17.5 kW packaged rooftop air conditioning unit (RTU). The RTU was tested in psychrometric chambers under a wide range of opera…
Performance maps for an air-cooled air conditioning system as a preliminary instrument for the diagnosis of evaporator fouling
2018
During the past few decades, there has been increased interest in the development of automated approaches for detecting and diagnosing faults in air conditioning systems. One diagnostic approach involves the use of exergy analysis. As a first step towards understanding the application of exergy analysis to diagnostics, this work is focused on the thermodynamic and exergy analysis of a direct expansion air conditioning system used in small commercial building applications. The analysis was carried out by means of experimental activities on a 17.5 kW rooftop unit installed at the Herrick Laboratories, Purdue University, Indiana (USA). The system under investigation was equipped with a variabl…
Thermoeconomic diagnosis of air conditioning systems: experimental assessment of performance for improved reliability
2018
Thermoeconomic diagnosis is an exergy-based fault detection and diagnosis technique which has been recently extended to air conditioning systems. So far, developments of this technique have relied only on simulation data without being evaluated using real data. For the first time, this work aims at assessing the performance of thermoeconomic diagnosis using experimental data obtained from a five-ton packaged rooftop air conditioning unit (RTU) installed at Herrick Laboratories, Purdue University. The RTU was tested in psychrometric chambers under a wide range of operating conditions and fault levels. The following faults were investigated: (i) evaporator fouling, (ii) condenser fouling and …