3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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Item Assessing site performance of large mine water chilling machines using refrigerant-circuit measurements and machine modelling(2016-06-08) Bailey-McEwan, MichaelThis thesis contributes to accurate, practicable techniques of ascertaining and assessing site performance of large refrigerating machines chilling water 'for cooling deep South African mines. It applies to all vapourcompression machines cooling fluids in steady, continuous processes. To assess whether a water chilling machine is performing satisfactorily, both its actual performance, and the corresponding normal or optimal performance of which it is capable, must be ascertained. Both requirements r esent difficulties on site. in particular, the traditional "heat balance" method of verifying the apparent performance obtained from measurements in the water circuits does not prove that such performance is accurate. The calibration of typical site instrumentation is not assured, so an "acceptable" heat imbalance may conceal large but similar errors - which thus also balance out - in the apparent constituents of the heat balance. Three methods of independently ascertaining actual performance, so verifying apparent performance, are presented, The first is an enhanced method, applicable to custom-built machines as well as conventional ones, of ascertaining the efficiency of the actual refrigerating process from measurements in the refrigerant circuit. This detects errors concealed in an "acceptable" heat balance. Where some refrigerant-circuit measurements are unavailable, an inexact version of this method still indicates the relative likelihood of the apparent performance being acceptably accurate. The third method, where these two are inadequate, is ascertaining actual performance using available measurements and fundamental machine modelling. Such modelling is also the most versatile method of predicting corresponding normal or optimal performance. A computer program simulating complete mine water chilling installations is used here. Actual performance can then be meaningfully assessed and appropriate remedial action justified, as shown in seven case studies. An outcorr.e for conventional water chillinq machines with a centrifugal compressor is that keeping heat exchangers clean may prejudice efficiency under part-duties lf a machine has been designed for optimum efficiency at full duty. An alternative control philosophy of maximising the machine load may then yield better performance. If these techniques are included ill an automated system of fault diagnosis, they will be of most use to burdened mine staff, who are generally not refrigeration experts.Item Vacuum boiling of water in a steam jet refrigeration system(2014-05-30) Mitchley, Stephen RonaldThis experim ental project aims to describe the influencing factors in the vacuum boiling o f w ater in w ater vapour refrigeration system s Testing was conducted using a 2 kW three-stage steam je t ejector system, w ith barom etric condensers, as the com pression device. Three direct-contact evaporators were used to investigate the boiling phenom ena. T hese were : a through-flow evaporator w here heal and mass transfer rates were established for boiling m echanism s at various positions within the evaporator; a vertical cylinder where small quantities o f w ater were subjected to rapid decom pression and the effects m easured, and a sim ple channel for photographic studies o f the process. Boiling in direct-contact water vapour systems is described herein The vacuum boiling proo ss was found to be controlled by a com bination o f the w ater surface tem perature and the hydrostatic pressure gradient, these being governed by the w ater vapour flow geometry between the w ater surface and ejector suction and convective heat transfer below the boiling region. The contributions o f the various boiling regim es to the total heat transfer are discussed. Heat and mass transfer coefficients and their applicability to evaporator design are presented