HEAT AND MASS TRANSFER ANALYSIS OF BUBBLE ABSORBERS IN AMMONIA-WATER GENERATOR-ABSORBER HEAT EXCHANGE (GAX) VAPOR ABSORPTION REFRIGERATION SYSTEM

Various methods of energy recovery have been employed in vapour absorption refrigeration (VAR) systems to improve their performance and compactness. Generator absorber heat exchange (GAX) is one such method. The absorbers, namely, water cooled absorber (WCA) is the heat rejection component, solution cooled absorber (SCA) and generator cooled absorber (GCA) are the heat recovery components in the GAX-VAR system. The present work deals with the analysis of all these three absorbers which are bubble type plate heat exchangers. Mass, material and heat balance, and heat and mass transfer equations are solved to estimate number of plates required for each absorber. The importance of the work lies in attempting epsilon-NTU method for the design of absorbers, use of bubble type plate heat exchangers, simultaneous design and comparative analysis of all three absorbers.