Lab Facilities

Lab Facilities
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Overview of Experimental Facilities:

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Dedicated test facilities for the simultaneous testing of large scale absorption heat and mass transfer, two-phase heat transfer, CO₂ heat pump system, lithium bromide absorption and microchannel condensation.

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•General purpose lab facilities including:

	Individually controlled steam and chilled water stations
	Dedicated 47 ton chiller unit
	Air handling unit for testing air coupled heat exchangers under controlled conditions.
	Environmental chambers for testing various equipment in controlled conditions.
	Low temperature chiller
	High speed video camera for flow visualization

•Multiple computerized data acquisition system and PC setups capable of recording and analyzing temperature, pressure, flow rate and other inputs.

•Assortment of power and hand tools for system fabrication and modification.

•High-accuracy Coriolis and magnetic flowmeters, absolute and differential pressure transducers, thermocouples, RTDs, etc.

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•Safety systems such as dedicated exhaust and ventilations systems.

Laboratory General Purpose Facilities
	These individually controlled steam and chilled water stations supply the heat source and sink for all the experiments in the lab
	This air handler can be operated in full outdoor, full recirculation, or a blend mode for air flow rates of up to 5000 cfm. Preheating (steam) and pre-cooling (chilled brine) coils provide desired hot or cold air-side temperatures to the test geometries downstream
	This dedicated chiller for the lab serves as the general purpose heat sink for all experiments, can provide cooling down to -20^oF, and has a 47 refrigeration ton cooling capacity.
	These three controlled environment chambers allow testing of heat pump components and overall systems over a wide range of ambient temperatures, including simulation of heating and cooling mode ambient and indoor conditions.
	This custom-designed low temperature water-cooled chiller manufactured by MYDAX, Inc. uses a two-Stage, 25 HP R-507 compressor to provide cooling down to –55^oC, with a temperature stability of ±0.5°C. The nominal cooling capacity is 7 kW (24000 BTU/hr) @ -50°C, and 21 kW (72000 BTU/hr) @ -30°C. Dow Syltherm HF fluid is used as the heat transfer medium at the desired flow rate between the chiller and the test facility. It is used to supply extreme working conditions for low temperature research.
	This Photron high resolution, high-speed video camera is used for flow visualization studies. The Fastcam Ultima 1024 utilizes a CMOS sensor with 1024x1024 pixel resolution that provides exceptionally clear images, very good resistance to blooming, and electronic shutter speeds up to 1/128,000 sec, 7.8 microseconds. Images can be captured in full color at frame rates of 500 frames/sec, and up to 16,000 frames/sec lower resolutions

Dedicated Test Facilities:

Large Scale Absorption Heat and Mass Transfer Test Facility
	This facility is used for system-level and component level studies on ammonia-water absorption, desorption, condensation, evaporation and other binary-fluid heat and mass transfer processes, with simultaneous flow visualization. Ammonia-water concentrations investigated span 5-50%, over the expected range of operating conditions for single-effect, double-effect and GAX cycles.

Two-phase Heat Transfer Test Facility

This facility is used for flow visualization, heat transfer and pressure drop experiments during phase-change and supercritical flow of refrigerants and blends. The steam heated test facility is equipped with two Coriolis mass flowmeters (for the working fluid and the test section cooling fluid), and magnetic flowmeters for pre- and post-condensers. Carefully controlled experiments have yielded energy balances within 1%.

Microchannel Condensation Test Facility

This microscale two-phase flow facility is used for phase-change heat transfer and pressure drop measurements in refrigerants over a wide range of saturation pressures. Typical channel sizes that are being tested currently are in the range 100 mm < D_h < 400 mm. Experiments are conducted in small increments of quality to map the influence of quality, mass flux, pressure and geometry and fluid properties on heat transfer and pressure drop.

Lithium Bromide Absorption Test Facility

This facility is used to conduct heat and mass transfer experiments on wavy falling films of LiBr/water solution during absorption of water vapor. Carefully controlled experiments are conducted to obtain one-of-a-kind measurement of absorption heat and mass transfer coefficients at the local film and droplet level, in addition to the tube and component level. A dedicated non-condensable purge system allows operating pressures to be maintained at the high vacuum conditions necessary for representative operation.

CO₂ Heat Pump Test Facility

This test facility is used for the development of an integrated natural refrigerant CO₂ system that can serve as a chiller, air-conditioner, heat pump, and water heater with heating capacities in the ~10 kW range. The breadboard type set up allows testing of a variety of different microchannel components such as gas coolers, evaporators, and suction line heat exchangers, in addition to compressors and other components.