An environmentally friendly GAX cycle for panel heating: PGAX cycle

The objectives of this paper are to develop an environmentally friendly GAX cycle using NH₃–H₂O for panel heating applications (PGAX), and compare it to a single effect cycle for panel heating applications (PSE cycle). The PGAX cycle can be operated in three different modes with just one hardware — cooling, space heating and panel heating applications. The total COP of the PGAX cycle is higher than that of the PSE cycle due to the internal heat recovery in the GAX component. The UA ratio has more significant effect on the total COP of the PGAX cycle than that of the PSE cycle. The panel heating COP is more significantly affected by the absorber UA variation than the space heating COP. There should be optimum ratios of absorber UAs to provide the highest total COP for a given split ratio of the coolant mass flow rate in the PGAX cycle. The results from the parametric analysis of UA ratio can be used to obtain the best UA combination of the absorbers for given space heating and panel heating capacities. This paper provides the optimum UA values of the absorbers for a given split ratio of the coolant mass flow rate.