Performance testing of a novel ejector refrigerator for various controlled conditions

The paper presents the experimental results of a novel ejector refrigerator that was designed to be suitable for an air‐conditioning application using vacuum tube solar collectors for vapour generation. The primary flow of the ejector is controlled using a spindle in order to provide fine tuning for ejector operation as heat input changes with solar radiation. Water, the most environmentally friendly substance is used as the working fluid. The performance of the ejector was tested for a range of controlled primary flows, boiler temperatures, condensation capacities using different primary nozzles with different lengths. The effect of the operating conditions and nozzle length on the performance of the ejector was analyzed. It was found that in the tested boiler temperature range of 84–96°C the maximum cooling capacity (4.01 kW) of the ejector with short nozzle is much higher than that of the ejector with long nozzle (2.9 kW) on the spindle position of 21 mm. However, the ejector with long nozzle has increased COP when the boiler temperature is below 88°C and has higher critical back pressure. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.