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Ejector as a work recovery device offers potential for developing energy efficient heating and cooling systems based on vapor compression technology. For applications like automobile air conditioning, the operating conditions vary significantly which can lead to considerable performance degradation when the system is operated in off-design conditions. Therefore, system designing warrants development of accurate ejector performance models for a wide range of operating conditions. In this paper, a novel methodology for ejector performance maps is proposed using ejector efficiency as performance parameter and volumetric entrainment ratio as characterization parameter. The proposed performance map is developed after conducting experiments to find appropriate performance representation where ejector driven flow can be characterized using ejector motive flow. The developed performance map can predict ejector pressure lift within an accuracy of 20% using an iterative solver.

This paper presents a simulation model for a reversible air conditioning and heat pump system for electric vehicles. The system contains a variable speed compressor, three microchannel heat exchangers, an accumulator, and two electronic expansion valves. Heat exchangers are solved by discretizing into cells. Compressor and accumulator models are developed by fitting data with physical insights. Expansion valves are modeled by isenthalpic processes. System performance is calculated by connecting all parts in the same way as the physical system and solved iteratively. The model is reasonably validated against experimental data from a separate experimental study. Future improvement is needed to take into account maldistribution in outdoor heat exchanger working as an evaporator in HP mode. Charge retention in components also requires further study.

As the cost and complexity of modern aircraft systems increases, emphasis has been placed on model-based design as a means for reducing development cost and optimizing performance. To facilitate this, an appropriate modeling environment is required that allows developers to rapidly explore a wider design space than can cost effectively be considered through hardware construction and testing. This wide design space can then yield solutions that are far more energy efficient than previous generation designs. In addition, non-intuitive cross-coupled subsystem behavior can also be explored to ensure integrated system stability prior to hardware fabrication and testing. In recent years, optimization of control strategies between coupled subsystems has necessitated the understanding of the integrated system dynamics.

An IPTMS hardware facility has been established in the laboratories of the Aerospace Systems Directorate of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) at Wright-Paterson Air Force Base (WPAFB). This hardware capability was established to analyze the transient behavior of a high power Electrical Power System (EPS) coupled virtually to a Thermal Management System (TMS) under fast dynamic loading conditions. The system incorporates the use of dynamic electrical load, engine emulation, energy storage, and emulated thermal loads operated to investigate dynamics under step load conditions. Hardware architecture and control options for the IPTMS are discussed. This paper summarizes the IPTMS laboratory demonstration system, its capabilities, and preliminary test results.

Detailed machine models are, and will continue to be, a critical component of both the design and validation processes for engineering future aircraft, which will undoubtedly continue to push the boundaries for the demand of electric power. This paper presents a survey of experimental testing procedures for typical synchronous machines that are applied to brushless synchronous machines with rotating rectifiers to characterize their operational impedances. The relevance and limitations of these procedures are discussed, which include steady-state drive stand tests, sudden short-circuit transient (SSC) tests, and standstill frequency response (SSFR) tests. Then, results captured in laboratory of the aforementioned tests are presented.

The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), in cooperation with the University of Dayton Research Institute (UDRI) and Fairchild Controls Corporation, is building a test facility to study the use of advanced vapor cycle systems (VCS) in an expanded role in aircraft thermal management systems (TMS). It is dedicated to the study and development of VCS control and operation in support of the Integrated Vehicle ENergy Technology (INVENT) initiative. The Two Phase Thermal Energy Management System (ToTEMS1) architecture has been shown through studies to offer potential weight, cost, volume and performance advantages over traditional thermal management approaches based on Air Cycle Systems (ACS). The ToTEMS rig will be used to develop and demonstrate a control system that manages the system capacity over both large amplitude and fast transient changes in the system loads.

Expansion work recovery by two-phase ejector is known to be beneficial to vapor compression cycle performance. However, one of the biggest challenges with ejector vapor compression cycles is that the ejector cycle performance is sensitive to working condition changes which are common in automotive applications. Different working conditions require different ejector geometries to achieve maximum performance. Slightly different geometries may result in substantially different COPs under the same conditions. The ejector motive nozzle throat diameter (motive nozzle restrictiveness) is one of the key parameters that can significantly affect ejector cycle COP. This paper presents the experimental results of the application of a new two-phase nozzle restrictiveness control mechanism to an automotive transcritical R744 ejector cycle.

In this study, the influence of compressor speed, ejector motive nozzle needle position and evaporator inlet metering valve opening on the oil circulation rates (OCRs) of an automotive R744 transcritical standard ejector cycle was experimentally investigated. Significantly higher OCR (~10%) was observed at the evaporator inlet of the ejector cycle than at the high pressure side. It has been observed that evaporator OCR was increased with increasing compressor speed. When the motive nozzle needle moved towards the nozzle throat, both compressor discharge flow rate and evaporator OCR were observed to be significantly lowered. As the evaporator inlet metering valve opening was adjusted, the compressor mass flow rate did not vary significantly while the evaporator mass flow rate decreased with decreasing metering valve opening. The evaporator OCR decreased from 6.5% to 2.2% as the metering valve opening varied from 86% to 27%.

Inlet valve deposits in gasoline engines have a significant effect on engine operation with particular reference to cold starting and driveability. Present methods of quantifying these deposits by weighing them or rating them with the aid of a visual rating scale are recognized as not being reliable indices of the detrimental effect of these deposits. A valve deposit quantification system was developed that relied on the use of machine vision. Algorithms were formulated to track the silhouetted edge profile of a backlit valve from which a valve volume was determined. The valve deposit volume was calculated as the difference in volume between the valve in its clean and coked states. The system was able to detect a minimum coke deposit level of 0.06g at the 95% confidence limit, the accuracy being based on the correlation between the volume as determined by the vision system and the mass of the deposit.

A significant fraction of hydrocarbon (HC) emissions occurs during the cold-start phase of an engine's operating cycle. Fuel drop sizes in the cylinder and impingement of fuel on the cylinder wall are two factors which can affect the HC emissions during this period. Therefore, measurements of in-cylinder drop sizes and wall fuel impingement were made on a steady flow bench at flow rates and manifold vacuum conditions which simulated desired engine operating conditions. Experimental variables included three injector types, two cylinder head geometries, three valve lifts, and two simulated engine speeds. Injector performance was assessed prior to the flow bench studies. Fuel injector performance was found to affect in-cylinder drop size and wall fuel impingement. The dual-jet injector produced two liquid streams which were not atomized into drops at a distance of 10 cm (a typical injector to valve distance) from the injector tip.

The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), in cooperation with the University of Dayton Research Institute (UDRI) and Fairchild Controls Corporation, is operating an in-house advanced vapor compression refrigeration cycle system (VCS) test rig known as ToTEMS (Two-Phase Thermal Energy Management System). This test rig is dedicated to the study and development of VCS control and operation in support of the Energy Optimized Aircraft (EOA) initiative and the Integrated Vehicle ENergy Technology (INVENT) program. Previous papers on ToTEMS have discussed the hardware setup and some of the preliminary data collected from the system, as well as the first steps towards developing an optimum-seeking control scheme. A key goal of the ToTEMS program is to reduce the risk associated with operating VCS in the dynamic aircraft environment.

Several types of noise exist in automobiles. The flow-induced noise in the expansion device can be very disturbing since the expansion device is located near the occupants. In many studies, the flow-induced noise is found to be mitigated when the orientation of the tube is changed. However, no study explores the reason why flow-induced noise changes when the orientation of the tube is changed. The flow-induced noise varies along with the flow regimes near the expansion devices. In this paper, an experimental based research is used to study how the tube orientation changes the flow regimes under the same operating conditions. A pumped R134a system with transparent tubes (1/4-inch ID) is used to visualize the flow regimes near the manual expansion valve. The transparent tube is a continuous connection of horizontal tubes, 45° inclined tubes, and vertical tubes.

A programmable, four way directional control valve, with the versatility to operate in any type of hydraulic system and perform any function, was designed with functional variations to be made in the control software, rather than the hardware. This paper reports on the first reduction to practice, along with the development of a new “inferred flow feedback” concept. The initial prototype has shown promising results, in spite of hardware limitations encountered: flow forces and valve dynamics. Pressure control is especially encouraging, with nearly perfect regulation of pressure across the flow range of the programmable relief valve.

Air source heat pumps as the heating system for full electric vehicles are drawing more and more attention in recent years. Despite the high energy efficiency, frost accumulation on the heat pump evaporator is one of the major challenges associated with air source heat pumps. The evaporator needs to be actively defrosted periodically and heat pump heating will be interrupted during defrosting process. Proper defrost control is needed to obtain high average heat pump energy efficiency. In this paper, a new method for generating air source heat pump defrost control policy using reinforcement learning is introduced. This model-free method has several advantages. It can automatically generate optimal defrost control policy instead of requiring manually determination of the control policy parameters and logics.

Numerous previous studies have highlighted the potential efficiency improvements which can be provided to aircraft thermal management systems by the incorporation of vapor cycle systems (VCS), either in place of, or in conjunction with, standard air cycle systems, for providing the needed thermal management for aircraft equipment and crews. This paper summarizes the results of a cycle-based VCS control architecture as tested using the Vapor Cycle System Research Facility (VCSRF) in the Aerospace Systems Directorate of the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. VCSRF is a flexible, dynamic, multi-evaporator VCS which incorporates electronic expansion valves and a variable speed compressor allowing the flexibility to test both components and control schemes. The goal of this facility is to reduce the risk of incorporating VCS into the thermal management systems (TMS) of future advanced aircraft.

As the cost and complexity of modern aircraft systems advance, emphasis has been placed on model-based design as a means for cost effective subsystem optimization. The success of the model-based design process is contingent on accurate prediction of the system response prior to hardware fabrication, but the level of fidelity necessary to achieve this objective is often called into question. Identifying the key benefits and limitations of model fidelity along with the key parameters that drive model accuracy will help improve the model-based design process enabling low cost, optimized solutions for current and future programs. In this effort, the accuracy and capability of a vapor cycle system (VCS) model were considered from a model fidelity and parameter accuracy standpoint. A range of model fidelity was evaluated in terms of accuracy, capability, simulation speed, and development time.

Automotive air conditioning compressor produces an annular-mist flow consisting of gas-phase refrigerant flow with oil film and oil droplets. This paper reports a method to calculate the oil retention and oil circulation ratio based on oil film thickness, wave speed, oil droplet size, oil droplet speed, and mass flow rate. Oil flow parameters are measured by high-speed camera capture and video processing in a non-invasive way. The estimated oil retention and oil circulation ratio results are compared quantitatively with the measurements from system experiments under different compressor outlet gas superficial velocity. The agreement between video result and sampling measurement shows that this method can be applied in other annular-mist flow analysis. It is also shown that most of the oil exists in film from the mass point of view while oil droplets contributes more to the oil mass flow rate because they travel in a much higher speed.

This paper presents the experimentally obtained performance characteristics of an air conditioning-heat pump system that uses heat exchangers from a commercially available Nissan Leaf EV. It was found that refrigerant charge needed for cooling operation was larger than that for heating function with the test setup. The effects of: a). indoor air flow rate, b). outdoor air flow rate, and c). compressor speed on heating capacity and energy efficiency were explored and presented. Appropriate opening size of expansion valve that controlled subcooling for better energy efficiency was discussed and results were presented. Expansion valve opening size also strongly affected charge migration. Warm-up tests at different ambient conditions showed the necessity of a secondary heater to be reserved for very low ambient temperature.

Lubricant in compressor usually flows out with refrigerant. Thus, it is evitable for lubricant to be present in the heat exchanger, which significantly affects the heat exchanger performance. This paper is to investigate the effects of PAG oil on R134a distribution in the microchannel heat exchanger (MCHX) with vertical headers and to provide a tool to model R134a (with oil) distribution and its effects on MCHX capacity. The flow configuration in MCHX under the heat pump mode of the reversible system is mimicked in the experimental facility: refrigerant-oil mixture is fed into the test header from the bottom pass and exits through the top pass. It is found that a small amount of oil (OCR=0.5%) worsen the distribution. But further increasing OCR to 2.5% and 4.7%, the distribution becomes better.

A hot and cold water mixing process with a steam condenser and a chilled water heat exchanger is set up for an engine EGR fouling test. The test rig has water recycled in the loop of a pump, heat exchangers, a three-way mixing valve, and a test EGR unit. The target unit temperature is controlled by a heating, cooling and mixing process with individual valves regulating the flow-rate of saturated steam, chilled water and mixing ratio. The challenges in control design are the dead-time, interaction, nonlinearity and multivariable characteristics of heat exchangers, plus the flow recycle in the system. A systems method is applied to extract a simple linear model for control design. The method avoids the nonlinearity and interaction among different temperatures at inlet, outlet and flow-rate. The test data proves the effectiveness of systems analysis and modeling methodology. As a result, the first-order linear model facilitates the controller design.