Flow Control in

Refrigeration Systems

ABHISHEK SAVAKAR 2GI16ME008

ADARSH TELI 2GI16ME010
ADITYA THAKKAR 2GI16ME012
ADITYA MASKAR 2GI16ME013
ADITYA ATIWADKAR 2GI16ME014
 CONTENTS

 ABSTRACT
 INTRODUCTION
 CONTROLS
 CONTROL ALGORITHMS FOR REFRIGERATION SYSTEMS
 CLASSICAL CONTROL METHODS
 ON-OFF CONTROLLER
 CONCLUSION
 Last decades considerable attention has been given to refrigeration systems in
order to decrease its energy consumption.

 Various control methods for refrigeration systems were developed.

 These methods differ in their theoretical basis and performance depends on

system operating conditions.

 To list different flow control methods used in the refrigeration systems are
discussed in the present seminar.
 INTRODUCTION
 The most critical problem in the world is to meet the energy demand, because of
steadily increasing energy consumption.

 The increase in the energy prices in the last decades has motivated many research
studies to identify the most energy consuming systems and ways to improve its
efficiency.

 The huge energy consumption of refrigeration systems (RSs) in homes and

commercial buildings provides both economic and environmental motivation for the
development of such systems to become highly efficient in order to decrease its
electricity consumption.

 Refrigeration systems are inefficient energy saving due to design faults, bad
installations, and lack of maintenance and are susceptible to fail up operation
frequently. The energy saving is reached through the optimization of the RSs
performance with the use of control techniques in these systems .
 Conventional RSs contain four main components: fixed speed compressor, condenser,
mechanical expansion valves, and evaporator.

 Although these systems are designed to satisfy the maximum load, they work under
partial load conditions most of their life cycle with employing on-off control for the
compressor.

 On-off control method is the most used conventional technique to control RSs .

 However, such a conventional technique to cope with partial loading could deteriorate
compressor durability to a considerable extent.

 Therefore, the on-off control scheme is gradually being replaced by a variable speed
refrigeration system (VSRS) with an inverter driven compressor to control its speed.
 Controls

 Refrigeration systems require operating controls so they can cycle on and off to
maintain a certain temperature.

 They also require safety controls to stop operation if unsafe conditions occur.
There are many varieties of controls.

 Different types respond to temperature, pressure, humidity, liquid levels, other

controls, manual intervention and other things.
Thermostatic Control
 Those 3 electrical devices (a compressor, condenser fan motor and evaporator fan motor)
are represented on the ladder schematic shown below.

• This type of wiring diagram has branch

runs all shown as parallel circuits going
from the left line (L1) to the neutral
line (N).

• The EFM (Evaporator Fan Motor) must

run all the time so that the box
temperature stays uniform and the
thermostat senses the average box
temperature not some pocket of
stratified air.
 The graph below shows how an operating control cycles. The control is set to start
refrigeration if the box warms up to 4.4 °c That's called the Cut In point.

 The system keeps running until it reaches the Cut Out point which is 2.8°c where it
shuts off and awaits the next call for cooling.

 In this example there is a 1.6 °c differential between the cut in and cut out points.
Pressure Control as Operating Control

 A Pressure control can also be used as an operating control. The electrical circuitry is the
same as with a temperature controller. The LPC(liquid crystal polymer) sensor makes on a
rise of pressure.
 Operating and Safety Controls
 A Pressure control can also be used as a safety control.
The electrical circuitry shown below has two controls in
series. Therefore, if the LPC trips, the compressor will
not run even if the T-Stat is calling.
 The LPC in this example is set to protect the system
from a loss of refrigerant charge and is set to cut out at
a pressure that is lower than anticipated low side
operating pressure.
 The compressor should not be allowed to operate with
an undercharge as the windings can overheat and other
types of damage can occur as well.
 Unless there is a loss of charge the LPC will therefore
remain permanently closed during all off cycles and run
cycles. The LPC's contacts are therefore said to be
normally closed (NC).
• Small leaks cause a gradual loss of refrigerant and a LPC might only trip once in a
while during the initial stages of a refrigerant leak. As time passes the safety will trip
more and more often and can eventually get to the point where the system will only
run for a few seconds before cutting out.

• After a short time the high and low side pressures will equalize and the system will
try starting once again. This is called short cycling. It's not good for the system but is
certainly better than letting the compressor destroy itself by operating indefinitely with
an undercharge or no refrigerant.

• More safety controls can be added such as a High Pressure Control. If high head
pressure occurs for any reason the switch will open protecting the compressor.

• Controls can be automatic reset or manual reset. If the manual reset type trips, a little
button pops out and the unit will not restart until the button is manually reset. This is
to force attention to the fact that there has been a safety trip.
CONTROL ALGORITHMS FOR
REFRIGERATION SYSTEMS
 There are three parts in a closed-loop control system: error calculation, controller, and
plant Error calculation part calculates the difference between the desired output, r(k), and
the actual output, y(k), of the system. This difference is called error signal, e(k).
 A controller finds out a control signal, u(k), by considering this error signal.
 A plant, the system itself under investigation, generates the actual output, y(k), in reply to
the u(k).
 The most important problem is generating the most suitable control signal that derives the
plant to minimize the error
 VARIABLE SPEED REFRIGERATION SYSTEM
 In modern VSRS, which are typical closed-loop control systems, incorporate variable speed
compressors (VSCs) and electronic expansion valves (EEVs) as controllable components to
improve the system performance and energy efficiency.

 These components have to be properly feedback-controlled; otherwise the systems may

exhibit even poorer performance and more energy consumption than the conventional
systems.

 In the VSRS, the compressor capacity is regulated by varying its speed by an inverter inserted
into compressor electric motor.

 The inverter is an interface between the utility input and the compressor motor that controls
the speed of the motor by changing the magnitude of voltage, current or frequency
.
 This type of control allows its output capacity to continuously match with system's load,
resulting in an energy saving in comparison with classical thermostatic control that imposes
only on-off cycles on the compressor Figure shows VSRS and control system, where Tei and
Teo are the refrigerant temperatures at evaporator inlet and outlet respectively, Two is the
water temperature at evaporator outlet, SH is the refrigerant superheat degree, VO is the EEV
opening percentage (%), f is the compressor frequency, and DAQ is the data acquisition
Schematic of the VSRS and control system
 The conventional control schemes for VSRS are mainly focused on two control
variables;

 The degree of superheat and the refrigeration capacity.

 The speed of the compressor and the opening amount of the EEV are control
parameters in order to adjust the refrigeration capacity and the degree of
superheat respectively to desired values.
CLASSICAL CONTROL METHODS
CONCLUSION
 Refrigeration systems control is a nonlinear control problem due to the complicated
relationship between its components and parameters.

 Many different control methods for electronic expansion valve and compressor have
been developed and research to improve control methods is continuing.

 Most of these approaches require system models, and some of them cannot achieve
satisfactory performance under the changes of various operating conditions.