Title: Investigating the energetic and exergetic performance of a solar based cooling-heating-low temperature refrigeration system

Authors: Tawfiq Al-Mughanam; Abdul Khaliq

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering, King Faisal University, 380, Al-Ahsa 31982, Saudi Arabia ' Mechanical Engineering Department, College of Engineering at Yanbu, Taibah University, Yanbu Al-Bahr 41911, Saudi Arabia

Abstract: A novel trigeneration system powered by helically coiled tubes embedded solar collector is proposed. A study using ANSYS-FLUENT simulation was conducted to investigate the impact of coil torsion and coil curvature ratio. The EES software examined the system from energy and exergy perspectives, which showed that coil curvature ratio has positive impact on temperature of solar fluid, whereas coil torsion has negative effect. At 0.032 coil torsion, temperature increased by 28.9% as curvature ratio increased from 0.063 to 0.095 at 1,200 W/m². From solar exergy supplied, 13.29% is produced exergy, 1.98% is lost exergy, and 84.73% is the exergy destroyed.

Keywords: helically coiled tubes based heliostat field; trigeneration system; exergetic; transcritical CO₂ refrigeration cycle; low temperature refrigeration.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEX.2025.143810

International Journal of Exergy, 2025 Vol.46 No.1, pp.79 - 92

Received: 30 Jul 2024
Accepted: 30 Oct 2024
Published online: 07 Jan 2025 *

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