Experimental Study on Improving Coefficient of Performance for Split Air Conditioning System by Using an Innovative Separated– Vapor Device

This paper presented the results of improvement on Coefficient of Performance (COP) of split air- conditioner which has capacity of 9000 Btu/h. This air- conditioner uses R410A as the refrigerant. COP is improved by using an innovative separated- vapor device (flash chamber) in the system. The system is designed to operate in two cases. The first case, the saturated mixture of liquid- vapor refrigerant at low pressure passes through expansion valve (using capacity tube) and enters flash chamber. The second case is that it directly enters to evaporator. Both cases were experimented in the same heat load and environmental condition. The procedure of investigation is implemented in the same different temperature in outdoor and indoor. The results show that the power consumption reduces from 3.4 % to 4.4 % and actual coefficient of performance (COP) increase from 3.8 % to 8.7 %. Besides that, pressure drop on low pressure side for two cases were also presented. Experimental results were reported to show the feasibility of an innovative separated- vapor device which can be applied in air- conditioning systems.