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Fricke, Brian A

Publications and source records attributed to Fricke, Brian A.

At least 19 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2016

Utilizing Thermal Mass in Refrigerated Display Cases to Reduce Peak Demand

The potential to store energy within refrigerated food products presents convenience store and supermarket operators with an opportunity to participate in utility sponsored demand response programs, whereby electricity usage can be shifted or reduced during peak periods. To determine the feasibility of reducing peak demand by shifting the refrigeration load to off-peak times, experimental and analytical analyses were performed. Simulated product, consisting of one-pint containers filled with a 50% ethylene glycol and 50% water solution, were stored in a medium-temperature vertical open refrigerated display case. Product temperature rise as a function of time was determined by turning off the refrigeration to the display case, while product temperature pull-down time was subsequently determined by turning on the refrigeration to the display case. It was found that the thermal mass of the product in a medium-temperature display case was such that during a 2.5 hour period with no refrigeration, the average product temperature increased by 5.5 C. In addition, it took approximately 3.5 hours for the product to recover to its initial temperature after the refrigeration was turned on. Transient heat conduction analyses for one-dimensional objects is in good agreement with the experimental results obtained in this study. From the analysis, it appears that the thermal mass of the stored product in refrigerated display cases is sufficient to allow product temperatures to safely drift for a significant time under reduced refrigeration system operation. Thus, strategies for shifting refrigeration system electrical demand can be developed. The use of an advanced refrigeration system controller that can respond to utility signals can enable demand shifting with minimal impact.

Fricke, Brian A↗
DOE OSTI2015

Neutron Imaging Calibration to Measure Void Fraction

Void fraction is an intuitive parameter that describes the fraction of vapor in a two-phase flow. It appears as a key variable in most heat transfer and pressure drop correlations used to design evaporating and condensing heat exchangers, as well as determining charge inventory in refrigeration systems. Void fraction measurement is not straightforward, however, and assumptions on the invasiveness of the measuring technique must be made. Neutron radiography or neutron imaging has the potential to be a truly non-invasive void fraction measuring technique but has until recently only offered qualitative descriptions of two-phase flow, in terms of flow maldistributions, for example. This paper describes the calibration approach necessary to employ neutron imaging to measure steady-state void fraction. Experiments were conducted at the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) Cold Guide 1D neutron imaging facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN, USA.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2014

A Tool for Life Cycle Climate Performance (LCCP) Based Design of Residential Air Source Heat Pumps

A tool for the design of air source heat pumps (ASHP) based on their life cycle climate performance (LCCP) analysis is presented. The LCCP model includes direct and indirect emissions of the ASHP. The annual energy consumption of the ASHP is determined based on AHRI Standard 210/240. The tool can be used as an evaluation tool when the user inputs the required performance data based on the ASHP type selected. In addition, this tool has system design capability where the user inputs the design parameters of the different components of the heat pump and the tool runs the system simulation software to calculate the performance data. Additional features available in the tool include the capability to perform parametric analysis and sensitivity study on the system. The tool has 14 refrigerants, and 47 cities built-in with the option for the user to add more refrigerants, based on NIST REFPROP, and cities, using TMY-3 database. The underlying LCCP calculation framework is open source and can be easily customized for various applications. The tool can be used with any system simulation software, load calculation tool, and weather and emissions data type.

heat pump↗
DOE OSTI2014

Impact of Charge Degradation on the Life Cycle Climate Performance of a Residential Air-Conditioning System

Vapor compression systems continuously leak a small fraction of their refrigerant charge to the environment, whether during operation or servicing. As a result of the slow leak rate occurring during operation, the refrigerant charge decreases until the system is serviced and recharged. This charge degradation, after a certain limit, begins to have a detrimental effect on system capacity, energy consumption, and coefficient of performance (COP). This paper presents a literature review and a summary of previous experimental work on the effect of undercharging or charge degradation of different vapor compression systems, especially those without a receiver. These systems include residential air conditioning and heat pump systems utilizing different components and refrigerants, and water chiller systems. Most of these studies show similar trends for the effect of charge degradation on system performance. However, it is found that although much experimental work exists on the effect of charge degradation on system performance, no correlation or comparison between charge degradation and system performance yet exists. Thus, based on the literature review, three different correlations that characterize the effect of charge on system capacity and energy consumption are developed for different systems as follows: one for air-conditioning systems, one for vapor compression water-to-water chiller systems, and one for heat pumps. These correlations can be implemented in vapor compression cycle simulation tools to obtain a better prediction of the system performance throughout its lifetime. In this paper, these correlations are implemented in an open source tool for life cycle climate performance (LCCP) based design of vapor compression systems. The LCCP of a residential air-source heat pump is evaluated using the tool and the effect of charge degradation on the results is studied. The heat pump is simulated using a validated component-based vapor compression system model and the LCCP results obtained using the three charge degradation correlations are compared.

Air Conditioning↗
DOE OSTI2014

An Evaluation of the Environmental Impact of Different Commercial Supermarket Refrigeration Systems Using Low Global Warming Potential Refrigerants

Commercial refrigeration systems consumed 1.21 Quads of primary energy in 2010 and are known to be a major source for refrigerant charge leakage into the environment. Thus, it is important to study the environmental impact of commercial supermarket refrigeration systems and improve their design to minimize any adverse impacts. The system s Life Cycle Climate Performance (LCCP) was presented as a comprehensive metric with the aim of calculating the equivalent mass of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere throughout its lifetime, from construction to operation and destruction. In this paper, an open source tool for the evaluation of the LCCP of different air-conditioning and refrigeration systems is presented and used to compare the environmental impact of a typical multiplex direct expansion (DX) supermarket refrigeration systems based on three different refrigerants as follows: two hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) refrigerants (R-404A, and R-407F), and a low global warming potential (GWP) refrigerant (N-40). The comparison is performed in 8 US cities representing different climates. The hourly energy consumption of the refrigeration system, required for the calculation of the indirect emissions, is calculated using a widely used building energy modeling tool (EnergyPlus). A sensitivity analysis is performed to determine the impact of system charge and power plant emission factor on the LCCP results. Finally, we performed an uncertainty analysis to determine the uncertainty in total emissions for both R-404A and N-40 operated systems. We found that using low GWP refrigerants causes a considerable drop in the impact of uncertainty in the inputs related to direct emissions on the uncertainty of the total emissions of the system.

LCCP↗
DOE OSTI2014

CO2 Supermarket Refrigeration Systems for Southeast Asia and the USA

This paper presents a comparative analysis of the annual energy consumption of these refrigeration systems in eighty eight cities from all climate zones in Southeast Asia. Also, the performance of the CO2 refrigeration systems is compared to the baseline R404A multiplex direct expansion (DX) system. Finally, the overall performance of the CO2 refrigeration systems in various climatic conditions in Southeast Asia is compared to that in the United States. For the refrigeration systems investigated, it was found that the Transcritical Booster System with Bypass Compressor (TBS-BC) performs better or equivalent to the R404A multiplex DX system in the northern regions of Southeast Asia (China and Japan). In the southern regions of Southeast Asia (India, Bangladesh, Burma), the R404A multiplex DX system and the Combined Secondary Cascade (CSC) system performs better than the TBS-BC.

Sharma, Vishaldeep↗