Parametric Studies of a Simple Direct Expansion Solar Assisted Heat Pump Operating in a Hot and Humid Environment

In this paper the theoretical and experimental studies were carried out on a direct expansion solar assisted heat pump (DX-SAHP) under the metrological condition of Calicut located in the southern peninsula of the India continent. The system mainly includes a flat-plate solar collector of total are 2 m2, acting as an evaporator with refrigerant R22, a hermetically sealed reciprocating type compressor, an air cooled condenser and an electronic expansion valve. These performance parameters such as energy performance ratio, power consumption, heating capacity, solar energy input ratio and compressor discharge temperature of a DX-SAHP obtained from the experiment confirmed that, the experimental values were agreed well with simulation predicated results with average error of 1-2%. And The system COP is found to be vary from 1.8 to 2.8, power consumption from 1098 to 1305W, heating capacity from 2.0 to 3.6kW respectively. The effect of various parameters such as solar insolation, ambient temperature, collector area, wind speed has been theoretically analysed in order to understand the system performance.