A global optimization method for regenerative air refrigeration systems

The air refrigeration systems always involve such physical processes as heat transfer processes in heat exchangers, compression processes in compressors and expansion processes in expanders. This contribution proposes a theoretical global optimization method for regenerative air refrigeration systems and introduces the entransy theory to analyze the heat transfer processes in the hot-end heat exchanger, the cold-end heat exchanger and the regenerator. Integration of the heat transfer analyses and the thermodynamic analyses for the compression and expansion processes yields a mathematical model to describe the physical relation between the design requirements and the unknown design parameters, i.e. the heat transfer area of each heat exchanger and the heat capacity rate and the intermediate temperature of the air. Based on this model, the optimization can be converted into a conditional extremum problem. That is, solving the problem via the Lagrange multiplier method offers an optimization equation group, which directly leads to the optimal values of all the unknown parameters. Finally, this optimization method is validated through an optimization case to minimize the total thermal conductance of all the heat exchangers in a typical regenerative air refrigeration system.