Thermo-economic and thermodynamic analysis and optimization of a two-stage irreversible heat pump

•Thermodynamic modeling of a two-stage irreversible heat pump is performed.•The latter is achieved using NSGA algorithm and thermodynamic analysis.•3 answers given by the decision-making methods selected.

This research study mainly deals with a comprehensive thermodynamic modeling and thermo-economic optimization of an irreversible absorption heat pump. For the optimization goal, various objective functions are considered comprising the specific heating load, coefficient of performance (COP) and the thermo-economic benchmark (F). In order to specify the optimum design variables, non-dominant sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA) is applied satisfying some restrictions. In this optimization study, all three objective functions (e.g. COP, F and specific heating load) are maximized. In addition, decision making is carried out using three well-suited approaches namely LINAMP and TOPSIS and FUZZY. Finally, sensitivity analysis and error analysis are conducted in order to improve understanding of the system performance.