international journal of refrigeration 31 (2008) 279–286

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Application of an ejector in autocascade refrigeration

cycle for the performance improvement

Jianlin Yu*, Hua Zhao, Yanzhong Li

Department of Refrigeration and Cryogenics Engineering, School of Energy and Power Engineering,
Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China

article info abstract

Article history: This paper presented a novel autocascade refrigeration cycle (NARC) with an ejector. In the
Received 2 November 2006 NARC, the ejector is used to recover some available work to increase the compressor suc-
Received in revised form 5 May 2007 tion pressure. The NARC enables the compressor to operate at lower pressure ratio, which
Accepted 11 May 2007 in turn improves the cycle performance. Theoretical computation model based on the con-
Published online 18 May 2007 stant pressure-mixing model for the ejector is used to perform a thermodynamic cycle
analysis for the NARC with the refrigerant mixture of R23/R134a. The effects of some
Keywords: main parameters on cycle performance were investigated. The results show the NARC
Refrigeration system has an outstanding merit in decreasing the pressure ratio of compressor as well as increas-
Compression system ing the COP. For NARC operated at the condenser outlet temperature of 40  C, the evapora-
Sub-cooling tor inlet temperature of 40.3  C, and the mass fraction of R23 is 0.15, the pressure ratio of
Liquid the ejector reaches to 1.35, the pressure ratio of compressor is reduced by 25.8% and the
Ejector COP is improved by 19.1% over the conventional autocascade refrigeration cycle.
Modelling ª 2007 Elsevier Ltd and IIR. All rights reserved.
Thermodynamic cycle
Enhancement
Performance

Application d’un éjecteur dans un cycle frigorifique à cascade

avec comme objectif l’amélioration de la performance
Mots clés : Système frigorifique ; Système à compression ; Sous-refroidissement ; Liquide ; Éjecteur ; Modélisation ; Cycle
thermodynamique ; Amélioration ; Performance

1. Introduction
Autocascade refrigeration can use only one compressor to
obtain lower refrigerating temperature between 40  C and
180  C. Especially, the use of one compressor makes the
autocascade refrigeration systems to have greater advantages
such as the simple configuration, high reliability and the low
cost. Therefore, autocascade refrigeration obtained more
practical applications recently in commercial refrigerator,
cryogenic coolers and natural gas liquefaction plants.
Missimer (1997) discussed the refrigerant conversion of
autocascade refrigeration systems and described selecting

* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ86 29 82668738; fax: þ86 29 82668725.

E-mail address: yujl@mail.xjtu.edu.cn (J. Yu).
0140-7007/$ – see front matter ª 2007 Elsevier Ltd and IIR. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ijrefrig.2007.05.008
280 international journal of refrigeration 31 (2008) 279–286
Nomenclature
COP coefficient of performance
h specific enthalpy, kJ kg1 K1
m_ mass flow rate, kg s1
Q refrigerating capacity, kW
qo refrigerating capacity per unit mass flow of refrig-
erant mixture in the compressor, kJ kg1
t temperature,  C
u velocity, m s1
W compressor power, kW
z mass fraction
rp pressure ratio
Greek letters
m entrainment ratio
h efficiency
CFC substitutes for autocascade refrigeration systems. HFC
candidates like R32, R134a, R152a, and R23 can be a choice in
a range of temperature. Naer and Rozhentsev (2002) investi-
gated the application of hydrocarbon mixtures in small refrig-
erating and cryogenic machines, one of which employed the
autocascade refrigeration cycle with one liquid phase separa-
tor. Their research results demonstrate that small, single
stage, sealed, lubricated compressors can be applied to micro-
coolers for the temperature range of 73  C to 183  C. Kim
and Kim (2002) investigated the performance of an autocas-
cade refrigeration system using zeotropic refrigerant mixtures
of R744/R134a and R744/R290. Their experimental results
show that as the composition of R744 in the refrigerant mix-
ture increases, cooling capacity is enhanced, but the coeffi-
cient of performance (COP) tends to decrease while the
system pressure rises.
It is known that even though the advantage of autocascade
refrigeration cycle is to use only one compressor to produce
low temperature over a wide span, the COP of the cycle be-
comes lower and higher pressure ratio risk appears for the
compressor with the decreases of refrigerating temperature.
In a conventional autocascade refrigeration cycle with a
two-compound mixed refrigerant, the throttling process in
throttling devices generates irreversible loss and reduces the
usable work potential. Clearly, this loss is one important rea-
son that causes the relative low COP of the cycle. In addition,
there also exists heat transfer irreversible loss in the evapora-
tive condenser because of the larger temperature difference
across it. The lower the refrigerating temperature, the higher
the heat transfer irreversible loss. This loss also reduces the
COP of the cycle.
The overall cycle performance can be improved if these in-
dividual losses are reduced. For reducing the throttling loss,
the best ideal method is to use expander instead of the throt-
tling device. However, additional expander actually makes the
system more complicated and higher cost due to expander
itself. In order to recover the potential kinetic energy in the ex-
pansion process, some researchers have attempted to use
other expansion engine rather than the expander. Due to the
simple configuration, the low cost and ability to handle two-
phase flow without damage, an ejector could be used instead
Subscripts
c condenser
com compressor
d diffuser
e evaporator
ec evaporative condenser
eje ejector
m mixing flow
n nozzle
p primary flow
s secondary flow, isentropic process
1 inlet in the ejector
2 outlet in the ejector
1–8 state points in Fig. 1
of a throttling device as a feasible method to recover some
available work of the expansion process in the refrigeration
cycle. Through the function of the ejector the compressor suc-
tion pressure can be increased, and thus resulting in less com-
pression work and improving cycle performance. Kornhauser
(1990) firstly proposed the idea to employ an ejector in vapor-
compression refrigeration cycle and analyzed the thermody-
namic performance of the cycle. He found a theoretical COP
improvement of up to 21% over the standard cycle under
standard conditions, 15  C and 30  C for evaporator and con-
denser temperatures, respectively. Tomasek and Radermacher
(1995) analyzed a domestic refrigerator cycle with an ejector,
which consists of two evaporators that operate at different
pressure and temperature levels. The analysis results show
that the ejector cycle gives an increase of up to 12.4% in the
COP compared to that of a standard refrigerator-freezer refrig-
eration cycle. Disawas and Wongwises (2004) experimentally
investigated the performance of the refrigeration cycle using
a two-phase ejector as an expansion device. The research re-
sults show that the coefficient of performance of the cycle
with the ejector is higher than that of the conventional refrig-
eration cycle over the whole range of experimental conditions.
Li and Groll (2005) proposed transcritical CO2 refrigeration cy-
cle with ejector expansion device and studied the effect of dif-
ferent operating conditions on the relative performance of the
ejector expansion transcritical CO2 cycle. Their research re-
sults found that the COP of the ejector expansion transcritical
CO2 cycle can be improved by more than 16% over the basic
transcritical CO2 cycle for typical air conditioning operation
conditions.
In this paper, it is also proposed to apply an ejector in
autocascade refrigeration cycle to improve the cycle perfor-
mance. The present study mainly focuses on a theoretical in-
vestigation on the performance of this novel autocascade
refrigeration cycle using two-compound mixed refrigerant.
The cycle will be simulated at typical operating conditions
to investigate the effects of main parameters, such as the
composition of the used refrigerant mixtures, the evaporator
outlet dew point temperature and primary pressure of the
ejector on its performance. In addition, the performance
comparison between the novel autocascade refrigeration
 international journal of refrigeration 31 (2008) 279–286
Fig. 1 – The conventional autocascade refrigeration cycle.
cycle and the conventional autocascade refrigeration cycle
will also be presented.
2. The autocascade refrigeration cycle with
an ejector
The conventional autocascade refrigeration cycle (CARC) using
two-compound mixed refrigerant is shown in Fig. 1. The CARC
system usually consists of a compressor, a condenser, two throt-
tling devices, an evaporator, an evaporative condenser, a phase
separator, and connecting tubes. The compressor is used to
pump the refrigerant mixtures. The condenser rejects a heat
from the inside condensate to the environment cooling media.
The evaporator absorbs a refrigerated load from the cold refrig-
erated space. The evaporative condenser is a counter-flow heat
exchanger, which acts as an evaporator for the liquid phase
stream from the phase separator and a condenser for the vapor
phase stream from the phase separator. The two throttling de-
vices are used to accomplish the expansion process for the cycle,
which can be expansion valves or capillary tubes.
Fig. 2 – The autocascade refrigeration cycle with an ejector.
281
The novel autocascade refrigeration cycle (NARC) with
an ejector is shown in Fig. 2. Similar to the CARC using two-
compound mixed refrigerant, the main components but the
ejector in NARC are a compressor, a condenser, a phase sepa-
rator, an evaporative condenser, an evaporator and two throt-
tling devices. The ejector is set between the evaporative
condenser and the evaporator. The basic working process of
NARC is same as that of CARC. The refrigerant mixture vapor
with initial charge composition (at point 1) is sucked by com-
pressor. After compression to point 2, the refrigerant mixture
is partially condensed to point 3 in the condenser. This two-
phase stream flows into the phase separator, in which the liq-
uid phase at point 30 will have a different composition from
the vapor phase at point 300 . Liquid phase has higher mass
fraction of the pure refrigerant with higher boiling point and
the vapor phase has higher mass fraction of the pure refriger-
ant with lower boiling point. The liquid phase stream will flow
through the throttling device 1, expanding from point 30 to
point 7 and then entering the evaporative condenser at a lower
temperature (at point 7) to cool the vapor phase stream from
the phase separator. After vaporizing in the evaporative con-
denser, this stream flows further into the ejector as primary
flow slightly superheated at point 8 to entrain the vapor (sec-
ondary flow) at point 6 from the evaporator. The vapor phase
stream from the phase separator condenses on the other side
of the evaporative condenser, leaving as saturated liquid or as
slightly subcooled liquid at point 4. This fraction of the refrig-
erant mixture is then expanded through the throttling device
2 to a state with lower pressure and temperature (at point 5).
This stream flows into evaporator, vaporizing to realize the re-
frigerating effect and leaving as saturated or slightly super-
heated vapor at point 6. Then, the vapor is sucked by the
ejector and then the mixed vapor is discharged at high pres-
sure. Eventually, the mixture vapor from the ejector is sucked
by the compressor, and it forms a complete cycle.
Since the mixture vapor from the evaporative condenser is
the primary flow of the ejector, the exit pressure of evapora-
tive condenser should be higher than the exit pressure of
evaporator. This also means the pressure drop through the
throttling device 1 should be lower than the pressure drop in
the throttling device 2. For this reason, the irreversible loss
of throttling process in this throttling device will be reduced
and the partial usable work can be recovered to lift the evap-
orator outlet pressure, i.e. increase the suction pressure of
the compressor. In addition to this, the heat transfer loss in
the evaporative condenser can also be reduced due to the de-
crease of temperature difference in the NARC compared to
that in the CARC. It should be mentioned that the pressure
drop in the throttling device 1 has to ensure there exists min-
imum temperature difference in the evaporative condenser.
In general, the cycle performance of NARC can be improved
by applying an ejector in it.
3. Theoretical computation model
The ejector working process is shown in Fig. 3. The primary
flow expands in the nozzle from high pressure to low pressure
and then sucks the secondary flow. The two flows mix in the
mixing section and become one mixed flow. This mixed flow
282 international journal of refrigeration 31 (2008) 279–286

where hp;n2;s is the ideal exit enthalpy of the primary flow un-
der the isentropic expansion, hn is the nozzle efficiency.
In the mixing section, the momentum conservation equa-
tion and energy conservation equation for the ideal mixing
process according to constant pressure-mixing process are
given as
 
m _ s us;n2 ¼ m
_ p up;n2 þ m _pþm _ u (3)
   s m;m2;s 
m_ p hp;n2 þ u2p;n2 =2 þ m _ s hs;n2 þ u2s;n2 =2

¼ ðm _ s Þðhm;m2;s þ u2m;m2;s =2Þ

_pþm ð4Þ

where um;m2;s and hm;m2;s are the ideal exit velocity and en-
thalpy of the mixed flow under the constant pressure mixing.
If neglecting the velocity of secondary flow us;n2 compared
with the primary flow velocity up;n2 and considering the en-
ergy loss of the mixing process, the actual exit velocity um;m2
and enthalpy hm;m2 of the mixed flow then can be derived
from Eqs. (1)–(4) as

um;m2 ¼ up;n2 ðhm Þ1=2 =ð1 þ mÞ (5)

Fig. 3 – The structure and working process of ejector.
 
hm;m2 ¼ hp;n1 þ mhs;n2 ð1 þ mÞ  u2m;m2 =2 (6)

where the mixing efficiency hm is defined as

further increases its pressure to the back pressure in the dif- hm ¼ u2m;m2 =u2m;m2;s (7)
fuser. In this paper, the ejector performance computation is
and the entrainment ratio of the ejector m is defined as
carried out based on the one-dimensional constant pressure
flow model used by most researchers in studying ejector re- m¼m _p
_ s =m (8)
frigeration cycle. The basic principle of the model was intro-
In diffuser section, if neglecting the exit velocity of the
duced by Keenan et al. (1950) based on gas dynamics, and
mixed flow and taking diffuser efficiency into account, the ac-
then developed by Huang et al. (1999) and Ouzzane and
tual exit enthalpy of the mixed flow can be expressed accord-
Aidoun (2003). Usually, the computation model is set up based
ing to energy balance equation as
on the following main assumptions: 
hm;d2 ¼ hm;m2 þ ðhm;d2;s  hm;m2 Þ hd (9)
(1) The flow inside the ejector is steady and one dimensional. where hm;d2;s is the ideal exit enthalpy of the mixed flow under
(2) The kinetic energy at the inlets of primary and secondary the isentropic compression, hd is the diffuser efficiency.
flow and the outlet of diffuser are negligible. According to the above equations, the entrainment ratio m
(3) For simplicity, the effects of frictional and mixing losses in can be found.
the nozzle, diffuser and mixing section are taken into ac- qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
  
count by using these efficiencies, the nozzle efficiency hn , m ¼ hn hm hd hp;n1  hp;n2;s ðhm;d2;s  hm;m2;s Þ  1 (10)
the mixing efficiency hm and the diffuser efficiency hd .
For the whole cycle performance calculation, the following
(4) Mixing in the mixing section of ejectors occurs at constant
assumptions are also made:
pressure and complying with the conversion of energy and
momentum.
(1) Neglect the pressure loss and the heat losses to the envi-
(5) The inner walls of ejectors are adiabatic, namely no heat
ronment in the condenser, phase separator, evaporative
losses.
condenser and evaporator.
(6) Normal transverse shocks may occur at any plane in the
(2) The vapor stream from the separator is saturated vapor and
throat section.
the liquid stream from the separator is saturated liquid.
(7) A homogenous two-phase flow is idealized for the ejector
(3) The flow across the throttling devices is isenthalpic.
when it involves the two-phase flow inside.
(4) Take the isentropic efficiency into account for the
compressor.
Using the above assumptions, the equations for the ejector
are given based on the mass, momentum and energy conser-
Therefore, the equations for the cycle performance can be
vation as follows.
found based on the energy conservation.
In the nozzle section, if the inlet velocity of primary flow
Refrigerating capacity is given as
up;n1 is neglected, the exit velocity of primary flow up;n2 and en-
thalpy hp;n2 can be derived as _6
Qe ¼ ðh6  h5 Þm (11)

up;n2 ¼ 2hn ðhp;n1  hp;n2;s ÞÞ1=2 (1) Refrigerating capacity per unit mass flow of refrigerant mix-
ture in the compressor is given as
hp;n2 ¼ hp;n1  u2p;n2 =2 (2) _1
qo ¼ Qe =m (12)
 international journal of refrigeration 31 (2008) 279–286 283

The compressor power of the compressor is given as 4.1. Effects of the tec on cycle performance
 
Wcom ¼ h2  h1 m_ 1 =hcom (13)
The following results are obtained when the condenser outlet
The coefficient of performance (COP) of the cycle can be deter- temperature tc ¼ 40  C, the evaporator outlet dew point tem-
mined by perature te ¼ 30  C, the mass fraction of R23 z ¼ 0:35.
In the NARC, for a given operating conditions, the entrain-
COP ¼ Qe =Wcom (14) ment ratio of the ejector m is dependent on the primary pres-
_1 m
_ 8 are the mass flow sure, secondary pressure and outlet pressure of ejector. The
where h1–h8 are the enthalpies and m
primary pressure and secondary pressure are, respectively,
rates of state points 1–8 in the cycle.
relevant to tec and te . The outlet pressure of ejector is deter-
The corresponding thermodynamic properties of the states
mined based on meeting the mass conservation constraint
of the cycle can be determined from the equation of state of
for the cycle and the heat balance constraint for the evapora-
refrigerant mixture. In the calculating program written with
tive condenser, which can be evaluated by iteration in the
Fortran Language, the NIST routines were used to calculate
simulation.
these properties, which is currently an industry standard
Fig. 4 shows the variation of m and pressure ratio rpeje of the
(NIST Standard Reference Database, 1998).
ejector with the tec , respectively. In this figure, we can see that
both the m and rpeje increase with the increases of the tec . The
4. Results and discussion primary pressure of ejector is corresponding to the tec , which
increases with the increases of tec . Consequently, this results
In the present study, the refrigerant mixture of R23/R134a is in an increase of the entrainment ratio and outlet pressure of
selected as typical working fluid for simulating the cycle the ejector. For the given conditions, the rpeje can reach 1.15–
performance of NARC. To investigate the characteristics of 1.31. In addition, it can be found that the m is in the range of
the NARC, the following basic operating conditions are firstly 0.80–0.88 in the present NARC, which is close to 1 in values.
assumed. The efficiencies of the ejector are assumed to be This is because, as this ejector operates under the given oper-
hn ¼ 0:90, hm ¼ 0:85, and hd ¼ 0:85 by making reference to lit- ating conditions in the NARC, the pressure ratios across the
eratures (Li and Groll, 2005; Huang et al., 1999; Cizungu et al., ejector are maintained at low level, which are much smaller
2001). The compressor is assumed to have an isentropic effi- compared to that of the ejector operated in the conventional
ciency hcom ¼ 0:65, which is a constant and does not vary by ejector refrigeration cycle. Usually, the entrainment ratio of
the pressure ratio in all cases. the ejector depends on the primary pressure, secondary pres-
In the simulation for the cycle, we selected the tempera- sure and back pressure of ejector. When the primary pressure
ture, not the pressure, as the given operating parameters for and secondary pressure are fixed, the value of the entrain-
condenser, evaporator and evaporative condenser. For the ment ratio for the ejector increases as the value of the pres-
condenser, it is the condenser outlet temperature tc . The tc sure ratio decreases, i.e. the back pressure decreases.
used in the simulation is fixed at 40  C. For the evaporator, Therefore, the ejector can attain a higher entrainment ratio
the evaporator outlet dew point temperature te is used as op- in the NARC, which provides an increase of its performance.
erating parameter because there is the temperature glide in it. It should be noted that the high value of the entrainment ratio
Considering the different refrigeration request, the variable te in present theoretical simulation was obtained after taking
over a wide range of 20  C to 35  C was performed in the the efficiencies of the ejector into account in the modeling of
simulation. Similarly, the evaporative condenser outlet dew ejector. Of course, this value could be slightly smaller than it
point temperature tec is also selected as an analytical param- is in real refrigerating machines due to other practical factors.
eter. Actually, it is undetermined design parameter for the cy-
cle design when the tc and te are determined, which has
effects on both the temperature differences in the evaporative
condenser and the performance of the ejector. The parametric
study must be conducted to determine the optimum value in
the simulation for the cycle design.
It is known that the composition of refrigerant mixture is
an important variable, which has more important effect on
the cycle performance. Therefore, the mass fraction of R23 z
as the initial charged refrigerant mixture at point 1 is also
treated as a variable operating condition. In the simulation,
the variation of the cycle performance with the change of z
is represented.
In addition, in order to investigate the effects of the varia-
tion of those main variables on the cycle performance, the de-
gree of superheating and subcooling at evaporative condenser
and evaporator outlet is held zero.
It is noted that a performance comparison for the NARC
and CARC is made under the same operating conditions,
which is shown in the following corresponding figures. Fig. 4 – Variation of m and rpeje with the tec .
284 international journal of refrigeration 31 (2008) 279–286
Fig. 5 – Variation of rpcom with the tec .
Moreover, the high value of the entrainment ratio also
means that the mass flow rates of refrigerant mixture flowing
through the evaporative condenser at both high pressure side
and low pressure side are relatively matched.
Fig. 5 shows the effect of tec on the pressure ratio with re-
spect to the compressor, respectively, in NARC and CARC. It
shows clearly that the pressure ratio of compressor rpcom in
NARC deceases with an increase of tec . This results from an in-
crease of the outlet pressure of the ejector, i.e. compressor in-
let pressure. Therefore, the rpcom is in turn decreased with an
increase of tec . However, the decrease of rpcom is limited by
the minimum temperature differences in the evaporative con-
denser. The minimum temperature difference ðt300  t8 Þ tends
to decrease with increasing tec at the given condenser outlet
temperature. In Fig. 5, the corresponding ðt300  t8 Þ will exceed
5  C when tec is close to 30  C. From the results shown in Fig. 5,
the rpcom of NARC is reduced by 13.1–23.5% compared with
that of the CARC.
As seen above, the pressure elevation of the ejector causes
a decrease of the pressure ratio across the compressor and
thus, decreases the compression work and increases the
Fig. 6 – Variation of COP with the tec .
improvement in COP of NARC, which is shown in Fig. 6. It
can be seen that for the given conditions, NARC has a 8.7–
17.7% improvement in COP over CARC. This is just because
the drop of pressure through the throttling device 1 in the
NARC can be reduced compared to the previous throttling de-
vice in CARC. For this reason, the ejector can recover some
available work of the previous expansion process in the
CARC to increase the compressor suction pressure. As viewed
from total throttling loss, the throttling loss can be reduced
when the ejector is used in the NARC compared to only using
the throttling device in CARC. However, since there is a small
heat transfer temperature difference across the evaporative
condenser of the NARC, the heat transfer area of the evapora-
tive condenser will become larger. Therefore, the limit in the
parameter of tec should be moderately considered in the de-
sign of the NARC.
In addition, Fig. 7 shows the variations of refrigerating ca-
pacity per unit mass flow of refrigerant mixture in the com-
pressor with respect to tec . The figure shows the refrigerating
capacity of the NARC qo is greater than that of CARC, which
is because the refrigerating capacity is very much dependent
on the mass flow rate of refrigerant mixture, and that the
mass flow rate of refrigerant mixture in the NARC is greater
than that in CARC at the same operating conditions. As the
tec increases, the refrigerating capacity of the NARC increases
owing to the increase of the mass flow rate of refrigerant mix-
ture. Therefore, NARC also represents a merit of performance
improvement in refrigerating capacity per unit mass flow of
refrigerant mixture in the compressor over CARC.
4.2. Effects of the te on cycle performance
As we know, the rpcom has a direct relation to the possible
lower te when other operating conditions are given. In the cy-
cle, the rpcom will increase with the decreases of the te . This
not only gives high pressure ratio risk for compressor, but
also significantly increases the loss of the cycle at the same
time.
Fig. 8 shows the effect of the ejector on the rpcom when de-
creasing the te . In this simulation, the tc is 40  C and the z is
0.35. The te is kept in a range of 20  C to 35  C. Due to the
Fig. 7 – Variation of qo with the tec .
 international journal of refrigeration 31 (2008) 279–286
Fig. 8 – Variation of rpcom with the te .
temperature glide in the evaporator, the corresponding evap-
orator inlet temperature is in a range of 39.4  C to 52.9  C,
which is evaluated by simulation. It can be clearly seen from
the figure that the rpcom of the NARC is obviously smaller
than that of CARC. As the te further decreases, the rpcom is
also decreased more compared to CARC. The reason for this
is that when the te becomes lower, the pressure ratio of the
ejector increases. Compared with CARC, the rpcom of the
NARC decreases by 6.2–24.4% in the above range of te .
Therefore, it can be concluded that for the NARC, the large
improvement in COP can be obtained with decreasing te . Fig. 9
shows the variation of the COP with the te in the NARC and
CARC for the different tec . From this figure, it was found that
the NARC improves the COP by 3.9–17.4% compared to the
CARC for the above operating conditions. Similar to the situa-
tion of performance improvement in COP, it can also be
seen as shown in Fig. 10 that the NARC has an improvement
in refrigerating capacity over the CARC. Moreover, NARC rep-
resents the more significant potential for increasing the refrig-
erating capacity especially at lower te .
Fig. 9 – Variation of COP with the te .
285
Fig. 10 – Variation of qo with the te .
4.3. Effect of the refrigerant mixture composition on
cycle performance
In autocascade refrigeration cycle, the pressure–temperature
relationship of the refrigerant mixture in the condenser or
evaporator is dependent on the composition. A pressure
change at the given temperatures is accompanied by a change
of the composition, which affects the ejector performance as
well as cycle performance. Therefore, in this case the selec-
tion of composition should be more appropriate.
As for composition of the refrigerant mixture, the z was se-
lected in a range of 0.15–0.45, so that the maximum operating
pressure was below 3 MPa. In the following simulation, the tc
and te were, respectively, 40  C and 30  C. The variations of
the rpcom in the NARC and CARC with respect to z for different
tec are displayed in Fig. 11. It can be seen that for the given con-
ditions, the rpcom in the CARC increases with a decrease of the
composition. For the NARC, however, the rpcom decreases with
a decrease of the composition. The reason for this case is that
the pressure ratio of ejector tends to increase with a decrease
of the z, i.e. raise the compressor suction pressure. This in turn
leads to a decrease of rpcom in the NARC relative to the total
Fig. 11 – Variation of rpcom with the z.
286 international journal of refrigeration 31 (2008) 279–286
Fig. 12 – Variation of COP with the z.
cycle pressure lift (from evaporator pressure to condenser
pressure). It can also be seen that the change tendencies of
the rpcom in the NARC with decreasing the composition are
same at different tec . However, the possible minimum rpcom
accomplished by decreasing the composition and increasing
the tec is limited as the constraint of the minimum tempera-
ture difference for the evaporative condenser. Compared
with CARC, the pressure lift ratio of the ejector reaches 1.13–
1.35, the rpcom of the NARC decreases by 11.4–25.8% in the
above range of the z and tec .
When the rpcom is decreased, this causes the compression
work to decrease. As a result, the COP increases while refriger-
ation request was kept constant, which can be seen in Fig. 12.
Fig. 12 also shows the variation of COP with respect to the z for
various tec . It can be derived from Fig. 12 that COP of NARC has
higher values than that of CARC because of the function of
ejector. It can also be seen that the COP has a large trend of in-
crease for NARC as the z decreases and the tec also increases.
Compared with that of CARC, the COP of NARC increases by
7.7–19.1% as shown in Fig. 12.
5. Conclusion
This paper proposed that an ejector is employed in the autocas-
cade refrigeration cycle to improve the cycle performance. The-
oretical computation model based on the constant pressure-
mixing model for the ejector was used to perform a thermody-
namic cycle analysis for this novel autocascade refrigeration cy-
cle with the refrigerant mixture of R23/R134a. The effects of
main parameters on the performance for the novel cycle were
investigated using the theoretical model. The performance of
the novel cycle is then compared with that of the conventional
autocascade refrigeration cycle at the same operating condi-
tions. From the above theoretical computation results, the fol-
lowing conclusions are drawn for the novel cycle:
(1) On the whole, application of an ejector in autocascade re-
frigeration cycle can be considered an attractive option for
improving cycle performance. Especially, it demonstrates
an outstanding merit in decreasing the rpcom as well as
in increasing the COP when operated at lower refrigerating
temperature. For example, in the NARC the pressure lift ra-
tio of the ejector reaches to 1.35, the rpcom is reduced by
25.8% and the COP is improved by 19.1% over the CARC
for operating at the condenser outlet temperature of
40  C, the evaporator inlet temperature of 40.3  C, the
evaporative condenser outlet dew point temperature of
20  C, and the mass fraction of R23 is 0.15.
(2) Increasing the tec is always beneficial to performance im-
provement of the NARC, but is limited by the minimum
temperature differences of the evaporative condenser. Ob-
viously, the performance improvement is actually at a cost
of increasing the heat transfer area of the evaporative con-
denser. Therefore, the parameter tec should be syntheti-
cally considered in the design of NARC.
(3) In NARC, both the compressor discharge pressure and the
pressure ratio can be decreased as decreasing the composition
of low-temperature refrigerant in two-compound mixture.
But the constraint for the minimum temperature difference
in the evaporative condenser should be taken into consider-
ation when determining the appropriate composition.
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