Exergy destruction minimization of an irreversible Carnot refrigeration cycle

Abstract

In this paper, exergy destruction minimization has been carried out for an irreversible Carnot refrigeration cycle. The rates of destroyed exergy in various portion of this physical model are derived. The goal of exergy destruction minimization is to minimize the rate of total destroyed exergy of the system. By defining the recovery factor during power input process and introducing an irreversibility coefficient of the system, the optimum cycle temperatures in the isothermal cooling process and the isothermal heating process are obtained. The optimum values of cycle cooling rate, coefficient of performance of the system, and total destroyed exergy rate are derived simultaneously. The influences of various parameters on these optimum values are studied by numerical calculation. The results show that the exergy destruction minimization method is important and effective for the design of an irreversible Carnot refrigeration cycle.