Development and Performance Validation of Portable Air-Conditioning Experimental Apparatus

Abstract

A bench-top air-conditioning experimental apparatus was designed, developed, and constructed for instruction and demonstration purposes. This air-conditioning experimental set-up was designed around the vapor compression refrigeration cycle. It is reliable, safe for student use, and portable. The apparatus has an intuitive user interface that supports data acquisition by a computer. The unit is capable of demonstrating air-conditioning processes such as cooling, heating, and humidification. The level of cooling, heating, and humidification is monitored and controlled using a PC-based control system which consists of LabVIEW and a data acquisition unit. The system can also be used to demonstrate the fundamentals of the refrigeration cycle and the psychrometric properties of air, as well as some fundamental concepts and principles in heat transfer, heat exchangers, and thermodynamics. This paper provides details about the development of this unit and the integration of the electrical/electronic components and the control system.

Keywords

air-conditioning refrigeration cycle laboratory experiments

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