The design, manufacture and testing of a jet-pump chiller for air conditioning and industrial application

A 40 kWc jet-pump chiller has been built in Florence at Frigel s.p.a. The plant is intended as a test bench for future jet-pump chillers for applications in the industrial temperature control market and powered by waste heat from CHP systems. The generator and evaporator of the prototype unit are water-heated and the condenser is water cooled. R245fa has been chosen as the working fluid. The prototype’s jetpump has a movable primary nozzle and 7 static pressure probes on the mixing chamber/diffuser duct. This latter has been manufactured in two versions, both characterized by a profile inspired by the CRMC (Constant Rate of Momentum Change) criterion. This paper describes the prototype and presents a preliminary set of experimental test results.