Development of design charts for solar cooling systems. Part I: computer simulation for a solar cooling system and development of solar cooling design charts

An integrated transient simulation program is developed for simulating the Iraqi solar house cooling system, using TRNSYS as a design tool. The simulation is modeled for other virtual solar cooling systems similar to the Iraqi solar house. A number of computer programs were developed and used in parallel with TRNSYS for developing an integrated program for the complete simulation of a solar cooling system with a lithium bromide-water absorption chiller. The results obtained from the simulation were used to develop a general design procedure for solar cooling systems, presented in a graphical form called the cooling f-chart. Using this design chart simplifies the designer's task for predicting the long term cooling energy supplied from a solar collector array serving an absorption chilled water system. A correlation was developed from the simulation results for estimating the hot water storage size necessary for the solar cooling system. This was based on minimizing the energy discarded from the vent valve when the solar heated water attains a temperature higher than the boiling temperature. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.