Analysis of Direct Ground Coupled Absorber

It is a common practice to use a secondary loop to transfer heat from a refrigeration system to the ground. However, in the case of a system driven by a low temperature heat source, the temperature difference inserted by the secondary loop will significantly affect the performance of the system. This paper discusses a new approach to cool the absorber of an absorption refrigerator by direct coupling the absorber with the ground, i.e., the working fluid in the absorber of the refrigerator is directly cooled in the ground. Simulation results of the direct ground coupled absorber are presented and these indicate the optimal circulation flow rate for this type of absorber. Some experimental results on the direct ground coupled absorber are also presented for comparison.