Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
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Thermo-Fluid Systems

Vapor Compression Cycle Testbed

Vapor Compression Cycle Testbed with three parallel evaporators.

Existing vapor compression cycle (VCC) is mostly designed for steady state conditions.  For high transient heat flux applications such as electronic cooling, the system could be severely over-designed, resulting in unnecessarily large volume and energy inefficiency.  We are conducting research to use a combination of feedback and feedforward control and temperature, mass flow rate, and pressure feedback to achieve high efficiency (characterized by coefficient of performance COP) while avoiding critical heat flux (CHF). 

Research Theme: 
Heat

Completed Thermo-Fluid Systems Projects

Building Thermal Management: Adaptive and learning control for human comfort and energy efficiency
building HVAC control
This project is focused on the development of an intelligent control system to manage energy consumption of buildings by actively incorporating human mediation in this process. The unique aspect of this project includes mechanisms by which multiple tenants of a commercial building can participate in the energy management process and allow the various control and actuation functions to efficiently meet their collective needs. The goal is to develop a blueprint for a more sustainable design of buildings. In addition to the significant impact on energy efficiency and sufficiency of next-generation buildings, the techniques being developed here also have transformative impact on sustainability research and sustainable technologies as a whole.
Distributed System Level Thermal Management of High Transient Heat Loads using Microchannel Evaporators
vapor compression cycle testbed
There is a significant need for efficient thermal management for cooling photonic devices such as LED, laser diodes, GaN devices such as High Electron Mobility Transistors, and high performance integrated circuits. High temperatures can degrade performance and efficiency, possibly leading to irreversible damages. This research considers two-phase cooling using microchannel evaporators in a vapor compression cycle. The goal is to design and fabricate microchannel evaporators and develop modeling, optimization, and control strategies for efficient and robust operations.