Performance Evaluation of Glazed and Unglazed Collectors/regenerators in a Liquid Absorbent Open-Cycle Absorption Cooling System

The performance of two collectors/regenerators, one glazed and the other unglazed, was studied when tested side-by-side under the meteorological conditions of Tempe, Arizona. One half of an 11 m by 11 m roof structure was covered with a series of seven Tedlar panels, each measuring 1.76 cm by 4.88 m, and the other remained unglazed. When the performance of the collector/regenerator (C/R) was expressed in terms of the quantity of water evaporated from it, which in effect was a measure of the cooling capacity of the system, the unglazed C/R performed better than the glazed C/R under the climatic conditions considered here. Nondimensional correlations for heat and mass transfer were developed from the experimental data for subsequent use with a performance model. The glazed C/R was found less sensitive to changes in independent variables and its regeneration efficiency was, on the average, 7.6% lower than the unglazed C/R. The performance of the glazed C/R approaches that of unglazed C/R at a larger height o...