The dynamics of a solid-adsorption heat pump connected with outside heat sources of finite capacity

Abstract The problem of the response of a heat pump to the solicitations of the heat reservoirs is an important problem which has not been extensively studied up to now. In this publication, a case study concerning a solid adsorption heat pump working with the zeolite water pair in a single state cycle is presented. The equations needed to solve the problem are presented and are solved numerically in a particular case. The numerical simulation is validated by experimental results. A sensitivity study of the results of the numerical simulation is then presented vs the most important parameters. The thermodynamic cycle is seen to be very sensitive to the values of the various heat exchange coefficients as well as to the heat rates exchanged between the heat pump and the heat reservoirs.