a haghighi - Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Guilan;
a jafari - M.Sc Student, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Guilan;

This paper presents a theoretical investigation of solar driven silica gel-water adsorption cooling system. In order to provide 24-hour air conditioning an auxiliary heater was utilized. A computer simulation program has been developed to evaluate the system performance in terms of solar fraction and average cooling capacity, using meteorological data of Tehran, Iran. The influence of storage tank capacity on auxiliary energy consumption, solar fraction and daily cooling power has been investigated. The results indicated that decrease of storage tank capacity from 400 L to 30 L decreases auxiliary energy consumption by 47% with a 3.34-fold increase in solar fraction and 27% increase of daily average cooling capacity. Furthermore, when a hot water storage tank is employed, a maximum of 8.058 kW daily average cooling power and a maximum solar fraction of 0.79 are obtained with a tank capacity of 30 L.

adsorption cooling, solar energy, energy consumption