Séminaire CETHIL - Non-conventional refrigeration technologies: a numerical perspective

Sébastien PONCET, Holder of the NSERC chair on industrial energy effiency, Mechanical Engineering department, Université de Sherbrooke, Canada

Résumé au format pdf

According to the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, the energy demand for cooling will overtake the energy used for heating by 2060. At the same time, international initiatives are trying to regulate both harmful gas emissions and to phase out progressively the use of hydrofluorocarbon refrigerants. Industry has then to face important challenges during the next decade: (i) energy savings by improving the energy efficiency of existing systems and developing breakthrough technologies/scenarios; (ii) reduced dependence on fossil fuels by the use of waste heat or renewable energy sources; (iii) introduction of alternative non-ozone depleting and low global warming refrigerants. Research activities performed by the NSERC chair on industrial energy efficiency are well aligned with these general objectives by using advanced numerical simulations and experiments on pilot scale prototypes.

In this talk, I will first give a quick overview of our research activities and of the peculiar energy context in Québec. I will then present the last numerical achievements for three key components of refrigeration systems, namely supersonic ejectors, ice slurries and magnetocaloric regenerators. These flow configurations are particularly challenging for numerical methods (turbulence, shock waves, phase change, multiphase, conjugated heat transfer…) and have in common to use refrigerants with a low environmental impact. The results shed light on both the benefits from developing 3D numerical solvers and advanced post-processing methods to improve the predictions of thermodynamic models and their remaining limitations.