Abstract
Pressure exchanger is a device used to recover energy from high pressure working fluid in systems like Reverse Osmosis water desalination. The pressure exchanger enables the high pressure fluid to transfer portion of its energy to the low pressure fluid by tran sferring the fluid pressure. This working concept can be applied to systems where there is a significant pressure variation of the working fluid along the system. Trans critical CO 2 refrigeration system is a good example for significant pressure variation during the flow path. The high pressure CO 2 exiting the condenser can be recovered by the low pressure CO 2 upstream of the compressor using a pressure exchanger to increase the system overall efficiency. The proposed research is to numerically simulate a prototype pressure exchanger for trans critical CO 2 refrigeration system. The focus of this study is to understand the thermo fluid behavior of the system when CO 2 is used as the working fluid. Contour plots of velocity and pressure are presented for qualitative analysis.
