The current increasing shortage of natural energy resources has established the need for the heat pump systems as the universal replacement of combustion equipment for heating.
To investigate the performance characteristics of heat pump systems and to verify their cycles, a heat pump system is designed and built. For this heat pump system, temperature, pressure, input work, and flow rate are measured. With these measured values the effect of the environmental conditions and capillary tube length on the performance of heat pump system is investigated.
The most important parameter for the performance of heat pump system is the outdoor temperature condition. The refrigerant flow rate, the capacity of condenser and evaporator, the input work, and the COP increase as the evaporating temperature rises. But the capacity of condenser and evaporator, the efficiency of compressure, and the COP decrease and the input work, the pressure ratio, and the refrigerant flow rate increase as the condensing temperature rises. The result is that the COP is about 8 and the overall COP is about 3.
