Advanced Control for Low Inerty Refrigeration System – ACLIRSYS

The ACLIRSYS project includes 4 industrial companies (two manufacturers of thermal equipments, CIAT and Cristopia, the European specialist of compressors for refrigeration systems, DANFOSS ,and CMDL MANASLU Ing., a company specialized in the energetic equipments for buildings) and 3 public research laboratories (LAGEP, LCIS, LGP2S).

The objective of this project is to work out an integrated refrigeration system able to ensure the thermal comfort of energy-saving tertiary buildings (BBC in French). This kind of buildings is characterized by high efficiency insulation, important glazed surfaces and low thermal inertia. Therefore a specific refrigeration system has to be designed for them.

The solution able to adapt itself to this new environment which is proposed in the project includes a refrigeration group with a variable speed compressor, fast dynamics and very few refrigerant liquid. This is made available using innovative technologies for the components. The refrigeration system also includes a water loop between the building and the refrigeration group which is connected to an innovative compact thermal storage system. This storage system can sustain low level thermal demand on short time period instead of the refrigeration group. This will allow the design of a global control architecture, suitable for this kind of low inertia thermal systems, which will make the integrated system able to satisfy the typical comfort and energy saving control objectives and won’t make use of classical “stop and go” techniques which are not suitable anymore for BBC buildings.

To realize these objectives, the ACLIRSYS project integrates the development of new dynamical port-based modelling approaches for thermodynamics systems, as well as advanced control strategies for complex systems. It also includes the characterization and identification of new components technologies: compact thermal heat exchangers, variable speed compressors of spiro-orbital and centrifugal kinds and compact storage systems. The whole approach will be validated on a laboratory-scale experimental facility which will be built and exploited within the duration of the project.

The ACLIRSYS technical and scientific approach will also allow significant energy savings and an increased reliability thanks to the control architecture and optimization of the “cold loop” and to the use of new technologies for thermal passive (heat exchanger, storage) and active (compressors) components.