A new method for field test of the heating capacity of air source heat pumps

The operation performance measurement of the air source heat pumps in the field, in which conditions are complicated and the accuracy could not be ensured, is very crucial for its performance evaluation and improvement. In this investigation, a novel method for measuring the heating capacity of the air source heat pump is established. An auxiliary electric heater is installed along the pipeline between the compressor and the condenser, and the refrigerant temperature difference caused by the heater is gathered to calculate the refrigerant mass flow rate based on the energy conservation. The heating capacity is calculated with the measured data of the refrigerant enthalpy at the inlet and outlet of the condenser and the refrigerant mass flow rate of the compressor discharge pipe. The validation results in laboratory tests show that the measured heating capacity accuracy is within 9.2%. It is also found that the impact of the novel test method on the heating capacity of the air source heat pumps is below 1.7%, and the power consumption of the tested units is increasing of within 1.8% compared with it when the electric heater is off. The refrigerant enthalpy difference method with an electric heater presented in this research can be applied to measure the heating capacity of different air source heat pump air heaters accurately in the field, which will be much helpful to improve the performance for cleaning heating in northern China.