An Excellent SCCHP Design Project in Thermal-fluids Education

Thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, and heat transfer are three core courses playing key roles in thermal-fluids education. For students majoring in thermal-fluids, a senior design project is usually assigned to train them knowing how and where these course knowledge is applied in engineering. The project should be proper and practical, not only to boost design interests of the students, but also to help their future career development. In the paper, the author describes a design project, solar-assisted combined cooling, heating, and power (SCCHP) plant, which is designed per author’s many year experience of professional work in consulting companies and teaching in colleges. The SCCHP plant is composed of a solar heating system including solar energy collectors and a high efficiency heat exchanger, a steam power system including a steam turbine, cooling tower, and condenser, and the cooling and heating of the HVAC system including an absorption/compression chiller, a cooling tower, and an air handling unit (AHU). The students apply the knowledge of thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, and heat transfer to understand the plant working principle and perform the heat balance calculation. In the paper, the author illustrates the design procedure and presents sketches of the SCCHP plant and the subsystems of solar heating, steam power, and cooling and heating of HVAC. The equations of thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, and heat transfer for calculation and analysis are described, respectively. The design project of the SCCHP plant has been used partially or completely for a few years. It has been highly appreciated by the students, even after their graduation when they were working in companies.