PhD Thesis - Energy Systems Research Unit - University of Strathclyde

effective manner. The research in this thesis therefore makes use of data derivedfrom simulations performed using a similar whole building simulation tool.1.4 Scope of research and methodology adopted1.4.1 Scope of researchThe scope of this research can be summarised as to better understand the impact ofoperating conditions on micro-trigeneration performance in residential buildings inwarm climates. More specifically this thesis has two particular research aims.To extend previous work done on micro-cogeneration and trigeneration in residentialbuildings (e.g. IEA ECBCS Annex 42 [52],and Beausoleil-Morrison et al. in [53]), toinclude detailed analysis of residential cooling through the following:(i) The development of a detailed yet easy-to-calibrate model of an absorptionchiller capable of capturing the dynamic behaviour. When modelling a chillerwithin a trigeneration system, the dynamic conditions due to (for example)‘On’/‘Off’ or modulating behaviour, start-up and shut down or other temporalfluctuations in operating conditions experienced by the chiller results in asituation where although intrinsically more complex to develop compared tosteady-state models, dynamic models are by far the more appropriate meansto assess the actual performance of an absorption chiller model [37, 54].Existing attempts at dynamic absorption chiller modelling however haveresulted in the creation of detailed models of specific chillers [55] or detailedmodels of specific cycles and system configurations [56] which with,difficulty can be adapted to represent other chiller models or included in plantconfigurations other than those for which they were originally designed. Also,although an emerging approach of developing models [37, 57] capable ofbeing customised through calibration with data obtained for different units isslowly becoming significant, such models still require the user to define thecharacteristics of the components comprising the desired absorption chiller(e.g. the individual components’ heat exchange surface area, individualinternal component dimensions, solution composition and internal mass flow14