Optimal design study of cylindrical finned reactor for solar adsorption cooling machine working with activated carbon–ammonia pair

This paper presents a model describing the heat and mass transfer in cylindrical finned reactor of solar adsorption refrigerator. Giving the meteorological data as boundary conditions on the reactor; the model computes the solar coefficient of performance (COPs). The validity of the model has been tested by using experimental results. An analysis of the sensitivity of the COPs versus the geometrical parameters of the reactor (radius of the reactor, fins thickness and fins number) is mad. Then the model is applied to optimize the solar reactor. The COPs is used as an optimization criterion. The geometrical parameters where the COPs of the machine reach a maximum have been calculated.