Work in progress page
Project Goal
The goal of this project was to create a cart that could be used to test an electric heat pump on a water heater.
Research Goals
The research being conducted is to improve the cold weather efficiency of heat pumps, in particular those in water heaters. As temperatures near the evaporator side of a heat exchanger get below 0 the water that condenses on them can freeze. This freezing can cause frost build up and greatly decrease the performance of a heat pump. Here a coating is in developmenet to greatly delay the time until frost growth and spreading
Technical Specs
The cart is designed out of 8020 aluminum extrusion, both 1.5x1.5" and 1.5x3" varieties. It needs to be able to hold 600+ pounds and have space for mounting the heater along with all of the control and sensors to be built out in the future.
Media
Figure 1: Solidworks model of the intial design of the base of the cart
Figure 2: Front view of the Solidworks model of the cart and water heater