BEYOND project: from field data to evaluation of soft faults in heat pumps as an enabiling technology for smart maintenance
Soft faults in heat pumps, such as refrigerant leaks or fouling of heat exchangers, are detrimental to energy performance as they can leave the system capable of balancing the thermal load, but with worsened energy efficiency. This leads to an efficiency reduction of even 10%-15% before the malfunction becomes apparent to the user. It would therefore be useful to have methods for estimating the extent of soft faults, especially in the case of several concurrent faults. The BEYOND project (www.beyondproject.eu), funded by the European Innovation Council, aims to identify innovative methods that, starting from direct and cost-effective measurements on a vapor compression system, attempt to assess the extent of refrigerant leaks and heat exchanger fouling. This paper describes the main ideas behind the project to determine innovation and possible technological advantages, especially to provide maintenance companies or cooling providers with the necessary information to perform smart maintenance, reducing environmental impact and, at the same time, any unnecessary customer service calls.