Widespread application of adsorption heat pumps has been delayed not only by poor heat and mass transfer performance but also by low operating reliability because high vacuum must be maintained in the adsorption cooling system, especially in a water system. An adsorption cooling tube is a tube in which an adsorber, a condenser and an evaporator are all completely housed to construct a small scale adsorption cooling unit. In this work, an adsorption cooling tube and an adsorption heat pump with multi-cooling tubes are designed. A theoretical model is built to simulate the performance of the designed chiller. According to the results, the coefficient of performance and specific cooling power reach about 0.5 and 85 W/kg adsorbent, respectively, at the hot water temperature of 85 degrees C. These results indicate that the designed heat pump in this work would provide a better choice if the operating reliability became crucial for an adsorption heat pump. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved