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Domestic refrigeration innovation - reducing ODP and improving efficiency ators
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Domestic refrigeration innovation - reducing ODP and improving efficiency ators
Paper from the winner of the Ted Perry Award
A reduction in the energy consumption of a domestic refrigerator or freezer can be created by either reducing the heat load on the unit, or by improving the efficiency of the refrigeration system. This paper focused on improving the efficiency of the refrigeration system by compressor optimisation, and used a combination of mathematical modelling and empirical development methods to determine key factors such as compressor displacement, compressor efficiency.
Manufacturers have reported that fitting larger displacement compressors can reduce the energy consumption of a refrigerator. This appeared to disagree with the 2nd law of thermodynamics, as larger compressors force colder evaporating temperatures for the same condensing temperature.
The mathematical model developed to investigate this was written in C code and combined the CoolVan and CoolRoom models previously created by University of Bristol to produce a model of a domestic chest freezer. The fridge plant module was solved using convergent loops at each time increment to calculate steady state heat flows, temperatures and energy consumption at each time step.
