Applied Energy 147 (2015) 386395

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Applied Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apenergy

Transient simulation of a two-door frost-free refrigerator subjected to

periodic door opening and evaporator frosting q
Bruno N. Borges a, Cludio Melo a, Christian J.L. Hermes b,
a
POLO Research Laboratories for Emerging Technologies in Cooling and Thermophysics, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Federal University of Santa Catarina,
88040900 Florianpolis, SC, Brazil
b
Laboratory of Thermodynamics and Thermophysics, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Federal University of Paran, 81531990 Curitiba, PR, Brazil

h i g h l i g h t s
 Transient behavior of a refrigerator under periodic door opening is simulated.
 The refrigeration loop is modeled following a semi-empirical quasi-steady approach.
 Energy and moisture transfer into and within the compartments are modeled.
 Key heat and mass transfer parameters were derived from in-house experiments.
 Predictions followed closely the experimental trends for power and temperatures.

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 15 September 2014
Received in revised form 20 January 2015
Accepted 21 January 2015
Available online 17 March 2015
Keywords:
Household refrigerator
Transient simulation
Door opening
Evaporator frosting

a b s t r a c t
This paper describes a quasi-steady-state simulation model for predicting the transient behavior of a
two-door household refrigerator subjected to periodic door opening and evaporator frosting. A semiempirical steady-state model was developed for the refrigeration loop, whereas a transient model was
devised to predict the energy and mass transfer into and within the refrigerated compartments, and also
the frost build-up on the evaporator. The key empirical heat and mass transfer parameters required by
the model were derived from a set of experiments performed in-house in a climate-controlled chamber.
In general, it was found that the model predictions followed closely the experimental trends for the
power consumption (deviations within 10%) and for the compartment temperatures (deviations within
2 K) when the doors are opened periodically and frost is allowed to accumulate over the evaporator.
2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Modern refrigerator design is aimed at energy savings and also
at product robustness in relation to evaporator frosting. In this
regard, standardized tests [1,2] as well as tests under real usage
conditions, that is, with doors opened regularly [3,4] allowing
moisture to enter the refrigerated compartment and frost to
accumulate on the evaporator [5] are procedures commonly carried out by most manufacturers.
Nevertheless, since the experimental procedures for frost-free
refrigerators and freezers are costly and time consuming [6,7],
simulation models have been devised to improve the product
development process [815]. None of them, however, can predict

q
An abridged version of this manuscript was presented at the 15th International
Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Conference at Purdue, July 1417, 2014.
Corresponding author. Tel./fax: +55 41 3361 3239.
E-mail address: chermes@ufpr.br (C.J.L. Hermes).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2015.01.089
0306-2619/ 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

the refrigerator performance degradation due to periodic door

opening and consequent evaporator frosting.
Recently, Mastrullo et al. [16] put forward a transient simulation model that is suitable to predict the time evolution of the
compartment air temperature and the power consumption taking
into account the door opening, and the resulting evaporator frosting. The model was developed and validated for a single-door
upright freezer, which represents a small niche in the realm of
household refrigeration if compared with two-door frost-free
appliances, the so-called Combi refrigerators [11,14].
To the best of the authors knowledge, none of the models available in the literature [816] are able to predict the performance of
two-door frost-free refrigerators under periodic door opening,
which not only affect the sensible and the latent loads, but also
allows frost to build-up on the evaporator, thus decreasing the
air ow rate supplied by the fan.
To advance a simulation model for predicting the transient
behavior of a two-door frost-free refrigerator subjected to periodic

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B.N. Borges et al. / Applied Energy 147 (2015) 386395

Nomenclature

Dt
Roman
A
C
cp
D
Dfr
G
H
h
Ha
hlv
hsv
k
kfr
L
Le
m
N
NTU
p
Q
r
S
T
UA
v
V
W
w
W

heat transfer area, m2

thermal capacity, J K1
specic heat at constant pressure, J kg1 K1
inner diameter, m
effective vapor diffusivity in frosted media, m2 s1
mass ux, kg/m2 s
height, m
specic enthalpy, J kg1
Hatta number, dimensionless
latent heat of evaporation, J kg1
latent heat of sublimation, J kg1
thermal conductivity, W m1 K1
effective thermal conductivity in frosted media,
W m1 K1
length, m
Lewis number, dimensionless
mass ow rate, kg s1
compressor speed, Hz
number of transfer units, dimensionless
pressure, Pa
heat transfer rate, W
air ow ratio, dimensionless
compressor swept volume, m3
temperature, K
thermal conductance, W
specic volume, m3 kg1
volumetric air ow rate, m3 s1
compression power, W
humidity ratio, kgv kg1
a
width, m

Greek

a
d
ec
ex
/
Dp

heat transfer coefcient, W m2 K1

frost thickness, m
emissivity of the condenser wall, dimensionless
heat exchanger effectiveness, dimensionless
correction factor, kgv
pressure drop, Pa

door opening is therefore the main aim of this study. The proposed
model follows a quasi-steady-state approach [14], with a steadystate sub-model for the refrigeration loop and a transient submodel for the energy and moisture transfer into and within the
refrigerated compartments. An additional frost growth and densication sub-model was developed to predict the frost accumulation on the evaporator over time.

gg
gv
q
r
f

time-step, s
global compression efciency, dimensionless
volumetric compression efciency, dimensionless
density, m
Stefan-Boltzmann constant, W m2 K4
evaporator dry-out position, m

Subscripts
1
compressor inlet
2
condenser inlet
3
condenser outlet
4
evaporator inlet
5
evaporator outlet
a
ambient, air
c
condenser
cap
capillary tube
d
door
e
evaporator
f
ash-point
ff
fresh-food
fr
frost
fz
freezer
g
saturated vapor at the evaporating pressure
i
inlet
k
compressor
l
saturated liquid
lat
latent thermal load
m
mullion
o
outlet
r
refrigerant
s
isentropic process
sat
saturation
sen
sensible thermal load
ss
steady-state
sub
subcooling
suc
suction line
sup
superheating
v
saturated vapor
x
internal heat exchanger

compressor shell thermal conductance (UAk) is also required for

the heat transfer calculation [12]. The refrigerant specic enthalpy
at the compressor outlet is thus obtained from the following
energy balance [13]:

h2 h1

h2;s  h1

gg

UAk T 2  T a
mk

2. Simulation model
2.1. Refrigeration loop
A 433-liter top-mount refrigerator, running with R-134a and
comprised of a 6.76-cm3 hermetic reciprocating compressor, natural draft wire-on-tube condenser, tube-n evaporator and capillary
tube-suction line heat exchanger, illustrated in Fig. 1, was adopted
in this study.
2.1.1. Compressor
The compressor sub-model uses the volumetric (gv) and overall
(gg) efciencies to calculate the compression power and the refrigerant mass ow rate for a given operating condition. The

Fig. 1. Schematic representation of the refrigeration loop.

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B.N. Borges et al. / Applied Energy 147 (2015) 386395

where (h2,sh1)/gg is the compression power, whereas the mass

ow rate displaced by the compressor, mk, is calculated from
[12,13]:

mk gv

NS

v1

10

where N and S are the compressor speed and the swept volume,
respectively. The compression efciencies were tted to the experimental data as linear functions of the pressure ratio, and the UAk
coefcient was expressed as a linear t to the surrounding air temperature data [12,13].
2.1.2. Capillary tube suction line heat exchanger
The internal heat exchanger was modeled according to the
semi-empirical approach introduced by Hermes et al. [17], who
considered the refrigerant ow and the heat transfer as independent phenomena, and derived explicit algebraic expressions for
the refrigerant mass ow rate as follows:


0:145 
0:315
mx
Lsuc
Dsuc
1:29
e0:285
x
mad
Lcap
Dcap

v f lf
v g lg

!0:214
3

where mad is the mass ow rate of an adiabatic capillary tube with

the same bore and length, calculated as follows:

mad

coefcient was calculated from the correlation proposed by Melo

and Hermes [18],

0:60 
0:28 
0:49 
0:08
ac arad
Aw
pt  dt
pw  dw
Tc  Ta
5:68
2
arad
At Aw
dt
dt
Tc Ta

s



D5cap pc  pf pf  pe
f
gpe f
6:0

2 ln
g
gpf f
Lcap
vf
g

where f = vfpfk, g = vf(1k), and k = 1.67  105p0.72

[17], vf and pf
f
are the specic volume and pressure at the ash-point, respectively,
whereas pc and pe stand for the condensing and evaporating pressures. The correlation is valid for internal heat exchangers with
capillary tube inner diameters ranging from 0.553 mm to
2.154 mm, and tube lengths from 2 m to 4 m [17].
The specic enthalpy at the evaporator inlet and the temperature at the compressor inlet are thus expressed as:

h4 h3  ex cp;1 T 3  T 5

where dt and dw are the tube and wire diameters, respectively, pt

and pw are the tube and wire pitches, respectively, and At and Aw
are the overall heat transfer surface due to the tubes and the wires,
respectively. The correlation is valid for wire-and-tube condensers
with tube outer diameter ranging from 4.8 to 6.2 mm, number of
tube rows from 13 to 25, and number of wire pairs from 10 to 90
[18]. The radiative heat transfer coefcient is calculated from the
following linearized model:

arad ec rT c T a T 2c T 2a

where r is the StefanBoltzmann constant, whereas ec (=0.81) is the

emissivity of the condenser walls.
2.1.4. Evaporator
The no-frost evaporator, illustrated in Fig. 2, was divided into
two domains, namely refrigerant ow and air-side heat and mass
transfer. The specic refrigerant enthalpy at the evaporator outlet
can be expressed as [1214]:

h5 h4

f fss  fss  f expsDt

NTU

m0:57 Lsuc
1:4 ad0:43
Dsuc

2=3
kg
0:1 c 2=3
p;g
g

2.1.3. Condenser
The natural draft wire-and-tube condenser was divided into
three domains, namely superheating, saturation and subcooling
[1214]. The overall heat transfer in the condenser is therefore calculated from:

Q c Q c; sup Q c;sat Q c;sub UAc T c  T a

1  x4 mox hlv
q0

1  cql 14 pD2e hlv

q0

Qc
mk

q0

mx hv  h4
fo

where f = Le at t = 0.

As the heat transfer is governed by free convection and radiation on

the air-side, the thermal conductance was approximated as
UAc  (ac + arad) (At + Aw) [1214]. The combined heat transfer

13

14

15

where mox (=3.8 kg/h) is the initial mass ow rate evaluated at

steady-state conditions, c is the mean void fraction of the twophase region, calculated as suggested by Cioncolini and Thome
[20], De is the inner diameter of the evaporator coil, and q0 is the
heat transfer rate per unit length in the two-phase region, calculated from

where Tc is the condensing temperature, calculated implicitly by the

model thus ensuring that the same amount of mass ows through
the compressor and the capillary tube, whereas Ta is the surrounding air temperature, which is an input data with a constant value.
The specic refrigerant enthalpy at the condenser outlet is
expressed as:

h3 h2 

12

where fss is the two-phase boundary position in the steady-state

regime, and s is a time constant, calculated respectively from

where ex = NTU/(1 + NTU) is the heat exchanger effectiveness

(0.65), whereas NTU stands for the number of transfer units, calculated as follows [17]:

Q sen Q lat
mx

where h5 = h(pe, T5) and T5 = Te + DTsup. The evaporator superheating, DTsup, varies with time due to the periodic door opening. To
address this issue, a moving-boundary approach, as introduced by
Wedekind and Stoecker [19], was adopted:

fss
T 1 T 5 ex T 3  T 5

11

Fig. 2. Schematic representation of the no-frost evaporator coil.

16

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B.N. Borges et al. / Applied Energy 147 (2015) 386395

the case of a uniform coil temperature, i.e. evaporator lled with

two-phase refrigerant, the heat and mass balances yield:




ae Ae
Q sen ma cp;a T fr  T i 1  exp 
ma cp;a
"
Q lat ma hsv wfr  wi 1  exp 

ae Ae

17
!#

ma cp;a Le2=3

18

where Qe = Qsen + Qlat, Tfr is the frost surface temperature,

wfr = wsat(Tfr) is the humidity ratio at the frost surface, Le is the
Lewis number and ae is the air-side heat transfer coefcient calculated as suggested by Barbosa et al. [21],
Fig. 3. Schematic representation of the air ow during a door opening event.

P e = 5 Pa
P e = 15 Pa
P e = 25 Pa
P e = 35 Pa
P e = 45 Pa

56
54
52

Pt [Pa]

Gmax cp

0:6976  Re0:4842
D

50
48
46

T fr T e
44
42
40
0,000

0,002

0,004

0,006

0,008

0,010

Ae
Ato

0:3426

Pr2=3

19

where Gmax = ma/Amin is the mass ux at the minimum free ow

passage, i.e. the cross-section area obtained from a transversal cut
including tubes and ns, and Ato is the surface area of the tube only.
One should note that the evaporator of the refrigerator under study
is similar to sample #6 tested by Barbosa et al. [21]. In addition, one
should note that, in the cases where superheated refrigerant takes
place, the terms between brackets in equations (17) and (18) must
be modied to account for the refrigerant temperature variation, as
described in [22].
The frost formation model was based on the work of Hermes
et al. [23], which was originally developed for horizontal at surfaces and later adapted by [5] for nned-tube heat exchangers
(Fig. 2). According to [23], the frost surface temperature is calculated from:

60
58

ae

0,012

Va [m/s]
Fig. 4. Characteristic curve of the fan.

Q sen Q lat d wsat;e hsv qa Dfr

1  cosh Ha
kfr Ae
kfr

20

where Ha is the Hatta number, and kfr and Dfr are the effective thermal conductivity and vapor diffusivity of the frost layer, respectively, calculated as described in [23]. In addition, the growth rate
of the frost layer of thickness d is calculated from:

2s
3

2


dd
2kfr 4
bdQ sen
4bdhsv
bdQ sen 5

Gfr  1
1
dt bqfr dhsv
kfr Ae
kfr
kfr Ae
21

2.2. Evaporator frosting

The evaporator sub-model calculates the cooling capacity from
the following heat and mass balances on the air-side (see Fig. 2). In

where Gfr is the total mass ux of the vapor transferred to the

frosted medium, and b is an empirical parameter that comes from
the frost density correlation in the following form [24]:

Fig. 5. Schematic representation of the wind-tunnel facility.

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B.N. Borges et al. / Applied Energy 147 (2015) 386395

qfr a expbTfr

22

The accumulated frost mass and the frost thickness are calculated,
respectively, from mfr = mofr + GfrAeDt and d = do + (dd/dt)Dt [5,23].
In addition, the frost density is obtained from qfr(t > 0) = mofr/Aedo,
where the superscript ()o represents the values at the previous
time-step. The defrost process has not been accounted for by the
model.
2.3. Refrigerated compartments
The model for the refrigerated compartments, which was based
on the work of Borges et al. [14], is aimed at determining the psychrometric conditions of the moist air inside the fresh-food and
freezer (frozen-food) compartments over time by means of transient energy and mass balances, which yield the following expressions for the air temperature and humidity of the fresh-food and
freezer compartments, respectively:



A Dt
T T ss;  T ss;  T o exp 
C

23



B Dt
w wss;  wss;  wo exp 
q /

24

where T o and wo are the air temperature and humidity ratio

of the compartment at the beginning of the time-step,
A = UA + UAm + md,cp,a + mcp,a and B = md, + m. The asterisk ()
indicates either the freezer (fz) or the fresh-food (ff) compartment.
The thermal conductance of each compartment, UA, and of the
mullion, UAm, and the equivalent thermal capacity and mass of each
compartment, C and /, respectively, were all obtained from
experimental data. In addition, the terms Tss, and wss, are related
to the steady-state condition, and calculated as follows:

T ss;

UA md; cp;a T a UAm T r ma; cp;a T o

A

25

wss;

md; wa  m wo
B

26

where

T o rTfz 1  rT ff 

Q sen
ma cp;a

wo rwfz 1  rwff 

Q lat
ma hsv

27

28

where r is the freezer air ow ratio.

The air ow rate entering the cabinet during a door opening
event is calculated as described by Wang [25], and shown in
Fig. 3, as follows:

md;

v
u
u2gHd; 1  qa =q
2
K q W d; Hd; t
3
3
1 q =qa 1=3

29

where K is an empirical discharge coefcient determined from

experimental data.
The air-side hydrodynamics was modeled according to the
methodology outlined in Hermes et al. [13]. The overall pressure
drop was thus correlated to the air ow rate through the following
expression:

Dpt cqa V 2 Dpe

30

where c is an empirical coefcient obtained from experimental data,

and Dpe is the pressure drop in the frosted evaporator, calculated as
follows:

Fig. 6. Information ow diagram of the simulation model.

Dp

fGmax Ae
2qa Amin

31

where f is the friction factor calculated from [21]:

f 5:965  Re0:2948
D

 0:7671  0:4436
Ae
Nlo
At
2

32

The characteristic curve for the fan, depicted in Fig. 4, was tted to a
third-order polynomial using experimental data obtained in a windtunnel facility [13], illustrated in Fig. 5.
2.4. Solution algorithm
The model was coded in EES [26]. The solution algorithm, illustrated in Fig. 6, is based on a sequential solution for the models for
the refrigerated compartments and the refrigeration loop, whose

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B.N. Borges et al. / Applied Energy 147 (2015) 386395

Fig. 7. Summary of the instrumentation.

Table 1
Summary of experimental tests.
Experiment

Test facility

Ambient conditions

Empirical parameter

Fan characteristics
Cabinet hydrodynamics
Refrigeration loop
Door opening tests

Wind-tunnel
Wind-tunnel
Chamber
Chamber

21 C, 50% RH
21 C, 50% RH
6 runs, doors closed, 25 < T < 38 C, 8 < w < 32 g/kg
3 runs, door openings, 25 < T < 38 C, 12 < w < 21 g/kg

3rd-order polynomial
c
r, gv, gg, UAk, UA, UAm, C
K, /, qofr, mok, b

sub-models are in turn solved simultaneously by the Newton

Raphson technique. The evaporator frosting and dry-out sub-models are solved implicitly in the inner loop, whereas the models for
the refrigerated compartments are solved explicitly in an outer
loop, as depicted in Fig. 6. The onoff cycles were implemented
by means of an IF-THEN-ELSE loop that emulates a thermostat.
The door opening patterns are included in the model in an outer
loop, as shown in Fig. 6. More information can be obtained in [22].

3. Experimental work
The refrigerator was carefully instrumented as illustrated in
Fig. 7. The evaporating and condensing pressures were measured
by means of strain gauge pressure transducers ranging from 0 to
10 bar (2 mbar uncertainty) and from 0 to 20 bar (4 mbar uncertainty), respectively. A Coriolis-type mass ow meter with a measurement uncertainty of 0.03 kg/h was installed at the
compressor discharge. The compressor and fan power consumption were monitored using a digital power analyzer with a measurement uncertainty of 0.1%. Capacitive relative humidity
transducers (2% uncertainty) were installed at the evaporator
inlet and outlet together with pressure takes for air-side pressure
drop measurements using a differential pressure transducer ranging from 0 to 62.5 Pa (0.3 Pa uncertainty). All T-type

thermocouples employed in this study have a measurement uncertainty of 0.3 C. More details can be found in [22].
The experimental plan, summarized in Table 1, was designed to
provide all of the empirical information required for the sake of
model closing. The doors were opened and closed using a purpose-built door-opening device attached to both the freezer and
fresh-food doors [3], so that they could be operated independently.
The arrangement is placed within a climate chamber, depicted in
Fig. 8, which provides a strict control of temperature, humidity
and air velocity.
The time between door opening events and the length of time of
the event are both easily programmed. Patterns comprised of 4
cycles of door opening events, each cycle lasting 1 h and applied
in sequence, were adopted, with a 4-h interval between cycles.
After this period, the system was kept running for 8 h with the
doors closed. The pattern was repeated every 24 h. In a door opening cycle, the freezer door was opened every 12 min for 10 s over a
period of 1 h, totalizing 5 opening events per hour. On the other
hand, the fresh-food door was opened every 2.5 min for 30 s, totalizing 20 opening events per hour.
4. Results
The model predictions were compared with the corresponding
experimental data for ambient conditions of 32 C and 70% RH.

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B.N. Borges et al. / Applied Energy 147 (2015) 386395

Fig. 8. Schematic representation of the climate chamber.

25

17
Tff, Experimental

16

Tff, Simulated

1.8
15

Condensing pressure [bar]

15
10

Temperature [C]

1.9

5
0
Tfz, Experimental

-5

Tfz, Simulated

1.7

14

1.6

13

1.5
1.4

12
1.3
11

1.2

10

1.1

-10

Evaporating pressure [bar]

20

2.0
Pc, Simulated
Pe, Simulated

Pc, Experimental
Pe, Experimental

1.0

0.9

-15

-20

0.8

0.7
0

-25
0

60

120

180

240

300

360

420

480

540

Time [min]

60

120

180

240

300

360

420

480

540

Time [min]
Fig. 10. Time evolution of the condensing and evaporating pressures.

Fig. 9. Time evolution of the refrigerated compartment temperatures.

The simulations were initiated at the compressor start up immediately after a defrost cycle and lasted until the next defrost cycle
began. Fig. 9 shows the predicted and experimental results for
the refrigerated compartment temperatures for the whole period.
Two door opening cycles can be clearly seen, the rst from 30
to 90 min and the second from 330 to 390 min. It should be
noted that the model follows closely the experimental trends, with
an average deviation of around 2 C, the maximum discrepancies
occurring during door opening.

Fig. 10 compares the predictions of the working pressures with

the experimental data. It can be observed that the model predictions for the evaporating pressure are within a 5% error band,
while the condensing pressure is under predicted with an offset
of approximately 0.5 bar during the whole period, but with deviations within a 10% band. Consequently, the power consumption is
also reasonably well predicted by the model, with deviations not
exceeding 5%, as shown in Fig. 11.
Fig. 12 shows the time-evolution of the evaporator superheating. Five peaks can be observed during the test period, which

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B.N. Borges et al. / Applied Energy 147 (2015) 386395

200

30

Experimental
Experimental
Simulated
Simulated

180

Experimental

Simulated
Simulated
25

Evaporator air-side pressure drop [Pa]

Compression power [W]

160
140
120
100
80
60
40

20

15

10

5
20
0

0
0

60

120

180

240

300

360

420

480

540

60

120

180

240

Time [min]

300

360

420

480

540

Time [min]

Fig. 11. Time evolution of the compression power.

Fig. 13. Time evolution of the evaporator air-side pressure drop.

12
120

Experimental

1st Row
2nd Row
3rd Row
4th Row
5th Row

Simulated
Simulated
10

Accumulated frost mass [g]

Evaporator superheating [K]

100

80

60

40

20

0
0

60

120

180

240

300

360

420

480

540

Time [min]
Fig. 12. Time evolution of the evaporator superheating.

appear when both doors are opened concurrently, thus increasing

the thermal loads and pushing the dry-out position downstream of
the evaporator. Small variations in the evaporator superheating
occur when only the door of the fresh-food compartment is
opened. It can also be noted that the model predictions follow
the experimental trends satisfactorily, although errors of up to
3 K can be observed in the peaks.
Fig. 13 shows the time-evolution of the air-side pressure drop
due to evaporator frosting and Fig. 14 explores the air-side prediction capabilities of the model. For a clean evaporator coil, a 5 Pa
pressure drop is observed, increasing steadily to 15 Pa during the
rst cycle of door opening events. This value does not change during the period when the doors are kept closed, since there is no

0
0

60

120

180

240

300

360

420

480

540

Time [min]
Fig. 14. Time evolution of the accumulated frost mass along each evaporator row.

moisture inltration and, therefore, no frost growth. During the

second cycle of door openings the evaporator air-side pressure
drop increases to around 25 Pa. During the whole period the model
predicted satisfactorily the experimental trends, although absolute
errors of up to 5 Pa can be observed.
Fig. 14 shows the calculated frost mass for each of the ve evaporator rows. The rows are numbered from bottom to top, according
to the air ow direction, as illustrated in Fig. 2, and comprised 27
(1st), 34 (2nd), 67 (3rd), 66 (4th), and 67 (5th) ns. It can be noted
that the frost is mostly accumulated along the rst three rows,
which is due to the higher humidity gradient at the evaporator
inlet. It can also be noted that there is more frost accumulated
along the 3rd row than along the 1st row, which is due to the
higher heat transfer (nned) area of the former.

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B.N. Borges et al. / Applied Energy 147 (2015) 386395

5. Summary and conclusions

A quasi-steady-state semi-empirical mathematical model was
developed to predict the transient behavior of the key operating
parameters (i.e., working pressures, compression power, compartment temperatures, and accumulated frost mass on the evaporator) of a two-door frost-free refrigerator subjected to periodic
door opening. The model predictions were compared with a set
of in-house experimental data collected in a climate-controlled
chamber. The door opening were carried out by a purpose-built
apparatus according to a predened pattern.
It was found that the model predictions followed closely the
experimental trends, with deviations for the working pressures
and power consumption not exceeding the 10% thresholds and predictions for the compartment air temperatures being within 2 C
error bands. The model was also used to predict the frost distribution over the evaporator coil and it was observed that the frost
accumulates mostly in the rst three rows, the third row being crucial in terms of frost clogging because of the higher number of ns
and thus lower free ow passage of air.

Heat exchanger length: 1.34 m.

Approximate heat exchanger effectiveness: 65%.
Suction line inner diameter: 7 mm.
Evaporador
Type/material: no-frost tube-n/aluminium.
Coil length: 7.585 m.
Inner diameter: 6.7 mm.
Outer diameter: 7.9 mm.
Number of tubes: 10 (longitudinal)/2 (transversal).
Evaporator height: 189 mm.
Evaporator width: 340 mm.
Evaporator depth: 59 mm.
Number of ns (1st row): 27.
Number of ns (2nd row): 34.
Number of ns (3rd row): 67.
Number of ns (4th row): 66.
Number of ns (5th row): 67.
Fin dimensions: 35 mm (height)/59 mm (width)/0.125 mm
(thickness).

Acknowledgments
This study was carried out at the POLO facilities under National
Grant No. 573581/2008-8 (National Institute of Science and
Technology in Refrigeration and Thermophysics) funded by the
Brazilian Government Agency CNPq. The authors are grateful to
Mr. Rafael Ges for his valuable support in the experiments.
Financial support from Whirlpool Latin America S.A. is also duly
acknowledged.
Appendix A. Refrigerator characteristics
Refrigerator
Type: Top-mount frost-free.
Refrigerant type/charge: HFC-134a/100 g.
Cabinet internal volume: 439 liters.
Fan power consumption: 7 W.
Compressor
Type: Hermetic reciprocating compressor.
Stroke: 6.76 cm3.
Speed: 60 Hz.
Condenser
Type/material: wire-and-tube/steel.
Length of the discharge line: 1600 mm.
Condenser height/length of the wires: 1210 mm.
Condenser width: 540 mm.
Tube outer diameter: 5.1 mm.
Bend radius: 28.8 mm.
Number of tubes: 21.
Wire diameter: 1.4 mm.
Number of wires: 90.
Surface emissivity: 0.81.
Internal heat exchanger
Type/material: concentric/copper.
Capillary tube outer diameter: 1.90 mm.
Capillary tube inner diameter: 0.80 mm.
Capillary tube length: 2.55 m.

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