REFRIGERATION

F.O. Anafi

INTRODUCTION

Refrigeration is the process of reducing and maintaining the temperature of a space or material below
the temperature of the surroundings. In general, refrigeration can be obtained through:

1) Sensible heat process:- In this process, gain in heat causes temperature rise in the refrigerant;
2) Latent heat:-In this process, absorbed heat causes a change in physical state of the refrigerant.
Continuous sensible cooling is possible provided the refrigerant is continuously chilled and re-
circulated. Latent cooling may be achieved with liquid or solid refrigerant.

Refrigeration has become so indispensable that without it, life would become intolerable, industry would
grind to a halt, humanity would be starved, and too many houses would become uninhabitable. Six
general categories of application may be described briefly.

a) Domestic Refrigeration:- This concerns primarily with household refrigerators and freezers
for food preservation.
b) Commercial Refrigeration:-This concerns Designing, installation and maintenance of
refrigerated fixtures, e.g., the type used by retail stores, restaurants, hotels, institutions for
storing, displaying and processing of perishable commodities.
c) Industrial Refrigeration:- This is usually larger than the commercial refrigeration. Typical
plants are: ice plants, large food packing plants (meat, fish, poultry, and frozen foods),
Breweries, oil refineries, chemical plants, and rubber plants, mining shaft through and across
unstable ground formation, building of large dams.
d) Marine and Transportation Refrigeration:- Marine includes Refrigeration for fishing boats
and for vessels, transporting perishable cargo.
e) Air-conditioning:-This is the control of temperature and humidity of a space. This may be for
comfort or industrial purpose. Industrial air-conditioning may be to control moisture content of
hydroscopic materials, govern rate of chemical and biochemical reactions, limit the variation in

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 the size of precision manufacture (because of thermal expansion and contraction) and provide
clean, filtered air essential for trouble-free operation and production of quality goods.
f) Food Preservation: - Because production of most food is seasonal, it has to be preserved to get
supply through the year. This need has given rise to drying, smoking, and salting as methods of
preservation. These methods are adequate for certain types of food and often produce very
unusual and tasty products that would not otherwise be available. The only means of preserving
food in its original fresh state is by refrigeration.

Air conditioning is the control of the characteristics of an atmospheric environment such as removal
of dirt, control of air movement, temperature, relative humidity and sometimes pressure within the
limits imposed by the design specifications for human comfort or for proper performance of some
industrial or scientific process.

Therefore, air-conditioning embraces more than cooling. The comfort air conditioning is the process
of treating air to control simultaneously its temperature, humidity, cleanliness, and distribution to
meet the comfort requirements of the occupants of the conditioned space. Air conditioning,
therefore, includes entire heating operation as well as regulation of velocity, thermal radiation, and
quality of air, including removal of foreign particles and vapors.

Some applications of air conditioning are as follows:

a) Air Conditioning of Residential and Official Buildings
Most of the air conditioning units are devoted for comfort air conditioning that is meant to provide
comfortable conditions for people. Air conditioning of building is required in all climates. In the
summer, living/working spaces have to be cooled and in the winter the same have to be heated. Even
in places where temperature remains normal, cooling of the building is required to remove the heat
generated internally by people, lights, mechanical and electrical equipment. Further in these
buildings, for the comfort, humidity and cleanliness of air has to be maintained. In hospitals and
other medical buildings, conditions on cleanliness and humidity are more stringent. There ventilation
requirements often specify the use of 100 percent outdoor air, and humidity limits.
b) Industrial Air Conditioning

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The term industrial air conditioning refers to providing at least a partial measure of comfort for
workers in hostile environments and controlling air conditions so that they are favorable to
processing some objects or materials. Some examples of industrial air conditioning are the
following:
i) Spot Heating
In a cold weather it may be more practical to warm a confined zone where a worker is located. One
such approach is through the use of an infrared heater. When its surfaces are heated to a high
temperature by means of a burner or by electricity, they radiate heat to the affected area.
ii) Spot Cooling
If a specific area has to be cooled, it will be unwise to cool entire room or factory. In this case,
conditions may be kept tolerable for workers by directing a stream of cool air onto occupied areas.
iii) Environmental Laboratories
The role of air conditioning may vary from one laboratory to the other. In one laboratory, a very low
temperature, say – 40oC must be maintained to test certain equipment at low temperatures, and in
another, a high temperature and humidity may be required to study behavior of animals in tropical
climates.
iv) Printing
In printing industries, control of humidity is a must. In some printing processes the paper is run
through several different passes, and air conditioning must be maintained to provide proper
registration. If the humidity is not properly maintained the problems of static electricity, curling or
buckling of paper or the failure of the ink to dry arise.
v) Textiles
Like paper, textiles are sensitive to changes in humidity and to a lesser extent changes in
temperature. In modern textile plants, yarn moves at very high speeds and any changes in
flexibility and strength of the yarn because of the change in humidity and temperature will thus
affect the production.
vi) Precision Parts and Clean Rooms
In manufacturing of precision metal parts air conditioning helps to (i) keep the temperature uniform
so that the metal will not expand and contract, (ii) maintain a humidity so that rust is prevented and
(iii) filter the air to minimize dust.
vii) Photographic Products

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 Raw photographic materials deteriorate fast in high humidity and temperatures. Other materials used
in coating film also require a careful control of temperature. Therefore, photographic-products
industry is a large user of refrigeration and air conditioning.
viii) Computer Rooms
In computer rooms, air conditioning controls temperature, humidity and cleanliness of the air. Some
electronic components operate in a faulty manner if they become too hot. One means of preventing
such localized high temperature is to maintain the air temperature in the computer room in the range
of 20 to 23 0C. The electronic components in the computer functions favorably at even lower
temperatures, but this temperature is a compromise with the lowest comfortable temperature for
occupants. A relative humidity of about 65% is maintained for comfort condition.
ix) Air Conditioning of Vehicles
For comfortable journey, planes, trains, ships, buses are air conditioned. In many of these vehicles
the major contributor to the cooling load is the heat from solar radiation and in case of public
transportation, heat from people.

Course Objective

The expected learning outcome:

 Know the meaning of refrigeration and air-conditioning, their applications and classifications.
 Analyse the refrigeration and heat pump cycles and determination of their performance.
 Understand vapour compression and vapour absorption refrigeration system operation and
selection of appropriate refrigerants.
 Understand the theory of moist air and application in air-conditioning systems.

HEAT PUMP AND REFRIGERATION CYCLES: TYPES AND MEASURES OF EFFICIENCY

Heat Pump

A Heat Pump is a machine working on the Carnot cycle which transfers heat from a heat source to a heat
sink using a vapour compression cycle. A refrigerator uses a heat pump to move heat out of a fridge. A

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domestic heat pump can be used to move heat from an external source into a building. Heat may be
obtained from an air source, a ground source or a water source. A heat pump can concentrate such
"low grade heat" into higher grade heat that can be used for space heating and domestic hot water.

Advantages of Heat Pumps

(i) Heat pumps save money. Heat pumps are cheaper to run than direct electric heating. They are
cheaper to run than oil boilers and can be cheaper than running gas boilers. Because heat
pumps can be fully automated they demand much less work than biomass boilers.
(ii) Heat pumps save carbon emissions. Unlike burning oil, gas, LPG or biomass, a heat pump
produces no carbon emissions on site (and no carbon emissions at all, if a renewable source
of electricity is used to power them).
(iii) Heat pumps save space. There are no fuel storage requirements.
(iv) Heat pumps are safe. There is no combustion involved and no emission of potentially
dangerous gases. No flues are required.
(v) Heat pumps require less maintenance than combustion based heating systems.
(vi) Heat pumps can provide cooling in summer, as well as heating in winter.

The above figure shows the objectives of refrigerators and heat pumps. The purpose of a refrigerator is
the removal of heat, called the cooling load, from a low-tempertature medium. The purpose of a heat
pump is the transfer of heat to a high temperature medium.

The vapour compression refrigeration cycle is a common method for transferring heat from a low
temperature to a high temperature.
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The performance of refrigerators and heat pumps is expressed in terms of coefficient of performance
(COP), defined as

Comparison of Heat Engine, Refrigerator and heat Pump

Thermal efficiency of Heat Engine;

Coefficient of Performance (COP) of Refrigerator;

Coefficient of Performance (COP) of Heat pump;

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The flow and T-S diagrams for (a) Heat Engine and (b) Refrigerator, operating on Carnot Cycles

(a) (b)

From the T-S and the flow diagrams of the refrigerator (Reversed heat engine) the heat supplied
from the cold source, Q2  T2 (s2  s3 )

The heat rejected from condenser, Q1  T1 (s1  s4 )

From first law Q2  W  Q1 , Hence W  Q1  Q2

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 Q2
Coefficient of performance of refrigeration C.O.Pref 
W
T2 (s2  s3 )

T1 (s1  s4 )  T2 (s 2  s3 )
But s 2  s3  s1  s 4 ,

𝑇2 (𝑆2 −𝑆3 ) 𝑇2
Hence 𝐶𝑂𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑓 = (𝑇 =
1 −𝑇2 )(𝑆2 −𝑆3 ) 𝑇1 −𝑇2

Q1 T1
Similarly C.O.Php  
Q1  Q2 T1  T2

However, no practical plant runs on the Carnot cycle.