Abstract
The presence of non-condensable gases as an additional thermal resistance inside a refrigerating circuit has been found for a general refrigerator, The effect of non-condensable gases was varied by controlling the injection amount of dry air into the refrigerating circuit to increase a thermal resistance. Energy consumption tests for the refrigerator were conducted under the various amounts of non-condensable gases. The tested refrigerating circuit was the household refrigerator. As the molar fraction of non-condensable gases was increased from 0% to 1.46%, the amount of energy consumption was found to increase up to 25%. The increase of the amount of non-condensable gases in refrigerating circuit was found to result in increasing the condensation temperature at the condenser and decreasing the evaporation temperature at the evaporator, which were presumably caused by the low specific heat and increased partial pressure of non-condensable gas.