Abstract
It is well known that a refrigerant-induced noise is caused by two-phase flow in the indoor unit of a heat pump air-conditioner. Especially when the flow pattern in a pipe is intermittent flow, the irregular noise occurs frequently. But it is very difficult to avoid this kind of the noise for the application of air-conditioner. Therefore, in this research, the flow patterns at two-phase flow state in a pipe of the indoor unit for the air-conditioner are researched using cycle simulator at typical cycle conditions. In order to find the relationship between refrigerant-induced noise and flow pattern, the noise patterns are investigated with respect to the estimated flow pattern from the various flow pattern maps. Base on the estimations of the flow patterns by those maps, the refrigerant-induced noise is evaluated as decreasing tube diameter, which can transit the flow pattern from slug to annular flow.