• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
• /
• v.14 no.8
• /
• pp.617-625
• /
• 2002

In this study, effects of refrigerant and oil charges on the performance of a refrigeration system simulating an automobile air conditioner have been experimentally investigated using R134a and PAG oil. Measurements were taken in a breadboard type refrigeration test unit with a compressor used for a commercial automobile air-conditioner under a set of condition imposed upon normally to automobile air conditioners. Both the COP and capacity decreased rapidly as the oil charge increased because of the decrease in vapor pressure of the circulating refrigerant/oil mixture. The excess oil left in the evaporator also caused heat transfer degradation resulting in a decrease in capacity and in turn COP. It was found that there is an optimum refrigerant charge at which the COP becomes the maximum. Below this optimum charge, both the capacity and COP increased as the refrigerant charge increased and above the optimum charge, both of them remained almost constant. Hence, the COP seems to be the most important factor in determining the optimum refrigerant charge. When the system was undercharged, the refrigerant at the condenser exit lost subcooling and showed a sign of poor miscibility.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
• /
• v.10 no.3
• /
• pp.292-302
• /
• 1998

In this study, 14 refrigerant mixtures composed of R32, R125, R134a, R143a, R152a, and R1270(Propylene) were tested in a breadboard heat pump in an attempt to replace R22 used in most of the residential air conditioners and heat pumps. The heat pump was of 1 ton capacity and water was employed as the secondary heat transfer fluids. All tests were conducted under ARI test A condition. Ternary mixtures composed of R32, R125, and R134a were shown to have 4∼5% higher COP and capacity than R22 and hence they seem to be very promising candidates to replace R22. On the other hand, ternary mixtures containing R125, R134a, and R152a have lower COP and capacity than R22. R32/R134a binary mixtures show a 7% increase in COP and have the similar capacity to that of R22 and hence they are also good candidates to replace R22. Special care must be exercised when a suction line heat exchanger is used with these mixtures in air conditioners. Finally, the compressor discharge temperatures of all mixtures tested were lower than those of R22 by 15.g∼34.7t, which indicates that these mixtures would offer better system reliability and longer life time than R22.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
• /
• v.14 no.9
• /
• pp.749-755
• /
• 2002

In order to develop a multi-type heat pump system with two indoor units of non-uniform capacities, the optimum refrigerant circuit was developed using capillary tubes. The refrigerant circuit was composed of four main parts, a heating circuit, a cooling circuit, a by-pass circuit and a balance circuit. The system characteristics of multi-type heat pump was investigated through the rating test and the reliability test, using the multi-type psy-chrometric calorimeter. The results of the rating test showed that the capacity of the multi-type heat pump was about 93% of the design value. In particular, the capacity of cooling single mode was about 13% higher than the design value, and the capacity of heating multi mode was about 5% higher than the design value. The reliability of the multi-type heat pump was verified by various reliability tests (overload, extension tube, freeze up, under/over charging, sweat, flood back). The optimal amount of refrigerant charge and compressor capacity were determined from the present work.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
• /
• v.15 no.7
• /
• pp.551-556
• /
• 2003

The present study concerns an experiment on the heating characteristics of a system air-conditioner (A/C) using PWM method or inverter method at low temperature con-ditions. The compressors used are digital scroll type and BLDC inverter type. Under the low outside temperature condition, -5$^{\circ}C$, -1$0^{\circ}C$, -15$^{\circ}C$, heating capacities and COPs are mea-sured by the psychometric calorimeter using air enthalpy method. Also, outlet air temperatures at heating operation mode are measured at -5$^{\circ}C$, -1$0^{\circ}C$ and -15$^{\circ}C$. Experimental results show that COPs of the system A/C using a PWM method are more effective than those of the inverter method at heating operation mode. Although the heater is on, COPs of PWM method are similar to those of BLDC inverter method. Moreover, the heating capacities of PWM method at -5$^{\circ}C$, -1$0^{\circ}C$ and -15$^{\circ}C$ are larger about 10~20% and outlet air tempe-rature at -15$^{\circ}C$ is larger about 10%, compared to the inverter method.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
• /
• v.19 no.9
• /
• pp.630-639
• /
• 2007

A $CO_2$ cycle shows large throttling loss during the expansion process. The application of an expander into the $CO_2$ cycle can reduce the throttling loss and then improve system performance. In this study, the performance of a transcritical $CO_2$ cycle with an expander was analytically investigated in order to improve the cooling performance of the system. The expander was applied to the single-stage and two-stage compression cycles. The performance was analyzed with the variations of compressor frequency, outdoor temperature, and expander efficiency. The single-stage and two-stage compression cycles with the expander showed COP improvement of 25% and 32%, respectively, over the single-stage cycle with an EEV.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
• /
• v.23 no.7
• /
• pp.477-482
• /
• 2011

In the present study, the performance characteristics of the heat pump chiller under heating conditions were experimentally investigated. Capacity, input power and COP under overload, frost and defrost conditions were obtained. The experimental data for the heat pump chiller were measured using the air-enthalpy calorimeter and the constant temperature water bath. At overload condition, the heating capacity and COP increase about 25.7% and 19.1%, respectively. The variations of the evaporator, the compressor outlet and the condenser temperature were obtained under frost and defrost conditions. The frost and defrost period of the heat exchanger decreases about 36.0~56.1%.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
• /
• v.23 no.7
• /
• pp.505-512
• /
• 2011

Recently, many researchers have analyzed the performance of the transcritical $CO_2$ refrigeration cycle in order to identify opportunities to improve the system energy efficiency. The reduction of the expansion process losses is one of the key issues to improve the efficiency of the transcritical $CO_2$ refrigeration cycle. In this study, the analytical study on the performance characteristics of $CO_2$ cycle with an ejector carried out with a variation of outdoor temperature, gascooler inlet air velocity, evaporator inlet air velocity, and evaporator inlet air temperature. As a result, the system performance could be improved over 85% by using an ejector for various operating condition because of the reduction of compressor work. Moreover, the cooling capacity increased about 18% for variable outdoor condition. Therefore, the high performance of an ejector system could be maintained for wide operating conditions and system reliability could be improved compared to that of a basic system.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
• /
• v.20 no.5
• /
• pp.314-320
• /
• 2008

The cooling load in winter is significant in buildings and hotels because of the usage of office equipments and the improved wall insulation. Hence, a multi~heat pump is required to cover heating and cooling simultaneously for each indoor unit. In this study, the operating characteristics and performance of a simultaneous heating and cooling heat pump in the cooling-main operating mode were investigated experimentally. The system adopted a variable speed compressor using R410A with four indoor units and one outdoor unit. In the cooling-main mode, the heating capacity decreased due to reduction of flow rate to the indoor unit under heating mode operation. The EEV opening was adjusted to increase flow rate to the indoor unit under heating mode operation. The total capacity and COP in the cooling-main mode increased by 20.5% and 29.2%, respectively, compared with those in the cooling-only mode.

• Proceedings of the SAREK Conference
• /
• 2006.06a
• /
• pp.590-595
• /
• 2006

This paper presents the friction and anti-wear characteristics of nano-oil with a mixture of a refrigerant oil and carbon nano-particles in the thrust slide-bearing of scroll compressors. Frictional loss in the thrust slide-bearing occupies a large part of total mechanical loss in scroll compressors. The characteristics of friction and anti-wear using nano-oil are evaluated using the thrust bearing tester for measuring friction surface temperature and the coefficient of friction at the thrust slide-bearing as a function of normal loads up to 4,000 N and orbiting speed up to 3,200 rpm. It is found that the coefficient of friction increases with decreasing orbiting speed and normal force. The friction coefficient of carbon nano-oil is 0.015, while that of pure oil is 0.023 under the conditions of refrigerant gas R-22 at the pressure of 5 bars. It is believed that carbon nano-particles can be coated on the friction surfaces and the interaction of nano-particles between surfaces can be improved the lubrication in the friction surfaces. Carbon nano-oil enhances the characteristics of the anti-wear and friction at the thrust slide-bearing of scroll compressors.

• Proceedings of the SAREK Conference
• /
• 2006.06a
• /
• pp.669-674
• /
• 2006

The optimal control of heat pump performance for heating mode operation was investigated. Fuzzy logic was applied to control the heating performance of heat pump system and superheat at compressor discharge was taken as a control variable. Regression model was adapted to determine the optimal points where COP is maximized. Optimization of fuzzy rule table was investigated to improve operation performance of heat pump system. Experiments were carried out using original fuzzy table and the modified fuzzy rule table for heating mode operation of heat pump system. The results show that control performance of heat pump system with the modified fuzzy rule table was better than that with the original rule table.