Experimental and analytical evaluation of a ground-coupled refrigerator-freezer
- Vineyard Associates, Knoxville, TN (United States)
- Horvay Associates, Isle of Palms, SC (United States)
- Edward Schulak Equities, Inc., Birmingham, MI (United States)
In response to efforts to reduce refrigerator-freezer energy consumption, several design options based on using a ground-source heat exchanger as a means of rejecting heat from the cabinet and condenser were investigated for improving the energy efficiency of a 15.5 ft{sup 3} (440 L) domestic refrigerator-freezer. The options included (1) a cooling circuit throughout the cabinet to reduce the cabinet heat gain, (2) a liquid-cooled condenser and smaller compressor, and (3) a secondary cooling circuit in the fresh food section during winter operation. An additional option, increasing the cabinet volume by reducing the insulation thickness, was also investigated as a means of reducing costs. This was accomplished by using the cooling circuit to maintain the same cabinet heat gain as for the original baseline cabinet rather than reduce energy consumption. The modeled results for all the options show that the energy consumption could be reduced by 24.0% with a cabinet cooling circuit, 40.4% with the addition of a liquid-cooled condenser and smaller compressor, and 51.1% from utilizing a fresh food cooling circuit during winter operation. Modeling simulations also show that the cabinet volume could be increased by 2.4 ft{sup 3} (70 L), a 15.3% increase, by utilizing the cabinet cooling circuit to reduce the insulation thickness rather than reduce energy consumption. These improvements do not account for the pumping power required for circulating the coolant. In addition to the modeling exercise, a laboratory prototype was fabricated and tested to experimentally verify the energy consumption of a unit with a cabinet cooling circuit. The resulting energy consumption was 1.35 kWh/d, a substantial energy-efficiency improvement of 24.0% compared to the 1997 model baseline unit (1.78 kWh/d). Abbreviated test results with the addition of a liquid-cooled condenser and smaller compressor show a savings of 39.9% (1.07 kWh/d).
- OSTI ID:
- 687672
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-980650-; TRN: IM9944%%337
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 1998 ASHRAE summer annual meeting, Toronto (Canada), 20 Jun 1998; Other Information: PBD: 1998; Related Information: Is Part Of ASHRAE transactions 1998: Technical and symposium papers. Volume 104, Part 2; PB: 1511 p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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