Refrigeration
Dr. Bimal Das
Refrigeration
• Refrigeration is the science of producing and maintaining temperatures below that of
• the surrounding atmosphere. This means the removing of heat from a substance to be
cooled.
• Heat always passes downhill, from a warm body to a cooler one, until both bodies are
at the same temperature. Maintaining perishables at their required temperatures is
done by refrigeration.
• Not only perishables but to-day many human work spaces in offices and factory
buildings are air conditioned and a refrigeration unit is the heart of the system.
In simple, refrigeration means the cooling of or removal of heat from a system.
The equipment employed to maintain the system at a low temperature is termed as
refrigerating system and the system which is kept at lower temperature is called
refrigerated system.
Refrigeration is generally produced in one of the following three ways :
(i) By melting of a solid.
(ii) By sublimation of a solid.
(iii) By evaporation of a liquid.
Most of the commercial refrigeration is produced by the evaporation of a liquid called
refrigerant. Mechanical refrigeration depends upon the evaporation of liquid refrigerant
and its circuit includes the equipments naming evaporator, compressor, condenser and
expansion valve. It is used for preservation of food, manufacture of ice, solid carbon
dioxide and control of air temperature and humidity in the air-conditioning system.
Important refrigeration applications
1. Ice making
2. Transportation of foods above and below freezing
3. Industrial air-conditioning
4. Comfort air-conditioning
5. Chemical and related industries
6. Medical and surgical aids
7. Processing food products and beverages
8. Oil refining and synthetic rubber manufacturing
9. Manufacturing and treatment of metals
10. Freezing food products
11. Miscellaneous applications :
(i) Extremely low temperatures
(ii) Plumbing
(iii) Building construction etc.
Elements of Refrigeration Systems
All refrigeration systems must include atleast four basic units as given below :
(i) A low temperature thermal “sink” to which heat will flow from the space to be cooled.
(ii) Means of extracting energy from the sink, raising the temperature level of this energy,
and delivering it to a heat receiver.
(iii) A receiver to which heat will be transferred from the high temperature high-pressure
refrigerant.
(iv) Means of reducing of pressure and temperature of the refrigerant as it returns from
the
receiver to the “sink”.
Refrigeration Systems
The various refrigeration systems may be enumerated as below :
1. Ice refrigeration 2. Air refrigeration system
3. Vapour compression refrigeration system
4. Vapour absorption refrigeration system
5. Special refrigeration systems
(i) Adsorption refrigeration system (ii) Cascade refrigeration system
(iii) Mixed refrigeration system (iv) Vortex tube refrigeration system
(v) Thermoelectric refrigeration (vi) Steam jet refrigeration system.
Refrigeration Cycle
a. Receiver or condenser: The liquid is kept in a
container namely condenser. The refrigerant is under
pressure.
b. Expansion: It is a device, which controls the rate of
flow of refrigerant into the evaporator. Now high
pressure refrigerant enters low pressure zone.
c. Evaporator: It consist of coils, here the refrigerant
evaporates by absorbing heat from the space. The
energy required for this process is taken from the
surrounding (space which is to be cooled). In this
step, liquid vapourises, but some liquid still
remains.
d. Liquid trap: This is used to remove the traces of
liquid refrigerant and then returned to receiver
(condenser).
e. Compressor: Saturated vapour is allowed to pass
through the compressor. The compression is adiabatic
and it produces supersaturated gas.
f. Condenser: The supersaturated gas (vapour) flows to
the condenser where the gas is liquefied. The
condenser can be air cooled (or) water cooled. Thus
one cycle is completed as shown above and process is
continued.
Types of Refrigerants
1. Primary refrigerants: These are liquids that change from a liquid to a gas after
absorbing heat. (eg. Trichlorofloromethane-Cl3F2C,
Dichlorodifluromethane-Cl2F2C, Ethylene, Propylene, Ammonia etc.)
2. Secondary refrigerants: These are the liquids which act only as heat carriers
(eg. Brine and water)
Domestic Refrigerator
A domestic refrigerator consists of the following two main parts :
1. The refrigeration system.
2. The insulated cabinet.
A simple domestic refrigerator consists of a hermetic compressor placed in the cabinet base. The condenser is
installed at the back and the evaporator is placed inside the cabinet at the top.
The working of the refrigerator is as follows :
— The low pressure and low temperature refrigerant vapour (usually R12) is drawn through the suction line to
the compressor. The accumulator provided between the suction line and the evaporator collects liquid
refrigerant coming out of the evaporator due to incomplete evaporation, if any, prevents it from entering the
compressor. The compressor then compresses the refrigerant vapour to a high pressure and high temperature.
The compressed vapour flows through the discharge line into condenser (vertical natural draft, wire-tube type).
— In the condenser the vapour refrigerant at high pressure and at high temperature is condensed to the liquid
refrigerant at high pressure and low temperature.
— The high pressure liquid refrigerant then flows through the filter and then enters the capillary tube
(expansion device). The capillary tube is attached to the suction line as shown in Fig. The warm
refrigerant passing through the capillary tube gives some of its heat to cold suction line vapour. This
increases the heat absorbing quality of the liquid refrigerant slightly and increases the superheat of vapour
entering the compressor. The capillary tube expands the liquid refrigerant at high pressure to the liquid
refrigerant at low pressure so that a measured quantity of liquid refrigerant is passed into the evaporator.
— In the evaporator the liquid refrigerant gets evaporated by absorbing heat from the container/articles
placed in the evaporative chamber and is sucked back into the compressor and the cycle is repeated.
Co-efficient of Performance (C.O.P.)
The performance of a refrigeration system is expressed by a term known as the ‘‘co-
efficient of performance’’, which is defined as the ratio of heat absorbed by the refrigerant
while passing through the evaporator to the work input required to compress the
refrigerant in the compressor ; in short it is the ratio between heat extracted and work
done (in heat units).
If, Rn = Net refrigerating effect,
W = Work expanded in by the machine during the same interval of time,
where, Actual C.O.P. = Ratio of Rn and W actually measured during a test and, Theoretical C.O.P. = Ratio of
theoretical values of Rn and W obtained by applying laws of thermodynamics to the refrigeration cycle.
QH QH QL
COPHP COPR
Wnet , QH Q L Wnet ,
in in
Standard Rating of a Refrigeration Machine
The rating of a refrigeration machine is obtained by refrigerating effect or amount of heat extracted in a given
time from a body. The rating of the refrigeration machine is given by a unit of refrigeration known as
‘‘standard commercial tonne of refrigeration’’ which is defined as the refrigerating effect produced by the
melting of 1 tonne of ice from and at 0°C in 24 hours. Since the latent heat of fusion of ice is 336 kJ/kg, the
refrigerating effect of 336 × 1000 kJ in 24 hours is rated as one tonne, i.e.,
Note : Ton of refrigeration (TR). A ton of refrigeration is basically an American unit of refrigerating effect
(R.E.). It originated from the rate at which heat is required to be removed to freeze one ton of water from and
at 0°C. Using American units this is equal to removal of 200 BTU of heat per minute, and MKS unit it is
adopted as 50 kcal/min or 3000 kcal/hour. In S.I. units its conversion is rounded of to 3.5 kJ/s (kW) or 210
kJ/min.
In this book we shall be adopting,
1 tonne of refrigeration = 14000 kJ/h (1 ton = 0.9 tonne).
