Development and experimental study of the characteristics of a prototype miniature vapor compression refrigerator

This paper develops a practical miniature and portable vapor compression refrigerator. The dimensions of the refrigerator are 190mm×190mm×100mm and its weight is 2.75kg. It integrates a miniature variable speed rotary compressor with a miniature electronic expansion valve (EXV) operating in pulse width modulation (PWM) mode. Besides, a new type of miniature microchannel plate-fin evaporator is developed with vacuum bonding technology and a brazed aluminum parallel flow microchannel condenser is applied. Experiments are conducted to explore the operating performance of the prototype miniature refrigerator, especially the effects of EXV duty cycle and working conditions on the cooling performance. Experiments find that the operation of the system is smooth and reliable; the results show that it has a cooling capacity of 260W which is high enough for cooling one person with moderate working load, where the ambient temperature is as high as 50°C and the inlet cold water temperature of the evaporator is 24°C, respectively. Under these operation conditions, the system COP can reach 1.62 and the reversible efficiency is 0.324.

[1]  Clark W. Bullard,et al.  Air-side thermal hydraulic performance of multi-louvered fin aluminum heat exchangers , 2002 .

[2]  Guilherme B. Ribeiro,et al.  A State-of-the-Art Review of Compact Vapor Compression Refrigeration Systems and Their Applications , 2012 .

[3]  L.R. Grzyll,et al.  A crew cooling system for the M9 Armored Combat Earthmover (ACE) , 1997, IECEC-97 Proceedings of the Thirty-Second Intersociety Energy Conversion Engineering Conference (Cat. No.97CH6203).

[4]  Claudio Zilio,et al.  Mini Vapor Cycle System for high density electronic cooling applications , 2013 .

[5]  V. Chiriac,et al.  An Alternative Method for the Cooling of Power Microelectronics Using Classical Refrigeration , 2007, 2007 International Conference on Thermal Issues in Emerging Technologies: Theory and Application.

[6]  Luis Pérez-Lombard,et al.  The map of energy flow in HVAC systems , 2011 .

[7]  Chenyang Lu,et al.  Air quality metrics and wireless technology to maximize the energy efficiency of HVAC in a working auditorium , 2015 .

[8]  M. Mochizuki,et al.  Small scale refrigeration system for electronics cooling within a notebook computer , 2006, Thermal and Thermomechanical Proceedings 10th Intersociety Conference on Phenomena in Electronics Systems, 2006. ITHERM 2006..

[9]  J. U. Ahamed,et al.  A review on exergy analysis of vapor compression refrigeration system , 2011 .

[10]  Farrokh Janabi-Sharifi,et al.  Theory and applications of HVAC control systems – A review of model predictive control (MPC) , 2014 .

[11]  Srinivas Garimella,et al.  Wearable Engine-Driven Vapor-Compression Cooling System for Elevated Ambients , 2009 .

[12]  Jae-Weon Jeong,et al.  Energy saving potential of various air-side economizers in a modular data center , 2015 .

[13]  Farrokh Janabi-Sharifi,et al.  Gray-box modeling and validation of residential HVAC system for control system design , 2015 .

[14]  Michael Pecht,et al.  Prognostics-based risk mitigation for telecom equipment under free air cooling conditions , 2012 .

[15]  Yuting Wu,et al.  Development and experimental investigation of a miniature-scale refrigeration system , 2010 .

[16]  Chih-Chung Chang,et al.  Miniature Vapor Compressor Refrigeration System for Electronic Cooling , 2010, IEEE Transactions on Components and Packaging Technologies.

[17]  Suresh V. Garimella,et al.  Technological drivers in data centers and telecom systems: Multiscale thermal, electrical, and energy management , 2013 .

[18]  Yeon-Pun Chang,et al.  Condensing heat transfer characteristics of aluminum flat tube , 1997 .

[19]  Ralph L. Webb,et al.  A New Equivalent Reynolds Number Model for Condensation in Smooth Tubes , 1998 .

[20]  Suresh V. Garimella,et al.  Experimental Evaluation of a Miniature Rotary Compressor for Application in Electronics Cooling , 2008 .

[21]  Issam Mudawar,et al.  Implementation of Microchannel Evaporator for High-Heat-Flux Refrigeration Cooling Applications , 2006 .

[22]  A. G. Agwu Nnanna,et al.  Application of refrigeration system in electronics cooling , 2006 .

[23]  Zhihui Wu,et al.  Design and experimental study of a miniature vapor compression refrigeration system for electronics cooling , 2011 .

[24]  Liu Yang,et al.  Thermal comfort and building energy consumption implications - A review , 2014 .

[25]  U. Schygulla,et al.  Concepts and realization of microstructure heat exchangers for enhanced heat transfer , 2006 .

[26]  Donghun Lee,et al.  Development of a novel meso-scale vapor compression refrigeration system (mVCRS) , 2014 .

[27]  S.V. Garimella,et al.  Experimental Investigation of a Miniature-Scale Refrigeration System for Electronics Cooling , 2006, IEEE Transactions on Components and Packaging Technologies.

[28]  Adrian Bejan,et al.  Effect of Size on Ground-Coupled Heat Pump Performance , 2013 .

[29]  Mehmet Kanoglu,et al.  Exergy analysis of vapor compression refrigeration systems , 2002 .

[30]  Said I. Abdel-Khalik,et al.  Applicability of traditional turbulent single-phase forced convection correlations to non-circular microchannels , 1999 .

[31]  Siaw Kiang Chou,et al.  Achieving better energy-efficient air conditioning - A review of technologies and strategies , 2013 .