20-04-2012, 11:41 AM
DESIGN AND PERFORMANCE TESTING OF MULTIPURPOSE DOMESTIC REFRIGERATOR
ABSTRACT
While we move our feet with this rapidly developing world, we move on facing several challenges in our day to day life. The most important challenge is to generate energy as per the requirement. This hardly possible and hence we concentrate on utilizing the waste heat for the benefit of mankind & to prevent the energy crisis. The increased utilization of renewable energy source is investable option for the industries & agriculture in the context of the naturally driven increase in energy demand for global development needs as also for preservation our environmental quality. Thus energy can be viewed as the Bedrock of economic development.
The project “DESIGN AND PERFORMANCE TESTING OF MULTIPURPOSE DOMESTIC REFRIGERATOR”, has been carried out keeping the track of utilization of waste energy.
The aim of this study is to explore and evaluate the possibility of transforming household refrigerator into 2-in-1 that provides refrigeration and water heating up around 500C-600C in a single unit. The unit expected to be environmental friendly, energy efficient, robust, long lasting, cost effective and safe for users. If the heating demand of the water can be satisfied by de-superheating, the energy for heating can be reduced or possibly eliminated.
All over the world due to seasonal variations hot and cold water is required throughout the year for domestic purpose. Water heaters and coolers are commonly used to supply the same. However, most residences that use these facilities have a refrigeration system for household purposes. All above appliances require purchased energy to operate. Refrigerator rejects heat to atmosphere while hot case requires heat to raise the temperature of water. Consequently, there is one device that rejects heat and another one that needs heat.
The objective of the project is to utilize the waste heat energy. For this purpose a thermal storage device named hot case has been employed to recover the waste heat. A hot case system can be designed to recover the part of heat rejected by the condenser introducing heating tubes.
The normal refrigerator is modified slightly by replacing the condenser coil with a hot case. Thus the refrigerant flows to the expansion device via the heating tubes of the hot case after being compressed in the compressor. Due to the modification the refrigerant instead of rejecting heat to the atmosphere it rejects heat in the hot case which is thermally insulated from the atmosphere. The heating tubes in the hot case are wound around a rectangular case. As the refrigerant passes through the heating tubes it losses heat and increases the temperature of the case. The temperature attained by the hot case is around 550C-640C. The case is thermally insulated by using glass wool insulation. By using the refrigerator in such a manner we gain the advantage of 2 in 1 system.
The use of this project will simultaneously produce hot and cool temperatures with the same energy requirements. Electricity demands of all these systems if operated separately to gain the same purpose are very large as compared to this system. Thus from refrigerator with hot case we can obtain two totally opposite phenomenon that is cooling and heating in one device whose energy requirement is reduced due to use of waste heat. This study will form the base for the performance of an existing refrigerator system by using readily available manufacturer’s data to explore system arrangements with a verified computer model. This study will be applicable and useful to other similar system.