INVESTIGATIONS ON THE PERFORMANCE OF VAPOUR COMPRESSION SYSTEM RETROFITTED WITH ZEOTROPIC REFRIGERANT R404A

Abstract

The environmental impacts like global warming and ozone depletion has become a challenge to the refrigeration and air conditioning industry. Chloro Fluoro Carbons (CFCs) and Hydro Flouro Carbons (HCFCs) are referred to as an Ozone Depleting Substances (ODS) because once these gases are released into the environment and reach the stratosphere, depletes the ozone layer. This research paper aims to study the performance characteristics of an R12 (CFC) vapour compression refrigeration system retrofitted with zeotrope blend of refrigerant R404a, used for cooling liquids with five different configuration of capillaries of diameters 0.033", 0.036", 0.044", 0.050" and 0.30" (2 Way). The refrigerant R404a is an alternate refrigerant to CFCs and HCFCs as they are ozone friendly and have less Global Warming Potential (GWP) than R12 and R134a. The parameters employed in analysis of the performance characteristics are the Evaporator load (Qe), Coefficient of Performance (COP), Work done by the compressor (Wc) and Refrigeration Effect (RE). A detailed experimentation was carried out to compare the performance and effectiveness of the system using five different capillaries. The result obtained from the observation will help to identify the optimum diameter of capillary which could be used in the system to give the best performance.