Refrigeration and Air Conditioning

Name: Index NO:

H.K.C.O.Dayarathne 090081D

Department: EE Date: 30/09/2011

Refrigeration has a diverse nature and covers a large number of processers ranging from cooling to air conditioning and from food refrigeration to human comfort. Refrigeration as a whole therefore appears complicated due to the fact that thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, and heat transfer are always encountered in every refrigeration process or application. Some of the applications are discussed as below. Separation of gases: Eg: Separation of air into its constituents by fractional distillation. Air is liquefied at -1910C. Liquefaction temperature of Nitrogen is -1860C And that of oxygen is -1960C. Condensation of gases: Synthetic ammonia plants condense ammonia gas with temperatures between -200C to +100C before storage or before shipment. Dehumidification of air: Low humidity is essential for the production of pure oxygen, Low humidity is essential in the manufacture of pharmaceuticals, a soap, detergents and cosmetics. Solidification of a solute: De-waxing of oil in the petroleum industry is at about -250C. Low Pressure Storage in Liquid Form Storing of gases in liquid form permits many times storage than in the gaseous state i.e. Natural gas is cooled to -1600C at 0.7 bars (gauge). Process cooling: Variety of processes fall under this category i.e. to cool wax to -250C to harden it on paper. Removal of Heat of Reaction: Many chemical reactions are exothermic (as mentioned below) but these must take place at temperatures below atmospheric temperature. Therefore refrigeration is required to remove the heat of reaction. In the manufacture of viscous rayon, In the manufacture of Cellulose acetate, In the manufacture of synthetic rubber Recovery of solvents: Numerous solvents can be recovered for reuse by refrigeration, acetone in film manufacture, Ccl4 in textile manufacture, CS2 in rubber manufacture Control of Fermentation: Heat is generated during fermentation and must be removed otherwise temperature will rise beyond control i.e. refrigeration maintains 5 to 100C .In the manufacture of alcohol in a brewery, in t5he manufacture of penicillin Cooling for preservation: Following will live longer if stored between 5 to 150C Eg: natural rubber, drugs, explosives Preservation of Dairy Products: Refrigeration can maintain quality and taste.

Cold treatment of metals: Eg: The cutting tool can be increased many folds by refrigerating the tool for 15 minutes at -1000C, Magnetic strength and stability of magnets can be improved by low temperature treatment at -800C for 8 hours., Hoop shrinking at low temperatures Medical applications: Eg: Localized refrigeration as surgical anesthesia to provide shock less surgery. Blood plasma and antibiotics are manufactured using a method called freeze drying, Deliveries taking place in airconditioned rooms. Dead bodies are preserved at -700C for few days. Construction work: Eg: Cooling of concrete by refrigeration prevents cracking especially in the constriction of dams. Refrigeration cools soil to facilitate excavation. Miscellaneous applications: Eg: Birth of a child taking place in Air Conditioned rooms, Dead bodies are stored for few days when their family members cannot be present in time, Blood preservation, Bone marrow preservation Thermo acoustic refrigerator for space applications
A new spacecraft cry cooler which uses resonant high-amplitude sound waves in inert gases to pump heat is described. The phasing of the thermo acoustic cycle is provided by thermal conduction. This 'natural' phasing allows the entire refrigerator to operate with only one moving part (the loudspeaker diaphragm). A space-qualified thermo acoustic refrigerator was flown on the Space Shuttle Discovery (STS-42) in January, 1992. It was entirely autonomous, had no sliding seals, required no lubrication, used mostly low-tolerance machined parts, and contained no expensive components. Thermo acoustics is shown to be a competitive candidate for food refrigerator/freezers and commercial/residential air conditioners. The design and performance of the Space Thermo/Acoustic

Refrigerator (STAR) is described. Magnetic refrigeration Magnetic refrigeration has been the key tool in achieving temperatures below1 Kelvin. During the past few years magnetic systems have been proposed for several applications ranging between productions of super fluid comfort air conditioning, and are under active development laboratories around the world. The refrigerator is based on known magneto caloric effect i.e., cooling of a magnetic mater helium and n several the welled by Adiabatic demagnetization. It uses paramagnetic substances for applications below 20 K and ferromagnetic materials near their respective Curie temperatures at higher temperatures.
Applications of Air-Conditioning

Air conditioning commonly refers to the process of cooling or dehumidifying the air for comfort. Such is the early purpose served by air conditioners, to provide coziness especially during hot or warm seasons. It all started in Ancient Rome where families of wealth have afforded the application of aqueduct water that circulated through the walls of their houses for cooling. The medieval Persians also employed the same concept of air conditioning in providing cooling comfort in buildings with the use of cisterns and wind towers. According to the application, Air-Conditioning can mainly be divided into 2 categories. Comfort air conditioning: Domestic, offices, shops cinema halls , hospitals, computer centers, libraries, restaurants, hotels, night

clubs, transportation, telephone exchanges, beauty salons, radio and TV stations, auditoriums, malls, museums, ships Industrial air conditioning: (a)Laboratories: to make precise measurements (b)To study the effect of temperature and moisture on living beings (c)Control of humidity in multi-color printing i.e. if the humidity is not constant paper shrinks and causes poor registration of colors. (d)Textile manufacturing greatly depends on moisture control (e)Dry air is required in steel manufacture as it improves the quality of steel and reduces the coal requirements per ton of steel produced (f)Pharmaceutical industry needs refrigeration to reduce air borne bacteria and dirt to preserve products i.e. Gelatin capsules requires very dry air, and pills and tablets require air-conditioning to maintain their quality. (g)Photographic products deteriorate rapidly at high temperatures and high humidity. Therefore their control is essential. (h)Farm animals: air conditioning of farm houses improves the quality and quantity of milk

Latest technology used in Refrigeration

PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) has developed a proprietary thermoacoustic refrigeration technology that can achieve double the efficiency of the best current residential and commercial air conditioning and refrigeration systems. Cooling applications represent 25% of all electricity use in the United States, consuming over 7 quadrillion BTUs of energy and generating nearly 600 million metric tons of CO2 emissions annually. The predominant technology for air conditioning, the vapor-compression cycle, despite its maturity and ubiquity, can reach efficiencies of only 12% of the theoretical maximum. Achieving significant energy savings and CO emission reductions requires a fundamentally different approach to cooling. PARC has developed a technique to enable thermoacoustic cooling technology for air conditioning applications. Wide adoption of PARCs technology could lead to dramatic energy savings and greatly reduced CO2 emissions.