EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT OF HOUSEHOLD REFRIGERATOR USING PHASE CHANGE MATERIAL

Abstract

An experimental investigation has been carried out to know about the performance improvement of a household refrigerator using phase change material (PCM). PCMs are used as latent heat thermal storage system to enhance the heat transfer of the evaporator. PCM is located behind the five sides of the evaporator cabinet in which the evaporator coil is immersed. Water (melting point 0°C) and Eutectic solutions (melting point −5°C) are used as PCMs for this experiment at different thermal loads. Depending on the types of PCM and thermal load, around 20–27% COP improvement of the refrigeration cycle has been observed with PCM with respect to without PCM. With the increase of the quantity of PCM (0.003 to 0.00425 m3) COP increases about 6%. Between two different PCMs the COP improvement for Eutectic solution is higher than Water. The experimental results with PCM confirm that, depending on the thermal load and the types of PCM average compressor running time per cycle is reduced significantly and it is found about 2–36% as compared to without PCM.