Date on Master's Thesis/Doctoral Dissertation

8-2022

Document Type

Master's Thesis

Degree Name

M.S.

Department

Mechanical Engineering

Degree Program

Mechanical Engineering, MS

Committee Chair

Brehob, Ellen

Committee Co-Chair (if applicable)

Kelecy, Andrea

Committee Member

Berson, Eric

Author's Keywords

AMESIM; compressor; refrigeration; runtime; calorimeter

Abstract

Condensation beads forming on outside surfaces around a refrigerator is an undesirable byproduct driven by the cold temperature exhibited throughout the unit. To combat this issue, anti-sweat components usually in the form of electrical heaters or tubes carrying hot refrigerant, bring heat to the cold surfaces to ensure their temperatures do not drop below the dew point. Some heat produced by the anti-sweat components may transfer to the interior refrigerated compartment. The purpose of this study is to quantify how much heat from the anti-sweat components are entering the fresh food and freezer compartments and what impact that has on the energy usage and thermal performance of the unit. A dual evaporator, single damper refrigerator-freezer was the test model in this experiment and a forward heat leak calorimeter provided the capability of determining the amount of heat entering the cabinet. It was found from a forward heat leak calorimeter system, that 74% of the 2.4 W load from the hot liquid loop, 71% of the 10.9 W load from the articulating mullion heater, 32% of the 5 W load from the icebox gasket heater and 52% of the 10.5 W load from Door-in-Door heater entered the cabinet. An AMESIM simulation model was used to evaluate the additional compressor power consumed by the introduction of the additional heat into the cabinet. The impact of the hot liquid loop and heaters (assuming a 100% operation) is an additional 17.6 W or 66.5 kWhr/year compressor power required to remove the heat leaking into the cabinet. This is not a negligible impact as the total energy reported by the DOE in 2021 was 757 kWhr/year. Additional work may need to be done to optimize usage of these components and reduce the energy impact.

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