A Numerical Study on the Flow and Heat Transfer Characteristics in a Kimchi Refrigerator

Kimchi refrigerator is a household electric appliance developed with the wholly domestic technology for maturing and keeping kimchi. However, the principle of keeping is not yet revealed obviously. This numerical study has been conducted to investigate the flow and heat transfer characteristics in a kimchi refrigerator. The effects of arrangement variation of a evaporation tube are examined. Also, the heat transfer characteristics through the insulation material are discussed in detail. The flow and temperature field was simulated using the commercial code of CFX-5.3. A natural convection flow is formed through about 5/6 region from the bottom within the keeping space and accordingly, the 90% region of kimchi containers satisfies the temperature requirement with 0$\pm$0.5$^{\circ}C$. The stagnant flow exists in the upper 1/6 region of the keeping space and accordingly, the stratified high temperature distributions appear in the upper region of kimchi containers. The upward shift of the start location of a evaporation tube improves the temperature concentration toward $0^{\circ}C$ but the pitch variation is of no effect. The heat fluxes on the insulation surfaces show two-dimensional distributions with being higher toward the center. Through the variation of insulation thickness, 3.5% saving of insulation material is obtained under the same heat transfer rate.

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