• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2004.04a
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• pp.1945-1950
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• 2004

In this paper, The performance of Kim-Chi refrigerator with three evaporator and one compressor was investigated in employing 55% propane and 45% isobutane (R290/R600a) refrigerant mixture as an alternative refrigerant of R134a. The drop in test was performed by varying both refrigerant charge amount and capillary tube length in order to find both the performance and reliability of a small multi-refrigeration system. As a result, Both the power consumption and COP is increased by about 15% and 10%, respectively as compared to the baseline R134a system. In addition, the propane/isobutene refrigerant mixture system took advantage of the minimization of modification and redesigning of system components because of similar thermodynamic properties with R134a such as saturation pressure, temperature, normal boiling point(NBP) characteristics

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.29 no.2 s.233
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• pp.271-278
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• 2005

In this paper, the performance of Kim-chi refrigerator with three evaporator and one compressor was investigated in employing $55\%$ propane and $45\%$ isobutane (R290/R600a) refrigerant mixture as an alternative refrigerant of R134a. The drop-in test was performed by varying both refrigerant charge and capillary tube length in order to find both the performance and reliability of a small multi-refrigeration system. Results show that the power consumption is decreased by about $15\%$ and COP is increased by about $10\%$, respectively as compared to the baseline system using R-134a. In addition, the propane/isobutane refrigerant mixture system took advantage of the minimization of modification and redesigning of system components because thermodynamic properties such as saturation pressure, temperature, normal boiling point(NBP) characteristics are similar to those of R134a. The reduction of sales cost is caused by the decrease of refrigerant cost per unit mass and refrigerant charge amount necessary for the refrigeration system.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.73-82
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• 2002

A small refrigeration system used in a water purifier was tested by employing propane/isobutane (R-290/R-6OOa) mixtures as an alternative refrigerant of R-12. The drop-in tests were performed by varying mass fraction of propane at 0.25, 0.5 and 0.75 with a change of both refrigerant charge amount and capillary tube length in order to find an optimum composition in aspect of performance and reliability of the system. As a result, the mixture of 50% propane-50% isobutane showed the best performance and reliability among them in a small refrigeration system. During steady state operations, both the COP and refrigeration capacity increased by 4% and 9%, respectively, as compared to the baseline R-12 system. In addition, the propane/isobutane (50/50) mixture system yielded advantages in the minimization of modification and redesigning of system components due to very similar saturation tempera- ture and pressure characteristics with R-12.