• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.21 no.12
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• pp.715-732
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• 2009

This article reviews the papers published in the Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering during 2008. It is intended to understand the status of current research in the areas of heating, cooling, ventilation, sanitation, and indoor environments of buildings and plant facilities. Conclusions are as follows. (1) Research trends in thermal and fluid engineering have been surveyed in the categories of general fluid flow, fluid machinery and piping, new and renewable energy, and fire. Well-developed CFD technologies were widely applied in developing facilities and their systems. New research topics include fire, fuel cell, and solar energy. Research was mainly focused on flow distribution and optimization in the fields of fluid machinery and piping. Topics related to the development of fans and compressors had been popular, but were no longer investigated widely. Research papers on micro heat exchangers using nanofluids and micro pumps were also not presented during this period. There were some studies on thermal reliability and performance in the fields of new and renewable energy. Numerical simulations of smoke ventilation and the spread of fire were the main topics in the field of fire. (2) Research works on heat transfer presented in 2008 have been reviewed in the categories of heat transfer characteristics, industrial heat exchangers, and ground heat exchangers. Research on heat transfer characteristics included thermal transport in cryogenic vessels, dish solar collectors, radiative thermal reflectors, variable conductance heat pipes, and flow condensation and evaporation of refrigerants. In the area of industrial heat exchangers, examined are research on micro-channel plate heat exchangers, liquid cooled cold plates, fin-tube heat exchangers, and frost behavior of heat exchanger fins. Measurements on ground thermal conductivity and on the thermal diffusion characteristics of ground heat exchangers were reported. (3) In the field of refrigeration, many studies were presented on simultaneous heating and cooling heat pump systems. Switching between various operation modes and optimizing the refrigerant charge were considered in this research. Studies of heat pump systems using unutilized energy sources such as sewage water and river water were reported. Evaporative cooling was studied both theoretically and experimentally as a potential alternative to the conventional methods. (4) Research papers on building facilities have been reviewed and divided into studies on heat and cold sources, air conditioning and air cleaning, ventilation, automatic control of heat sources with piping systems, and sound reduction in hydraulic turbine dynamo rooms. In particular, considered were efficient and effective uses of energy resulting in reduced environmental pollution and operating costs. (5) In the field of building environments, many studies focused on health and comfort. Ventilation. system performance was considered to be important in improving indoor air conditions. Due to high oil prices, various tests were planned to examine building energy consumption and to cut life cycle costs.