• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.139-146
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• 2020

Global warming has led to an increase in demand of eco-friendly vehicles, such as electric cars, for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and especially, regulating carbon dioxide generation. In addition, electric vehicles are equipped with an electric drive-type hermetic scroll compressor and a refrigerant, which exhibit current and future trends of using environmentally friendly refrigerants, including R-1234yf. In this study, polyol ester-based refrigeration oils are prepared via condensation esterification of polyol and fatty acids. The oils can be combined with R-1234yf refrigerant for applications in air conditioning and cooling systems of electric vehicles. The structure of synthetic polyol esters is confirmed via ¹H-NMR and FT-IR spectrum analysis, and the composition of the polyol ester is analyzed via gas chromatogram analysis. Furthermore, kinematic viscosity, viscosity index, total acid value, pour point, and color are analyzed as fundamental physical properties of the synthetic polyol esters. The compatibility and chemical stability of the synthetic polyol ester combined with the R-1234yf refrigerant are obtained via high temperature and high pressure oil-resistant refrigerant tests. The changes in the oil color and catalyst activity are observed before and after the experiment to determine whether it is suitable as a refrigerator oil.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.180-186
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• 2013

An electric vehicle is an environment-friendly automobile which does not emit any tailpipe pollutant. In a conventional vehicle with an internal combustion engine, the internal cabin of the vehicle is usually heated using waste heat from the engine. However, for an electric vehicle, an alternative solution for heating is required because it does not have a combustion engine. Recently, a heat pump system which is widely used for residential heating due to its higher efficiency has been studied for its use as a heating system in electric vehicles. In this study, a heat pump system utilizing air source and waste heat source from electric devices was investigated experimentally. The performance of the heat pump system was measured by varying the mass flow rate ratio. The experimental results show that the heating capacity and COP in the dual heat source heat pump were increased by 20.9% and 8.6%, respectively, from those of the air-source heat pump.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.26 no.7
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• pp.308-314
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• 2014

A heat pump has been considered as a thermal management unit for electric vehicles, including the heating and cooling of the cabin. However, the heat pump shows performance degradation at low outdoor temperatures or high compressor speeds. In this study, a R-134a heat pump for an electric vehicle was designed to improve system efficiency, by applying vapor injection with an internal heat exchanger. The heating performance characteristics of the vapor injection heat pump were analyzed at various compressor speeds and outdoor temperatures. The vapor injection heat pump showed 13.3% COP improvement over the non-injection heat pump, when the heating capacity was fixed at 5.2 kW. In addition, the heating capacity of the vapor injection system increased by 9.6%, as compared to the non-injection system.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.166-171
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• 2016

Electric vehicle ownership is expanding for two reasons: its technology features have enhanced fuel economy, and the number of vehicle emissions regulations is increasing. Battery performance has a large influence on the capability of electric vehicles, and even though battery thermal management has been actively researched, specific technological improvements to battery performance are not being presented. For instance, many industrial applications utilize vortex tubes as components for refrigeration machines because of their numerous intrinsic benefits. If electric vehicles incorporate vortex tubes for battery cooling, performance and efficiency advancements are possible. This study uses a counter-flow vortex tube to investigate its temperature separation characteristics, based on the back pressure of the cold air exit and the difference between the inlet and back pressures. The experiment uses a vortex tube with the following parameters: six nozzle holes, a 20 mm inner vortex diameter (D), a 14D tube length, a 0.7D cold exit orifice diameter, and a nozzle area ratio of 0.142. The measurements prove that the temperature difference between the hot air and cold air decreased because of the flow resistance of the hot air and the backflow phenomenon at the cold air exit. The flow resistance causes the temperature difference to decrease, and the back pressure of the cold air exit influences the flow resistance. The results show that the back pressure significantly influences the efficiency of temperature separation.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.257-262
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• 2014

This paper describes an experimental study for heating performance that can be used in R-134a automobile heat pump systems. The heat pump system is widely studied for heating system in zero-emission vehicles to attain both the small power consumption and the effective heating of the cabin. This paper presents the experimental results of the influence on heating capacity and coefficient of performance of heat pump system. Tests were performed with different sizes of internal and external heat exchangers, and refrigerant flow rate was also considered in two-way flow devices. In addition, the heat, air, and water sources with the heat pump system were examined. The experimental results with the heat pump system were used to analyze the impact on performances. The best combination of performance was A-inside heat exchanger, B-outside heat exchanger, and B-flow device, respectively. In addition, a water heat-source was found to give roughly 40% of better performance than an air heat-source heat pump system.

• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.63-70
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• 2017

This paper deals with anti-pinch system based on current information which prevents some risks for trapping, squeezing or injury to people in smart window on vehicles. Automatic configuration of current threshold is suggested to recognize pinch states in the current based anti-pinch system. Also, some factors affecting to the squeezing force were analyzed by some experimental results and simulations. The validity of the suggested system was verified to satisfy the strengthened American safety regulation, FMVSS 118-S5, through some experimental results.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.114-122
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• 1991

A thermal analysis method taking into account energy balance in each elements of heat exchanger was introduced. This method has a merit in predicting the temperature field over the heat exchanger in detail. To verify this method, the results were compared with the published ones. The thermal analysis of the radiator in vehicles was also conducted and the results were compared with experimental ones. It is concluded that this method can be used in thermal analysis with relatively small error. When the velocity profile of inlet air is not uniform, the outlet temperature of cooling water is higher than that of uniform velocity profile.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.26 no.7
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• pp.329-334
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• 2014

This study indicated the possibility of energy regeneration from waste coolant heat, by using thermoelectric generation integrated with heat pipe. The internal combustion engine rejects more than 60% wasteful energy to the atmosphere by heat. The thermoelectric generator has recently been studied, to convert the energy from engine waste heat into electricity. For coolant waste heat recovery, a thermoelectric generator was investigated, to find out the possibility of vehicular application. Performance characteristics were conducted with various test conditions of coolant temperature, coolant mass flow rate, air temperature, and air velocity, with the thermoelectric generator installed either horizontally or vertically. Experimental results show that the electric power and conversion efficiency increases according to the temperature difference between the hot and cold side of the thermoelectric generator, and the coolant flow rate of the hot side heat exchanger. Performance improvement can be expected by optimizing the heat pipe design.

• Journal of Industrial Technology
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• v.26 no.B
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• pp.157-162
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• 2006

Recently, the humidity adjustment of indoor air is of great importance in air conditioning system as a applied, in buildings, vehicles, and containers for storage and transport of perishable products. Membrane dehumidification or air is potentially attractive because it offers low capital and operating costs, along with low energy consumption. And membrane dehumidification process attracted the attention of the public instead of the other dehumidification processes, such as adsorption, absorption, and refrigeration cycles and so on. In this study, the prepared hydrophilic inorganic membrane-based dehumidifiers(membrane air dehumidification) examined the performance of dehumidification. The surface-modified inorganic membrane prepared in this study showed high dehumidification efficiency(over 80%). The membrane might be very useful for dehumidification industries.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.175-180
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• 2008

Thermoelectric materials convert temperature difference to electric power for power generation and vice versa for refrigeration. Recent advances in enhancing the thermoelectric figure-of-merit shed light on efficient power generation from the waste heat available in industries and vehicles. Nanoscale phenomena with both nanoscale constituent-embedded bulk samples and nanoscale materials proving enhanced thermoelectric performance have been widely reviewed. Bulk materials of crystal-orientation and nano-structured particle embedding seem to promise a higher thermoelectric figure-of-merit and an effective power generation application. As a preliminary study, Si-Ge nanocomposite was prepared with spark plasma sintering method and its properties were examined.