Conference Year
2016
Keywords
Domestic refrigerator, Linear compressor, R600a, Experimental simulation, performance
Abstract
A linear compressor for a domestic refrigerator-freezer has energy saving potential compared with a reciprocating compressor because of a low friction loss and free piston system. A linear compressor can control the piston stroke since it does not have mechanical restriction of piston movement. Therefore, the energy consumption of a domestic refrigerator-freezer using a linear compressor can be reduced by changing the cooling capacity of the compressor. In order to investigate the performance of a refrigerator-freezer with parallel evaporators using a linear compressor and the relation between cooling capacity of the linear compressor and cooling load, experimental simulation is conducted with variation of the capacity of a linear compressor, an ambient temperature, and cooling load. In addition, the power consumption of a linear compressor is compared to that of an inverter reciprocating compressor in a refrigerator-freezer. The performance of a linear compressor is measured with variation of the capacity of a linear compressor from 60% to 100% of the maximum capacity in a refrigerator-freezer. Based on the experimental data, the power consumption of a linear compressor is reduced by 22.4% with 70% capacity compared to 100% but on-time ratio is increased by 12.8%.