Investigation on an Improved Household Refrigerator for Energy Saving of Residential Buildings

Applied Sciences

Yuehong Su¹  Mingke Hu¹  Qiliang Wang²  Gang Pei³  Jingyu Cao³  Xiao Ren³  Weixin Liu³ 

[1] Department of Architecture and Built Environment, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK;Department of Building Services Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China;Department of Thermal Science and Energy Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230027, China;

关键词: household refrigerator;    energy saving;    building;    heat pipe;    cold loss recovery;   

DOI  :  10.3390/app10124246

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

The efficiency improvement of household refrigerators is of significance to electricity consumption reduction of residential buildings. The cold loss recovery in household refrigerators is a promising development direction. In this study, a refrigerator improved by heat pipes is designed to reduce the cold loss at freezer walls to enhance the overall efficiency of the refrigerator. A complete steady-state mathematical model is built for characterizing its overall energy saving behaviors by introducing the real structural parameters of a Midea BCD-111 refrigerator and measured temperature boundary conditions. The performances of the improved refrigerator are investigated with typical operating states, variable ambient temperature, and heat pipe design. The simulative results indicate that the cold loss of the freezer of the improved refrigerator can be reduced by 8.3–16.5%, and the energy saving capability is relatively reliable. Results verify that the cold loss recovery of the improved refrigerator is feasible in various operating conditions.

【 授权许可】

Unknown