Development of Solar Operated Evaporative Refrigerating System

Abstract

People in the rural regions of the developing countries where electricity supply is not available are facing the problems of preserving their food through refrigeration. They need affordable and efficient method of food preservation. Therefore, a solar operated refrigerator was designed, constructed and evaluated. The system consists of three major parts, namely: the mild steel box (0.4 𝑚 × 0.4 𝑚 × 0.5 𝑚), the clay shell and the wooden box (0.5 𝑚 × 0.5 𝑚 × 0.6 𝑚). The mild steel box is enclosed in a clay shell, which is in turn enclosed in a wooden box with four open ducts. The work evaluated convective heat transfer through the ducts and the machine was tested on no load and also by using it to cool 40 kg of water for seven consecutive days over a period of eight hours per day. The results from its performance tests indicated that the system has a cooling process coefficient of performance (COP) of 2.48 and overall coefficient of performance (COP) of 1.64.