Experimental study of a novel cool-storage refrigerator with controllable two-phase loop thermosyphon

Abstract

Cool storage has been considering an efficient and cost-effective means to enhance the behavior of a refrigerator. However, its drawback in temperature control of the refrigerator compartment has not received enough attention. The controllable two-phase loop thermosyphon has the prospect of solving this problem. In this study, a novel cool-storage refrigerator integrated with a controllable two-phase loop thermosyphon is built to investigate its precise temperature control capacity. The phase change material is optimized by the orthogonal experiment method. The controllable two-phase loop thermosyphon presents the optimal cooling performance for the fresh food compartment when the filling ratio is 27.0%. As the average temperature of the fresh food compartment increases, the one on–off cycle of the controllable two-phase loop thermosyphon maintains at 32.0 min, and the operation ratio varies from 86.3% to 13.6%. The temperature control accuracy can be improved from 2.1 °C to 0.6 °C and the overall time of one on-off cycle decreases from 49.8 min to 22.4 min. The operation ratio gradually increases from 7.2% to 38.6% as the ambient temperatures increase. The results demonstrate that the controllable two-phase loop thermosyphon is a feasible and effective way to improve the temperature control performance of the cool-storage refrigerator.