Experimental study of heat transfer characteristics for a refrigerator by using reverse heat loss method

Abstract

The present study has been carried out to predict the heat transfer characteristics of a residential refrigerator through insulation wall by using reverse heat loss method. The temperature time history characteristics were measured to achieve the steady state condition. In this experiment the steady state condition was reached at about 20 h of heating. The temperature and heat inputs were then averaged with one hour data and considered as the steady state temperature and heat input. From the measured values of temperature and heat input, one can conclude that, the temperature differences between the inside and outside of a refrigerator has a nearly linear relationship with heat input. The overall heat transfer coefficients have been derived by introducing the optimal heat loss function to analyze the heat loss characteristics. The accuracy of heat loss prediction has been checked with various experimental data and the normalized errors of the obtained result are found to be within 2.5%.