Numerical analysis of a novel household refrigerator with shape-stabilized PCM (phase change material) heat storage condensers

Abstract

The dynamic model of a novel household refrigerator with SSPCM (shape-stabilized phase change material) heat storage condenser presented in this paper were established and agreed well with the experiment. By simulation, the coefficient of performance is increased about 19% by a continuous heat transfer of condenser due to the latent heat storage of SSPCM, however the energy saving is 12% and offset about 7% by the heat leakage increase because of the SSPCM inside the insulation layer. The effects of ambient temperature, freezer temperature and phase change temperature on the energy saving are analyzed to provide theoretical basis for the optimization design of the refrigerator with SSPCM. It can be concluded that the ambient temperature increasing and the freezer temperature decreasing can increase the energy saving effect, the second phase change temperature region with the peak temperature about 49 °C of SSPCM results in the minimum energy consumption of the novel refrigerator.