Numerical Simulation of Gas-Liquid Two-Phase Leakage of R-290 Refrigerant in Split Air Conditioner

Abstract

R290 as a refrigerant has significant advantages of low cost, high energy efficiency, and more environmental protection, but the leakage will form a hazardous area inside the indoor unit and the room where the concentration exceeds the lower flammable limit of propane. In this paper, we focus on the gas-liquid two-phase leakage of R-290 indoor air conditioner at the evaporator, and use Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) method to numerically simulate the refrigerant leakage dispersion at three air conditioning supply volumes of 178.2 m3/h, 342 m3/h and 576 m3/h, and analyze the indoor velocity distribution and concentration distribution. The results show that the trajectory of the refrigerant jet changes under different air supply volumes, and the simulation results show that the spatial extent of the combustion explosion limit is mainly distributed at the air conditioning leak and the air conditioning outlet. Vortices were formed in the local area above the propane leakage port and then spread.