Performance and heat transfer of an air conditioning system filled with hydrocarbon refrigerants

Abstract

Performance and heat transfer characteristics of an air conditioning system filled with hydro- carbon refrigerants are experimentally investigated. Single component hydrocarbon refrigerants (propane, isobutane, butane and propylene) and binary mixtures of propane/isobutane and propane/butane are considered as working fluids in the air conditioning system. Performances of each refrigerant are obtained at several compressor speeds and temperature levels of secondary heat transfer fluids. The cooling capacity and the coefficient of performance are obtained as test results. Heat transfer data of selected refrigerants are achieved from overall conductance measurement. Average heat transfer coefficients at different mass fluxes are shown and they are also displayed for different heat capacities of the system. Experimental results show that some hydrocarbon refrigerants have better characteristics than R22.