NUMERICAL ANALYSIS OF CHEST FREEZER'S CONDENSING UNIT

Chest freezers are high energy consuming refrigeration systems generally used for food storage. In a chest freezer, components such as condenser coil and fan, compressor, expansion device, etc. are placed at one corner of freezer and are covered by grills. All these components together are referred as condensing unit. Position of grills with respect to these components plays an important role in air flow distribution over condenser coil. Present work deals with the study of air flow distribution in condensing unit using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) tool. Performance of the condenser is analyzed using CoilDesigner (R). It is found that some air enters from side grill and bypasses the condenser coil without producing any condensing effect, resulting in degradation of performance. Effect of complete blockage of some portion of side grill on air flow distribution over condenser coil and performance of condenser is presented. Quantity of air flowing over condenser coil measured as Cubic Feet per Minute (CFM) and condenser capacity are found to be increased by approximately 10% and 2%, respectively.