Scientific Reports (Aug 2022)

Influence of capillary tube length on the performance of domestic refrigerator with eco-friendly refrigerant R152a

  • A. Baskaran,
  • N. Manikandan,
  • LetaTesfaye Jule,
  • N. Nagaprasad,
  • Abel Saka,
  • Bayissa Badassa,
  • Krishnaraj Ramaswamy,
  • Venkatesh Seenivasan

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-18606-w
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 12, no. 1
pp. 1 – 12

Abstract

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Abstract The household heating and cooling system often use the capillary device. The use of the helical capillary eliminates the need for lightweight refrigeration devices in the system. Capillary pressure is noticeably affected by the capillary geometric parameters, such as length, mean diameter, and pitch. This paper is concerned with the effects of the capillary length on the performance of the system. Three separate length capillary tubes were used in the experiment. The data on R152a were studied under various conditions to assess the impact of varying the length. Maximum COP is obtained at an evaporator temperature of − 12 °C and capillary length of 3.65 m. The result is drawn that the system performance enhances when the capillary length is improved to 3.65 m when compared to 3.35 m and 3.96 m. As a result, as the capillary length increases up to a specific amount, the system's performance improves. The findings from the experiment were compared with those from the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis.