ENERGY AND EXERGY ANALYSES OF TWO-TEMPERATURE-LEVEL VAPOR COMPRESSION REFRIGERATION SYSTEMS FOR APPLICATIONS IN THE FOOD INDUSTRY

Abstract

This study compares energy and exergy performance of two vapour-compression refrigeration systems designed to provide simultaneous refrigeration and freezing at two distinct temperature levels for food-industry applications. The simulation results indicated that R1234yf provided the best overall performance for both configurations. The exergy analysis showed that the throttling processes in the first configuration had the fastest increase in exergy destruction with the variation of ambient temperature. The structural improvement of the second configuration led to an increase in overall system performance, confirming the importance of refrigerant selection and structural optimisation of the refrigeration system. For R1234yf, the energy coefficient of performance increased from 2.69 to 2.97 at an ambient temperature of 35 °C and from 1.98 to 2.24 at 45 °C when configuration (b) was used instead of configuration (a).