Performance study on air-cooled household refrigerator with cold storage phase change materials.
Abstract The air-cooled frost-free refrigerator has become the main power consumer among household appliances. This study presents a new air-cooled household refrigerator that uses PCM in the fresh food and freezing chambers. Operational characteristics and performance test results are provided in the conditions of off-peak refrigeration with PCM and conventional refrigeration with/without PCM. Results show that refrigeration off-peak modes resulted in the peak temperature difference between M-packs and maximum temperature increase of M-packs in the freezing chamber. The energy consumption of the refrigerator is relatively increased. The energy consumption of the refrigerator prototype with PCM under the original control mode is reduced by 18.6% and the compressor ON-time ratio is reduced by 13.6% compared with the refrigerator prototype without PCM. Frost-free refrigerator with PCM under original control type exhibits advantages in terms of energy consumption and food quality.