GEORGE AYOMIDE JOSEPH

18/30GD108
MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
MEE 511
Assignment.
Type two pages on the historical development of refrigeration and air conditioning.

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF REFRIGERATION

Food storage and preservation has always been an essential part of human existence and
the refrigerators in our homes represent thousands of years of refrigerator innovation.
Refrigeration history includes technological advances, natural preservation methods and new
features that help keep our food fresh more efficiently.
Based on the climate, ancient civilizations preserved food using natural cooling methods
available to them, making use of rivers and lakes for storing food directly in the cold water or
cutting ice or snow and filling them in storage pits dug in the ground and often covered with
insulating materials like straw or sawdust. If ice or snow wasn’t an option, underwater or
underground storage, like cold cellars, were used to preserve food.
The first idea of artificial refrigeration was demonstrated by Scottish physician and professor
William Cullen in 1748. He observed and demonstrated the cooling effect of rapidly evaporating
a liquid into gas, and in 1805 American inventor Oliver Evans invented a closed vapor-
compression refrigeration cycle again based on ether which had its boiling point lowered by
vacuum but these methods were not put into practical use.
Modern mechanical refrigeration became more prevalent in the 1800s. In 1834, American
Jacob Perkins invented the first vapor compression system while German professor Carl von
Linde introduced a new process for liquefying gasses in the late 1800s. Commercial
refrigeration became widespread at the turn of the 20th century for industries like breweries and
meatpacking plants. The first home electric refrigerator was invented by Fred.W.Wolf in 1913
which featured a refrigeration unit on top of an ice box and many others worked to improve the
idea.
Household refrigerators became essential as more people moved into growing cities and
further away from food sources. With more distance between fresh food sources and people’s
homes, it became especially important to keep perishable food cold both during transit and in
homes to prolong shelf life. Mass production of domestic refrigerators began in 1918 when
William C. Durant introduced the first home refrigerator with a self-contained compressor.
Refrigerators started to see increased popularity in homes in the late 1920s.
Following the introduction of Freon, a safer alternative to toxic gasses previously used in the
vapor compression process, home refrigeration became more in demand in the 1930s.
In the 1940s the demand for frozen food led to the addition of freezer compartments that could
hold more than just ice cubes.
Refrigerators and the whole refrigeration process has become more efficient and this was
helped by advances in insulation and compressor technology in the late 20th century.
 HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF AIR-CONDITIONING
Air conditioning is the process of removing heat from an enclosed space to achieve a more
comfortable interior environment and in some cases strictly control the humidity of internal air.
Air conditioners, which typically use vapor-compression refrigeration, range in size from small
units used within vehicles or single rooms to massive units that can cool large buildings.
Air conditioning dates back to prehistoric times when Ancient Egyptian buildings used a wide
variety of passive air-conditioning techniques. Passive techniques remained widespread until
the 20th century, when they fell out of fashion, replaced by powered air conditioning.
In 1558, Giambattista della Porta described a method of chilling ice to temperatures far below
its freezing point by mixing it with potassium nitrate. In 1620, Cornelis Drebbel demonstrated for
James I of England, chilling part of the Great Hall of Westminster Abbey with an apparatus of
troughs and vats.
In 1758, Benjamin Franklin and John Hadley, a chemistry professor at University of
Cambridge, conducted an experiment to explore the principle of evaporation as a means to
rapidly cool an object. Franklin and Hadley confirmed that the evaporation of highly volatile
liquids (such as alcohol and ether) could be used to drive down the temperature of an object
past the freezing point of water.
Compression technology saw a number of improvements in the 19th century. In 1820,
English scientist and inventor Michael Faraday discovered that compressing and liquefying
ammonia could chill air when the liquefied ammonia was allowed to evaporate and in 1842,
Florida physician John Gorrie used compressor technology to create ice, which he used to cool
air for his patients in his hospital.
Development of effective air-conditioning units were made possible by electricity. The first
modern air conditioner was invented in 1901 by Willis Haviland Carrier, an engineer who began
experimenting with the laws of humidity control to solve an application problem at a printing
plant. Borrowing from the concepts of mechanical refrigeration established in earlier years,
Carrier’s system sent air through coils filled with cold water, cooling the air while simultaneously
removing moisture to control room humidity.
In 1931, H.H. Schultz and J.Q. Sherman developed what would become the most common
type of individual room air conditioner: one designed to sit on a window ledge. In 1933, the first
air conditioning systems for cars were offered for sale. Innovations in the latter half of the 20th
century allowed for much more widespread air conditioner use which led to the invention of a
portable, in-window air conditioner that cooled, heated, humidified, dehumidified, and filtered the
air by Robert Sherman in 1945.
Increased wealth across countries due to international development and urban migration,
global use of air-conditioning units has increased rapidly.
 REFERENCES
“Refrigeration”:

https://www.whirlpool.com/blog/kitchen/history-of-the-refrigerator.html

http://www.historyofrefrigeration.com/refrigeration-history/history-of-
refrigerator/

“Air-conditioning”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_conditioning

https://www.energy.gov/articles/history-air-conditioning