Introduction:

Refrigeration is a process of removing heat from a low- temperature reservoir and transferring it
to a high- temperature reservoir. The work of heat transfer is traditionally driven by mechanical
means, but can also be driven by heat, magnetism, electricity, laser, or other means.
Refrigeration has many applications, including, but not limited to: household refrigerators,
industrial freezers, cryogenics, and air conditioning. Heat pumps may use the heat output of the
refrigeration process, and also may be designed to be reversible, but are otherwise similar to air
conditioning units. Refrigeration has had a large impact on industry, lifestyle, agriculture, and
settlement patterns.

There are essentially two types of cold storage refrigeration plants. These are the Direct and
Indirect Systems.
In the direct system, direct expansion coils are used in the cold rooms with the compressor and
high side equipment concentrated in a central machine room. The indirect system utilizes this
same type of machine room, and in addition, adds brine chillers. Brine is chilled in the machine
room and is circulated by pumps through pipe lines to the cold rooms where it is circulated
through the cooling units in the various rooms. The indirect brine system has advantages in
simplicity of operation, ability of system to absorb short load peaks, ease of control, avoidance of
possible leakage of refrigerant into storage areas, and flexibility of piping system design. Brine is
particularly desirable for convection coil installation and for large spread out systems. The higher
initial cost due to the need for pumps, motors, valves, and control equipment; the maintenance
costs required for this equipment, and monitoring the condition and strength of the brine; and
higher power cost due to added pumps and lower compressor suction temperatures more than
offset the advantages.
The introduction of refrigerated rail cars contributed to the westward expansion of the United
States, allowing settlement in areas that were not on main transport channels such as rivers,
harbors, or valley trails. Settlements were also developing in infertile parts of the country, filled
with newly discovered natural resources. These new settlement patterns sparked the building of
large cities which are able to thrive in areas that were otherwise thought to be inhospitable, such
as Houston, Texas, and Las Vegas, Nevada.

History:
Before 1830, few Americans used ice to refrigerate foods due to a lack of ice- storehouses and
ice boxes. As these two things became more widely available, individuals used axes and saws to
harvest ice for their storehouses. This method proved to be difficult, dangerous, and certainly did
not resemble anything that could be duplicated on a commercial scale.
Refrigerator Component:
Compressor:

The compressor is the "heart" of a refrigerator. It circulates the refrigerant throughout the system
and adds pressure to the warm part of the circuit, and makes the refrigerant hot. It's similar to
when you are pumping air into a bicycle tube - you can sense a heat increase in the pump while
you compress the air.

Condenser:

The condenser sits on the back of a refrigerator, and is likely quite dusty. Inside, the refrigerant is
cooled down and condenses, meaning it turns from a gas back into a liquid.

Evaporator:

The evaporator is located inside a refrigerator and is the part that makes the items in the
refrigerator cold. As the refrigerant turns from a liquid into a gas through evaporation, it cools
the area around it, producing the proper environment for storing food.
Capillary tube:

The capillary tube is a thin piece of tubing that serves as an expansion device. The liquid
refrigerant is routed through the capillary tube and sprayed into the low-pressure environment of
the evaporator.

Thermostat:

The thermostat controls the cooling process by monitoring the temperature and then switching
the compressor on and off. When the sensor senses that it's cold enough inside a refrigerator, it
turns off the compressor. If it senses too much heat, it switches the compressor on and begins the
cooling process again.
How a refrigerator system works:

Before we learned how to artificially refrigerate our food and places where we live we used
natural ways to bring temperature down. We harvested ice from rivers and lakes in the winter
and placed it in ice houses until it was needed in the summer. Then, in 1755, Scottish professor
William Cullen showed an experiment that will, slowly but surely, change the world.

Refrigerators work by causing the refrigerant circulating inside them to change from a liquid into
a gas. This process, called evaporation, cools the surrounding area and produces the desired
effect. You can test this process for yourself by taking some alcohol and putting a drop or two on
your skin. As it evaporates, you should feel a chilling sensation - the same basic principle gives
us safe food storage.

To start the evaporation process and change the refrigerant from liquid to gas, the pressure on the
refrigerant needs to be reduced through an outlet called the capillary tube. The effect is similar to
what happens when you use an aerosol product such as hair spray. The contents of an aerosol can
is the pressure/liquid side, the outlet is the capillary tube, and the open space is the evaporator.
When you release the contents into the lower pressure open space, it turns from a liquid to a gas.

To keep a refrigerator running, you need to be able to get the gaseous refrigerant back to its
liquid state, so the gas needs to be compressed to a higher pressure and temperature again. This
is where the compressor comes in. As mentioned earlier, the compressor provides a similar effect
to that of a bike pump. You can sense the heat increase in the pump while you pump and
compress the air.

Once the compressor has done its work, the gas should be under high pressure and hot. It needs
to be cooled in the condenser, which is mounted on the back of the refrigerator, so its contents
can be cooled by the ambient air. When the gas cools off inside the condenser (still under high
pressure), it changes back into a liquid.

Then, the liquid refrigerant circulates back to the evaporator where the process starts all over
again.

Early mechanical refrigeration systems used sulfur dioxide, methyl chloride and ammonia as
refrigerants but stopped using sulfur dioxide, methyl chloride because they were toxic. Some
other older machines used methyl formate, chloromethane, or dichloromethane.
Chlorofluorocarbons were used since the 1950s but were banned since the late 1970s because of
the concerns about depletion of the ozone layer. They were substituted with perfluorocarbons
and hydrofluorocarbons but they also came under criticism. They are now mostly replaced with
fluorinated greenhouse gases.
Refrigeration equipment selection:
Refrigeration equipment is designed to operate continuously without ill effect and it is
the defrost problem it determines the compressor operating time. When the refrigerant
temperature is 0°C(or) higher, there is no frost and to general practice has been to
select equipment based on 20 (or) 22 hr operation .The equipment must be selected to
meet the following requirements.
1. Proper cooling of products loaded in chambers to the desired temperature and
maintenance of the temperature and the desired relative humidity. The daily product
loading is an important factor is the cooling load estimates.
2. Proper air distribution in the cold chambers for uniform cooling and maintenance of
desired condition.
3. System design to achieve the best possible energy efficiency. Since energy bills
constitute the biggest factor of running expenditure.
4. System shall have automatic/ semiautomatic control and instruments for recording
storage conditions. Facility for setting the desired temperature level in the chambers,
depending on the product requirement should be provided.
5. For high humidity storage requirements, provision for external humidification (or) use
of sprayed coil air handlers can be made.
6. The system shall be easy to maintain with easy availability of spares, refrigerant gas
and services etc.