Volume 25, Issue 14 pp. 1233-1247
Research Article

Experimental analysis of capillary tubes behaviour with some HCFC-22 alternative refrigerants

Samuel M. Sami

Corresponding Author

Samuel M. Sami

Mechanical Engineering, School of Engineering, University of Moncton, Moncton, NB, E1A 3E9, Canada

Research Center for Energy Conversion, School of Engineering, University of Moncton, Moncton, NB, E1A 3E9, CanadaSearch for more papers by this author
Hector Maltais

Hector Maltais

Mechanical Engineering, School of Engineering, University of Moncton, Moncton, NB, E1A 3E9, Canada

Search for more papers by this author
First published: 04 September 2001
Citations: 4

Abstract

In this paper, an experimental study is presented to enhance our understanding of the capillary tube behaviour using some new alternative refrigerants to HCFC-22. An experimental setup fully instrumented was used to gather the behaviour of three different capillary tube geometries with R-410B, R-407C, and R-410A under various conditions; saturated, sub-cooled and two-phase. Experimental data showed that R-410B has the highest pressure drop along the capillary tubes compared to the alternatives under question and also has the highest temperature drop along the capillary tube. The data also showed that R-407C has similar capillary behaviour to that of R-22. The results clearly demonstrated that the pressure drop is significantly influenced by the diameter of the capillary tube, the type of refrigerant and inlet conditions to the capillary tube. The data also showed that the capillary pressure drop decreases with the increase of the capillary diameter. There is clear evidence that the component concentration of the refrigerant mixture significantly affects the capillary tube behaviour and particularly the pressure drop along the capillary tube length. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The full text of this article hosted at iucr.org is unavailable due to technical difficulties.