Abstract:
This paper presents, the mathematical modeling, validation and simulation of air-cooled finned tube gas
cooler for trans-critical carbon dioxide (CO2) refrigeration system in typical Indian conditions.
Environmental concerns and enactments of Montreal and Kyoto Protocol for sustainable growth enforce
research for ecologically safe and natural refrigerants and cost effective designs of refrigeration systems.
CO2 is one of the rediscovered sustainable options, as CFCs and HFCs are now in the list of regulated
substances and are gradually to be phased out. Success of CO2 as a refrigerant, demand cost effective and
widely acceptable technology operable at various environmental conditions. In this work, performance of
gas cooler for trans-critical CO2 refrigeration system is analyzed. The conservation equations are
discritized using finite difference scheme and code is developed in MATLAB® to solve these equations.
Consequently simulated results are validated by using published data. The validated model is used to
analyze the performance of possible alternative designs of gas cooler with an aim to enhance heat transfer
or reduce approach temperature for typical Indian climatic conditions. The coefficient of performance of
the system is also studied with possible design of gas cooler in Indian climatic condition. This work can
help in formulating design guideline for a trans-critical CO2 refrigeration systems that need to be tuned to
local environment condition for performance enhancement.