CFD analysis for predicting cooling time of a domestic refrigerator with thermoelectric cooling system

In this work, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis was conducted considering three different turbulence (viscous) models for a fresh food compartment of a domestic refrigerator (DR), in order to not only gain idea on cooling down time rate of fresh food compartment but also present air and temperature distribution inside the compartment when it is loaded. The refrigerator composes of three compartments: Fresh food (FFC), chill (CC) and freezer (FC). The FFC compartment is cooled by a thermoelectric/Peltier cooler (TEC) while the other compartments are handled by a vapour compression (VC) system. To measure cooling times, tests were conducted according to new IEC62552:2015 standard in climatic chambers and the cooling time was measured as 146.5 min. The predictions of developed CFD model clearly visualize the airflow and temperature fields inside the FFC. Concerning numerical predictions for the packages in the upper regions were in better agreement (below 10%) with measurements than the predictions for the packages in the lower regions mainly due to convective heat transfer behaviour. (C) 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Automated summary

This study conducted CFD analysis of a fresh food compartment in a domestic refrigerator using three different turbulence models, revealing better agreement in predicting the cooling times for packages in the upper regions than the lower regions.