Download From:- www.cgaspirants.

com

xiv Preface

systems and their associated components such as compressors, condensers, evaporators, and
expansion devices. Refrigerants too, are studied elaborately in an exclusive chapter. The study of
air conditioning begins with the subject of psychrometrics being at the heart of understanding the
design and implementation of air conditioning processes. The design practices followed for cooling
and heating load calculations and methods of duct designing, are discussed elaborately in separate
chapters.

om
The publisher sincerely hopes that this presentation based on the author’s extensive lifetime
experience of teaching and industrial consultancy, will contribute to the knowledge of the students.
The presence of late Professor Ramesh Chandra Arora will be sadly missed but constantly felt as
a mentor in the form of this book. Let us all hope that he would approve of what has been done.

.c
Publisher

ts
an
ir
sp
ga
.c
w
w
w
Download From:- www.cgaspirants.com

om
Acknowledgements

.c
ts
an
Late (Dr.) Ramesh Chandra Arora completed a large part of the manuscript for this book during
his brave 1½ years fight against cancer. The urgency shown by him in penning this book showed
ir
an undying sense of responsibility and an attempt to ensure that knowledge was duly transferred.
He will live on in our hearts and minds through this book, and probably for ever.
sp

On behalf of the author, I would like to duly acknowledge some of the people who he would
have definitely included in this section, though I am aware, that if he were writing this section, it
would have been a longer list of acknowledgements. I apologize to those, whose names I might
have inadvertently missed.
ga

Mrs. Neeta Arora His teachers and guide from

w/o. Late Dr. Ramesh Chandra Arora IIT Kanpur and Case Westren Reserve, Cleveland,
.c

Ohio, USA
Dr. M. Ramgopal Dr. K.L. Chopra
Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Kharagpur Director, IIT Kharagpur
w

Dr. S.K. Som Dr. Amitava Ghosh

Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Kharagpur Director, IIT Kharagpur
w

Dr. A.K. Chattopadhyay Dr. S.K. Dube

Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Kharagpur Director, IIT Kharagpur
w

Dr. R.K. Brahma Dr. Damodar Acharya

Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Kharagpur Director, IIT Kharagpur
Dr. P.K. Das Late Dr. A.K. Mohanty
Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Kharagpur Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Kharagpur

xv
Download From:- www.cgaspirants.com

xvi Acknowledgements

Dr. G.L. Datta Dr. B.N. Shreedhar

Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Kharagpur Dept. of Aerospace Engineering, IIT Kharagpur
Dr. Souvik Bhattacharya Dr. P.P. Chakraborty
Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Kharagpur Dept. of Computer Science, IIT Kharagpur
Dr. R.N. Maiti Dr. A.K. Mazumdar

om
Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Kharagpur Dept. of Computer Science, IIT Kharagpur
Dr. B. Maiti Dr. V.K. Jain
Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Kharagpur Dept. of Mathematics, IIT Kharagpur
Dr. Soumitra Paul Dr. B.K. Mathur
Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Kharagpur Dept. of Physics, IIT Kharagpur

.c
Dr. A. Mukherjee Dr. S.L. Sharma
Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Kharagpur Dept. of Physics, IIT Kharagpur

ts
Dr. M.N. Faruqui Dr. Satish Bal
Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Kharagpur Dept. of Agricultural Engineering, IIT Kharagpur
Dr. V.V. Satyamurthy
Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Kharagpur
an
Dr. Ajay Chakrabarty
IIT Kharagpur

I humbly request the Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Kharagpur, to take forward
ir
all the future editions of this book.

Ankur Arora
sp

(S/o Late Dr. Ramesh Chandra Arora)

ga
.c
w
w
w
Download From:- www.cgaspirants.com

om
History of Refrigeration

.c
ts
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After studying this chapter the student should be able to:
1.
2.
3.
an
Understand the purpose of refrigeration and air conditioning systems.
Identify and describe the working principles of various natural methods of refrigeration.
Understand the underlying principles of various artificial methods of refrigeration.
ir
4. Name the important landmarks in the history of refrigeration.
5. Name the important historical landmarks in the development of refrigerants.
sp
ga

1.1 INTRODUCTION
The purpose of refrigeration is to attain and maintain a temperature below that of the surroundings,
the aim being to cool some product or space to the required temperature. This can be achieved by
.c

transferring heat from the product to another medium, which is at a temperature lower than the
product. The age-old method of achieving this is by the use of ice. In earlier times, ice was either
w

transported from colder regions, stored during winter for summer use, or made during night by
nocturnal cooling. In Europe, America and Iran, a number of icehouses were built to store ice with
indigenous insulating materials like sawdust or wood shavings, etc. which were later replaced by
w

cork. Ice was loaded into these houses during winter for summer use. Beazley and Watt (1977)
describe these icehouses. Literature reveals that ice has always been available at least to those who
could afford it. According to Gosney (1982), it appears that the aristocracy of seventeenth and
w

eighteenth centuries could not survive without the luxury of ice. In India, the Moughul emperors
enjoyed the luxury of ice for cooling during the harsh summers in Delhi and Agra.
Frederic Tudor, who was later called ice king, started the mass scale ice trade in 1806. He cut
ice from the Hudson River and ponds of Massachusetts and exported it to various countries including
India. In India, Tudor’s ice was cheaper than the locally ice manufactured by nocturnal cooling.
1
Download From:- www.cgaspirants.com

2 Refrigeration and Air Conditioning

The ice trade in North America was a flourishing business. Ice was transported to southern states
of America by train compartments insulated with 0.3 m thick cork insulation. It was shipped to the
rest of the world including China and Australia. The details of American ice trade are available in
Cummings (1949) and Anderson (1953).

1.2 NATURAL COOLING PROCESSES

om
The use of natural ice for cooling has been described above. Ice was transported from colder
regions or stored in icehouses during winter for summer use. In the following section, the other
processes of natural cooling that do not require any mechanical means or work input for cooling
are described.

.c
1.2.1 Art of Ice Making by Nocturnal Cooling
The art of making ice at night time was perfected in India about 2500 B.C. A thin layer of water, a

ts
few millimetre thick, was kept in shallow earthen trays and exposed to the cloudless night sky.
The trays were insulated by compacted hay of 0.3 m thickness. The temperature of the stratosphere
(11 km above the earth’s surface) is –55oC. The trays exposed to sky loose heat by radiation to the

an
stratosphere, and by the early morning hours the water in the trays freezes to ice. Initially, evaporative
cooling also cools the water to some extent. The sky should be cloudless and the trays should see
the sky only and not see the surrounding trees and buildings, which are at a higher temperature. If
the wind velocities are high, then convective heat transfer losses prevent the formation of ice. This
ir
method of ice production was very popular in India.
sp

1.2.2 Evaporative Cooling

Evaporative cooling has been used in India for centuries. The process of cooling water by storing
it in earthen pots, is still used all over India. The water permeates through the pores of the earthen
vessel to the outer surface where it evaporates to the surrounding air absorbing its latent heat in
ga

part from the vessel and in part from the surrounding air. The cooled walls of the vessel cool the
bulk of the water contained in it. Evaporative cooling of the houses by placing wet straw mats on
the windows is still very common in India. The straw mats are made from the stems of a special
.c

plant called khus, which freshens the air and adds its inherent perfume to it. The mats block the
direct and diffuse solar radiation incident on glass windows, thereby reducing the cooling load.
Nowadays, desert coolers are used in warm and dry climate to provide evaporative cooling in
w

summer.
Human beings have the most elaborate and a unique natural cooling arrangement. Humans
dissipate energy consumed by metabolic and other processes. If this energy cannot be dissipated
w

by convection and radiation, then human beings start to perspire and dissipate this energy by
evaporative cooling. Other living forms do not have this natural cooling system. The dogs bring
w

out their tongue for evaporative cooling and elephants cool themselves by using their ears as fans.
The dark and light colour stripes of Zebra get differentially heated up and induce convection
currents for cooling. The hippopotamuses and buffaloes coat themselves with mud for cooling
their bodies through the process of evaporative cooling.
Download From:- www.cgaspirants.com

History of Refrigeration 3

The first air-cooled building was also built in India. It is said that Patliputra University situated
on the bank of the river Ganges used to induce the evaporative-cooled air from the river. The air in
the rooms becomes warm by coming into contact with persons, its density reduces and it rises up.
Its upward flow was augmented by suitably locating chimneys in the rooms of Patliputra University
in order to induce fresh cold air from the river.

om
1.2.3 Cooling by Salt Solutions
Cooling to some extent can be obtained by dissolving salt in water. The salt absorbs its heat of
solution from water and cools it. Theoretically, NaCl can yield temperatures up to –20oC and
CaCl2 up to –50oC in properly insulated containers. The salt, however, has to be recovered if the
process is to be cyclic. The recovery of salt requires the evaporation of water from the solution,

.c
which requires an enormous amount of energy compared to heat of solution. Solar energy may be
used for salt recovery to a limited extent.

ts
1.3 MECHANICAL COOLING PROCESSES
Evaporative cooling, nocturnal cooling and cooling by naturally occurring ice are the natural

an
processes. These depend upon the season and meterological conditions that cannot be relied upon
for year round applications. The minimum temperature that can be obtained by evaporative cooling
is the wet-bulb temperature of air and the minimum temperature obtained by melting of ice is 0oC.
This temperature can be reduced to –20oC by adding salts like NaCl or CaCl2 to ice. However,
ir
cooling by ice is rather an inconvenient process—the ice has to be replenished and water has to be
disposed of, and also heat transfer from the ice surface is difficult to control.
sp

Refrigeration, as it is known these days, is produced by artificial means. The history of

refrigeration is very interesting since every item, the availability of refrigerants, the prime movers,
and the developments in compressors and the methods of refrigeration all are part of it. We describe
the history under the headings of (i) Mechanical Vapour Compression Refrigeration, (ii) Absorption
ga

Refrigeration, (iii) Solar Refrigeration Systems, (iv) Gas Cycle Refrigeration, and (v) Electrical
Methods.

1.3.1 Mechanical Vapour Compression Refrigeration

.c

The ability of liquids to absorb enormous quantities of heat as they boil and evaporate, is the basis
of modern refrigeration. The normal boiling point of water is 100°C. Therefore, at room temperature
w

water does not boil during evaporative cooling. It evaporates into unsaturated moist air by a slow
process since this is controlled by diffusion and air motion.
It is well known that when a volatile liquid like ether is put on the skin, it cools the skin by
w

evaporating and absorbing the latent heat from the skin. The normal boiling point of ether is
around 34.5oC, which is the same as the skin temperature. This process can be made more
w

effective by removing the vapours as they are formed, and thereby increasing the evaporation
rate. Professor William Cullen of the University of Edinburgh demonstrated this in 1755 by
placing some water in thermal contact with ether under a receiver of a vacuum pump. The
evaporation rate of ether increased due to the removal of vapour by the vacuum pump and the
water thus could be frozen.