Evaluation of performance of locally fabricated Picnic coolers

Abstract

Picnic coolers are locally fabricated refrigerators for picnic and other outdoor events using principle of vapour compression cycle. Evaluation of their Performances is necessary to be compared with other domestic refrigerators.  The performance of the refrigeration system in term of Refrigeration Capacity, Coefficient of Performance (COP) and refrigerating efficiency  were determined for four different picnic coolers of the same designed with 1/8 hp compressors. The average maximum actual coefficient of Performance of the Picnic coolers was about 0.98 and refrigeration capacity was around 86 watt.  The environmental temperature also affected the performances of the refrigerators.

KEYWORD: Refrigeration; Capacity; Coefficient; efficiency