A two-circuit cycle with parallel evaporators (called as "parallel cycle") for a domestic refrigerator-freezer (RF) shows energy saving potential comparing with a conventional cycle with single loop or serial evaporators because of low compression ratio and pressure drop in evaporator during fresh food compartment (R)-operation. Therefore, several home appliance companies adopted this cycle for their household RFs. This study presents the performance of the parallel cycle according to design parameters such as refrigerant charge, R-capillary tube diameter, R-evaporator, and air flow rate. The experiments were conducted in a side-by-side (SBS) RF using R-600a under no load condition at the ambient temperature of 2S°C. A quantitative analysis for above design parameters was performed. R-evaporating temperature and refrigerant mass flow rate increased by increasing R-capillary tube diameter from 0.85 mm to 1.4 mm, resulting in the decrease of the compression ratio. Therefore, energy consumption of the optimized parallel cycle was reduced by 7.8% over that of the bypass two-circuit cycle with the same RF platform.
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