DISCUSSION

In these experiments, refrigeration cycle was used in order to help students to

understand the principles of thermodynamics by using laboratory scale plant. The aim of this
experiment is to determine the Coefficient of Performance (COP) of a refrigeration unit and
to determine the overall heat transfer coefficient between R141b and water in the evaporator
and condenser. Refrigeration cycle used in many applications such as preservation of food
and materials. Meanwhile in air conditioning, it is the heart of the system. There are several
components of vapour refrigeration system which are compressor, condenser, expansion
device and evaporator. Refrigeration process is the removal of unwanted heat from selected
object, substance or space and transfer to another. The heat removal decrease the temperature
which is from low temperature region can be happened by using chilled water or mechanical
refrigerant.

For this experiment, firstly turned on the cooling water supply valve to minimize of
the risk of the pipe elbow to be broken while turning on the valve. After that, switched on the
main switch on the unit and the compressor will start automatically with the two internal
light. Then, opened the water flow meter control valve on the condenser unit until the reading
shown 50 g/s and wait for 5 to 10 minutes .Then, evaporator water flow meter control valve
was opened to obtain 25 g/s. Finally, the first reading was recorded after 20 minutes. The step
were repeated for different condenser flowrate of 40, 30, 20 and 10 g/s and record data after
10 minutes.

From all set data, set 5 show the highest result in the absolute condenser pressure at
flowrate of 10 g/s is 161.24 while the absolute evaporator pressure is 56.24. These value were
taken to determine the enthalpy and calculate the coefficient performance (COP) value. In
addition, the inlet and outlet temperature value were then use to determine the overall heat
transfer coefficient to water in the evaporator and condenser. The result obtained from the
experiment show that set 1 gives the highest coefficient performance (COP) value compared
with the other. The value obtained is 9.217 with flowrate of 50g/s. Meanwhile the lowest is
set 5 with value 4.875 followed by set 4, 3 and 2 with value 5.282, 5.722 and 6.438
respectively. This is the result from change of flowrate that affect the parameter values. The
value of COP decrease with decreasing of water flow rate.
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 For the experiment in part B, the value of evaporator and condenser were compared.
The result of heat transfer to water in evaporator is 940.5W and the LMTD is 8.49.
Meanwhile, the result of heat transfer to water in condenser is 209W and the LMTD is 8.96.
The result of overall heat transfer coefficient for evaporator is 151.24 W/m2. C higher than
the condenser with value of 728.93 W/m2. C. This happened because heat absorbed when
there is presence of flowing water. Other than that, when the flow rate is increasing, the value
will be changing so the overall heat will be higher. From this, it proves that different flows of
water will offer different heat transfers value.

The objective of the experiment was achieved but there were some error occurred
during handling the experiment. There are some leakage of pipe that affect the value of the
system parameter. Besides, cooling water valve was not fully open that will break the elbow
pipe while turning on the valve.