Computer aided analysis and experimental investigations towards optimizing the design parameters of domestic refrigerators

The aim of this study is to determine the inner design parameters of the domestic refrigerators which are used to store for long time without deterioration of the quality of food product and investigate the optimum values of these parameters. Thus, the interior air volume of a single door static type refrigerator was modeled using the Computational Fluid Dynamics and Heat Transfer (CFDHT) method and analyses were made. The numerical results were validated by comparing with the experimental results from the producer company test rooms and then the inner design parameters were determined by using the numerical thermal and velocity distribution results. The optimization study of these obtained design parameter?s values was made by using the both of the parametric and Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) methods. So, it was possible to predict the optimum values of design parameter without the trial and error method which is expensive and take long time. The success of this study is to develop an optimization method for domestic refrigerators in the design and improvement process.