Experimental determination of heat transfer at the gasket and flange region of a refrigerator

A refrigerator as a household appliance contains a gasket that prevents heat leakage between its cabinet and door. The gasket region has several problems like adhering of the gasket to the flange surface of the cabinet or condensation of ambient moisture on the gasket surface and flange that have to be prevented. To achieve this, a flange heater is added to the cooling system. As widely known the cooling system consists of a compressed hot refrigerant that cycles between the compressor, condenser, capillary tubes and evaporator. The system to prevent adhering and condensation on the surfaces is provided by heating of the cabinet flange regions and the gasket by circulating hot refrigerant through the inner side of the cabinet flange region. In this manner the problems like condensation and fatigue or tearing of the gasket due to adhering are prevented. Location of the flange heater causes a heat load into the cabinet. This heat load affects the heat gain of the cabinet between 12 % and 25 %. In this thesis, determination of this heat load is compared with experimental studies. These studies consist of reverse heat leak experiments, determination of the temperature distribution of the cabinet flange region. In addition numerical analysis results are compared with experiments. Keywords: refrigerator, gasket, flange, heater, heat transfer, experimental study