Experimental investigaton of vacuum insulation panels and aging performance on the household refrigerator

Vacuum Insulation Panels (VIPs) represent better thermal insulation performance than conventional materials. In literature there are limited scientific surveys and academic studies about time-depended thermal performance of VIPs. Given the fact that in near future expectation is increasing industrial usage of VIPs, this subject will create an important added value for national economies and energy saving with significant environmental benefits. In this thesis, in order to support academic and industrial studies, VIP's and time-depended aging effect on the thermal performances have been investigated experimentally and thereby product sustainable performance results were obtained. Test subject "up 120" is the type of household refrigerator tested in Indesit Laboratories. Seven independed energy consumption tests performed and in order to evaluate thermal performance of VIP and polyurethane, thermal conductivity measurements have been applied. Obtained experimental test results used for having a comparison between computer aided heat gain analysis and energy consumption measurements of laboratories. Keywords: Vacuum insulation panel, household refrigerator, aging, energy consumption