Energy reduction for commercial freezer by force convection cooling of heatsink

Abstract

Commercial freezers are commonly used the outer wall as a heatsink. This heatsink needs surrounded ambient air for cooling, which is the natural convection mechanism. However, in theory the force convection provides more heat transfer than the natural convection. Therefore, energy consumption of the force convection is generally less than the natural convection. This study aims at testing and comparing the heat transfer between the natural convection and force convection of the heatsink of the commercial freezer. Moreover, this study investigated the potential of energy reduction of the freezer by using the natural convection and the force convection of the heatsink. In this study, the unmodified commercial freezer installed with the wind tunnel over the heatsink of the freezer was made. The necessary parameters such as heatsink surface temperature, cooling air temperature, ambient air temperature, velocity of cooling air, and power consumption of the freezer were collected. The testing conditions were varied the internal heat load of the freezer by using water as 0, 3, and 6 kg, and varied the cooling air velocity as 0, 1, 2, and 3 m/s. The results showed that the convection mechanism was significantly affected by energy consumption. Furthermore, it was clearly found that the heat transfer for the force convection was higher than the natural convection. Moreover, the use of force convection resulted in a lower energy consumption. In particular at the internal heat load of 6 kg, the energy consumption of the force convection decreased by 17.5%, 17.7%, and 20.5% as compared to the natural convection at the cooling air velocity of 1, 2, and 3 m/s, respectively. Based on the results obtained it can be concluded that the force convection for the freezer heatsink can be used to reduce energy consumption, which could be efficiently applied in the future works.