ECO-Simulation - Development of energy efficient refrigeration systems using innovative Simulationtools

The development of refrigeration appliances is mainly experimentally driven. To evaluate improvements on the system of newly developed or optimized components of cooling and refrigeration appliances, the components have to be integrated into the real world system and measured in climatic chambers or test benches. This iterative process leads to high development costs and furthermore, energy saving potentials cannot be recognized and exploited. The use of simulation tools enables a holistic dynamic simulation of the refrigeration circuit components and their complex interaction within the entire system taking into account the relevant boundary conditions. For manufacturers of domestic refrigeration appliances two main advantages arise: - Time savings and cost reduction in the development process of cooling and refrigeration appliances: up to EUR 50.000,- or four workweeks depending on the complexity of the prototype can be saved. - Increase of the energy efficiency: the realistic simulation enables an optimum design of the cooling circuit and energy saving of 5-10 %. These aspects yield in remarkable advantages for manufacturers of domestic refrigeration appliances on the global market. Commercial software to simulate the transient behavior of a cooling circuit in the required quality is not available on the market. In the course of the project considerable challenges and risks occur. Especially the accurate modeling of the physical behavior, the consideration of 3d effects in the development of the model library, the modeling of the sensors and the transient simulation of the cooling circuit are not state-of-the-art. In their respective field, the project partners show excellent expertise and experience and furthermore, complement each other. The successful realization of the project would go along with energy saving which creates the requirements to be competitive on the global market of domestic refrigeration.