Development and analysis of a compact cooling system using the microcompressor

For electronics cooling, the matching between size and efficiency is a desirable aspect of the design of cooling units. Hence, the compact cooling units are suitable for this area of refrigeration due to high capacity by size ratio and lightweight. For this purpose, Embraco developed a new refrigerating system for small enclosures and command panels with the use of a new miniaturized linear compressor called microcompressor. This unit consists in an outdoor mounted air-conditioning with finned-tube heat exchangers whereas the microcompressor is a direct current (DC) oil-free compressor that uses R-134a as refrigerant fluid. The paper presents a detailed description about the cooling unit and its performance tests. In order to run all experimental tests, a cooling unit calorimeter was assembled. In the experimental facility, the ambient temperature was varied for evaluation purposes whereas the bulk temperature inside the enclosure was kept at 35 °C via an electric heater. A commercially available thermoelectric system used for electronics cooling was also tested and compared with the vapor compression system. The results have shown that the microcompressor unit presented a coefficient of performance (COP) approximately two times larger than thermoelectric solution and higher cooling capacities were achieved under low ambient temperatures.