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Carbon273
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- TL;DR Summary
- So I have a somewhat general understanding of this refrigeration cycle. But I have a few concerns.
Heat is taken from food in the refrigerated space to the evaporator which has evaporated (I am assuming saturated vapor) refrigerant flowing through it.
My first stumble would be, if this is true, why doesn't the temperature increase for the fluid coming out of the evaporator (unless it is saturated vapor or rather a saturated liquid-vapor mixture)? Next, the refrigerant flows through the compressor where the pressure is increased. If someone can correct me on this, the temperature increases too because the compressor's piston device does boundary work on the refrigerant vapor in the cylinder?
With quick closed system piston device analysis, we can confirm that the internal energy increases due to the boundary work? The next step would be a high pressure, high temperature superheated vapor enters the condenser to simply reduce the temperature, thus changing the phase to a compressed liquid. Once the compressed liquid enters the expansion valve (capillary tubes), the pressure drops and the temperature drops due to the throttling effect. Thus, entering the evaporator as a liquid (I am assuming saturated liquid or a sat liquid-vapor mixture)
Really, all I am looking for is for a smoother understanding of this process, the textbook I am using glossed over it in a couple sentences.
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