Comparação do desempenho do R-1234yf em substituição direta do R-134a em ar condicionado automotivo para máquinas agrícolas

Abstract

Automotive air conditioning for off-road agricultural machinery, like tractors and combine harvesters, presents some particular characteristics when compared with others AC systems for vehicles. Higher air velocity and temperatures over a wide range of conditions, operation under transient climatic conditions, high cooling capacity to meet high thermal loads and rapid cool down capacity on the operator environment. In addition, the compressor duty cycle is related to the engine speed for this type of vehicle and the system work in an environment subject to severe vibration. In this work, experiments were carried out to compare the performance of a typical AC for off-road vehicles of 6.7 kW nominal capacity using R-134a and with its drop-in substitute, R-1234yf. The system consists of a fixed displacement compressor, a block type thermostatic expansion valve, a multiport micro channel condenser and a tube fin evaporator. This system was installed in an experimental setup and the main parameters of operation were measured at different refrigerants charges, for a fixed compressor velocity of 3500 rpm to find the optimal refrigerant charge of each one. The cycle parameters like evaporator capacity, COP, compressor power, compression ratio, evaporator superheating, condenser sub-cooling, refrigerant pressure drop in the heat exchangers, outlet airside temperatures from evaporator and mass flow rate are compared. The optimal refrigerant charge for R-1234yf was found to be 50 g larger than with R-134a. The experimental results with the system working with the optimal refrigerant charge indicate that for different evaporator inlet air conditions, relative humidity of 43% and condenser air inlet temperature of 35 ºC, the system running with the R-1234yf presented lower evaporator capacity, COP. The same refrigerant also shows a higher degree of sub-cooling, superheat and pressure drop in evaporator and suction line. The compressor ratio and the compressor power consumption for R-1234yf were more favorable