Theoretical and simulation analysis for R290 leakage from split-type air conditioners

Propane (R290) is a promising refrigerant for split-type household air conditioners with the advantages of energy saving, environmentally friendliness and low charge. Nevertheless, the large scale use of R290 has been hindered by its high flammability. The potential fire hazards can be relieved by reducing R290 releasable charge, and numerous methods have been put forward. In the authors' previous papers, the method of refrigerant pumpdown was proposed and a mathematical model of critical releasable charge (CRC, ignition threshold of leakage) was developed by dimensional analysis, but it is difficult to reflect the actual physical process of R290 dispersion. To reveal the leakage and dispersion mechanism of R290, a new numerical model of CRC is developed based on mechanism analysis in this work, in which the turbulent jet model, Coanda effect and dimensional analysis are involved. The predicted CRCs agree well with experimental and simulated data. Besides, the influence of indoor air speed with its direction parallel to the IDU panel on R290 concentration field is investigated by computational fluid dynamics (CFD) under different releasable charges. It is found that there is a transition value of air speed, below which the fire hazards decrease greatly with the increase of air speed, on the contrary, when the air speed is above the transition value, raising air speed has little impact on fire hazards.