KR-115 Refrigeration Cycle and Heat Pump Laboratory System

KR-115 is designed to learn the theory of heat transfer in refrigeration engineering. With proper configuration, KR-115 can be emulated as a refrigeration or heat pump system. All components of the system are mounted on the front panel so students can directly observe, touch the components and hear the noise produced by the components while it is operating under the Refrigeration or Heat Pump cycle.

KR-115 offers three expansion devices available for the passage of refrigerant; They are pressure expansion valve, capillary tube and thermal expansion valve. Students can use the control panel to change the preferred expansion path of three expansion devices and compare the corresponding performance in the Cool or Heat Pump cycle.

The state of the refrigerant can be clearly observed through 6 sight glasses at different phases of the refrigeration / heat pump cycle. 5 hand valves are used to manually control the flow direction of the refrigerant circulating through the system. The student must use the valves to direct the refrigerant in the proper direction of flow, so that the system can work under the corresponding cooling / heating conditions. If students mistake the refrigerant for the wrong flow direction, pressure protection switches will detect the conflict and stop the compressor to prevent damage to the system.

► All system components, including condenser, compressor, evaporator, capillary tube, filter, refrigerant receiver, accumulator, hand valves, pressure gauges, expansion devices, are front panel mounted for direct observation and operation.

► Use the control panel to select the heat pump cycle (cool or heat), evaporator and condenser fan speed, and refrigerant expansion path.

► Use the control box to monitor the system voltage and current as well as the status of the heat pump.

► Provide three types of expansion devices, including capillary tube, pressure expansion valve and thermal expansion valve for refrigerant to pass through.

► Provide 6 sight glasses to observe the condition of the refrigerant before and after passing the evaporator, condenser, expansion devices and compressor.

► Provide 5 hand valves to control the flow direction of refrigerant.

► Provide high and low pressure protection switches to automatically stop the compressor when it detects wrong refrigerant flow.

► The refrigerant path for the high pressure pipe is painted in red and the low pressure pipe in blue.

1. Refrigeration circulation system with capillary tube
2. Refrigeration circulation system with pressure expansion control valve
3. Refrigeration circulation system with thermal expansion control valve
4. Reverse cycle heat pump system
5. Reverse cycle heat pump system without refrigerant receiver
6. Drawing Mollier Chart
7. Calculating system performance
8. Comparison of system performance
9. Comparison of energy between cooling and heating experiments
10. Coefficient of performance (COP) and energy efficiency ratio (EER)