A thermographic study of the on–off behavior of an all-refrigerator

In this work a thermographic camera is used to observe the temperature distribution of a household refrigerator cooling system operating at on–off cycling conditions. This technique offers an alternative method to analyze the cooling system compared to conventional thermocouples. In particular it is interesting to view the overall picture of how the refrigerant charge is distributed over the cooling system at transient conditions. In addition, four sources of energy losses were identified and discussed. Out of these losses, two would have been difficult to find using conventional thermocouple temperature measurements.