Equipment design and installation features to disperse refrigerant releases in rooms—part II: determination of procedures

Due to hydrocarbon refrigerant leakage, it is possible for flammable concentrations to develop. However, by using appropriate equipment design and installation features to disperse the refrigerant, the potential for ignition is reduced. In this paper, measured data obtained in Part I (Colbourne D, Suen KO. Equipment design and installation features to disperse refrigerant release in rooms—part I: experiments and analysis. International Journal of Refrigeration [This volume doi: 10.1016/S0140-7007(03)00027-6]) was used to characterise the variations of gas concentrations so to produce a set of correlations. Numeric design limits in relation to the studied parameters were proposed so that in the event of leakage of flammable refrigerant, the lower flammability limit is not exceeded, thus reducing the risk of ignition.