Performance enhancement of a household refrigerator by addition of latent heat storage

This paper studies the effect of adding a phase change material (PCM) slab on the outside face of a refrigerator evaporator. A dynamic model of the vapour compression cycle including the presence of the phase change material and its experimental validation is presented. The simulation results of the system with PCM show that the addition of thermal inertia globally enhances heat transfer from the evaporator and allows a higher evaporating temperature, which increases the energy efficiency of the system. The energy stored in the PCM is yielded to the refrigerator cell during the off cycle and allows for several hours of continuous operation without power supply.