Study on CFD analysis of refrigerant leakage and ignition source about built-in refrigerated display cabinet using R290.

In order to tackle the global warming, the use of A2L refrigerants has been focused on and investigated in Japan. Risk assessments of a variety of appliances have been carried out, resulting in the establishment of methods for ensuring safety of the appliances using A2L refrigerants. However, there still remains the influence of the refrigerants on global warming, and it is desired to convert to lower GWP refrigerants. Almost all of the refrigerants with low GWP values tend to have relatively high flammability and there could be a danger of explosion that causes fire. For flammability risk evaluation of the built-in refrigerated display cabinet using R290 in the event of refrigerant leakage, flammable volume-time integration and duration of flammable region necessary for the risk assessment were calculated through CFD analysis in this paper. In addition, potential ignition sources such as static electricity were investigated and discussed.