Potential of integrating the air-bearing heat exchanger into a refrigerator condenser.

In this paper, an air-bearing heat exchanger was applied to the condenser in a residential refrigerator, and its performance was investigated compared with conventional condensing unit. The air-bearing heat exchanger which was developed at Sandia National Laboratories estimated to have an enhanced air-side convection heat transfer and potential to increase the condenser performance. In the study, a prototype air-bearing condenser was designed and fabricated. Experiments on energy consumption according to DOE standard were conducted. The experimental results showed that the performance of the air-bearing condenser can match that of the conventional condensing unit, while its volume can be 60% lower.