A STUDY ON THE EXPLOSION SAFETY ASSESSMENT OF HYDROCARBON REFRIGERANT REFRIGERATOR

A STUDY ON THE EXPLOSION SAFETY ASSESSMENT OF HYDROCARBON REFRIGERANT REFRIGERATOR

This paper discribes an experimental explosion risk assessment study on refrigerators containing flammable hydrocarbon refrigerant. A refrigerator used in this study is a larder fridge type, 215 liter in volume. The hydrocarbon refrigerant used in the refrigerator is iso-butane(C<TEX>$_4$</TEX>H<TEX>$_{10}$</TEX>). For the explosion safety assessment of the refrigerator, temperature of compressor, cooling air circulation fan motor, defrost heater and inner lamp were measured during the operation. And to confirm the ignitablity of flammable gas by the electric spark of the switches of the refrigerator, ON-OFF test of all switches were conducted with compulsorily near the stoichiometric concentration atmosphere of iso-butane-air mixture. As the result of experiment above mentioned and another experiment for the explosion safety assessment, we can conclude that explosion hazard in connection with the use of hydrocarbon refrigerant was few.w.