연구홍보포털

논문 초록 (Abstract)

Temperature and humidity chambers are used to simulate many thermal-environmental conditions, as well as to observe the effects that a range of temperature and humidity have on a product or material at the manufacturing stage. The energy consumption and acc uracy of these test chambers over the last decades have raised conc erns for recent researchers. In this study, the energy consumption and stability of a temperature and humidity chamber was investigated un der various operatingand environmental conditions by adopting a vari able speed compressor to the refrigeration unit. The accuracy of tem peratureand humidity was also investigated. It is found that, for a g iven surrounding environmental condition, as the dry bulb temp erature conditions of the temperature and humidity chambers incre ased, the cooling capacity of the system increased while the refrig erating unit's power decreased for all operating conditions. However, th e total energy consumption of the test unit increased due to an incremen t in the electric heater output. In maintaining effective stabilit y of temperature and humidity test chambers, it is observed th at, varying the refrigeration unit capacity by adjusting compressor s peed has the potential for reducing the temperature and relative humid ity fluctuations within the chamber for a given operating con dition. Adopting a variable speed compressor to the refrigerating unit, have the potential for reducing the energy consumption signifi cantly according to increment of setting temperature of the cham ber as well as ensuring system stability for temperature and humidity ch ambers.