The Experimental Assessment of R134a and Its Lower GWP Alternative R1234yf in an Automobile Air Conditioning System

Abstract

Reducing global warming potential (GWP) of refrigerants is needed to the decrease of ozone-depleting of refrigeration systems leakages. Refrigerant R1234yf is now used to substitute R134a inside mobile air conditioning systems. Thermodynamic properties of R1234yf are similar to R134a. Also, it has a very low GWP of 4, compared to 1430 for R134a, making it a proper choice for future automobile refrigerants. The purpose of this research is to represent the main operating and performance differences between R1234yf and R134a. Experimental analysis was carried out on the automotive air conditioning system (AACS) with 3 kW nominal capacity, to test and compare the performance of R134a with R1234yf. Experiments were accomplished for both refrigerants in almost the same working conditions and procedure with a range of ambient temperature varied from 26^oC to 50^oC. Parameters studied were ambient temperature, type of refrigerant in the system at compressor speed 1450 rpm, and internal thermal loads of passenger room. The performance characteristics of the system, including COP and cooling capacity, were studied by changing different parameters. The results show that COP of R134a is higher than R1234yf by 12.6%, while the refrigeration effect of R134a is higher than R1234yf by 25%. This shows that R1234yf is a suitable and good candidate for drop-in replacement of R134a in AACS.