Essay On Refrigeration

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This chapter includes all research into the current state of the art. Section 2.2 details the history of refrigeration, the refrigeration cycle, and the various types of refrigeration equipment available and most commonly used. Section 2.3 discusses the refrigeration and freezing of various products. Section 2.4 provides information on programmable logic controllers (PLC). This section includes a brief history of PLCs, how they work, different programming languages used and some commonly used instructions. Section 2.5 describes various types of signals used in control including digital, analog, serial, fieldbus, and SCADA.

2.2 Refrigeration Process
2.2.1 Background
For most of history, ice and snow, packed into cellars insulated with wood or straw, were used for refrigeration. It wasn’t until 1755 that the first artificial refrigeration system was established by William Cullen (Koelet, 1992). Throughout the 1800s, many mechanical refrigeration systems were designed and developed, and the vapour compression cycle most commonly used today dates back to this time.

Different refrigeration cycles exist including the gas cycle, the vapour-absorption cycle, and the vapour-compression cycle. The gas cycle uses a refrigerant, often air, which does not change state, but instead remains as a gas throughout the entire cycle. The vapour-absorption cycle, which preceded the vapour-compression cycle, is a heat operated cycle. It requires little electricity, but a lot of heat energy, and is usually only used where waste heat is plentiful (Ameen, 2006). The vapour-compression cycle is favoured over all others in both domestic and industrial installations as it is the most efficient system available. It works by pumping a refrigerant, which chang...

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... two devices, which were connect together using an RS-232 cable, to communicate. A fieldbus, which transfers data serially, reduces the number of cables required over long distances. The data transferred is available at all the nodes at the same time. Fieldbus is a flexible system allowing new units to be easily connected to the bus.

2.5.5 SCADA
SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) is a graphical application used for monitoring and controlling systems in industry from a centralized location. It receives real time data from the PLC, and can be used to input values and turn on/off outputs. It can provide alarms to allow the user to know when a process has finished or if a fault has occurred. SCADA systems often use HMI (human-machine interface) to allow the user to control valves, pumps, etc. which the HMI is connected to (Inductive Automation, 2014).

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