Heat transfer effect on the specific cooling load of refrigerators

The maximum possible specific cooling load that can be obtained from two-heart-reservoir refrigerators with a set of high-temperature heat sinks and low-temperature heat sources is analyzed. The refrigerators considered in this paper include (1) externally and internally reversible, (2) externally irreversible and internally reversible, (3) externally reversible and internally irreversible and (4) externally and internally irreversible refrigerators. The irreversibilities are assumed to be caused by heat transfer only. The specific cooling load, defined as the cooling load per unit total heat-exchanger surface area, is adopted as the objective function for the refrigerator performance analysis in this paper.