Cooling systems are applied for food, primary and fuel industries as well as for such leading areas as space industry and IT. According to Alexander Malyshev, head of Chair of Refrigerating Machines and Low Potential Energetics, almost 25% of energy produced globally is consumed by refrigerating technologies. That is why currently researchers have to develop modern, safe and effective technologies.
“Nowadays potential of refrigeration industry is limited. One can, for instance, change details or install them in other way, but it will increase energy efficiency by 5% only. This field needs new technologies,” noted Mr. Malyshev.
The researchers and students work on heat-exchange units equipped with mini channels that have a diameter about 0.3 – 0.5 mm. They give an opportunity to construct more compact devices and decrease the amount of working fluid. For example, Kouadio Fabrice, who came from Republic of Côte d'Ivoire to study at ITMO U, writes a Master`s thesis devoted to methods of computation of boiling thermal transfer of refrigerant agents.
“The refrigerant boiling in cooling element looks like two-phase flow. It consists of liquid and gas phases. Depending on boiling regimes, steam turns into two different types of flows that have various heat loss rates. We have already created the regime pattern of two-phase flows appeared in pipes and mini channels as well as the algorithm of the program for analyzing regimes, heat loss and optimization of refrigeration units,” said Kristina Kisser, PhD student at Chair of Refrigerating Machines and Low Potential Energetics.
Furthermore the experts also developed a new approach for analyzing thermophysical properties of boiling, local heat losses, pressure differences, phase shifts and other processes.
“Currently we are going to make Master`s Program “Industrial Refrigeration Systems and Heat Pumps” international. Then we plan to give online lectures in English. Our experience is relevant for international colleagues. The Chair organizes joint experiments in alliance with University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Riga Technical University. In spite of international integration of our technologies, ITMO U alumni contribute to import substitution by developing products and technologies that have no equals,” commented on Alexander Malyshev.
Every year students from different countries enter the Master`s Program. For the last few years students from Russia, Kazakhstan and Republic of Côte d'Ivoire have published six scientific articles in well-known journals. Materials developed by researchers at the Chair were used as basis for a new international research center called “Applied Fluid Dynamics.”
