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Review on Research Trends of B1 and B2 Sessions |
Yong Tae Kang
Assistant Professor
School of Mechanical and Industrial System Eng.
Kyung Hee University
The 21st International Congress of Refrigeration was held in Washington, DC, USA, August 17-22, 2003. This article introduces Commissions B1 and B2 of International Institute of Refrigeration (IIR) and reviews research trend based on technical papers presented at the B1 and B2 sessions in ICR2003.
The Section B (Head, Professor Watanabe, K., Japan) consists of Commission B1 (President, Professor Bullard, C., USA) and Commission B2 (President, Professor Gorenflo, D., Germany). The Commission B1 (Thermodynamics & Transfer Process) deals with new fluids and energy efficient transfer processes in advanced refrigeration techniques. In the area of thermodynamics, they concentrate on properties of HFC refrigerants, properties of natural refrigerants, properties of ice slurries. In the area of transfer processes, they concentrate on micro effects, saving of energy, saving of resources and life cycle climate performance. The Commission B2 (Refrigerating Equipment) deals with new fluids, new systems and systems integration. They concentrate on compressor design and performance analysis, evaporator/condenser and other exchanger design, energy efficiency of refrigerating equipment , absorption/adsorption and ejector systems, indirect cooling systems: liquid secondary and phase-change refrigerants, containment, recovery and destruction of refrigerants, and regulations/standardization/testing
At the B1 session in ICR2003, one keynote paper and 113 technical papers (77 oral and 36 poster presentations) were presented. As a keynote speaker, professor D. Gorenflo (Germany) summarized presentations on new fluids and their energy and mass transfer processes in advanced refrigeration technologies. Thermal/transport properties and heat transfer tests of CO2, R-134a, 410a, 125, 600, 600a, 401b were presented. Absorption/adsorption fluids for open and closed systems and micro-channel heat transfer were also presented. The highlighted topics were CO2 heat transfer characteristics and micro-channel heat transfer related to CO2 refrigeration. Most of participants have interests in CO2 refrigerant for automobile and residential air-conditioning applications.
At the B2 session in ICR2003, one keynote paper and 86 technical papers (55 oral and 31 poster presentations) were presented. As a keynote speaker, Professor R. Radermacher (USA) made a presentation on integration of air-conditioning and refrigeration with distributed generation. The main topics in B2 session were CO2 systems, absorption systems and vapor compression systems. The CO2 systems were also paid attention by many participants from US, European countries including Norway, and Asian countries including Japan, Korea and China. The sorption refrigeration systems were also highlighted to enhance the heat and mass transfer performance by mechanical and chemical treatments. There was a report that the chemical treatment had more significant effect on the absorption performance than the mechanical treatment. Professor F. F. Ziegler (Germany) introduced an interesting thermodynamic concept for comparison of open and closed sorption cooling systems.
During the B1 and B2 commission meetings, Professor H. Auracher (Editor in Chief, International Journal of Refrigeration) presented the statistics on the submitted papers (135 papers in 2002, and expected 180 in 2003), acceptance rate (55% in 2002), nationality of authors (15 papers from Japan, 22 from Korea and 25 from China in 2002), and impact factor (1.00 in 2002). It is impressed that more papers are from Aisa (almost 50%) while less papers are from Europe/America(about 40%). The Editor-in-Chief was very proud of Asian Regional Editor, Professor A. Saito (Japan) for his excellent activity. The impact factor is a measure of the frequency with which the gaverage articleh has been cited in a particular year. The impact factor of 1.00 is ranked 11th out of 102 archival journals in mechanical engineering, and 7th out of 36 archival journals in thermal engineering in the level of Science Citation Index (SCI) journals.
I hope this review help all the members to catch the international research trends in the areas of thermodynamics & transfer process and refrigeration equipment.