Abstract
Due to environmental concerns $CO_2$ has been reintroduced as a potential candidate to replace HFCs in refrigeration systems since 1990s. In a refrigeration cycle, oil is utilized in lubricating a compressor. However, although oil separators are installed after a compressor oil is prone to leak to the whole system. The mixing of $CO_2$ and oil, even a small amount of oil, the heat transfer performance in heat exchanger deteriorated and the pressure drop inside tube increases. Therefore, it is needed to precisely estimate the mixture thermodynamic properties of $CO_2$-lubricant oil to correctly design a $CO_2$ refrigeration system. The commonly used method in estimating the mixture properties is the mole based weighting model. However, the accuracy of the method can not be assured. In the present study, $CO_2$-lubricant oil mixture properties including viscosity and density were estimated by using the mixture models, based on the equation of state (EOS).
