초록
Research into natural refrigerants that use CO2, instead of chlorofluorocarbons and hydrofluorocarbons, has increased due to the environmental problems caused by ozone depletion. CO2 refrigerants are more environmentally friendly than conventional refrigerants because they have better latent heat of evaporation and heat transfer efficiency properties. However, they have very low critical temperatures and require high design pressures; therefore, pressure control valves, which reduce the pressure of the CO2 refrigerant to a safe level and apply it to the refrigerant air conditioning system, are necessary to secure stability against high pressure. In the present study, we evaluated the flow characteristics and valve performance of the pressure control valve using a CO2 refrigerant by measuring the pressure, velocity, and flow coefficient. In addition, we examined the applied forces caused by the internal pressure from the highly pressurized CO2 refrigerant and required thrust characteristics.