The Refrigeration Cycle

The Refrigeration Cycle

Refrigeration cycles are the model used in refrigerators and air conditioning units and heat pumps. The man differences between the two is, heat pumps change from cooling to heating and refrigerators will cool only. Technically in the heat pump cycle it incorporates the refrigerator cycle. To put it in another way, a heat pump chooses which side of the system rejects the heat that was accepted by the evaporator to give the user the required temperature.

A heat pump removes heat from a low-temperature source, and expels it to a high-temperature sink, with a bit of help from external mechanical works.

The opposite of the heat pump cycle is called the thermodynamic power cycle. In this cycle, heat is supplied from a high-temperature source, to the heat engine, also a part of the heat is used to produce mechanical work and the rest being rejected to a lower temperature sink. Having this here satisfies the second law of thermodynamics.