Advanced Frost Sensor for HVAC Applications

Zhiming Gao; Jamieson Brechtl; Kashif Nawaz; Brian Fricke; Kyle Gluesenkamp; Nickolay Lavrik; Philip Boudreaux; Kai Li

Advanced Frost Sensor for HVAC Applications

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › peer-review

Abstract

Frost is a common problem in heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems that can degrade their efficiencies, leading to excessive electricity consumption. Appropriate defrosting is therefore essential for heat pumps and refrigeration systems. However, these systems typically run the defrost cycle based on a predetermined time interval, a method that does not accurately identify the amount of frost and thus consume excessive electricity. This paper describes development of a smart sensor that can substantially improve defrosting initiation and termination and is based on a capacitive sensing technique that can quantify frost accumulation and distinguish the difference between frost, ice, and water. The reported sensor employs interdigitated comb electrodes and can be updated to a potential multifunctional sensor array for enhanced identification of frost, ice, and water via the integrated measurement of surface temperature, frost capacitance, and resistance. The proposed frost sensor is expected to have widespread applications in HVAC systems, including heat pumps, refrigerators, and commercial refrigeration systems.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	ASHRAE Winter Conference
Publisher	American Society of Heating Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers
Pages	616-624
Number of pages	9
ISBN (Electronic)	9781955516822
State	Published - 2024
Event	2024 ASHRAE Winter Conference - Chicago, United States Duration: Jan 20 2024 → Jan 24 2024

Publication series

Name	ASHRAE Transactions
Volume	130
ISSN (Print)	0001-2505

Conference

Conference	2024 ASHRAE Winter Conference
Country/Territory	United States
City	Chicago
Period	01/20/24 → 01/24/24

Funding

This work was sponsored by the DOE Building Technologies Office, with Antonio Bouza and Payam Delgoshaei as program managers. The research was conducted as part of a user project at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, which is a DOE Office of Science User Facility at ORNL. We also thank ORNL colleagues and ASHRAE reviewers, who provided suggestions for improving the paper. The thanks also go to Erica Heinrich for her technical editing. This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC, under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with DOE. The US government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the US government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for US government purposes. DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan (http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan).

Cite this

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title = "Advanced Frost Sensor for HVAC Applications",

abstract = "Frost is a common problem in heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems that can degrade their efficiencies, leading to excessive electricity consumption. Appropriate defrosting is therefore essential for heat pumps and refrigeration systems. However, these systems typically run the defrost cycle based on a predetermined time interval, a method that does not accurately identify the amount of frost and thus consume excessive electricity. This paper describes development of a smart sensor that can substantially improve defrosting initiation and termination and is based on a capacitive sensing technique that can quantify frost accumulation and distinguish the difference between frost, ice, and water. The reported sensor employs interdigitated comb electrodes and can be updated to a potential multifunctional sensor array for enhanced identification of frost, ice, and water via the integrated measurement of surface temperature, frost capacitance, and resistance. The proposed frost sensor is expected to have widespread applications in HVAC systems, including heat pumps, refrigerators, and commercial refrigeration systems.",

author = "Zhiming Gao and Jamieson Brechtl and Kashif Nawaz and Brian Fricke and Kyle Gluesenkamp and Nickolay Lavrik and Philip Boudreaux and Kai Li",

note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2024 U.S. Government.; 2024 ASHRAE Winter Conference ; Conference date: 20-01-2024 Through 24-01-2024",

year = "2024",

language = "English",

series = "ASHRAE Transactions",

publisher = "American Society of Heating Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers",

pages = "616--624",

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TY - GEN

T1 - Advanced Frost Sensor for HVAC Applications

AU - Gao, Zhiming

AU - Brechtl, Jamieson

AU - Nawaz, Kashif

AU - Fricke, Brian

AU - Gluesenkamp, Kyle

AU - Lavrik, Nickolay

AU - Boudreaux, Philip

AU - Li, Kai

PY - 2024

Y1 - 2024

N2 - Frost is a common problem in heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems that can degrade their efficiencies, leading to excessive electricity consumption. Appropriate defrosting is therefore essential for heat pumps and refrigeration systems. However, these systems typically run the defrost cycle based on a predetermined time interval, a method that does not accurately identify the amount of frost and thus consume excessive electricity. This paper describes development of a smart sensor that can substantially improve defrosting initiation and termination and is based on a capacitive sensing technique that can quantify frost accumulation and distinguish the difference between frost, ice, and water. The reported sensor employs interdigitated comb electrodes and can be updated to a potential multifunctional sensor array for enhanced identification of frost, ice, and water via the integrated measurement of surface temperature, frost capacitance, and resistance. The proposed frost sensor is expected to have widespread applications in HVAC systems, including heat pumps, refrigerators, and commercial refrigeration systems.

AB - Frost is a common problem in heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems that can degrade their efficiencies, leading to excessive electricity consumption. Appropriate defrosting is therefore essential for heat pumps and refrigeration systems. However, these systems typically run the defrost cycle based on a predetermined time interval, a method that does not accurately identify the amount of frost and thus consume excessive electricity. This paper describes development of a smart sensor that can substantially improve defrosting initiation and termination and is based on a capacitive sensing technique that can quantify frost accumulation and distinguish the difference between frost, ice, and water. The reported sensor employs interdigitated comb electrodes and can be updated to a potential multifunctional sensor array for enhanced identification of frost, ice, and water via the integrated measurement of surface temperature, frost capacitance, and resistance. The proposed frost sensor is expected to have widespread applications in HVAC systems, including heat pumps, refrigerators, and commercial refrigeration systems.

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85198991949

M3 - Conference contribution

AN - SCOPUS:85198991949

T3 - ASHRAE Transactions

SP - 616

EP - 624

BT - ASHRAE Winter Conference

PB - American Society of Heating Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers

T2 - 2024 ASHRAE Winter Conference

Y2 - 20 January 2024 through 24 January 2024

ER -

Advanced Frost Sensor for HVAC Applications

Abstract

Publication series

Conference

Funding

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