Small Commercial Display Cabinets

This chapter presents the fundamentals of small commercial display cabinets, including a description of various components, their design and operational issues, refrigerant selection, as well as operational performance under selected conditions. In addition, motivated by the increasing demand for higher energy efficiency and lower carbon emissions, the chapter discusses some of the upcoming technologies that may potentially replace the traditional vapour compression refrigeration cycle in the future. The refrigeration system of an integral display cabinet consists of four basic components: the condenser, the expansion device (most often a capillary tube), the evaporator and the compressor. Integral display cabinets utilize an air-cooled condenser to remove the heat of condensation and the heat of compression from the refrigerant. The chapter also presents an overview of selected alternative technologies, including thermoacoustic refrigeration, thermoelectric refrigeration and magnetic refrigeration that offer potential for small refrigeration systems including refrigerators and commercial display cabinets.