20th International Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Conference at Purdue – Recap and Takeaways

Earlier this month, I had the privilege of attending and presenting at the 20^th annual International Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Conference at Purdue University. The event, organized by Herrick Labs, is a biannual event where academics, national laboratories, and representatives from various industries gather to hear technical presentations, network with colleagues, see introductions of new technology, and more.

It was my 10^th time attending the conference, and it’s become a staple of my calendar. It’s a terrific opportunity to put on my academic hat and get exposed to interesting new theories, ideas, and technologies. This year, I wanted to share some reflections on the event – my takeaways, the “hot topics” I heard being discussed, as well as the some background on the presentations that a coworker and I gave to attendees.

Topics of Discussion

I’d say the two topics I heard being discussed most frequently were heat pumps (and heat pump-related technologies) as well as general discourse around the adoption, regulation, and development of refrigerants.

Heat Pump Technologies

The HVAC-R industry’s focus on heat pumps and heat pump technologies has been increasing substantially over the past handful of years. The passage of the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, which included billions of dollars of incentives for electrification and efficiency-based initiatives, has really accelerated those conversations.

One of the challenges preventing heat pumps’ worldwide ubiquity has been their ability to operate in cold climates, but as industry has made progress on that challenge, this year’s heat pump conversations seemed to be more focused on high-temperature heat pump applications.

In the past few years, the heat pump conversation has been mostly focused on residential and commercial applications, but this year, I noticed increased interest in high temperature industrial heat pump applications, and I attended some interesting sessions about alternative working fluids for heat pump applications as well.

Refrigerants

While discussions on heat pump technologies have reached the “unavoidable” level at conferences and industry events, refrigerants still hold the title of most ubiquitous conversation topic.

In response to the EPA’s ongoing HFC phasedown, the dust appears to be settling for the time being, as the commercial HVAC-R industry moves forward with R-454B and R-32 as a replacement for longtime HVAC favorite R-410A. As part of that same conversation, natural refrigerants continue to be a popular conversation topic, especially at conferences with international audiences like Purdue.

SRC’s Participation

This year, my colleague Tyler Stusynski and I each presented on observations and test results from our work at SRC’s test laboratories.

Tyler’s session centered around the topic of condensate temperature and its impact on a coil’s performance modeling. In short, its thesis states that the heat transfer rate formula outlined in the ASHRAE handbook does not accurately account for changes in condensate temperature in a coil under different conditions.

Our next goal for this research is to develop a model for condensate temperature which will tell us the extent of the ASHRAE formula’s inaccuracy.

The session that I presented was based on another recent coil testing effort, which centered on the impact of the apex angle of a V-shaped coil assembly on air friction across the coil’s face.

Through a series of tests in our wind tunnel test lab, we observed that the amount and behavior of air friction in a V-frame coil configuration is affected by the angle at which the coils are installed. We observed that air friction increased as the apex angle’s acuteness decreased, up to a certain point. We plan on testing this under additional sets of conditions in the future and will develop a formula to account for the phenomenon at a later date.

Conclusion

In summary, this year’s Purdue conference was another success in my opinion. The level of activity in heat transfer-related industries is at a level that I’ve not seen before in my 35 years working in the field. I’m excited for what future of HVAC-R system designs and the technology used in them, and I’m very interested to see how the industry evolves over the next few years, as the impacts of regulation, innovation, and fluctuations in stakeholder priorities grow and change.

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