Noise test and control for household refrigerator compressor
Sound comfort becomes more and more important in residential houses. Home appliance is one of the main sources of indoor noise. Noise emission is a distinctive feature for the selection of the home appliances. Noise levels in household appliances are increasingly attracting attention from manufacturers and customers. Refrigerators as common appliances used by most families run continuously all day. It produces a lot of noises. National standards have published severe rules on the acceptable noise levels, and noise-free operation becomes the preferred choice of customers in the refrigerators choosing. Therefore, it is necessary to reduce the noise level of refrigerator. In this paper, the noise control study has been carried on a type of air-cooled household refrigerator. The noise level of the refrigerator was tested under different operation conditions at first. Then the maximum sound pressure level and noise characters were obtained by analyse the spectra of the noises. Test data shown that the refrigerator noises are mainly composed of compressor and fan noises. According to the characteristics of the compressor and fan noise, a method of using sound insulation board was proposed to reduce the compressor noise. Considering the actual installation restrictions and the compressor cooling demand, a kind of sound insulation board with holes was applied. Experimental studies indicated that the proposed noise control method can suppress the noise of the household refrigerator effectively.
Preliminary Study of Perception and Consumer Behaviour Towards Energy Saving for Household Appliances: A Case of Makassar
Electricity load has tendency to increase over the time. Therefore, efforts to maintain a balance between electricity supply and demand such as increasing energy saving related to the use of home electricity appliances are urgently needed. In general, one of the household appliances which consumes relatively high electricity energy is refrigerator. The purpose of this study is to analyze residential consumers perceptions and their behaviours about electricity energy saving in relation to the usage of household appliances in Makassar, Indonesia particularly for refrigerator. Moreover, typical relationship between perceptions and consumers behaviours is also analyzed by composed two regression models, namely model for usage behaviour (UREFm model) and model for habitual behaviour (HREFm model) by using general perception, specific perception, and external factors as explanation variables. To collect data, a questionnaire was designed for survey which involved 40 respondents as a preliminary study and then statistical tests including regression analysis were applied to analyze usable data. The target of respondent was an owner of a house in Makassar with installed power capacity at least 900 VA. Reliability test shown that all items in the developed questionnaire can be used for main survey as obtained Cronbach’s alpha values were above 0.6. Evaluation for consumers perceptions on energy saving in relation to demographic aspect using mean and Standard Deviation values indicated some significant differences. Other results regarding regression analysis shown that both composed models were well validated and had quite good fitness degree with adjusted R-squared values around 49.31% for UREFm model and 80.90% for HREFm model. Among considered variables, specific perception, and external factors were found have significant influence to the usage and habitual behaviours of consumers as confirmed by their p-values in each model below 0.05. Findings of this research can be used as a reference in developing programs for residential consumers such as electricity energy conservation program.
Improvements of Noise and Efficiency of Rolling Piston Type Refrigeration Compressor for Household Refrigerator and Freezer
A part of the present investigation was reported in last conference. The present report is concerned with the results of subsequent detailed researches. _E~fect of some factors to noise and efflclency of rolling piston type refrigeration compressor (both horizontally and. verticallyinstalled type)have been studied by ex~ periments. We m~asured the relatlonshlps among the performance, the noise, the crank angle, the vane and discharge valve motions, and the vibration at each part. As the relevant factors, the exit shape of the discharge muffler, the shape of the discharge valve port, and the clearance at each part (axial., between vane. and v::me slot)were studied, and the optlmum dlmensions were discussed. Through these examinati~ns we could improve the noise and efflciency.