At this year's Annapolis SailBoat show I ran across this rather interesting refrigeration technology....pretty compact simple system
Stirling Cycle Based Refrigerators
Today, essentially all cooling applications utilize Rankine cycle systems that consist of a rotary compressor, a condenser, an expansion valve and an evaporator. The most common refrigerants tend to be difficult to handle because of environmental concerns, although equipment using carbon dioxide is under development. The complexity of the system will vary depending on economics with large chiller systems having multiple compression stages, intermediate heaters and coolers, etc.
In the smaller systems, such as home, aircraft and yacht refrigerators, the systems are basic, primarily because the savings in power consumption afforded by great complexity is not economically justifiable. In some case, weight and size limitations may force the use of the simpler design.
For these smaller applications, AvXcel uses a Stirling cycle based system with a linear compressor. Our purpose here is to provide a very general description of the technology, the benefits Stirling over Rankine based systems, and describe a concept for its use in sailboat applications
http://www.avxcel.com/marine_refrigeration.html
http://www.avxcel.com/products.php
Brian Eiland
beiland@usa.net
www.RunningTideYachts.com
distinctive expedition yachts
