Study of using a capillary tube in a heat pump dishwasher with transient heating

• A study of using capillary tube in the transient heating of a heat pump dishwasher.
• Calculation of the length of the capillary tube with three methods was performed.
• Tests showed good performance using capillary tube despite the transient heating.

For competitive purposes, manufacturers of household appliances need to produce appliances that use less electricity. One way of doing this for a dishwasher is to add a heat pump system. Previous studies using R134a as refrigerant have shown that the addition of a heat pump can reduce total electricity consumption by about 24%. This paper reports on the use of a capillary tube in a heat pump dishwasher during the transient heating period. Working with an available compressor, the mass of R600a and the length of a 0.9 mm capillary tube were varied in order to find the configuration with the lowest electricity consumption. Three methods of calculating the length of the capillary tube were used to determine five lengths for evaluation. The results show that using a single capillary tube throughout the transient heating period yields similar electricity consumption to a variable expansion device which occurred by switching the capillary tube between two or three different lengths during the heating period.