Performance of an auto refrigerant cascade refrigerator operating in liquid refrigerant supply (LRS) mode with different cascade heat exchangers

Auto refrigerant cascade (ARC) refrigerators operating with zeotropic mixtures provide refrigeration at temperatures less than 173 K (−100 °C) using a single compressor. Different authors have suggested different cascade heat exchangers for ARC refrigerators. There is no study in literature that suggests at what temperature ranges one, two or three cascade heat exchangers are necessary. In this paper the performance of an ARC refrigerator operating in the liquid refrigerant supply mode and operating with optimized hydrocarbon mixtures and different cascade heat exchangers is studied. The optimum number of cascade heat exchangers (stages) to be used for different operating temperatures is suggested.