Analysis of Coolants in Automotive Air Conditioning

Automotive air conditioning systems use a refrigerant fluid in their system, which is responsible for heat exchange between the interior of the car and the outside environment. This study aims to compare the refrigerants used in automotive air conditioning systems. The refrigerants studied were R134a and R437a, both used in the automotive sector. The methodology used for the experiment was based on previous work aimed at comparing refrigerants. A number of parameters were assessed, such as vehicle cabin cooling time, air flow and temperature at the diffuser outlet, relative humidity of the cabin air and fuel consumption, all of which were used for a comparative analysis of the refrigerants. A method was then used to process the data obtained from the measurements and the results obtained from this analysis were very similar for both refrigerants.