Determination of the Coefficient of Performance of

Coca-Cola Refrigerated Showcase

Model CCC-300RCX

Nila Mae Apares

Rowida Asgali
Paul Cabuguason
Cris Matthew Geli
Jhonnielyn Joy Fidel
Jermaine Lamboso

University of St. La Salle

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
In the Philippines, a carinderia is the common term for an eating establishment that
serves native food whose clients usually consist of the Filipino masses (Baga-Reyes, 2008).
Aside from local Filipino food, almost every carinderia serves soft drinks which are considered
as the most popular beverage in the country today. In fact, an average of 151 8-ounce servings of
soft drinks is consumed by an average Filipino in a year, which is greater than the global average
of 77 servings (Santiago, 2012). Soft drinks are always served cold, and it is for this reason that
soft drinks manufacturers offer a refrigerator to go with the purchase of soft drinks by
carinderias, restaurants, and other establishments (Coca-Cola, 2015). Coca-Cola is the leading
brand of soft drinks present in the country today (Santiago, 2012), and this paper aims to
determine the performance of the refrigerators that the Coca-Cola Company provides to its client
carinderias and eateries. A carinderia is first and foremost a business venture, thus it is worthy
to note the performance of its assets, like its refrigerator, in order to evaluate this assets
profitability and value to the business (Neely, 2002).
Objectives of the Study
The primary objective of this study is to determine the coefficient of performance of
Coca-Cola refrigerated showcase model CCC-300RCX. Specifically, it aims to:

1.) Determine the heat removed (Qc) from the refrigerator interior by measuring the
change in temperature (T) of 80 cups of water with known mass and specific heat
values at a certain time interval.
2.) Determine the power consumption (W) for the same time interval using a wattmeter.
3.) Calculate the coefficient of performance by dividing the heat removed by the power
consumed (Qc/W).
Significance of the Study
This study may be significant to the following:
Eating establishments. Knowing the performance rating of the businesss assets will
help the owners and investors in making decisions suited for the best interests of the business
especially in terms of profitability.
Soft drinks manufacturers. The soft drinks industry will have an idea which brand of
refrigerators they may entrust their product to, in order to assure that the quality of the product
does not degrade and at the same time ensure the economic practicability and the environmental
effects brought by the use of a certain type and model of refrigerator.
Refrigerator manufacturers. Knowing the efficiency of current models of refrigerators
in the market, manufacturers will have a basis for the production of the next generation of
refrigerators which can perform better and more efficient than its predecessors.
Students and teachers. Equipped with the knowledge on how to determine the
efficiency of the refrigerator, students will be able to understand the concepts that they have
learned in the classroom and apply it in real world situations. At the same time, it will be easy for

the teachers to instill the lessons in the students mind if the students have experienced it
personally.
Scope and Limitations of the Study
The study is to be performed using three Coca-Cola refrigerators from three eating
establishments namely Cays Place, Tyrones, and Joshs Diner. Water inside a Styrofoam cup is
the substance used in the study as it is cheap and its specific heat can be easily determined by
calorimetry. Alcohol thermometers from the University of St. La Salle College Science
Laboratories are also used in the study. The wattmeter used is of the brand Ever, Model
DDS1607 static single phase two wire watt-hour meter, purchased from HKL Electrical Supply,
Bacolod City.

CHAPTER 2
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
Concept of Refrigeration
Refrigeration is defined as the process of removal of heat from an enclosed space, or
from a substance, and rejecting it elsewhere for the primary purpose of lowering the temperature
of the enclosed space or substance and maintaining it at that lower temperature (New World,
2015). Meanwhile, a refrigerator is any kind of enclosure whose interior temperature is kept
substantially lower than the surrounding environment (Hau, 2010). The term "refrigerator" was
coined by a Maryland engineer, Thomas Moore, in 1800 (Moore, 1803).
In a refrigerator, heat is virtually pumped from a lower temperature to a higher
temperature. According to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, this process can only be
performed with the aid of some external work. It is thus obvious that the supply of power is
regularly required to drive a refrigerator. The substance which works in a pump to extract heat
from a cold body and to deliver it to a hot body is known as the refrigerant (Chandra, 2010).

Figure 1. Heat flow in a refrigerator (Google Images, 2015)

There are two general types of refrigeration systems mainly used. These are vaporcompression refrigeration and absorption refrigeration. A vapor-compression system consists of
four components: a compressor, a condenser, an expansion valve (also called a throttle valve),

and an evaporator, while absorption refrigeration consists of four main parts, namely the boiler
or generator, condenser, evaporator and the absorber (Hau, 2010). The Coca-Cola refrigerator
employed in the study is of the compression type. Figure 2 shows the typical vapor-compression
cycle.

Figure 2. Typical vapor-compression cycle (New World, 2015)

Coefficient of Performance
The performance of a refrigerator is usually expressed in terms of its coefficient of
performance. It is defined as:

Coefficient of Performance (C P

c
W

(Equation 1)

where Qc is the heat removed from the inside of the refrigerator, and W is the power supplied to
the refrigerator (Boles, 2013).
The coefficient of performance (COP) is basically the ratio of the refrigeration effect to
energy input. The COP of a refrigerator decreases with decreasing refrigeration temperature and

it can be greater than unity. That is, the amount of heat removed from the refrigerated space can
be greater than the amount of work input (Chandra, 2010).
An average commercial refrigerator with a small compressor size and operating under 5
hp (about 4kW) has a typical COP in the range of 1.1-2.9 (Apogee, 2015).
Heat removed from a refrigerator
The heat removed from the enclosed space in a refrigerator can be regarded as the heat
removed from the substance stored in it. For cooling without phase change, this can be treated as
the sensible heat removed from the substance as evidenced by its temperature change (Chandra,
2010). Thus, the heat removed from a refrigerator can be defined as:
c

mC T

(Equation 2)

where Qc is the heat removed from the refrigerated space, m is the mass of the substance that is
cooled, and T is the temperature change of the substance.
The study uses liquid water inside a Styrofoam cup as the substance to be cooled inside
the refrigerated space. The specific heat capacity of water has the value of 4.186 kJ/kg-K
(University of Southern California, 2015). The heat absorbed of the Styrofoam cup may be
neglected for the very nature of the substance as an insulator, whose specific heat is greatly less
than that of water and is actually almost comparable to air. Styrofoam is 0.27 cal/g-K and air is
0.24 cal/g-K (McCord, 2015).
Power consumption of a refrigerator
As mentioned earlier, power is needed to drive refrigeration. Electrical power supplied to
an appliance may be measured with the use of a watt-hour meter. Also called an electricity

meter, a watt-hour meter is an instrument which measures electrical energy consumed in watthours of any given circuit in accumulated or average readings. This measuring device is usually
installed in residences and commercial establishments to determine the power consumption for
an elapsed period of time (Brittanica, 2015).
Coca-Cola Refrigerator Model CCC-300RCX
The table below summarizes the characteristics of Coca-Cola Refrigerator Model CCC300RCX as shown on a sticker inside the refrigerator.
Table A. Information about Coca-Cola Refrigerated Showcase Model CCC-300RCX
Coca-Cola Refrigerated Showcase Model CCC-300RCX
Rated Voltage

220-240 V

Rated Frequency

60 Hz

Phase

Single

Weight

93.7 kg

Refrigerant

R-134a

Amount

320 g

Running Current and Wattage

2.55 A, 525 W

Manufactured by Sanden Intercool

Made in Thailand

CHAPTER 3
METHODOLOGY
Experimentation is done using three Coca-Cola refrigerators, Model CCC-300RCX, from
Joshs Diner at Barangay Alijis, Cays Place at Barangay Singcang, and Tyrones at Stingers
Foodcourt of the University of St. La Salle.
These are the steps on how the experiment is conducted:
1.) Empty the refrigerator.
2.) Take the initial temperature of the water and cup system.
3.) Connect the wattmeter to the refrigerator.
4.) Place 80 pieces of cups filled with a known volume of water inside the refrigerator. Place
thermometers in the water such that the thermometers do not touch the cup.
5.) Take the temperature of the water every 10 minutes until it reaches an hour.
6.) Take the power consumed based on the wattmeter reading.
The coefficient of erformance or COP can be derived to show that the working equation is
as follows:

C P

g
( cup ) (
( kg

cups) (
g

kg

kJ

kJ
( kWh ) ( W

( T
(Equation

Starting from
C P

c
W

but Qc = mCT

(Equation

(Equation 2)

where m - the mass of water

C - heat capacity of water as 4.186 kJ/kg
T - temperature difference between the initial temperature of the cup and
the temperature reached after an hour of refrigeration
The unit for QC is kJ while W is expressed in kWh. Since C P has no unit, W should
be converted to kJ by using the conversion factor: 1kWh= 3600kJ. The equation is therefore be:

C P

(mass of water per cup n kg) (number of cups) (specific heat of water ( T
g
kJ
( kg
( kWh ) ( W

(Equation

The Coca-Cola refrigerated showcase model CCC-300RCX has four levels. Each level
can hold 20 cups of water. Thus, the refrigerator is occupied by 80 cups completely filled with
water of volume 230 mL in each cup. The density of water at the ambient temperature of 25C is
0.997044 g/mL (Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, 1972) which can be easily approximated
as 1 g/mL to simplify calculations; thus, the mass of the water in each cup is 230g. The final
working equation is thus:

C P

g
( cup ) (
( kg

cups) (
g

kg

kJ
( kWh ) ( W

( T
(Equation

CHAPTER 4
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
This chapter tabulates and discusses the results obtained from the experiments. A
working equation has already been derived in the previous chapter which has the form:

C P

g
( cup ) (

cups) (
g

( kg

kg

kJ

( T
(Equation

kJ
( kWh ) ( W

A sample calculation for Trial , Cays Place Sample is shown below.

C P

g
( cup ) (
( kg

.
kJ
cups) ( kg K
( K
kJ
( kWh ) ( . kWh

C P

Tables 1 up to 3 tabulate experimental data for the three sample refrigerators. Table 4
shows the average values for each refrigerator.
Table 1. Recorded data from Cays Place refrigerator
Tinitial
Trial

TFinal (oC)

( C)
0 min

10

20

30

40

50

60

min

min

min

min

min

min

T(oC)

W
(kWh)

COP

30

27

25

23

21

19

18

12

0.19

1.35

30

27

26

24

22

20

19

11

0.20

1.18

30

26

25

23

22

20

18

12

0.18

1.43

Table 2. Recorded data from Tyrones Refrigerator

Tinitial
Trial

TFinal (oC)

( C)
0 min

10

20

30

40

50

min

min

min

min

min

T(oC)
60 min

W
(kWh)

COP

28

24

23

21

19

18

16.5

11.5

0.15

1.64

28

23

22

20

18

17

15

13

0.17

1.64

28

24

22

20

19

18

16

12

0.20

1.28

Table 3. Recorded data from Joshs Diner Refrigerator

Tinitial
Trial

TFinal (oC)

( C)
0 min

10

20

30

40

50

60

min

min

min

min

min

min

T(oC)

W
(kWh)

COP

28

25

22

20

18

16

14

14

0.18

1.66

28

24

23

21

19

17

15

13

0.20

1.39

28

25

23

22

19

17

14

14

0.18

1.66

Table 4. Average COP from the three refrigerators

Sample Refrigerator

COPave

Cays

1.32

Joshs

1.52

Tyrones

1.57

Average

1.47

CHAPTER 5
Summary, Conclusions, and Recommendations
The objective of this study is to determine the coefficient of performance (COP) of a
Coca-Cola refrigerator Model CCC-300RCX by taking the temperature drops of a cooled cup of
water at a period of 1 hour to determine the heat removed (Qc) and by using a watt-hour meter to
determine the power consumption (W) at this time interval. A total of 3 trials each are performed
for each of the 3 refrigerators, yielding 9 values of COP. This is then averaged to obtain a final
single value.
The study has succeeded in determining the coefficient of performance, the ratio of Qc
and W, of a Coca-Cola refrigerator Model CCC-300RCX with an obtained average value of
1.47. This shows that the heat removed from the interior of the refrigerator is 1.47 times the
supplied electrical power at a period of time. This is within the range of the typical value of a
small commercial refrigerator type with a compressor operating less than 4 kW of 1.1-2.9
(Apogee, 2015).
Further studies may be conducted in the future that employs an alternative method to the
one used in the study. An investigation of the refrigerant properties through the cycle may be a
starting point for another study to determine the coefficient of performance (COP). Furthermore,
the validity of using the coefficient of performance (COP) as the basis for the performance of
refrigerators may also be delved into. Other types of bases are available such as the energy
efficiency ratio (EER), seasonal energy efficiency ratio (SEER), tons of refrigeration, and etc.
may also be a starting point for further studies and experimentation.

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Chandra, A. R. (2010). Refrigeration and Air Conditioning. PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd, Delhi.
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http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Refrigeration
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APPENDIX

Information about the refrigerator

Watt-hour meter used in the experiment

Sample experimental set-up for the three trials