摘要：Various industries, including automobiles, wind power, railroads, airlines, and defense, have their own individual low-temperature test specifications. Since the performance of a test object has to be evaluated after cooling in a climate-controlled chamber, the process consumes an enormous amount of energy and a long time is needed to cool the object. Reducing energy consumption and increasing the cooling rate would offer a huge environmental and economic benefit. This study analyzed the cooling rate and energy consumption of a cryogenic chamber in terms of the ventilation methods and locations of test objects through computational fluid dynamics analysis. In order to calculate energy consumption, the study fixed the compressor power of the refrigerator and created an energy model in the form of a user-defined function that considered changes in the outlet mass flow and refrigerator coefficient of performance according to changes in outlet temperatures within the chamber; this model is used for numerical analysis. The chamber used for the upper air supply and lower exhaust method (Case A) demonstrated a faster cooling rate by 0%–32% compared to the upper air supply and lower exhaust on the opposite face method (Case B) and the upper air supply and central exhaust on the opposite face method (Case F). Case A generally consumed less energy during cooling, whereas Case F consumed the least amount of energy for 4–6 out of the 12 test object locations. Cases A, B, and F demonstrated the highest cooling rates and the lowest energy consumptions when the test object was located at P5 or P11 opposite of the air supply. The cooling rate of the test object and energy consumption should be considered in the ventilation design of a cryogenic test chamber. In the case of a pre-installed chamber, a proper location should be selected for cooling the test object for fast cooling according to the chamber ventilation method.
