Nova Kool Manufacturing ULC

Basic Refrigeration Principles

Most users normally associate refrigeration with cold and cooling, yet the practice of refrigeration engineering deals almost entirely with the transfer of heat. This seeming paradox is one of the most fundamental concepts that must be grasped to understand the workings of a refrigeration system.

Cold is really only the absence of heat, just as darkness is the absence of light, and dryness is the absence of moisture.

Thermodynamics

Thermodynamics is that branch of science dealing with the mechanical action of heat. There are certain fundamental principles of nature, often called laws of thermodynamics, which govern our existence here on Earth, several of which are basic in the study of refrigeration.
The first and most important of these laws is the fact that energy can neither be created or destroyed, but can be converted from one type to another. A study of thermodynamic theory is beyond the scope of this manual, but the examples that follow will illustrate the practical application of the energy law.

Katey Werner