Optimal Refrigerant by Integrated Operational and Environmental Criteria in Air Conditioner

The study provides a developed methodology by aiding Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) to select a robust decision process for integration of environment, operation and maintenance. The developed methodology is a new process of selecting refrigerant with high efficiency performance and lowest impact on environment in AC system under high condensing temperatures (up to 55°C) for R22, R290, R404A and R410A. This will improve its operational performance through increasing the level of application of the international standards for performance and environment together. The methodological model provides three phases; decision of design phase, decision of management phase and decision phase. The goal of the study is to integrate of those decisions to reach for robust design by optimal design of products by focusing on three main sets of tools: simulation, optimization and multi-objective analysis. The model is based on two main criteria of air-condition system, quantitative criteria (operation) and qualitative (environment and maintenance) criteria. The results obtained from the AHP are that the best rank of the refrigerants was R404A (0.3763) followed by R22 (0.3657) for the other refrigerants and so on. Therefore, the developed model can help the decision maker selecting the best refrigerants for both criteria (qualitative and quantitative) in complex selecting process.