Refrigeration

Refrigeration is the part of the machine that moves heat with a phase change. A compressor drives refrigerant around a sealed loop — boiling in the evaporator to soak up heat, condensing outdoors to reject it — and a metering device holds the balance point between the two. Every number a gauge set or a BMS shows comes off that loop: the suction and head pressures, the saturation temperatures they lock to, and the superheat and subcooling that prove the cycle is actually running right. These pages walk the circuit from the four components out to the measurements, and give you the tools that put a number on each one.

New to it? Work the three lessons in order — they build from the cycle and its saturation lock, through the two measurements that prove the charge and the feed, to the metering device that holds superheat in place. Already have gauges on a unit? Jump to the P-T calculator with a pressure and a line temperature, or open the loop simulator and turn the same knobs a fault would. Everything here is open, needs no login, and tracks nothing.

Start here — the lessons, in order

1 Refrigerant Cycle Basics → 2 Superheat & Subcooling → 3 TXVs vs. EEVs

Build one — the simulator

One interactive model for the refrigerant circuit — a live vapor-compression loop with manifold gauges, so the saturation lock and the fault signatures from the lessons move in front of you instead of sitting on the page.

The tools

The field utility for the refrigerant side — the saturation lookup and superheat / subcooling math the lessons build toward, ready for the pressures and line temperatures you actually bring back. No login, nothing to install.

Related pages

Two neighbors the refrigerant circuit works for — the moist-air side the evaporator conditions, and the coil capacity math at the air boundary.