Improvement of living and life style led to increased sales of frozen milk products, such as ice creams or ice bars. These frozen milk products are commonly stored in a small refrigeration stocker. R-502, which has long been used as the refrigerant of a stocker, is being replaced with R-404A due to the ozone layer depletion issue. In this study, thermal analysis was conducted for the stocker, and the results are compared with experimental data. For the compressor analysis, performance curves were used. Evaporator or condenser was discretized into small volumes, and energy balance was applied. Capillary tube was also discretized into small volumes, and energy and momentum balance were applied. Comparison with the test data of the stocker having 500 liter internal volume revealed that the condensation or evaporation temperature was predicted well except for the initial start-up period. Slightly lower prediction (maximum 4oC) was obtained for the stoker room temperature at the initial operation period. The effect of radiation heat transfer for prediction of the stocker room temperature was assessed.

The stocker system is another name of automated storage and retrieval system (AS/RS) and being popularly used as main material handling tools in Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) and semiconductor fabrication facilities. Recently the use of the stocker system