The machine tool coolers are the best managers of coolant temperature in avoiding the deviation of spindle centerline for machine tools. However, the machine coolers are facing the compressed schedule to phase out the HCFC (hydro-chloro-floro-carbon) refrigerant and little attention has been paid to comparative study on sizing capillary tube for retrofitted HFC (hydro-floro-carbon) refrigerant. In this paper, the adiabatic flow in capillary tube is analyzed and modeled for retrofitting of HFC-407C refrigerant in a machine tool cooler system. A computer code including determining the length of sub-cooled flow region and the two phase region of capillary tube is developed. Comparative study of HCFC-22 and HFC-407C in a capillary tube is derived and conducted to simplify the traditional trial-and-error method of predicting the length of capillary tubes. Besides, experimental investigation is carried out by field tests to verify the simulation model and cooling performance of the machine tool cooler system. The results from the experiments reveal that the numerical model provides an effective approach to determine the performance data of capillary tube specific for retrofitting a HFC-407C machine tool cooler. The developed machine tool cooler system is not only directly compatible with new HFC-407C refrigerant, but can also perform a cost-effective temperature control specific for industrial machines.
