Both organisations have now come to an agreement on the following definitions:
- Cooling:
- (1) Removal of heat, usually resulting in a lower temperature and/or phase change.
- (2) Lowering temperature.
- Refrigeration:
- (1) Cooling of a space, substance or system to lower and/or maintain its temperature below the ambient one (removed heat is rejected at a higher temperature).
- (2) Artificial cooling.
- Chilling:
- Cooling of a substance without freezing it.
- Freezing:
- Solidification phase change of a liquid or the liquid content of a substance, usually due to cooling.
- Cold Chain:
- Series of actions and equipment applied to maintain a product within a specified low-temperature range from harvest/production to consumption.
Jean-Luc Dupont, head of the IIR’s Scientific and Technical Information Department, said: “It was important that the differences that might exist in these definitions between the IIR and ASHRAE be erased for more consistency. It now seems important for us to reach even greater harmonisation on an international level in order to establish universal definitions.”
To this end, the IIR has called on all national and regional organisations and associations to adopt and disseminate these definitions.
For its part, the Institute will disseminate these definitions as widely as possible, adopt them in all its publications, and promote them, in particular, at the next International Congress of Refrigeration to be held in Montreal, Canada, from 24-30 August 2019.
The IIR, like ASHRAE, has its own dictionary. It contains 4,300 words across all fields of refrigeration – including air conditioning – and their translations into 11 languages. It also includes the definitions of these terms in English and in French.