Usage and Risk of Hydrocarbon Refrigerants in Motor Cars for Australia and the United States

published Mar 16, 2009 - 12 pages

Commercial replacement of fluorocarbons in mobile air conditioning systems (MACS) with  typically HC-290/600a[60/40] and minimal precautions began in Idaho in 1993. R290/600a has low environmental impact but mixed with air is flammable and frequencies for fire, injury and cabin overpressure were predicted. No such accidents are known from 1993 to mid-2003.

R290/600a suppliers consumption, representative MACS charges and charge termination frequency were used to predict yearly

Commercial replacement of fluorocarbons in mobile air conditioning systems (MACS) with  typically HC-290/600a[60/40] and minimal precautions began in Idaho in 1993. R290/600a has low environmental impact but mixed with air is flammable and frequencies for fire, injury and cabin overpressure were predicted. No such accidents are known from 1993 to mid-2003.

R290/600a suppliers consumption, representative MACS charges and charge termination frequency were used to predict yearly total MACS numbers. Mid-2002 in Australia there were 0.33×106 and at end 2002 in the USA 4.7×106 R290/600a MACS. Integrating over time gave usage for Australia to the end 2002 as 1.09×106 car-years and to mid-2003 for the USA 21.7×106 car-years.

The measured US fire, injury and cabin overpressure frequencies are less than 3.2 × 10−7 per car year with high probability. This fire frequency is a hundred times lower than predicted because most R290/600a leaks in MACS use are effectively nonflammable.


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