‘Cool Customers’

27 October 2009 – By Will Buxton

“'Cool Customers' is the latest offering in our series of F1 and LG features and explains some of the similarities between LG refrigerator products and F1 cooling technology.

The word refrigerator is not usually referenced in relation to Formula 1™. Of course, all of the motorhomes, catering staff and Paddock Club™ rely on refrigerators to keep the collective stomach of the F1™ circus filled with fine cuisine and yet, as Will Buxton discovered at first hand, there are incredible parallels between other LG refrigerating technology and the technology of F1.

He knew that there would be something hidden within an LG refrigerator’s walls, some clever little gadget that would be comparable with the gizmos the F1™ engineers had invented. Perhaps unsurprisingly, and as he becomes more familiar with LG, Will found that it wasn’t just one gadget. It was the whole concept....."

It’s an image that made a human out of a man who operated with the ruthless efficiency of a machine. A multiple world champion tearing up the paddock at the Japanese Grand Prix in 2008 after securing his sixth crown. The man was entitled to celebrate, of course he was, and so the usually calm F1 legend went completely rock-and-roll on himself. Only he didn’t throw the traditional television set out of the window... oh no. He chose a refrigerator.

That was the last time I’d heard the word refrigerator referenced in relation to Formula 1™ until this year. Sure, all of the motorhomes, catering staff and Paddock Club™ rely on refrigerators to keep the collective stomach of the F1™ circus filled with fine cuisine, but it’s not exactly a reason to get overly excited.

And yet, having discovered at first hand the incredible parallels between other LG technology and the technology of F1, when I was asked to take a look at LG’s refrigerators I just knew that there would be something hidden within its walls, some clever little gadget that would be comparable with the gizmos the F1™ engineers had invented.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, and as I’m coming to realise with LG, it wasn’t just one gadget. It was the whole concept. As seems to be the way with LG’s home appliances, while the units by their very nature have to fit within universally adopted and size limited spaces in people’s homes, what stands LG out from the crowd is the company’s ability to think outside that very box. In many ways it is to reinvent the wheel, as only they seem able.

So why is LG’s refrigeration concept so unique? The root of its genius lies at the very foundation of the refrigerator’s beating heart – its compressor.

Put simply, the compressor in a refrigerator is its engine. Traditionally, the compressor takes a gas, compresses it into a liquid and then decompresses it back into a gas. This creates evaporation, allowing heat to be transferred out of the unit thus decreasing the temperature. It is in the design of its compressor that LG has revolutionised the concept of the refrigerator.

Pierre Bon, LG Product Manager, showed me around a variety of LG refrigerators at the company’s European base in Paris and explained how LG had gone back to the drawing board, starting first with the compressor.

“The compressor and the evaporator are the two main elements of the unit. The compressor compresses the gas and then decompresses the gas, but all of this evaporation takes place within the tubes, and the metal of the tubes acts as the heat transfer unit.

“The issue is that, in a conventional compressor, you need to push the gas into a small tube to compress it, like a bicycle pump - so you need a piston and a cylinder. The movement of the cylinder is front to back. A conventional motor is only able to produce rotation, so in order to convert this rotation into front and back movement you need a rod and a crankshaft, just like a normal engine. The problem is that this causes friction, wasting energy and noise. You have four friction points and this can cause wear. What LG has done is to use a linear compressor, the idea being to remove the rod and the crankshaft and thanks to the linear compressor, the piston is directly driven by the cylinder.

“How is this possible?” Pierre continued, “because we integrated an inverter technology. The principal is to use the power of magnets. When you use two magnets, when you put them face to face and the polarity is the same, the force of repulsion moves the piston.

“Reducing the friction also leads to longer life. You remove a lot of parts which means you have a less noisy unit and also use less energy. There is also a modulation of the power. In the traditional system you turn it on and the movement is always the same. In the linear system we can modulate the movement of the system and adapt the movement, which changes the rate of compression dependent on the need for cooling.”

“Let’s say you have to decrease a big step in temperature, you need more compression so you have more movement. But if you only need to cool the unit by a single degree you can reduce the movement to provide only the compression necessary. This also manages energy consumption according to weather conditions. The operation is improved by 23% energy saving, and by two or three decibels in the noise it produces.”

So LG, in its decision to buck the tradition of the type of compressor it uses, and by designing a linear concept, has completely revolutionised the way in which a refrigerator is powered. There is no heavy clunk when the unit is turned on and a much reduced noise from the compressor itself when it is in use.

The other benefit of the system is that it utilises “No Frost” technology, evenly distributing cool air.

With my knowledge base established for refrigerators, it was time to see how they related to F1™ and so it was that I went along to BMW-Sauber F1 Team to have a chat with Willy Rampf... who was by now becoming somewhat used to my seemingly bizarre line of questioning.

In an F1™ car, the beating heart is a 2.4 litre V8 engine. Willy Rampf, Head of Engineering at the BMW-Sauber F1 Team, explained how their engines work and took me through a description of the process that the team goes through to design an F1™ race-winning power unit.

“First of all there are the regulations which define overall that it is a 2.4 litre engine, with a maximum of eight cylinders. The bank angle of the cylinders is defined, the cylinder spacing and the crankshaft height and the maximum rpm level. These are the basic regulations from which we start and then we start designing the engine.

“I would say from the first idea to the first engine being run on an F1™ car takes more than 12 months. You need to have clear regulations in advance. The regulations are in some degrees quite restrictive but that’s mainly for cost reasons. For example, the engines all have to be eight-cylinder which means nobody will make a different engine concept with 10 cylinders or 6 cylinders.

On the other hand the details on the engine design are free until the engines become homologated. You are free with all the detailed design, and in the engine itself there is not one particular part which is standardised or which has to be used.”

This all sounded quite similar to what LG has to do with the design of its refrigerators – working with defined industry parameters and them finding ways to cleverly maximize performance better then the competition.

F1 car engines are put under immense stress over the course of a Grand Prix weekend. The 2009 F1™ regulations state that a driver is only allowed to use eight engines in a season and so the need for a reliable and high performing unit is paramount. So LG and F1™ have another parallel – an immense need for reliability in engine performance.

“I think there are two issues,” Rampf replies when quizzed over the stresses experienced by an F1™ engine. “One is for sure the very high r.p.m. (revs per minute) level which is much higher than any road car engine. The next is the overall power of the engine and also the thermo-mechanical load on the internal parts of an engine, like the pistons and valves. There is a lot of experience within BMW and a lot of detailed optimisation on design and also on materials to come up to that level. We use our experience of what we’ve used before to make things better time after time. A page right out of the LG book here – learning from prior experience to develop new innovative approaches.”

So now we know how LG’s compressor, which is the engine of the refrigerator, works and we also have an understanding of the manner in which an F1™ engine is designed, how do they compare?

Again... I’ll leave that to Willy Rampf to explain. And as you’ll see, he was really rather impressed with what LG had done in their refrigerator when he looked at the LG technical information that I had brought to show him.

"I can see from the information that you have brought in to show me here that LG'S linear compressor is much more advanced than a Formula 1™ engine because we use a piston and a crankshaft like you would see on the regular compressor. I would imagine that the advantage in LG's linear compressor is you don't have moving parts apart from the piston, so the linear movement should be more efficient as there is only one moving part in the piston."

Indeed, the linear motion also allows for soft start/stop and, as already explained by Pierre Bonn, a modulation of the extent of the movement of the compressor. Rampf explains that a similar concept is used in Formula 1™ through what is known as ‘engine mapping’ and refers to the manner in which the engine responds to the application of throttle by a driver.

Rampf smiles as he takes another detailed look at the design of the LG linear compressor. He looks impressed and draws me close to whisper.

“Maybe one thing with the traditional compressor and engine with the crankshaft – our engine by regulation has to have a crankshaft. We couldn’t make a linear engine in F1™ even if we wanted to.”

He laughs. So do I. We both know what he means. The LG refrigerator is using some pretty awesome technology. Technology that F1™ cannot.

The similarities don’t end there either. We’ve barely even scratched the surface.

F1™ cars and the internal technology operate at incredible temperatures, and the water and oil used in the operation of an F1™ car in particular need to be kept at their optimum temperature no matter the heat created inside the car and no matter in what climatic temperatures the races take place.

“Water cooling and oil cooling are very important in F1™,” Rampf explains. “The water circuit is cooling the engine block and the internals of the engine to make sure that the engine is not overheating. On the oil cooling side the oil is a lubrication system and this needs a separate cooling system. As a rough guess you can say that the higher the power is, the higher the demand for water cooling. The higher the r.p.m., the higher the demand for oil cooling.”

The manner in which the oil and water in an F1™ car is cooled is very similar to the method of reducing the temperature within a LG refrigerator.

LG refrigeration follows the same logic considering that the only way to cool something is to transfer its heat to something else. Therefore there are also two thermic transfers. Firstly coolant goes through an evaporator, trapping its heat therefore decreasing its temperature. The evaporator is thus used to cool the atmosphere within the tub. Then the coolant goes through a condenser where it transfers the trapped temperature to the outside atmosphere. The cycle works thanks to a compressor ensuring the coolant circulation.

The only differences between F1™ and LG refrigeration cooling are that the thermic transfers are due to compression and evaporation instead of heat radiation. That's why the coolant in LG refrigerators is a gas while engine coolant is liquid.

F1™ teams also use radiators housed within the car’s sidepods to create the cooling effect required. And if you thought radiators were only used in houses to heat the air, think again.

“The principle is the same,” Rampf smiles. “It is basically transferring heat from one medium to another. A heating system in a house puts hot water into the radiator and you heat up the cold air in your room. On a car it’s basically taking the hot water or oil from the engine and you have to cool down the water or oil. So the physics is the same, only in a car the reason for having a radiator is different to a house. The water and oil flow through the radiator and the passing air cools them down.”

Another area where F1™ cars have to focus on temperature management involves the brakes. When an F1™ car is driving it is air flow that cools the brakes.

“To have an efficient cooling you have to get the air over the brake disks, and to improve this we have discs that include small ventilation holes and the air passes through the holes. We also cool down the pads and the callipers and this is done by using quite complicated cooling channels. You take the air from the brake duct, get it through the brake disc, through the brake pad and around the calliper and then get it out again through the rim.”

Once an F1™ car comes into the pits there is no longer air flow going past the brakes so an alternate cooling source is needed. When you watch your next pit stop watch how quickly the pit crew place fans with dry ice up to blow cool air on the brakes. This is a super cooling method to make sure that the brakes do not degrade. Sounds a lot like an LG technology ‘Quick Freeze’ that allows you to super cool the ice compartment in the freezer to make ice faster when you need to.

An F1™ car has a host of heat sensors placed throughout its internals to constantly monitor the temperature of its operational units. Once again, it is something that LG has also installed on its refrigerators. An LG unit has eight temperature sensors: two in the fridge, two in the freezer, one between them both, one in the ice maker, one outside and one in the magical crisper and an extra ninth in the miracle zone.

What’s this, you say? Magical crisper? Miracle zone? I’ll let Pierre Bon from LG do the talking.

“The miracle zone is a fantastic technology which is a section of the refrigerator that allows you to change the temperature depending on what food you put inside, in order to keep it at its optimum temperature. Fish, meat and vegetables all need different temperatures to stay at their best, so depending on what you put in that section you can change the temperature. To be honest though, in my case, I use it to refresh beer or champagne. I open the door, choose minus three degrees, put my beer or champagne inside and within a few minutes it is ready to drink. Perfect!”

A man after my own heart, Pierre.

“The magic crisper is for vegetables and uses a technology with a shelf at the top of the section. When you stop the growth of vegetables, the water inside them is released when you put them into the fridge. This causes water in the box. There are two options. The first is to keep the moisture inside the box, but this decreases their life because they get damaged very fast. The second option is to push out the humidity, but the problem is that if you do this the vegetables need water again. The idea of the magic crisper is to keep the humidity within the unit and redistribute it when the vegetables need it.”

Pierre holds the shelf in front of him, pours water onto it and then tips it upside down. Not a drop falls out. It’s incredible. 5

“See!” he grins. “So this shelf holds the moisture, and when the humidity decreases it redistributes the water to the vegetables again.”

Clever stuff, but there’s more!

An F1™ car may look the same at every track, but there are subtle differences made by the teams for every venue. Every circuit in every country is unique. Some require high downforce, some low downforce and come need a compromise. For some tracks the suspension needs to be soft, for others rigid. In some cases, completely different cars are taken to races with a shorter or longer wheelbase. For every race, the car has to be adapted to maximise its speed and effectiveness around the track.

The same is true of LG’s refrigerators. In every country and for every culture, LG’s customers require different facets from their units. For example, while all of LG’s refrigerators use similar technology around the world, and they are designed to all have a fridge and freezer compartment, in America LG sells more “French door” units whereas in Europe the company sells more of the traditional “two door” units. But it’s not just the size and design of the units that change.

“The two biggest examples in refrigeration are India where you have a highly vegetarian-based diet, so we had to change the internal layout to include more vegetable crisper storage right at eye-level and have less space for meats and beverages,” explains Andrew Barratt, Vice President, Global Sponsorship at LG. “In a European fridge you tend to have more meat and drinks and in an American’s fridge you have lots of condiments. Americans also love ice. If an American wants a glass of cola, chances are they will first fill the glass to the top with ice and then add the cola. If you are Canadian you might only take two cubes. So many American LG refrigerators have an ice dispenser on the door which will fill an entire pitcher of ice, not just a glass. It’s the largest one in the industry. In fact the refrigerators may be identical, apart from the door. One has an ice dispenser and in the other there isn’t.”

The changes of the internal layout of the refrigerator have another huge similarity to F1™. Next season, refuelling in the sport will be banned. That means that the cars will have to carry fuel cells with enough fuel inside to last an entire race distance. At the same time, however, the overall dimensions of an F1 will not change all that much. The task for the teams is therefore to minimise the space used by all of the internal parts, in order to fit this larger fuel cell inside the car.

With LG’s refrigerator, space is, along with the ability to produce the best possible cooling, the most important factor. By minimising the size of the parts used, and by conducting research into better and more efficient materials, LG has been able to vastly increase the internal space in their refrigerators in comparison to their rivals.

“We have designed a lot of systems to increase the internal capacity,” Pierre explained to me at LG in Paris. “There is a traditional side-by-side unit with an ice maker in the door, but that ice maker uses a lot of space in the freezer unit itself. So LG decided to make the ice maker smaller and integrate it into the door so that you release a lot of space within the unit itself. That has gained basically an extra draw’s worth of room in the freezer.

“We launched this in 2006 and we were the first to use it. More and more of our competitors are now using it. So we moved to improve it again and this time we improved the internal capacity by 100 litres. How is this possible? Basically we improved in the insulation material within the walls, using more compact materials to decrease the thickness of the walls and increase the available space within the unit. We also changed the No Frost technology. In a conventional system the freshness comes from the freezer to the fridge, but as soon as the air touches the evaporator the humidity of the air decreases. So as powerful as the evaporator is the air will be dry. So the issue is that you need more humidity in the fridge than in the freezer. Humidity in the freezer creates frost. So in order to ensure the right conditions in the fridge you need humidity, and the strength of the evaporator for the freezer 6 means you could dry out the goods in the fridge. So we use one evaporator in the freezer and one in the fridge, while our competitors only use one for both.

“At LG, the evaporator is also built within the wall and not at the back of the unit as you’ll find in most conventional units and this also increases the amount of space in the unit. At LG all of the technology is in the walls now.

“We also use LED lights because the bulbs are so much smaller and the energy efficiency and life cycle is so much better.”

There is a link to F1™ here again. From brake lights on the F1 cars to the pit light and marshalling light system used both around the track and on board an F1™ car, LEDs are an integral part of modern day Formula 1™. I guess that is why it is so natural for LG to be associated with the pit lane lights and marshalling lights that we see on the F1™ broadcast over a race weekend.

As with every element of LG’s refrigerators, a certain concept or system is only ever introduced if it provides a benefit.

As I look around the showroom in Paris I catch sight of lot of other LG products that also prove the incredible lengths to which LG has gone to revolutionise and reinvent home appliances. By taking a traditional concept and by looking at every aspect and asking themselves how it could be improved, how it could be made more efficient, how something should work in an ideal world instead of how we assume things have to work and how they have to be designed in spite of their inefficiency because that’s the way it has always been done, LG has set itself out as a pioneer and has created a range of home appliances which can truly be termed aspirational products.

The technology used in their appliances is comparable with that in the most technologically advanced sport in the world – F1. From refrigerators to washing machines and beyond, every tiny aspect has been thought about, redesigned and redesigned again to give consumers the very best product possible.

As the company’s moniker states, “Life’s Good.”

In a home filled with LG appliances, it seems life could actually be pretty awesome.