R134a is a refrigerant met in several marine refrigeration applications, such as fishing vessels, passenger and cargo ships. In 2014, 26% of the international commercial fleet was using R134a. Although R134a shows a null Ozone Depletion Potential, it has a quite high Global Warming Potential (1300). R134a is a greenhouse gas and, even if it is present on newer ships, the future will be marked by its replacement with substitutes having low GWP. Still, because its GWP is less than 2500, R 134a

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... l continue to be used. Due to the fact that vapour compression refrigeration systems are dominant on board the ships and knowing that these technologies are high energy consumers, analysing their performance in the contemporary energetic context, is imperious required. This paper presents a theoretical analysis of a single stage vapour compression cycle, working with R134a, based on the laws of thermodynamics. The analysis will reveal the influence of the evaporator temperature on the Coefficient of performance and on exergy efficiency, and also the influence of sub cooling on these two efficiency terms, on the refrigerant mass flow rate and compression rate. It was considered a variation of the evaporator temperature in the range (-40÷ -10)oC and of the sub cooling in the range (0÷10)oC. The increase of the evaporator temperature will contribute to a COP increment (50%) and an exergy efficiency decrease (34%). The sub cooling will lead to both COP and exergy efficiency increase (11%). Higher sub cooling degree will provide an increment in the refrigerant mass flow (18%) and a decrease of the compression rate (76%) meaning lower work consumption at the compressor.