Selected papers from ICCR2013

In order to enhance the exchanges between Chinese researchers with those overseas, Zhejiang University founded the International Conference on Cryogenics and Refrigeration (ICCR) in 1989. The conference is co-sponsored by the International Institute of Refrigeration (IIR). The second ICCR was held in Hangzhou in 1998. After that, Zhejiang University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University agreed to host and co-chair the ICCR conference every five years. In 2003 they hosted the conference in Hangzhou, and in 2008 in Shanghai, returning to Hangzhou in 2013. Usually, there are 200–300 ICCR conference participants, with more than 30% of the participants traveling to the conference from abroad. All ICCR conference proceedings have been published as ICCR proceedings before, however, starting from 2013 the organizers agreed to recommend some conference papers to several journals for special issues. This topical issue for the ASHRAE HVAC&R Research journal contains ten selected papers of topics of interest to readers of the journal. These papers include adsorption refrigerator research, solar cooling combined with thermal storage, desiccant materials, indoor thermal comfort, fundamentals of liquid refrigerant droplet and numerical modeling and experimental studies for heat exchangers related to condenser and evaporators of heat pumps. New research on cryogenic plants is also discussed in this topical issue, which covers a wide range of refrigeration and HVAC research in China. Although it represents a relatively small scope of the entire Chinese HVAC&R research efforts, the issue offers a good sample of the current hot topic studies by Chinese researchers in our field. The guest editors hope the readers find the articles interesting and that they will become familiar with the research institutions whose work were shown within this issue. We invite you to participate in the next ICCR with us in Shanghai in 2018!