Cooling capacity

Cooling capacity is the measure of a cooling system's ability to remove heat. The SI units are watts (W). Another common unit is the ton, which describes the amount of water at a given temperature that can be frozen in a given amount of time. 1 ton of refrigeration is the ability of a refrigerator to freeze 2000 lb of water at 0 °C or 32 °F in the period of 24 hours. 1 ton of refrigeration is equivalent to 211 kJ/min or 200 Btu/min.

The basic SI units equation for deriving cooling capacity is of the form:

Q ˙ = m ˙ C p Δ T

Where

Q ˙ is the cooling capacity [kW] m ˙ is the mass rate [kg/s] C p is the specific heat capacity [kJ/kg K] Δ T is the temperature change [K]