ACRC celebrates 25 years at Illinois

2013 marked the 25th year that the Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Center (ACRC) has called the MechSE department home. The ACRC, an Industry-University cooperative research center founded by the NSF, promotes collaboration between industry and university research in advanced air conditioning and refrigeration systems. They seek to develop more energy-efficient equipment, and to provide a forum for industry to share precompetitive research and results. The center is co-directed by MechSE Professors Predrag Hrnjak and Anthony Jacobi, both of whom research heat transfer and energy systems. They have both been involved with the center for over 20 years and have served as directors 11 years.

"In the United States, this is the only NSF-founded center in this area," Jacobi said. "There are a handful of related efforts at other universities, but they are much smaller. ACRC dominates the area in the US."

The center began in 1989, co-founded by Clark Bullard and Roy Crawford, who were professor and assistant professor, respectively, in the MIE department (predecessor to MechSE) at the time. The need for such a center arose after international agreements began limiting certain refrigerants that had been proven to damage the ozone layer. Research was desperately needed to find alternative technologies for the refrigeration industry, and the ACRC was the answer: bringing university researchers and refrigeration/air conditioning companies together to make progress in the field. By the mid-1990s the ACRC had grown to involve 30 member companies, who each contributed to a pooled research fund. The companies would then vote on research projects that the faculty proposed, and the projects selected for funding were supported by this pool of common resources. The center operates the same way today.

"We are trying to do pre-competitive research in the ACRC," Hrnjak said. "That means, whatever we do, this could be useful for all of our members, who are competitive groups from certain parts of industry. I think that is pretty unique, to have people from competitive companies sitting together at the same table discussing what will be funded and listening to students who are presenting their research, listening to them, and giving them input."

The center is very well-integrated into the department. Faculty members can interact with companies if it is in the interest of their research to do so, or they can pull away for a time to do their own research apart from the center. Students, too, can move back and forth doing research through the ACRC, and independently in the department.

"That is one of the beauties of the ACRC," Jacobi said. "Students and faculty move around freely. We feel like we are fully integrated into the department. I think that lack of separation is a huge strength—one that helped us to grow. The ACRC has become a little technical community all of its own in this industry; it has developed a culture of exploration and trust, allowing faculty to go down a lot of unexplored paths."

The center has seen great success since its founding. Countless papers have been published through its research, and the students that participate in it fare well after graduation.

"We’ve seen our students graduate and go to academic positions and become our competitors, which is good," Jacobi said. "We’ve seen our students go to our sponsoring companies and become our bosses, which is good. We’ve seen our students graduate and then become the leaders of big government activities, where they go in and make big changes and suddenly rise to the top. To me, it is probably as rewarding as the research itself to watch our young people go out there and hit a home run."

The center has also become more focused on energy efficiency. As efficiency standards for refrigeration and air conditioning systems rise, the industry has a vested interest in keeping ahead of those standards with technology.

"The industry is pushing very hard in increasing energy efficiency," said Hrnjak. "How is the industry going in that direction? By improving the components, improving the systems, and improving buildings. We hope that we are contributing to that effort."

The ACRC is making powerful strides in research for the refrigeration and air conditioning industry, bringing industry leaders together to make meaningful change. Hrnjak and Jacobi speak with pride of the difference the center has made in the field throughout its years.

"I think a lot of the time, the results of the center just quietly show up in the marketplace," Jacobi said. "Then we see it and say, ‘Oh, we know where that came from!’ I think that’s good. That’s the way we want to be involved."