Early in 1966 problems arising from inaccuracies in published values of the thermophysical properties of refrigerants were brought to the attention of ASHRAE's Research and Technical Committee. In turn they set up a subcommittee under Technical Committee 1.3F (Heat Transfer and Fluid Flow) to study further the varying amount and quality of data available for different refrigerants. With the increased use of computers permitting more detailed and accurate calculation of refrigerant heat exchangers at both "normal" and "off-design" conditions, it is necessary to know the thermophysical properties (in particular, specific heat, viscosity, and thermal conductivity) of the refrigerant being considered over a wide range of conditions.

The committee decided the best approach would be to first determine what values are available in the literature, then decide what values of those reported are most correct and obtain estimates of values for the refrigerants and conditions for which there are no information in the literature.

The final result souught was a full set of consistent values published in a form available to the refrigeration industry to help engineers more uniformly evaluate test data and compare heat exchangers.