Which mechanism causes reduced cooling capacity when a residential air conditioner refrigerant line develops a small leak?

💡 Explanation

When a refrigerant leak occurs, the reduced refrigerant charge causes an insufficient amount of liquid refrigerant to reach the evaporator coil because of two-phase flow regime shifts related to reduced dynamic pressure/momentum. Therefore evaporator starvation results, rather than blockage, shorts, or icing, which require different trigger conditions.

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