Refrigeration – Automatic control – Diverse – cascade or compound refrigeration-producing system
Reexamination Certificate
2001-03-27
2002-06-11
Tanner, Harry B. (Department: 3743)
Refrigeration
Automatic control
Diverse, cascade or compound refrigeration-producing system
C236S051000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06401468
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to autonomous local control of heat-exchange equipments which are usable andor used in the context of an interconnecting network that provides for exchange of data relating to the status of the equipments and a controlled environment.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Seagoing vessels, regardless of whether they are intended for sport, commerce, or warfare, share in common the need to maintain their buoyancy and control in the face of potentially violent conditions including storms, grounding, andor hostile action. Maintaining control and buoyancy in the face of damage due to such violent conditions may require rapid amelioration of, or adaptation to, such damage. In a large ship, there may be many compartments, the entrances to which are separated by a sufficient distance from each other so that considerable time may be required for movement from one compartment to another. The existence of such compartments has in the past given rise to the need for an observer assigned to each compartment or set of compartments to monitor conditions. It might be thought that speaker tubes or telephones would be suitable for communicating between each of the various compartments and a control center or bridge, but there is a real possibility that damage to a compartment might also damage the communications equipment. Consequently, warships assign crew members to be messengers, whose duty is to carry information from the compartments to the control center or bridge in the event of a break in the communications. Damage to one compartment of a ship may require adjustments in many compartments, as for example when flooding of a compartment requires redistribution of the ship's load or supplies to prevent excessive list. The adjustments may include operation of valves and switches within the compartments, as might be required, for example, to start pumps and open valves for the dumping overboard of bilge water, or for redistributing liquid fuel from tanks on one side of the ship to tanks on the other side. Because time is very important when attempting to cope with damage, warships have in the past stationed crews at various locations about the ship. These crews are charged with the duties of operating valves and switches as commanded or trained. In addition to such adjustments, additional crews must be provided to be on standby for firefighting, for damage repair, and for tending the injured. In the case of a warship, a portion of the crew must additionally be used for manning weapons and countermeasure. Since the tending of injured presupposes that some of the crew is not capable of performing its duties, the crew must, even when reduced in number by casualties, be large enough to be able to perform all of the tasks associated with tending a ship in distress. All of these considerations result in the manning of ships with crews large enough to provide “surge” capability for the handling of any emergency. A large battleship of WWII vintage had a crew in excess of 3000 men, and an aircraft carrier in the vicinity of 5000. Even modern missile destroyers require crews exceeding 300 persons.
The presence of such large crews inevitably has its effects on ship design. It will be clear that the housekeeping and support requirements tend to expand disproportionally as the crew grows larger. The ship itself must be large in order to hold the oversize crew, and must carry additional stores such as food, which makes it larger still. Food preparation areas must be larger with a large crew, and the additional food preparation personnel in turn require their own support staff and ship facilities. The cost of ships is adversely affected by the need for a crew of a size to provide surge capability, and the cost of operating such ships is directly increased by the supernumerary members of the crew. The operating cost is further increased by the need to maintain the supernumerary members. It is thus of great importance in ship design to take into account the staffing requirements of the ship, and to improve ship design in such a manner as to minimize the crew size.
A solution to a portion of the ship design is described in conjunction with U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/608,829, filed Jun. 30, 2000 in the name of Hoyle et al. As described generally therein, a fluid-handling system described in the context of a shipboard cooling arrangement in which a plurality of autonomously controlled valves, flow sensors and possibly pressure sensors are interconnected by a data network, and each autonomous control decides for itself, based on prestored information relating to its “location” in the fluid network, an environmental “context,” and also based on the reported conditions on the network, the operating condition it should assume, as for example “open” or “closed.”
In
FIG. 1
, a flow system
10
as described in conjunction with the abovementioned Hoyle et al. '829 application includes a source
12
of pressurized fluid, such as water. As illustrated, source
12
may include a pump
12
p
coupled by a tube
12
t
to a source of water, which may be a tube extending through the hull of a ship so as to allow pump
12
p
to draw salt water from the ocean. Pump
12
p
is controlled by a controller
12
c
as described below. Pump
12
p
provides pressurized fluid through a fluid flow sensor
56
to a pipe tee or bifurcation
32
, which provides pressurized fluid to a flow path or pipe
21
by way of a software-controlled valve
41
and a flow sensor
51
. Software-controlled valve
41
is controlled by an independent program associated with a valve controller
41
c
. Bifurcation
32
also provides pressurized fluid to a second flow path
22
by way of a software-controlled valve
42
and a flow sensor
52
. Software-controlled valve
42
is controlled by an independent program associated with a valve controller
42
c
. When valve
41
is open (allows flow of fluid) and pump
12
p
is in operation, pressurized fluid is coupled to a tee junction or bifurcation
33
, and fluid flows through one of a set
1
of two heat exchangers, and more particularly from heat exchanger input port
61
i
through a heat exchanger
61
to a heat exchanger output port
61
o
, through a flow sensor
54
to a further tee junction or bifurcation
31
, and to a drain designated
9
. It should be noted that this description assumes the presence of a fluid path from the input port of the heat exchanger to the output port, and this path is not explicitly illustrated. When valve
42
is open and pump
12
p
is in operation, pressurized fluid is coupled to a tee junction or bifurcation
34
, and as a result fluid flows from an input port
62
i
, through a heat exchanger
62
to an output port
62
o
, through a flow sensor
55
, to a tee junction or bifurcation
31
, and to drain
9
.
While the flow meters of
FIG. 1
are illustrated as being separate from the controllable valves, they may be physically integrated into the same device or housing, and use common power supplies, logic hardware, and network connections.
The controllable valves
41
,
42
, and
43
of
FIG. 1
may be located in a ship and connected for the flow of fluid in a manner described in more detail in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/571,346 filed on May 16, 2000 in the name of Hoyle et al. The controllable valves may be of any kind, but are preferably the type described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/375,695 filed on Aug. 17, 1999 in the name of Hoyle et al. The flow sensors may be of any kind, but are preferably the unidirectional-flow-sensing type described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/349,576 filed on Jul. 8, 1999 in the name of Hoyle et al., or of the bidirectional type described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/487,848 filed Jan. 19, 2000 in the name of Hoyle et al.
The arrangement
10
of
FIG. 1
also includes a further flow path
23
coupled between tee junctions
33
and
34
. Flow path
23
includes flow paths
23
a
and
23
b
, a flow sensor
53
, and also includes a software-controlled valv
Hoyle Scott Baxter
McSweeney Michael Anthony
Lockheed Martin Corporation
Morris LLP Duane
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