Refrigeration – Automatic control – Gas-liquid contact cooler – fluid flow
Reexamination Certificate
2000-05-15
2001-09-11
Walberg, Teresa (Department: 3742)
Refrigeration
Automatic control
Gas-liquid contact cooler, fluid flow
Reexamination Certificate
active
06286325
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to an evaporative condensing apparatus for use in an air conditioner (cooler), and more particularly to such an evaporative condensing apparatus which greatly improve the working efficiency of the air conditioner (cooler).
Air conditioners (coolers) are intensively used in most countries in summer for air-conditioning buildings, rooms, trains, cars, etc. When an air conditioner is operated, it consumes much energy due to a high pressure compressor is used in a cooling medium system. The energy saving problem may do nothing wit mid-east contries or other patroleum producing contries, but it is very serious in most area of the world lack of energy source especially in summer time while a huge amount of air conditioners are used. In a regular air conditioner, a liquid state cooling medium is guided to a medium coil of an evaporator to make a heat exchange with air, permitting cooling air to be guided into the inside space of a building, room, train or car. After this heat exchange process, the liquid state cooling medium is changed into a gas state, the gas state cooling medium is then compressed by a compressor to a certain high pressure and pumped to the medium coils of a condenser where the gas state cooling medium is returned to the liquid state again due to a temperature dropping by a cooling system. In which, the lower temperature can be reached, the lower relative critical pressure is needed and then a low pressure compressor can be employed for energy saving.
FIG. 1
shows a liquid-gas curve obtained form R-22 cooling medium. As indicated the cooling medium can easily be condensed with low relative pressure when at a low temperature, for example: when at 45° C. as point C of the curve, which is almost a lowest temperature the a conventional condensing unit can reach to, in which the relative critical pressure needed for condensing the medium is about 18 kg/cm
2
, if the temperature can be dropped to 30° C. as point B, by a high efficient cooling system the relative critical pressure needed for condensing will be drastically reduced to 12.27 kg/cm
2
. Therefore, the energy consumption of an air conditioner is reverse proportion to the efficiency of the cooling system used in the condensing unit.
Further, the cooling systems of conventional condenser include three types, namely, the air cooling type, the water cooling type and the evaporative type. An air cooling type condenser uses convention currents of air to carry heat away from its condensing coils. In order to let heat be quickly carried away, much air contact surface and high currents of air are needed. Therefore, an air cooling type condenser is heavy, consumes much energy, and produces high noise during its operation. A water cooling type condenser uses cooling water to carry heat away from its condensing coils. However, a water cooling type condenser is expensive, and consumes much cooling water. Further, the installation of a water tower for a water cooling type condenser is complicated, and may cause an American veteran syndrome. An evaporative type air conditioner dissipates heat by means of evaporation of water which is sprayed continuously on to the surface of the medium coil. Theoretically one liter of water absorbs about 539 cal. Evaporating latent heat when evaporated. Therefore the heat dissipation effect of an evaporative type is much better than an air cooling type and a water cooling type. However, when a conventional evaporative type condenser is used, it still has two disadvantages, firstly, the spraying water can not be held on a smooth surface of a bare metal condensing coil for an enough period of time to let the water getting fully evaporated, it will flows off from the condensing coils before evaporated. Therefore the heat dissipation effect is not fully developed, it can't do much better than the other two types; secondary, a large water storage means is needed to collect waste water that is not evaporated at the evaporative condensing unit of the air conditioner.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention has been accomplished to provide an evaporative condensing apparatus for an air conditioner which eliminates the aforesaid drawbacks.
It is one object of the present invention to provide an evaporative condensing apparatus which enables supplied cooling water to be fully evaporated so that heat can be efficiently carried away during its operation.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an evaporative condensing apparatus which is compact, has all in it, and can conveniently be installed in an air conditioner.
According to one aspect of the present invention, the evaporative condensing apparatus comprises an evaporative condensing unit for condensing a gas state cooling medium into a liquid state, the evaporative condensing unit having a plurality of condenser coils and absorptive means covered on the condenser coils, a water supply system having a control PC board which automatically adjusts an intermittent period of water supplying according to a temperature signal taken from the condensing coil by a thermal sensor and an electromagnetic valve controlled by the control PC board to let cooling water be delivered intermittently from a water source to the layer of absorptive material of each condenser coil, a compressor of comparable low pressure controlled to provide an adequate pressure for delivering the gas state cooling medium into the condensing unit and to condense the medium into liquid state thereat. And a condenser fan controlled to draw currents of air through gaps in the condenser coils of the evaporative condensing unit in carrying the evaporated moisture and heat away from the evaporative condensing unit.
According to another aspect of the present invention, the condenser coils each comprise a metal coil tube and a layer of absorptive material covered on the periphery of the metal coil tube, and the water supply system comprises a plurality of water spray tubes and absorptive material covered on the water outlets of the water spray tubes for permitting supplied cooling water to be evenly smoothly distributed to the absorptive material at the condenser coils.
REFERENCES:
patent: 3785064 (1974-01-01), Thomas
patent: 4340114 (1982-07-01), Levy
patent: 4653581 (1987-03-01), Yogo et al.
patent: 4872578 (1989-10-01), Fuerschbach et al.
patent: 5125453 (1992-06-01), Bertrand et al.
patent: 5752566 (1998-05-01), Liu et al.
patent: 5755113 (1998-05-01), Ferguson et al.
patent: 6179051 (2001-01-01), Ayub
Chiu Peng-Chu
Hsuen Tsui-Ling
Huang Chih-Hsien
Nutec Electrical Engineering Co., Ltd.
Robinson Daniel
Rosenberg , Klein & Lee
Walberg Teresa
LandOfFree
Evaporative condensing apparatus does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Evaporative condensing apparatus, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Evaporative condensing apparatus will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2482567