Refrigeration – Intermediate fluid container transferring heat to heat... – Flow line connected transfer fluid supply and heat exchanger
Reexamination Certificate
2001-04-13
2002-08-06
Doerrler, William C. (Department: 3744)
Refrigeration
Intermediate fluid container transferring heat to heat...
Flow line connected transfer fluid supply and heat exchanger
C062S183000, C237S063000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06427474
ABSTRACT:
DESCRIPTION
The present invention relates to a hydraulic supply device for a closed-circuit installation.
The present invention also relates to such an installation.
The installations targeted by the invention are in particular heating and/or cooling installations in which a heat transfer fluid flows along a closed circuit in order to pass successively through a heat or coldness production equipment, a utilising device, a pump, a buffer tank, a filter, etc.
It can be a heating installation, a cooling installation, or else an installation which can operate either as a heating or as a cooling installation, the thermal source then consisting of e.g. a reversible refrigerating machine, that is to say one capable of operating either as a heating means or as a cooling means.
The object of the present invention is to rationalise installations of the said type with regard to their components other than their utilising devices.
According to the invention, the hydraulic supply device for an installation using a heat transfer fluid in a closed circuit, this device comprising the following components for the heat transfer fluid:
a tank having a return orifice and a feed orifice,
a filter,
a pump,
an expansion vessel, is characterised by furthermore comprising an enclosure which houses at least part of said components while bringing them together in order to form a hydraulic unit.
Preferably, the enclosure is substantially fluid-tight. In this way substantial entries of water vapour into the enclosure and consequently the problems of condensation on the outside face of the wall of the tank are prevented.
It is also preferred that the enclosure should carry on its inside face a heat insulating lining. Such an internal lining is much easier to produce than external lagging on components having complex shapes such as tanks, pumps and their interconnecting pipes. The enclosure being thus internally insulated makes it possible to dispense with heat insulation on the components housed in the enclosure.
In particular, if the enclosure is substantially fluid-tight, the heat insulating lining can be made from a material which is not intrinsically fluid-tight, such as rock wool. Such a material is inexpensive and easy to apply. Thanks to the fluid-tightness of the enclosure there is no risk of it being saturated with water.
Preferably, between the inside face of the heat insulating lining and the outside face of the components housed in the enclosure, there is a space filled with air which constitutes additional insulation.
The arrangement of components inside the enclosure is such that possible condensates can flow without wetting the insulating lining.
According to an important feature of the invention, the filter is fitted inside the tank like a permeable partition subdividing the inside of the tank into a return chamber connected to the return orifice and a feed chamber connected to the feed orifice. This arrangement has multiple advantages. It eliminates the necessity of providing a location and a fitting for the filter in the circuit outside of the tank. Furthermore, in the tank, the filter has a large diameter and thus offers a negligible head loss. Similarly, for a closed circuit installation, where clogging prominently occurs just after the first operation, a filter of such size proves capable of stopping the initial impurities and then of continuing to allow normal operation without having to be cleaned.
If the return chamber is in the low position under the feed chamber, the impurities in any case have a tendency to fall to the bottom of the return chamber instead of remaining suspended on the bottom surface of the filter.
One of the important optional features of the present invention consists in fitting certain of the components such that they traverse the wall of the enclosure. In particular the pump or pumps are preferably fitted in such a way that the motor is outside of the enclosure. In this way the motor is ventilated better and the heat dissipated by the motor is prevented from heating up the inside of the enclosure, which is undesirable when the function of the installation is to cool the utilising devices.
It is also possible to fit the expansion vessel such that it traverses the wall of the enclosure in such a way that its adjustment device is accessible from outside of the enclosure.
It is also possible chat a flow-regulating valve installed downstream of the pump be so mounted that said valve extends through the wall of the enclosure.
It is advantageous that all of the components thus fitted such that they traverse the wall of the enclosure are grouped on one and the same side of the enclosure forming the back of a compartment adjacent to the enclosure itself.
Such a compartment can assume the form of a cabinet in which the electrical box is also installed.
If the return and feed orifices of the tank are oriented at about 90° with respect to each other, the feed path, making a 90° turn because of the usual geometry of pumps such as centrifugal ones, can exit on the same side of the enclosure as that through which the return path passes. This favours a rational connection with the rest of the installation.
According to a second subject of the invention, the heating and/or cooling installation comprising, along a closed circuit of heat transfer fluid:
a hydraulic supply device,
at least one thermal source,
at least one utilising device,
is characterised in that the supply device conforms with the first aspect.
REFERENCES:
patent: 2598966 (1952-06-01), Becker
patent: 2832569 (1958-04-01), Lewis
patent: 3249303 (1966-05-01), Townsend
patent: 3278122 (1966-10-01), Laing
patent: 4513580 (1985-04-01), Cooper
patent: 4620984 (1986-11-01), Hoddinott
patent: 1 205 254 (1959-06-01), None
patent: 2 545 587 (1984-11-01), None
patent: 2545587 (1984-11-01), None
d'Alençon Marc
Le Boucher Philippe
Greer Burns & Crain Ltd.
TEFA
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