Refrigeration – Intermediate fluid container transferring heat to heat... – Flow line connected transfer fluid supply and heat exchanger
Patent
1998-09-25
2000-12-12
Doerrler, William
Refrigeration
Intermediate fluid container transferring heat to heat...
Flow line connected transfer fluid supply and heat exchanger
F25D 1702
Patent
active
061582360
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The present invention relates to a refrigeration capacity accumulator and a method using this accumulator and comprised of accumulating a refrigeration capacity and rendering this refrigeration capacity.
There are known refrigeration accumulation systems that are constituted by accumulators with banks of multiple tubes wherein the tubes are immersed in tanks of clear water. The use of accumulators of this type requires the utilization of a minimum of two dynamic liquids: a primary liquid circulating inside the tubes and a secondary liquid circulating outside and around the tubes.
In the accumulator's "Charge" mode, the primary liquid is circulated at a negative temperature, from a refrigeration unit into the tubes of the banks so as to create, with the secondary liquid circulating outside the tubes, a layer of ice around these tubes.
In the "Discharge" mode, the refrigeration unit is shut off and the melting of the layer of ice created around the tubes cools the secondary liquid, which is directed by a pumping station to the utilization points.
This widely used technology has the drawback of making it necessary to discharge the accumulator completely, that is, to make all of the ice generated around the tubes melt, between each "Charge-Discharge" cycle. Actually, a residual layer of ice, even a slight one, in the case of an incomplete melting, constitutes a veritable isothermal shield, which interferes with the heat exchange between the primary and secondary fluids. For this reason, the heat transfer cannot be adequately obtained, and a new ice producing phase cannot begin. In most cases, it is impossible to predict the thermal requirements in advance with precision; however, the melting of the ice must be complete in order not to cause irreversible damage to the refrigeration units.
The erratic performance of these devices makes it necessary to add a third cooling circuit in order to maintain a certain constant in the process. Actually, as the ice melts, the cross section of the tubes of the banks, the "tube+ice" diameter, decreases and affects the results. The head loss and the heat transfer surfaces of the secondary fluid flowing over the bank vary considerably between the beginning and the end of the cooling cycle.
Moreover, the secondary fluid must be oxygenated continuously in the "Charge" mode, in order to allow a homogeneous and even formation of the ice around the tubes.
The mandatory use of two dynamic liquids, primary and secondary, as well as a third supplementary circuit in order to maintain a certain constant in the process, and a fourth circuit for oxygenating the secondary liquid, imposes an awkward implementation as well as complex technologies for controlling the operation of the system.
From the investment point of view, these necessary technologies can often cancel out the savings inherent in refrigeration accumulation by means of ice storage.
Moreover, these known systems cannot be used directly with a secondary liquid under pressure, because of the oxygenation required during the ice producing phase.
The object of the present invention is not only to eliminate the drawbacks of these known systems, but also to obtain a substantial improvement in capacity (greater ice mass per cubic meter of space required) and in performance (square meters of heat transfer surface), as well as an extreme simplification of the implementation.
To this end, the first subject of the invention is a refrigeration capacity accumulator of the type comprising a set of accumulation tubes disposed in an isothermal enclosure, these tubes being spaced apart and maintained substantially parallel to one another, each tube of this set being closed at its ends and containing a primary static liquid capable of transforming into ice during a cooling by a secondary refrigeration fluid and/or of cooling a secondary, so-called utilization liquid, the secondary fluid and/or liquid circulating between the tubes, outside the latter, the circulation in the enclosure of the secondary product or the two secondary products occurri
REFERENCES:
patent: 4283925 (1981-08-01), Wildfeuer
patent: 5036904 (1991-08-01), Kanda et al.
patent: 5441097 (1995-08-01), Kanda et al.
patent: 5765389 (1998-06-01), Salyer
patent: 5871041 (1999-02-01), Rafalovich et al.
Doerrler William
Holt William H.
Jones Melvin
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