How an Air Conditioner works.
basic diagram of an AC |
We never thought how we get cool breeze? What mechanism is
actually involved in producing cold air in burning hot summers? Here is a
simple diagrammatic explanation of working principle of an air conditioner. No
matter what type of air conditioner you are using, windowed, split wall
mounted, cabinet floor standing or roof top type, basic principle is same
inside them. Even inverter air conditioner has some modifications to primitive
design but it still follows the same principle and laws of thermodynamics.
Explanation:
Every air conditioner has a compressor inside
it. It works to compress and pump the refrigerant gas. Compression of
refrigerant generates heat. To dissipate this heat, compressed refrigerant is
pumped to condenser coils where a fan blows the heat out to outer atmosphere.
During the process, refrigerant takes the liquid form. This liquid refrigerant
is pumped toward expansion valve.
Expansion valve has temperature sensor
attached to it which works in correlation with thermostat settings. Expansion
valve releases the appropriate amount refrigerant to evaporator (cooling coils)
where liquefied refrigerant takes gaseous form. Conversion from liquid to
gaseous state due to expansion produces chillness because energy is absorbed
from the surrounding. Air when passes through fins (attached to coils) get
cooled and blown to room. The refrigerant in cooling coils then enters the
compressor and gets compressed once again. The cycle continues until the
compressor is not shut down.In a nutshell, air conditioner draws heat from the indoor
and releases it to the outdoor. Indoor acts as a source and outdoor as a sink
for heat.Inverter air conditioners:
These air conditioners use an inverter to control the speed of
compressor. Electricity is first rectified to DC (direct current) and then
inverted back to required frequency AC (alternating current) using pulse width
modulation. Thus compressor speed can increase and decrease according to the
room temperature. Such air conditioners are extremely energy efficient and
consume approximately 30-50 % less electricity than old fashioned air
conditioners. If a 1 ton non-inverter air conditioner consumes constant 1600
Watts of electricity, inverter type air conditioner consumes less than variable
800-1100 Watts depending upon temperature of room. Such air conditioners are
expensive due to additional machinery inside them but cost is slowly recovered
in electricity bills. Their other benefits include quiet operation, faster
cooling, no indoor temperature fluctuations and no voltage peaks caused by
compressor.
Air conditioner as a heater:
When air conditioner is used as a heater, the process which is shown and
explained above just simply gets reversed. As a result of reverse mechanism,
hot air is propelled towards indoor and cool air towards outdoor.
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Home appliances