2. EGEE 102 - Pisupati 2
Function of an Air
conditioner
3. EGEE 102 - Pisupati 3
Humidity in air
• Relative Humidity
• A measure of of
much water is
in the air
relative to the
maximum
amount air can
hol at that
tmperature
9. EGEE 102 - Pisupati 9
Room air conditioner
• Room air conditioners cool rooms rather
than the entire home.
• Less expensive to operate than central
units
• Their efficiency is generally lower than
that of central air conditioners.
• Can be plugged into any 15- or 20-amp,
115-volt household circuit that is not
shared with any other major appliances
11. EGEE 102 - Pisupati 11
Central Air conditioning
• Circulate cool air through a system of
supply and return ducts. Supply ducts
and registers (i.e., openings in the walls,
floors, or ceilings covered by grills) carry
cooled air from the air conditioner to the
home.
• This cooled air becomes warmer as it
circulates through the home; then it flows
back to the central air conditioner
through return ducts and registers
12. EGEE 102 - Pisupati 12
Types of Central AC
• split-system
• an outdoor metal cabinet
contains the condenser and
compressor, and an indoor
cabinet contains the
evaporator
• Packaged
• the evaporator, condenser,
and compressor are all
located in one cabinet
13. EGEE 102 - Pisupati 13
Large air
conditioning systems
• Outside air is drawn in,
filtered and heated before
it passes through the main
air conditioning devices.
The colored lines in the
lower part of the diagram
show the changes of
temperature and of water
vapor concentration (not
RH) as the air flows
through the system.
15. EGEE 102 - Pisupati 15
• Variable fresh air mixer and dust
and pollutant filtration.
• Supplementary heating with
radiators in the outer rooms and
individual mini heater and
• Humidifier in the air stream to each
room.
16. EGEE 102 - Pisupati 16
Sizing Air
Conditioners
• how large your home is and how many
windows it has;
• how much shade is on your home's
windows, walls, and roof;
• how much insulation is in your home's
ceiling and walls;
• how much air leaks into your home from
the outside; and
• how much heat the occupants and
appliances in your home generate
17. EGEE 102 - Pisupati 17
Energy Consumption
• Air conditioners are rated by the number
of British Thermal Units (Btu) of heat they
can remove per hour. Another common
rating term for air conditioning size is the
"ton," which is 12,000 Btu per hour.
• Room air conditioners range from 5,500
Btu per hour to 14,000 Btu per hour.
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Energy Efficiency
• Today's best air conditioners use
30% to 50% less energy than 1970s
• Even if your air conditioner is only
10 years old, you may save 20% to
40% of your cooling energy costs by
replacing it with a newer, more
efficient model
19. EGEE 102 - Pisupati 19
Energy Efficiency
• Rating is based on how many Btu per hour
are removed for each watt of power it
draws
• For room air conditioners, this efficiency
rating is the Energy Efficiency Ratio, or
EER
• For central air conditioners, it is the
Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio, or
SEER
20. EGEE 102 - Pisupati 20
Room Air Conditioners
• Built after January 1, 1990, need
have an EER of 8.0 or greater
• EER of at least 9.0 if you live in a
mild climate
• EER over 10 for warmer climates
21. EGEE 102 - Pisupati 21
Central AC
• National minimum standards for
central air conditioners require a
SEER of
• 9.7 for single-package and
• 10.0 for split-systems
• Units are available with SEERs
reaching nearly 17
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Energy Saving Methods
• Locate the air conditioner in a
window or wall area near the center
of the room and on the shadiest side
of the house.
• Minimize air leakage by fitting the
room air conditioner snugly into its
opening and sealing gaps with a
foam weather stripping material.
23. EGEE 102 - Pisupati 23
Numerical Problem
• A EER from 5.0 to 9 saving and pay
back period
Editor's Notes
Room air conditioners use the standard compressor cycle and are sized to cool just one room. To cool an entire house, several room units are necessary. Central air conditioning systems also operate on the compressor cycle principle and are designed to cool the entire house. The cooled air is distributed throughout the house using air ducts, which may be the same ducts that are used by the heating system.
Heat pumps, described in the heating section, use the compressor cycle, but it is reversible. In the summer, the heat pump transfers heat from indoors to outdoors. In the winter, the heat pump transfers heat from outdoors to indoors. Heat pumps may be powered by electricity or natural gas.
Evaporative coolers, also called "swamp coolers", do not use the compressor cycle. Instead, they cool air by blowing it over a wet surface. You have experienced this phenomenon when you get out of a swimming pool while a breeze is blowing. As water evaporates, it absorbs heat from the air. Evaporative cooling systems depend on the ability of air to absorb moisture, and so they only work in dry climates such as the Southwest U.S.
That is all there is to the part of the system in the room, which is sketched on the left in figure 2. The bit that is more difficult to understand, or at least unfamiliar to most people, is how the cooling fluid is produced and controlled. That is the part on the right of the diagram.
The cooling fluid used to be a chlorofluorocarbon compound, and often still is, though they all more or less ravage the earth's ozone layer. The essential characteristics of these fluids is that they have quite a low boiling point at atmospheric pressure and that they can stay in the pipes for a long time without decomposing either themselves or the pipes. Finally they need to have some lubricating ability, or the ability to carry a lubricant, because the fluid has to be compressed and pumped round the system. This rare set of necessary properties has proved difficult to combine with friendliness to the earth's atmosphere.
The liquid is let into the cooling unit through a valve marked B on the diagram. It evaporates while it passes through the pipe, taking heat from the air just as water evaporating from a towel laid on your fevered brow cools you when on holiday in the Mediterranean. The temperature in the cooling coil depends partly on the amount of fluid let in by the valve, which is controlled by the thermostat or the humidistat. But now comes a crucial difference from your Mediterranean experience: the minimum temperature at the cold surface can be fixed by controlling the pressure in the cooling coil, with the valve marked A on the diagram. The boiling point of any liquid depends on the pressure. One could use water in the cooling coil, if the pressure is kept low enough. At 1000 Pa pressure, which seems a lot but is just 1% of atmospheric pressure, water boils at 7 degrees. It isn't used in cooling coils of this evaporative type because it has practical disadvantages.
The reason for wanting to limit the minimum temperature is to stop ice clogging the air passage. There are clever systems which notice when ice has formed and hold a melting pause, but that adds to the cost. The pressure controller is therefore set to make the cooling fluid boil at the lowest temperature that is likely to be needed to control the humidity, but always over zero degrees. The temperature needed for cooling is nearly always higher than that needed for dehumidification so it is the RH setting that is decisive.
This brings me to the first point that conservators need to understand: it is expensive to produce air at a dew point below about 4 degrees in this type of equipment. This dewpoint corresponds to 50% RH at 15°C. This sort of air conditioning is entirely suitable for keeping people comfortable but it is not good for specialised stores, for films or for furs, for example, where one needs a temperature below 15 degrees. Such equipment is, however, often used for such places. A better solution is to use an absorption dehumidifier, which will be described in a later article.
Now back to the main story: The vapour that emerges through the pressure controller is gathered up by a compressor. The compression also heats the gas, as will be understood by anyone who has pumped up a cycle tyre. The hot gas is then led away from the room, to be cooled down. This is often done on the roof or in a small enclosure which vibrates to the roar of the fan blowing air over the fins of a condenser. The cooled, now liquid coolant is piped back to the reservoir, ready for its next tour through the room air conditioner.
The entire process described above is inefficient and uses electricity, which is itself produced by inefficient conversion of heat energy. Such systems are therefore confined to small places where the inefficiency is compensated by the generally high reliability and freedom from maintenance.
In a split-system central air conditioner, an outdoor metal cabinet contains the condenser and compressor, and an indoor cabinet contains the evaporator. In many split-system air conditioners, this indoor cabinet also contains a furnace or the indoor part of a heat pump. The air conditioner's evaporator coil is installed in the cabinet or main supply duct of this furnace or heat pump. If your home already has a furnace but no air conditioner, a split-system is the most economical central air conditioner to install.
In a packaged central air conditioner, the evaporator, condenser, and compressor are all located in one cabinet, which usually is placed on a roof or on a concrete slab next to the house's foundation. This type of air conditioner also is used in small commercial buildings. Air supply and return ducts come from indoors through the home's exterior wall or roof to connect with the packaged air conditioner, which is usually located outdoors. Packaged air conditioners often include electric heating coils or a natural gas furnace. This combination of air conditioner and central heater eliminates the need for a separate furnace indoors.
The principle of operation is the same as that of the small system described above except that the cooling fluid is usually water, which has itself been cooled by the refrigeration system described above. The air is circulated through ducts, with a portion of fresh air added. There is therefore a pre-heater, because the outside air may be below zero and will therefore freeze the water in the cooling coil. A humidifier and various filters have also been added in figure
Some refinements to the basic system compensate for the different heat requirements of different rooms in the building. Figure 4 shows a complete system, with two details that have not been mentioned yet: the outer zone of the building, which loses more heat in winter, has radiators to supplement the heat supply through the air conditioning. The inner zone has, in this example, an archive room that is not much used and so is cooler, and drier, than the rooms with people, computers and coffee machines. To keep the climate uniform throughout the building there is a little local heater and humidifier placed just before the air reaches the room. The main air supply is kept a little too cold and a little too dry. Any one of these local humidifiers can give trouble, with rapid over-humidification of the room. Again, here is a dangerous detail that is provided by the engineer to protect himself against complaints that the equipment does not achieve the standard required.