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How does an air conditioner work?
Home » HVAC » Air Conditioners » How does an air conditioner work?An air conditioner is basically a refrigerator without the insulated box. All units work on basically the same principle.
They start with a refrigerant, something that can be cooled and heated with the energy available to the temperatures needed. A little bit of oil is mixed in for lubrication. The refrigerant evaporates.
The resultant cool gas then goes through a compressor to produce hot, high-pressure gas. It travels through coils next, where it cools down into a liquid.
After entering an expansion valve, the refrigerant again evaporates into cold, low-pressure gas. Another set of coils follow, where the cold gas absorbs heat, chilling air.
Three mildly-different variants exist, mainly because the standard model is impractical in large settings.
¤ Split-System Air Conditioner ¤
This separates the hot and cold sections of the air conditioner; generally, the hot side is outside of the building.
¤ Chilled-Water System ¤
The entire air conditioner is outside, and the air conditioner is used to chill water that is then pumped through the large building to cool the air. Very large buildings use this, as do virtually all multistory buildings.
¤ Cooling Tower ¤
A cooling tower uses cool water to help cool the air conditioner, which increases efficiency. This increase varies according to the temperature and humidity of the outside air at the time. Nonetheless, the savings are generally substantial enough that the cooling tower is usually used with many large buildings.
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