Air Conditioners: Explained.

 

Major Parts:

            In the major components or parts of an air-conditioner, there is a compressor, there is a condenser, an expansion valve, and finally, an evaporator that can also be called a cooling effect generator. There is a fan over here, and these are the connecting pipes that connect all these parts together.

Working:

            Let's look into the working of all parts of the air-conditioner. The basic principle of air-conditioning is to remove the heat from one area and replace it with Chilled air and expel the hot air to the outside atmosphere and for this exchange of heat, we use a special fluid which is called refrigerant or coolant. We can think of the refrigerant as the messenger or traveler because this refrigerant is the actual carrier or medium of heat exchange between the external environment and these internal components by brand name. We call this refrigerant Freon thus, the coolant or refrigerant Freon is a fluid that flows through these connecting pipes and parts of the air-conditioner and changes States from liquid to vapor or vapor to liquid at convenient temperatures.

For the refrigeration cycle or air-conditioning

Process, now at the first step the compressor starts working. The job of the compressor is to pressurize or compress the refrigerant Freon and we know that if pressure increases, it also increases. The temperature so when the compressor compresses the refrigerant Freon in its gaseous state by squeezing the gas very tightly together. It will heat up we heat up the refrigerant to get its temperature higher than the outdoor temperature. Since the heat naturally flows from hotter to colder bodies. To dispense heat outdoors, the refrigerant must be hotter than the air outdoors. This is why, we need the compressor to increase its pressure and thus, its temperature then, this high pressure and high-temperature gas vapor of Freon will go to the condenser through these connecting pipes. After that in the condenser, high pressure and high-temperature gas vapor of Freon will change its form from gas to liquid at the same temperature that is. The temperature will remain the same the condenser will just change the physical state of the refrigerant Freon from gaseous form to liquid. This condenser coil is in the outdoor air conditioning unit, placed outside of our home. The heat energy is absorbed from the hot gaseous refrigerant. With the aid of the condenser fan, this heat is expelled to the environment as the heat leaves the refrigerant to the outside environment, turning back into a liquid.

We can think of it as the opposite of the evaporator coil because the evaporator coils contain cold refrigerant whereas the condenser coils contain hot refrigerant. Now, this high temperature condensed liquid refrigerant will leave the condenser, and enter the expansion valves through this connecting pipe. When the refrigerant leaves the condenser in its liquid state, it has already given away heat to become liquid from the gas. But it is still too hot to enter the evaporator coils. Before the refrigerant passes to the evaporator coils, it must be cooled down. This is where the expansion valve comes in.

We know that compression and expansion are opposites from one another. Here in compression, we need to increase the temperature of the refrigerant. So, we increased pressure by compressing the refrigerant Freon and thus, increased the temperature. So similarly, now we need to cool down the temperature of the liquid refrigerant that is coming from the condenser. So for this purpose, we have to cause expansion, reducing the pressure between the refrigerant molecules, which will cool it down simultaneously.

 

Now, this is what happens in the expansion valve. The expansion valve depressurizes i.e. lowers the pressure of the refrigerant and cools it down. It also controls the amount of refrigerant or voltage flow entering the evaporator. Now, the low-pressure cold liquid refrigerant enters the space where we want to produce cooling. That is this cold liquid is now ready to absorb heat from the indoor environment and produce cooling. So, this low-pressure cold liquid refrigerant enters the evaporator coils. These evaporator coils are very important to an air-conditioner. The evaporator is the indoor air conditioning unit. We pulse inside our home where the air conditioner actually picks up the heat from inside our home. The copper tubes of the evaporator receive the depressurized cold liquid refrigerant from the expansion valve and when indoors all blows over the cold coils, the heat from inside the home gets absorbed by this cold refrigerant.

This is because of the second law of thermodynamics which states that: heat flows naturally from a hot to a cold place. As this cold liquid refrigerant absorbs heat from the indoor air, it starts to evaporate to form a vapor, and thus, the refrigerant in this evaporator unit absorbs heat from our home and converts it into vapor and as a result, our home environment loses heat and cools down. This fan circulates the cold air from this coil surface for the cooling effect.

Now, this hot gaseous refrigerant after absorbing heat again goes through the compressor. Thus, the process is repeated continuously in a closed loop and the air conditioner keeps cooling our home continuously.

 

That was the working of an air conditioner.

Stay tuned, Bye.