Air conditioning

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(Redirected from Air-conditioning)
Jump to: navigation, search
For the Curved Air album, see Air Conditioning (album).
This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on
the talk page.
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve
this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may
be challenged and removed. (August 2012)
This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
The specific problem is: facts need to be verified and writing style needs to
be consistent.. Please help improve this article if you can. (August 2012)

A typical home air conditioning window unit.

Air conditioning (often referred to as aircon, AC or A/C) is the process of
altering the properties of air (primarily temperature and humidity) to more favourable
conditions. More generally, air conditioning can refer to any form of
technological cooling, heating, ventilation, or disinfection that modifies the condition
of air.[1]
An air conditioner is a major or home appliance, system, or mechanism designed to
change the air temperature and humidity within an area (used for cooling and
sometimes heating depending on the air properties at a given time). The cooling is
typically done using a simple refrigeration cycle, but sometimes evaporation is used,
commonly for comfort cooling in buildings and motor vehicles. In construction, a
complete system of heating,ventilation and air conditioning is referred to as
"HVAC".

Air conditioning can also be provided by a simple process called free cooling which
uses pumps to circulate a coolant (typically water or a glycol mix) from a cold
source, which in turn acts as a heat sink for the energy that is removed from the
cooled space. Free cooling systems can have very high efficiencies, and are
sometimes combined with seasonal thermal energy storage (STES) so the cold of
winter can be used for summer air conditioning. Common storage media are deep
aquifers or a natural underground rock mass accessed via a cluster of smalldiameter, heat exchanger equipped boreholes. Some systems with small storage are
hybrids, using free cooling early in the cooling season, and later employing a heat
pump to chill the circulation coming from the storage. The heat pump is added-in
because the temperature of the storage gradually increase during the cooling
season, thereby declining in effectiveness. Free cooling and hybrid systems are
mature technology.[2]

Contents
[hide]
1 History
o 1.1 Mechanical cooling
o 1.2 Electromechanical cooling
o 1.3 Refrigerant development
2 Refrigeration cycle
3 Humidity control
4 Energy
o 4.1 Seasonal energy efficiency ratio
5 Design
o 5.1 Types
5.1.1 Window and through-wall
5.1.2 Split systems
5.1.2.1 Ductless (split-system) air conditioning

 5.1.2.2 Central Air Conditioning

5.1.3 Evaporative coolers
5.1.4 Portable units
5.1.5 Heat pumps
o 5.2 Refrigerants
6 Uses
o 6.1 Domestic use
7 Health issues
8 See also
9 References
10 External links

History[edit source | editbeta]

This section may contain inappropriate or misinterpreted citations that do
not verify the text. Please help improve this article by checking for inaccuracies.
(help, talk, get involved!) (September 2010)

The basic concept behind air conditioning is to have been applied in ancient Egypt,
where reeds were hung in windows and were moistened with trickling water. The
evaporation of water cooled the air blowing through the window, though this
process also made the air more humid (also beneficial in a dry desert climate).
In Ancient Rome, water from aqueducts was circulated through the walls of certain
houses to cool them. Other techniques in medieval Persia involved the use
of cisterns and wind towers to cool buildings during the hot season. Modern air
conditioning emerged from advances in chemistry during the 19th century, and the
first large-scale electrical air conditioning was invented and used in 1902 by Willis
Haviland Carrier. The introduction of residential air conditioning in the 1920s helped
enable the great migration to the Sun Belt in the US.
Mechanical cooling[edit source | editbeta]

Three-quarters scale model of Gorrie's ice machine. John Gorrie State Museum,
Florida
The 2nd-century Chinese inventor Ding Huan (fl 180) of the Han Dynasty invented
a rotary fan for air conditioning, with seven wheels 3 m (9.8 ft) in diameter and
manually powered.[3] In 747, Emperor Xuanzong (r. 712762) of the Tang
Dynasty (618907) had the Cool Hall (Liang Tian) built in the imperial palace,
which the Tang Yulin describes as having water-powered fan wheels for air
conditioning as well as rising jet streams of water from fountains. [4] During the
subsequent Song Dynasty (9601279), written sources mentioned the airconditioning rotary fan as even more widely used. [5]
In the 17th century, Cornelis Drebbel demonstrated "turning Summer into Winter"
for James I of England by adding salt to water.[6]
In 1758, Benjamin Franklin and John Hadley, a chemistry professor at Cambridge
University, conducted an experiment to explore the principle of evaporation as a
means to rapidly cool an object. Franklin and Hadley confirmed that evaporation of
highly volatile liquids such as alcohol and ether could be used to drive down the
temperature of an object past the freezing point of water. They conducted their
experiment with the bulb of a mercury thermometer as their object and with a
bellows used to "quicken" the evaporation; they lowered the temperature of the
thermometer bulb down to 14 C (7 F) while the ambient temperature was 18
C (64 F). Franklin noted that, soon after they passed the freezing point of water 0
C (32 F), a thin film of ice formed on the surface of the thermometer's bulb and
that the ice mass was about a quarter-inch thick when they stopped the experiment
upon reaching 14 C (7 F). Franklin concluded, "From this experiment one may
see the possibility of freezing a man to death on a warm summer's day"... [7]

In 1820, English scientist and inventor Michael Faraday discovered that compressing
and liquefying ammonia could chill air when the liquefied ammonia was allowed to
evaporate. In 1842, Florida physician John Gorrieused compressor technology to
create ice, which he used to cool air for his patients in his hospital in Apalachicola,
Florida.[8] He hoped eventually to use his ice-making machine to regulate the
temperature of buildings. He even envisioned centralized air conditioning that
could cool entire cities.[9] Though his prototype leaked and performed irregularly,
Gorrie was granted a patent in 1851 for his ice-making machine. His hopes for its
success vanished soon afterwards when his chief financial backer died; Gorrie did
not get the money he needed to develop the machine. According to his biographer,
Vivian M. Sherlock, he blamed the "Ice King", Frederic Tudor, for his failure,
suspecting that Tudor had launched a smear campaign against his invention. Dr.
Gorrie died impoverished in 1855, and the idea of air conditioning faded away for
50 years.
Since prehistoric times, snow and ice were used for cooling. The business of
harvesting ice during winter and storing for use in summer became popular
towards the late 19th century.[10] This practice was replaced by mechanical icemaking machine.
James Harrison's first mechanical ice-making machine began operation in 1851 on

the banks of the Barwon River at Rocky Point in Geelong (Australia). His first
commercial ice-making machine followed in 1854, and his patent for an ether
vapor-compression refrigeration system was granted in 1855. This novel system
used a compressor to force the refrigeration gas to pass through a condenser, where
it cooled down and liquefied. The liquefied gas then circulated through the
refrigeration coils and vaporised again, cooling down the surrounding system. The
machine employed a 5 m (16 ft.) flywheel and produced 3,000 kilograms
(6,600 lb) of ice per day.
Though Harrison had commercial success establishing a second ice company back
in Sydney in 1860, he later entered the debate over how to compete against the
American advantage of unrefrigerated beef sales to the United Kingdom. He
wrote Fresh Meat frozen and packed as if for a voyage, so that the refrigerating
process may be continued for any required period, and in 1873 prepared the sailing
ship Norfolk for an experimental beef shipment to the United Kingdom. His choice
of a cold room system instead of installing a refrigeration system upon the ship
itself proved disastrous when the ice was consumed faster than expected.
Electromechanical cooling[edit source | editbeta]

Willis Carrier

In 1902, the first modern electrical air conditioning unit was invented by Willis
Carrier in Buffalo, New York. After graduating from Cornell University, Carrier, a
native of Angola, New York, found a job at the Buffalo Forge Company. While there,
Carrier began experimenting with air conditioning as a way to solve an application
problem for the Sackett-Wilhelms Lithographing and Publishing Company
in Brooklyn, New York, and the first "air conditioner", designed and built in Buffalo
by Carrier, began working on 17 July 1902.
Designed to improve manufacturing process control in a printing plant, Carrier's
invention controlled not only temperature but also humidity. Carrier used his
knowledge of the heating of objects with steam and reversed the process. Instead
of sending air through hot coils, he sent it through cold coils (ones filled with cold
water). The air blowing over the cold coils cooled the air, and one could thereby
control the amount of moisture the colder air could hold. In turn, the humidity in
the room could be controlled. The low heat and humidity helped maintain
consistent paper dimensions and ink alignment. Later, Carrier's technology was
applied to increase productivity in the workplace, and The Carrier Air Conditioning
Company of America was formed to meet rising demand. Over time, air conditioning
came to be used to improve comfort in homes and automobiles as well. Residential
sales expanded dramatically in the 1950s.
In 1906, Stuart W. Cramer of Charlotte, North Carolina was exploring ways to add
moisture to the air in his textile mill. Cramer coined the term "air conditioning",
using it in a patent claim he filed that year as an analogue to "water conditioning",
then a well-known process for making textiles easier to process. He combined
moisture with ventilation to "condition" and change the air in the factories,
controlling the humidity so necessary in textile plants. Willis Carrier adopted the
term and incorporated it into the name of his company. The evaporation of water in
air, to provide a cooling effect, is now known as evaporative cooling.

Evaporative cooling was the first real air-conditioning and shortly thereafter the
first private home to have air conditioning (The Dubose House) was built in
Chapel Hill, North Carolina in 1933. Realizing that air conditioning would one day
be a standard feature of private homes, particularly in the South, David St. Pierre
DuBose (1898-1994) designed an ingenious network of ductwork and vents, all
painstakingly disguised behind intricate and attractive Georgian-style open
moldings. Meadowmont is believed to be one of the first private homes in the
United States equipped for central air conditioning. [11]
In 1945, Robert Sherman of Lynn, MA, invented the portable, in-window air
conditioner that cooled and heated, humidified and dehumidified, and filtered the
air (Patent # 2,433,960 granted January 6, 1948). It was subsequently stolen by a
large manufacturer. Sherman did not have the resources to fight the big corporation
in courtthey promised to "break him" if he tried - and thus never received any
money or recognition. He died in 1962. Patent at http://navlog.org/patent_1.html
Refrigerant development[edit source | editbeta]
The first air conditioners and refrigerators employed toxic or flammable gases, such
as ammonia, methyl chloride, or propane, that could result in fatal accidents when they
leaked. Thomas Midgley, Jr created the first non-flammable, non-toxic
chlorofluorocarbon gas, Freon, in 1928.
"Freon" is a trademark name owned by DuPont for any Chlorofluorocarbon (CFC),
Hydrochlorofluorocarbon (HCFC), or Hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) refrigerant, the name
of each including a number indicating molecular composition (R-11, R-12, R-22,
R-134A). The blend most used in direct-expansion home and building comfort
cooling is an HCFC known as R-22. It was to be phased out for use in new
equipment by 2010, and is to be completely discontinued by 2020.
R-12 was the most common blend used in automobiles in the US until 1994, when
most designs changed to R-134A. R-11 and R-12 are no longer manufactured in the

US for this type of application, the only source for air-conditioning repair purposes
being the cleaned and purified gas recovered from other air-conditioner systems.
Several non-ozone-depleting refrigerants have been developed as alternatives,
including R-410A, invented by AlliedSignal (now part of Honeywell) in Buffalo,
and sold under the Genetron (R) AZ-20 name. It was first commercially used by
Carrier under the brand name Puron.
Innovation in air-conditioning technologies continues, with much recent emphasis
placed on energy efficiency and on improving indoor air quality. Reducing climatechange impact is an important area of innovation because, in addition to
greenhouse-gas emissions associated with energy use, CFCs, HCFCs, and HFCs
are, themselves, potent greenhouse gases when leaked to the atmosphere. For
example, R-22 (also known as HCFC-22) has a global warming potential about 1,800

times higher than CO2.[12] As an alternative to conventional refrigerants, natural

alternatives, such as carbon dioxide (CO2. R-744), have been proposed.[13]