Professional Documents
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PART 13
EXPANSION VALVE HUNTING
Hunting describes a situation where a cyclic action of the expansion valve
causes the evaporator to be overfed and underfed with liquid refrigerant. This
results in a cyclic swing of refrigerant pressure and saturation temperature
within the evaporator which in turn causes the average refrigerating capacity
of the system to be severely reduced due to a generally lower suction
pressure at the inlet to the compressor. Under extreme conditions, excess
liquid refrigerant supply to the evaporator may lead to liquid flooding of the
compressor with subsequent compressor failure.
Hunting is caused by a number of possibilities:
1
A time lag occurs between the change of valve position and the effect
at the evaporator outlet (suction line) since the revised refrigerant flow
rate will take some time to travel through the tubes of the evaporator
coil before reaching the outlet where the bulb of the expansion valve
can sense the new condition. There will also be a time lag between a
change in temperature of the outer surface of the suction line and the
change in the expansion valve overall bulb temperature leading to the
increase/decrease in pressure within the bulb and the action upon the
diaphragm within the valve.
The time lag brought about by the combination of the above will lead to
undershooting and overshooting of the desired condition with similar results
on system efficiency as described in 1 above. A solution to this problem is to
increase the mass, and thus the thermal response, of the sensor bulb, which
will damp the rate of temperature change and the valves ability to respond.
This will either reduce or eliminate hunting altogether.
thermal damping can be applied to air conditioning and refrigeration electronic
control systems where outdoor fan speed
must be varied to maintain a
specified liquid line temperature at the outlet of condenser coils for Low
Ambient Control, particularly as the response rate of the electronic control
system is virtually instantaneous, yet the effects of fan speed changes are
considerably time lagged through the condenser coil and at the liquid line.
The control software can also be written in a way that overcomes this
problem.
3
FIGURE 1
A cross-charged sensor bulb will also reduce the effects of hunting (see last
months article for details of cross-charged expansion valves).
Charge Migration
The refrigerant liquid passing through the expansion valve experiences a
dramatic drop in pressure and flash gas is produced as part of the liquid
evaporates. This causes the body of the valve to be continually chilled. Heat
is conducted from the diaphragm assembly above the valve body leading to a
drop in temperature of the refrigerant charge within the diaphragm housing.
Under certain circumstances, this housing can fall to a temperature that is
lower that the temperature at the sensor bulb. If this situation arises with a
gas charged valve, the majority of the charge will condense within the
diaphragm and control of the valve will then be transferred to this point rather
than at the bulb. These conditions will give rise to severe restriction of
refrigerant flow to the evaporator coil and may also lead to complete shutting
of the valve since the very low and almost equal temperature / pressure on
both sides of the diaphragm will allow the spring to close the valve.
DISTRIBUTORS
The purpose of a refrigerant distributor is to provide an equal supply of liquid /
saturated vapour refrigerant to a number outlets which in turn feed a multicircuit evaporator coil. The preferred mounting position is vertical with
refrigerant flowing downward to ensure gravity does not influence distribution
thereby causing uneven flow although it is accepted that this effect will be
minimal.
There are various type of distributor including venturi, centrifugal, pressure
drop and manifold arrangements. All perform the same function.
It is advisable to use an externally equalised thermostatic expansion valve
when a distributor is employed to compensate for the overall pressure drop
through the distributor and evaporator coil.
FLOODED EVAPORATORS
A flooded evaporator is continually full of liquid refrigerant which leads to
greater performance and efficiency as opposed to dry evaporator types where
a mixture of saturated liquid, considerable saturated vapour and partial
superheated vapour exist. The high liquid content leads to greater heat
transfer to the body of liquid refrigerant from the air passing over the coil.
Flooded evaporators are normally restricted to larger air conditioning and
refrigeration systems.
Some form of control is required to maintain the evaporator full of liquid
refrigerant and a reservoir (accumulator) adjacent to the evaporator is also
required to provide a store of liquid refrigerant. The control normally takes the
form of a float valve and this can be positioned at the inlet to the reservoir
(high side) or in the evaporator or within the accumulator itself (low side). A
liquid pump is employed to continually recirculate the liquid refrigerant from
the accumulator to the evaporator. Excess liquid refrigerant is returned to the
accumulator.
LOW PRESSURE FLOAT CONTROL
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 3
The float valve will always ensure that a limited and fixed amount of
refrigerant remains in the high side condenser and the most of the liquid is
retained in the evaporator as desired. However, if the refrigerant charge is
too high, excess liquid refrigerant will flow uncontrollably to the compressor