HEATING-COOLING METHOD

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present invention is related to a water sourced heating-cooling machine which works with vapor compressed cooling principal.

The present invention is particularly related to a heating-cooling machine comprises a refrigerant cooling unit which regains the heat (waste heat) on the refrigerant in a liquid form exiting from the condenser unit and/or cooling the refrigerant with an external cooling source until the gasification heat in the evaporator and aims reducing flash vapor formation.

STATE OF THE ART

The heat pump is a system which is based on transferring the energy from one environment to another environment principal and fed by electricity. The sources from which energy is obtained are the air, water or soil. The heat pump cools its energy source.

In the closed cycles of the heat pump, refrigerants are used. The refrigerant passes through the evaporator, draws the required energy from its environment and evaporates and the evaporated refrigerant is pressed into the condenser by being pressurized via the compressor. The refrigerant in a superheated vapor within the condenser transforms into a saturated liquid by being condensed by means of heating its close environment. The refrigerant exiting from the condenser passes through the reducing valve and its pressure and temperature is reduced to the evaporator pressure and temperature, thus the heat pump cycle is completed.

The heat pumps consist of four main elements:

1 . Condenser

2. Expansion valve

3. Evaporator

4. Compressor

The heat pump systems works with the vapor compressed cooling principal which is a conventional cycle. During the cooling process, when the heat sent to the atmosphere through the condenser reaches to the required heat, it is used as a useful energy. As it is known, the heat pump systems, are used for higher temperatures than the environment temperatures, they can be used in both evaluating the waste heat and for heating and cooling. In vapor compressed systems, as it is known, when the pressure difference between the evaporator and the condenser increases, the consumed energy also increases. In a classical vapor compressed cycle, heat intake in the evaporator in other words evaporating the refrigerant is provided; the refrigerant is transformed into a superheated vapor by means of compressor. The gaseous refrigerant (superheated vapor) transforms into a saturated liquid by being condensed in the condenser. When the refrigerant which is totally in a liquid form at high pressure, passes through the reducing valve, a part of it is evaporated and a part of it enters into the evaporator as a liquid together with the vapor (flash vapor) and thus the cycle is completed.

In the present cycle, the refrigerant some part of which is in liquid form, passes to the gas phase without making cooling process due to the heat in itself and because the energy which the liquid can hold at low pressure by the liquid is limited. This situation causes inefficiency in the systems. In the current art for preventing this, the efficiency is increased by means of the two stage compressor systems with economizer and with vapor formation at the intermediate pressure. However flash vapor formation in the evaporator continues.

In the current technique, in addition to this condition in improved and highly efficient cooling systems, an over-cooling system (sub cooler) before the economizer due to its operation temperatureiMii] intervals is used and thus the flash vapor formation in the economizer is partially prevented.

In another system within the current art, the refrigerant in liquid form exiting from the condenser is cooled by means of the low pressure gaseous refrigerant exiting from the evaporator by the help of the cooler. Although there are these kinds of applications, the effects of such applications are limited. Because the specific heat capacity of the gas is lower than the liquid, the effects of these systems on the total efficiency is limited because excessively heating of the gas causes inefficiency in the compressor, a larger surface is required for heat transfer and this system causes pressure losses.

Although there are trials in which the water for increasing the efficiency and to be heated enters into the over-cooling unit first, takes some of the energy on itself, and then enters into the condenser; the inlet water temperature has a limited gain compared to the required outlet water. In general water sourced heat pumps works at higher temperatures than the cooling systems. However the refrigerant in liquid form exiting from the condenser unit works inefficiently due to the fact that heat on it is not removed. Although methods are applied for increasing the efficiency similar to the economizer, it will be limited and its performance remains lower relatively.

As a result of the abovementioned problems and lack of a current solution, making an improvement in the related technical field is required.

AIM OF THE INVENTION

The present invention aims to solve the abovementioned problems, eliminate all disadvantages and bring additional advantages to the structure.

The main aim of the invention is to regain the heat (waste heat) on the refrigerant in a liquid form exiting from the condenser unit in the heating-cooling machine and/or to cool the refrigerant up to the gaseous temperature (approximately 30 C°) in the evaporator and to provide resetting the flash vapor formation. In order to achieve this aim, major part of the heat at the outlet of the condenser is brought to a point where it can be decreases to the refrigerant temperature both to the environment, thus the refrigerant is cooled more. This is done with the refrigerant cooling unit attached to the system. The characteristic of this cooling unit is that; together with an external cooling source or a part of the heat source is cooled in the evaporator and given into the cooling unit and is brought closer to the gaseous temperature (approximately 30 C°) of the refrigeran t with high temperature and in liquid form in the evaporator at the outlet of the condenser. In the cooling unit, the heat of the refrigerant is transferred to another point which is out of cycle. The heat of the refrigerant in liquid form is cooled by means of a heat exchanger located in the cooling unit.

In the invention, the temperature of the refrigerant is aimed to be lower than the economizer temperature. Therefore, economizer requirement is eliminated or the flash vapor amount formed in the economizer decreases.

Together with the invention a decrease up to 45% is provided in energy consumption with this additional cooling process made in the water sourced heating-cooling machines. In other words, 45% energy saving/performance increase is seen.

In case all heat source cooled by the evaporator is not used, by using the obtained cooling ability in cooling the refrigerant in liquid form, increasing the system efficiency is aimed. By this means flash vapor formation is eliminated. In order to achieve the abovementioned aims, the present invention is related to a heating cooling machine which transfers heat energy from a medium with low temperature to a medium with high temperature via a refrigerant, which comprising an evaporator absorbs heat from the heat source and evaporates the refrigerant with this heat, a compressor which increases the pressure of said refrigerant evaporated within said evaporator and transfers it into a superheated vapor, a condenser which condense said refrigerant in a superheated vapor from exiting out of said compressor and provides heat transfer to a heating medium, a pressure reducer which reduces the pressure of said refrigerant exiting out of said condenser to the evaporation pressure and thus to the evaporation temperature due to pressure reduction and then provides its transfer to the evaporator ; characterized in comprising the following;

• a cooling unit which takes the waste heat on the saturated liquid refrigerant exiting out of said condenser and uses an external cooling source out of the cycle or the heat source cooled by means of absorbing heat from said heat source.

The present invention comprises the following process steps in order to achieve the above aims; evaporating a refrigerant by taking heat from a heat source via an evaporator, entering the refrigerant into a compressor which is evaporated in said evaporator, transforming said refrigerant which is evaporated in the evaporator into a superheated vapor by increasing its pressure by means of a compressor, entering refrigerant in a superheated vapor form exits from said compressor, into the condenser, giving heat to a heating medium by condensing said refrigerant in superheated vapor form by the condenser, reducing the pressure of said refrigerant after it exits from the condenser to evaporation pressure by the pressure reducer and decreasing the temperature of said refrigerant to the evaporation temperature due to the pressure reduction and transferring it to the evaporator, characterized in that it comprises the following process steps; • entering said refrigerant into the refrigerant cooling unit after it exits out of the condenser,

• the heat source which enters into the refrigerant cooling unit and is cooled by absorbing heat from it, takes the waste heat on the saturated liquid refrigerant and leaves the refrigerant cooling unit or

• an external source out of the cycle which enters into the refrigerant cooling unit takes the waste heat on the saturated liquid refrigerant and leaves the refrigerant cooling unit. The structural and characteristic features of the present invention will be understood clearly by the following drawings and the detailed description made with reference to these drawings and therefore the evaluation shall be made by taking these figures and the detailed description into consideration.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS Figure 1 shows schematically the cycle to which the refrigerant cooling unit is attached which is fed by the source from which heat is received to the heating-cooling machine.

Figure 2 shows schematically the cycle to which the refrigerant cooling unit is attached which works with the external cooling source fed out of the cycle to the heating-cooling machine cycle. REFERENCE NUMBERS

1. Fleat source

2. Fleating medium

3. External cooling source 100. Fleating-cooling machine 1 10. Refrigerant

120. Compressor

121. Compressor inlet line

122. Compressor outlet line 130. Condenser

131. Condenser inlet line

132. Condenser outlet line 140. Refrigerant cooling unit 141. Cooling inlet line

142. Cooling outlet line

150. Evaporator

151. Evaporator inlet line

152. Evaporator outlet line 153. Heat source inlet line

154. Heat source outlet line 160. Pressure reducer

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

Heating-cooling machine (100) is a machine which transfers heat energy by means of a refrigerant (1 10) from a medium with low temperature to a medium with a high temperature, and in general it comprising a heat source (1 ), a heating medium (2), an external cooling source (3), a compressor (120), a condenser (130), a refrigerant cooling unit (140), a pressure reducer (160) and an evaporator (150). The heat source (1 ) is a source from which the evaporator (150) absorbs heat; water is used as the source. The evaporator (150) is the heat exchanger which evaporates the refrigerant (1 10) by means of absorbing heat from the heat source (1 ) via the heat source inlet line (153). The refrigerant (1 10) in vapor form is absorbed by the compressor (120) via the evaporator outlet line (152).

The compressor (120) is preferably a turbo machine which takes this evaporated refrigerant (1 10) in the evaporator (150) by means of the compressor inlet line (121 ) and transforms it into a superheated vapor by increasing its pressure and transfers to the condenser (130) by means of the compressor outlet line (122).

The condenser (130) is a heat exchanger which taking and condensing the refrigerant (1 10) in superheated vapor form at the compressor (120) outlet by means of the condenser inlet line (131 ) and provides heat to the heating medium (2) with this condensing and disposes the refrigerant (1 10) by means of the condenser outlet line (132). The refrigerant (1 10) at the condenser (130) outlet is in a high pressurized saturated liquid.

The pressure reducer (160) provides to reduce the evaporation pressure and the evaporation temperature due to pressure reduction of the refrigerant (1 10) exiting out of the condenser (130) and transfers it to the evaporator (150) by means of the evaporator inlet line (151 ). The reducing valve is used as the pressure reducer (160).

The refrigerant cooling unit (140) is the unit which cools the saturated liquid refrigerant (1 10) exiting out of the condenser (130) to approximately or exactly the evaporator temperature (approximately 30 Ό), this is done by a heat chang er included with the refrigerant cooling unit (140). The refrigerant cooling unit (140) uses the external cooling source (3) out of cycle or cooled heat source (1 ) by means of absorbing heat from the heat source (1 ) as the cooling source. In the refrigerant cooling unit (140), there is cooling inlet line (141 ) and cooling outlet line (142) for the external cooling source (3) or heat source (1 ). The refrigerant cooling unit (140) cools the refrigerant (1 10) at the outlet of the condenser (130) in 2 different manners provided that it uses these two different sources.

1 . In case not using the heat source (1 ) totally for the cooling process, the heat source (1 ) is cooled in the evaporator (150) and given to the refrigerant cooling unit (140). Together with a heat exchanger in the refrigerant cooling unit (140) and the heat source (1 ), cools the refrigerant (1 10) in a saturated liquid form exiting out of the condenser (130).

2. The refrigerant cooling unit (140) cools the refrigerant (1 10) in a saturated liquid form exiting out of the condenser (130) by means of the heat exchanger in the refrigerant cooling unit (140) via the cooling liquid taken from the external cooling source (3) out of the cycle.

Abovementioned 2 different heating-cooling cycles are explained as follows:

In the first cycle, the refrigerant (1 10) in liquid form takes the heat in the heat source (1 ) entering from the heat source inlet line (153) in the evaporator (150), then it transforms into gas phase (saturated vapor) from the liquid form, and exits out of the evaporator outlet line (152). The refrigerant (1 10) which is at low pressure and in gaseous state enters through the compressor inlet line (121 ) and pressurized in the compressor (120). The refrigerant (1 10) with high pressure and in gaseous form (superheated vapor) exits out of the compressor outlet line (122) and enters into the condenser (130) through the condenser inlet line (131 ). The refrigerant (1 10), transforms into a high pressurized liquid form by giving heat in condenser (130) to the heating medium (2). It exits out of the condenser outlet line (132) in this state and enters in the refrigerant cooling unit (140). The refrigerant (1 10) with high pressure and in hot liquid form is cooled in the refrigerant cooling unit (140) by the heat source (1 ) which is cooled in the evaporator (150) and exits outs of the heat source outlet line (154), enters into the refrigerant cooling unit (140) through the cooling inlet line (141 ). The heat source (1 ) which takes the heat on itself leaves the refrigerant cooling unit (140) from the cooling outlet line (142). Cooled high pressurized liquid refrigerant (1 10) passes through the pressure reducer (160), transforms into a liquid or liquid-gas mixture at low pressure and returns back to the evaporator (150) and thus the cycle is completed.

In the second cycle, the refrigerant (1 10) in liquid form takes the heat in the heat source (1 ) entering from the heat source inlet line (153) in the evaporator (150), then it transforms into gas phase (saturated vapor) from the liquid form, and exits out of the evaporator outlet line (152). The refrigerant (110) which is at low pressure and in gaseous state enters through the compressor inlet line (121 ) and pressurized in the compressor (120). The refrigerant (1 10) with high pressure and in gaseous form (superheated vapor) exits out of the compressor outlet line (122) and enters into the condenser (130) through the condenser inlet line (131 ). The refrigerant (1 10), transforms into a high pressurized liquid form by giving heat in condenser (130) to the heating medium (2). It exits out of the condenser outlet line (132) in this state and enters in the refrigerant cooling unit (140). The refrigerant (1 10) with high pressure and in hot liquid form is cooled in the refrigerant cooling unit (140) after the cooling source out of the cycle coming from an external cooling source (3) enters into the refrigerant cooling unit (140) through the cooling inlet line (141 ). The external cooling source (3) which takes the heat on itself leaves the refrigerant cooling unit (140) from the cooling outlet line (142). Cooled high pressurized liquid refrigerant (1 10) passes through the pressure reducer (160), transforms into a liquid or liquid-gas mixture at low pressure and returns back to the evaporator (150) and thus the cycle is completed.