AIR CONDITIONING

The entire scheme of air-conditioning is propelled by the process

of refrigeration. Refrigeration, at its most basic, is the process of
removing heat from a confinement (inside air) that is to be maintained
at a lower temperature and expelling such heat to the surrounding
atmosphere (outside air), a region of higher temperature, where
temperature change is relatively little or negligible. As a real gas,
many of the atmospheres components need to be accounted for
during air-conditioning. Hence, a precise definition of air-conditioning is
packaged as the process of simultaneous control of temperature,
humidity, cleanliness, and air motion. For purposes of discussion, this
study limits itself to the scrutiny of certain gas laws and equations of
state useful for demonstration during the actual cycle of airconditioning. Fluids under study are also treated ideally unless
otherwise indicated.
In considering refrigeration in terms of air-conditioning (AC), there
are four major parts an AC unit must have, to wit: evaporator,
condenser, compressor, and expansion valve. The brief process is
outlined below.
1. A refrigerant (R), the working fluid which is caused to change
phase between liquid and gas throughout the process, is
entered into the compressor as a low-pressure gas.
Compression of this gas, by virtue of Boyles law PV = const.
(P1V1 = P2V2), turns it into a high-pressure one (Fig. 1a). Boyles
principle dictates that a decrease in occupied volume of the
gas increases the gas pressure.
2. The high-pressure gas then moves into the condenser coils to
be converted into liquid. The heat given off by condensation is
rejected into the atmosphere (Fig. 1b). The gas turns into liquid
because of changes in pressure and temperature which can be
predicted accurately by the ideal gas law PV = nRT or by the
Redlich-Kwong-Soave (RKS) equation of state (Eq. 1) for
refrigerants R14, R23, R13, R22, R115, etc. (Camporese, et al.,
1985) if the gas deviates from ideality. A fan is installed behind
the condenser coils to vent out hot air into the atmosphere.
Equationsssss

3. The liquid then proceeds to the expansion valve under high

pressure. This valve constrains the fluid flow thereby
decreasing its pressure as it leaves the valve (Fig. 1c).
4. The low-pressure liquid then moves into the evaporator coils,
where heat from the inside air is absorbed and converts it from
a liquid into a gas. Behind the evaporator coils is another fan
which blows over these chilled coils to emit cold air into the
confinement (Fig. 1d). A similar treatment is applied to this
phase change as in the condensation part, namely, employing
the ideal gas law PV = nRT, the RKS equation of state, or the
Peng-Robinson (Eq. 2) equation of state (Moshfeghian, 1992).
5. The converted low-pressure gas returns into the compressor as
a refrigerant and the cycle is repeated.
The AC unit is divided into two sections, the high side and the low
side (Fig. 2). In this detail, pressure and temperature changes can be
identified by Gay-Lussacs law P/T = const. (P1/T1 = P2/T2). Since the
volume of the coils do not change, a rise in pressure of the gas
corresponds to an increase in temperature of the gas. This relation can
be applied before and after compression of the refrigerant, where it is
present in gaseous state.
The two main principles behind the process of refrigeration are:
a. A liquid absorbs heat when it is converted to gas (low side).
b. A gas releases heat when it is converted to liquid (high side).
This cycle of refrigeration is not restricted to AC units. Household
refrigerators, industrial freezers, and cryogenic research also find
significance in the methods of refrigeration.

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properties of refrigerants by the Redlich-Kwong-Soave equation of state.
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