How does air conditioning work?

A. An air conditioner is a device which uses a special type of substance which readily changes from its normal gas state to a liquid one. The gas is contained in a closed circuit of pipes connected to a pump. The pump compresses the gas so hard that the pressure is great enough for it to turn into a liquid. In doing this the gas/liquid has got hot (If you try to compress a gas, it will almost always get hot - think of a bike pump when you pump up a tyre (tire), the greater the pressure in the tyre, the hotter the pump gets) Now the hot liquid travels round a set of pipes which allow the heat to escape. Next the liquid under pressure passes through a valve into a pipe where the pressure is much lower, and the liquid evaporates back into its gas state. In doing this it needs to take in heat from its surroundings, thus making the pipes colder. The gas now gets back to the pump and the whole cycle starts again. The pipes are usually arranged so that there are fans to blow air over both ...  more

Part 1 The air conditioning system is designed so that refrigerant will circulate through the system, Absorbing heat from the air flowing accross the evaporator, cooling the air down, Then releasing that heat to the outside air flowing accross the condenser outside, which warms up that air.  more

"It works by circulating refrigerant throughout the home," according to Nathan Wallace, a technician with Standard Heating and Air Conditioning in St. Paul, Minn. Surprisingly, outside air is not blown into the home and hot air is not blown out. "It's like taking a towel and soaking up a spill. You can soak up some water, you squeeze the water out of the towel, you go back and soak up more, and that's what refrigerant is doing: it's soaking up the heat, you're squeezing the heat out and you're going ahead and absorbing more," said Wallace. The refrigerant starts outside as a liquid. Some air conditioners use R-22, and the newest use R-410A. "Freon is still being used. They'll stop production of it in 2012. We've moved toward Puron, Refrigerant 410A. That tends to be less harmful for the environment," explained Wallace. "Refrigerant has a couple unique properties. It can absorb heats through evaporation, and expel heat through condensing," said Wallace. In the outside air conditioning ...

How often do you drive past a Cortland County home or other building and notice the air conditioner? Probably never, unless it is a window air conditioner that looks like it doesn’t belong there. True air conditioning means not only controlling the temperature, but reducing the humidity and purifying the air. Air-cooling is simply forcing cool or cold air into a room, space or building. For the purpose of this article, the terms will be interchangeable. The simplest way to describe it works is the same way your refrigerator keeps food cold. That would be a fair enough explanation, if you know how a refrigerator keeps things cool. You do know that almost everyone has a refrigerator. You know they make a very quiet noise every few minutes. You know things stay cold and fresh longer. The refrigerator isn’t that complex. It circulates a refrigerant through a system of coils. The noise you hear is a compressor. The compressor compresses the gas refrigerant into a liquid. The liquid then ...  more

Air conditioning units work on basically the same principle as kitchen refrigerators, only without the insulated boxes. Contrary to popular perception, air conditioning is not about adding cool air to the room, but more about drawing heat away from it. The end result is a space with significantly less heat, which makes it feel cooler to occupants. Air conditioning takes advantage of the effects of evaporation, much like a swab of alcohol makes a person's skin feel cooler as the liquid evaporates. The alcohol doesn't lower the person's skin temperature, but rather draws away heat from the air as it turns to a gas. Air conditioning units contain a special chemical called a refrigerant, which has the unique ability to change from a gas to a liquid in a short amount of time. A refrigerant called freon is commonly used in air conditioning units, although there are other commercial refrigerants available. The refrigerant is pumped into the air conditioning unit at the factory, along with a ...  more

Air conditioning and refrigeration work on the same basic principle. The use of refigerants, substances and blends of substances with low boiling points. The manipulation of these boiling points through the forced change in pressure and temperature. The changing of pressures is achieved with a pump or compressor and a restrictive metering device, expansion device, such as a capillary (very small bore tube) or expansion valve. The system consists of a low pressure, low temp side, and a high pressure, high temp side. Basic principles. Heat flows from hot to cold There is a direct relationship between pressure and temperture and evaporation / boiling points of liquids. The basic cycle works as follows. • The compressor compresses the refigerant vapour increasing increasing the heat of the vapour whereby it is discharged into the system at high pressure. • The hot vapour is then cooled down within the coils of a condenser to the saturation point for the refrigerant where it changes state ...

An air conditioner is basically a refrigerator without the insulated box. However, instead of cooling just the small, insulated space inside of a refrigerator, an air conditioner cools a room, a whole house, or an entire business. Air conditioners use chemicals that easily convert from a gas to a liquid and back again. This chemical, called a refrigerant, is used to transfer heat from the air inside of a home to the outside air. The machine has three main parts: a compressor, a condenser and an evaporator. The compressor and condenser are usually located on the part of the air conditioner thats outside. The evaporator is located inside the house. The refrigerant arrives at the compressor as a cool, low-pressure gas. The compressor squeezes the fluid. This packs the molecule of the fluid closer together making them get hot. The working fluid leaves the compressor as a hot, high-pressure gas and flows into the condenser.