AIR –CONDITIONING

INTRODUCTION

Air conditioning 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.

An air conditioner (often referred to as AC) 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".

The basic concept behind air conditioning is known to have been applied in ancient Egypt where
reeds hung in windows had water trickling down. The evaporation of water cooled the air blowing
through the window, though this process also made the air more humid. In Ancient Rome, water
from aqueducts was circulated through the walls of certain houses to cool them down. 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 1911 by Willis
Haviland Carrier. The introduction of residential air conditioning in the 1920s helped start the
great migration to the Sunbelt.

Pre-industrial cooling

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.[2] In 747,
Emperor Xuanzong (r. 712–762) of the Tang Dynasty (618–907) 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.[3] During the subsequent
Song Dynasty (960–1279), written sources mentioned the air-conditioning rotary fan as even more
widely used.
AIR CONDITIONING APPLICATIONS:
Air conditioning engineers broadly divide air conditioning applications into comfort and process.

Comfort applications aim to provide a building indoor environment that remains relatively constant
in a range preferred by humans despite changes in external weather conditions or in internal heat
loads. The highest performance for tasks performed by people seated in an office is expected to
occur at 72 °F (22 °C) Performance is expected to degrade about 1% for every 2 °F change in room
temperature.[6] The highest performance for tasks performed while standing is expected to occur
at slightly lower temperatures. The highest performance for tasks performed by larger people is
expected to occur at slightly lower temperatures. The highest performance for tasks performed by
smaller people is expected to occur at slightly higher temperatures. Although generally accepted,
some dispute that thermal comfort enhances worker productivity, as is described in the Hawthorne
effect.

1. Low-Rise Residential buildings, including single family houses, duplexes, and small
apartment buildings
2. High-Rise Residential buildings, such as tall dormitories and apartment blocks
3. Commercial buildings, which are built for commerce, including offices, malls, shopping
centers, restaurants, etc.
4. Institutional buildings, which includes hospitals, governmental, academic, and so on.
5. Industrial spaces where thermal comfort of workers is desired.
6. In addition to buildings, air conditioning can be used for comfort in a wide variety of
transportation including land vehicles, trains, ships, aircraft, and spacecraft.

Process applications aim to provide a suitable environment for a process being carried out,
regardless of internal heat and humidity loads and external weather conditions. Although often in
the comfort range, it is the needs of the process that determine conditions, not human preference.
Process applications include these:

1. Hospital operating theatres, in which air is filtered to high levels to reduce infection risk
and the humidity controlled to limit patient dehydration. Although temperatures are often
in the comfort range, some specialist procedures such as open heart surgery require low
temperatures (about 18 °C, 64 °F) and others such as neonatal relatively high temperatures
(about 28 °C, 82 °F).
 2. Clean rooms for the production of integrated circuits, pharmaceuticals, and the like, in
which very high levels of air cleanliness and control of temperature and humidity are
required for the success of the process.
3. Facilities for breeding laboratory animals. Since many animals normally only reproduce in
spring, holding them in rooms at which conditions mirror spring all year can cause them to
reproduce year round.
4. Aircraft air conditioning. Although nominally aimed at providing comfort for passengers
and cooling of equipment, aircraft air conditioning presents a special process because of the
low air pressure outside the aircraft.
How Air –Conditioners work
Air conditioners and refrigerators work the same way. 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 is used to transfer heat from the air inside of a home to the outside air.

The machine has three main parts. They are a compressor, a condenser and an evaporator. The
compressor and condenser are usually located on the outside air portion of the air conditioner. The
evaporator is located on the inside the house, sometimes as part of a furnace.

1. The working fluid arrives at the compressor as a cool, low-pressure gas called Freon. The
compressor squeezes the fluid. This packs the molecule of the fluid closer together. The
closer the molecules are together, the higher its energy and its temperature.
2. The working fluid leaves the compressor as a hot, high pressure gas and flows into the
condenser. If you looked at the air conditioner part outside a house, look for the part that
has metal fins all around. The fins act just like a radiator in a car and help the heat go away,
or dissipate, more quickly.
3. When the working fluid leaves the condenser, its temperature is much cooler and it has
changed from a gas to a liquid under high pressure. The liquid goes into the evaporator
through a very tiny, narrow hole. On the other side, the liquid's pressure drops. When it
does it begins to evaporate into a gas.
4. As the liquid changes to gas and evaporates, it extracts heat from the air around it. The heat
in the air is needed to separate the molecules of the fluid from a liquid to a gas.
 5. The evaporator also has metal fins to help in exchange the thermal energy with the
surrounding air.
6. By the time the working fluid leaves the evaporator, it is a cool, low pressure gas. It then
returns to the compressor to begin its trip all over again.
7. Connected to the evaporator is a fan that circulates the air inside the house to blow across
the evaporator fins. Hot air is lighter than cold air, so the hot air in the room rises to the top
of a room.
8. There is a vent there where air is sucked into the air conditioner and goes down ducts. The
hot air is used to cool the gas in the evaporator. As the heat is removed from the air, the air
is cooled. It is then blown into the house through other ducts usually at the floor level.

A-Expansion Valve

B-Compressor

Schematic diagram of an air-conditioner