Gas-liquid separator
AssigneeLeonardo UK Ltd
InventorAnthony Kinghorn
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A gas-liquid separator includes a chamber having an inlet for liquid to enter and at least one outlet for expulsion gas and/or vapour that has separated from the liquid within the chamber under gravity. For some applications the chamber will also have an outlet for the liquid. These systems can rely on the chamber remaining in a static orientation with the gas outlet arranged uppermost. Exemplary embodiments provide the chamber with multiple spaced apart outlets and an ability to sense orientation and/or acceleration of the chamber. A controller uses the output of the sensors to determine the spatial arrangement of the liquid phase and gas phase within the chamber relative to the outlets and selectively opens the multiple outlets to allow one of the liquid phase or gas phase to escape the chamber in preference to the other.
Claims13
A cooling device comprising:
- a gas-liquid separator chamber for holding a coolant that separates into a gas phase and liquid phase within the gas-liquid separator chamber through absorbing heat from an object to be cooled, the chamber including multiple spaced apart outlets;
- sensing means for providing an output indicative of orientation and/or acceleration of the chamber;
- and
- control means for using the output of the sensing means to determine an indication of spatial arrangement of a separated liquid phase and gas phase of a gas-liquid mixture within the chamber relative to the outlets, the control means being configured to selectively open one or more of the multiple outlets to allow one of the liquid phase or gas phase to escape from the chamber in preference to the other.
A method of separating a gas phase of a coolant from a liquid phase of a coolant
- within a gas-liquid separator chamber of a cooling device, the chamber including multiple spaced apart outlets;
- the method comprising:
- using sensing means to determine orientation and/or acceleration of the chamber to determine a spatial arrangement of liquid and gas within the chamber relative to the outlets;
- and
- based on the determined spatial arrangement of the liquid and gas within the chamber relative to the outlets, selecting an outlet to open to allow one of the liquid and gas to escape from the chamber in preference to the other.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.