Air conditioner
AssigneeFujitsu General Limited
InventorMasahiro Kondo
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
There is provided an air conditioner with a refrigerant sensor installed in a room, which can reduce the amount of refrigerant leakage while limiting the installation cost of a shut-off valve. The air conditioner includes a liquid-side shut-off valve connected between an outdoor heat exchanger and an indoor unit-side expansion valve, a gas-side shut-off valve connected between an indoor heat exchanger and a compressor, a bypass passage in which one end is connected between the liquid-side shut-off valve and the indoor unit-side expansion valve and the other end is connected between the gas-side shut-off valve and the compressor, and a bypass solenoid valve configured to open and close the bypass passage.
Claims18
An air conditioner that performs an air conditioning operation including
- an outdoor unit including an outdoor unit-side refrigerant flow path in which a compressor and an outdoor heat exchanger are connected by a refrigerant pipe,
- an indoor unit-side refrigerant flow path in which a plurality of indoor units, including an indoor unit-side expansion valve and an indoor heat exchanger, are connected in parallel through the refrigerant pipe,
- a refrigerant circuit in which the outdoor unit-side refrigerant flow path and the indoor unit-side refrigerant flow path are connected so that a refrigerant circulates from the compressor through the outdoor heat exchanger, the indoor unit-side expansion valve, the indoor heat exchanger, and back to the compressor, and
- a refrigerant detection sensor configured to detect refrigerant leakage into a room in which the indoor unit is installed,
- the air conditioner comprising:
- a liquid-side shut-off valve connected between the outdoor heat exchanger and the indoor unit-side expansion valve;
- a gas-side shut-off valve connected between the indoor heat exchanger and the compressor;
- a bypass passage in which one end is connected between the liquid-side shut-off valve and the indoor unit-side expansion valve and the other end is connected between the gas-side shut-off valve and the compressor;
- and
- a bypass solenoid valve configured to close the bypass passage during the air conditioning operation and open the bypass passage in a case where the refrigerant detection sensor detects the refrigerant leakage,
- wherein each of the plurality of indoor units is respectively connected to one of a plurality of the refrigerant pipes through a branch portion, such that the plurality of indoor units are connected in parallel, and the branch portion is provided in the indoor unit-side refrigerant flow path,
- the liquid-side shut-off valve is connected between the outdoor heat exchanger and the branch portion,
- the gas-side shut-off valve is connected between the compressor and the branch portion, and
- the one end of the bypass passage is connected between the liquid-side shut-off valve and the branch portion.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.