Vehicle air-conditioning apparatus

A vehicle air-conditioning apparatus comprising:

• a housing installable in a vehicle, the housing including an indoor unit chamber having
• a return opening and a supply opening each continuous to an interior compartment of the vehicle, and
• an emergency vent continuous to an exterior of the vehicle;
• an emergency damper provided to the emergency vent, the emergency damper being configured to be switchable between an opening state for opening the emergency vent and a closing state for closing the emergency vent;
• an indoor fan disposed in the indoor unit chamber, the indoor fan being configured to draw internal air through the return opening, and deliver the drawn internal air toward the supply opening, and thus form a flow of the internal air from the return opening toward the supply opening in the indoor unit chamber, while the emergency damper is in the closing state, the internal air being air in the interior compartment;
• a refrigerant circuit disposed at a position in the indoor unit chamber, the position being in a path of the flow of the internal air, the refrigerant circuit including
• an indoor heat exchanger to perform heat exchange between refrigerant and the internal air, and
• a group of cooperative devices to constitute a refrigeration cycle using the refrigerant with the indoor heat exchanger;
• a refrigerant leakage detector to detect leakage of the refrigerant from the refrigerant circuit;
• and
• a control device to execute a refrigerant discharging control involving switching the emergency damper from the closing state to the opening state while keeping the indoor fan operating, when the control device determines, based on a result of detection by the refrigerant leakage detector, that the refrigerant is leaked from the refrigerant circuit, wherein
• the indoor unit chamber includes a supply air guiding sub-chamber to guide the internal air delivered by the indoor fan to the supply opening,
• the indoor heat exchanger is disposed in the supply air guiding sub-chamber,
• the emergency vent is included in the supply air guiding sub-chamber, and
• the indoor fan forms the flow of the internal air with an air pressure in the supply air guiding sub-chamber being higher than an atmospheric pressure that is an air pressure in the exterior of the vehicle.