Air conditioner
AssigneeCarrier Japan Corporation
InventorAkira Iuchi
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An air conditioner includes a shutoff unit to shut off a flow of a refrigerant in refrigerant piping connecting an outdoor unit and an indoor unit together, a power storage unit to supply power to the shutoff unit in a case where supply of power from an external power source is shut off, a refrigerant leakage detection unit to detect a refrigerant leakage, and a power source shutoff detection unit to detect that the supply of power from the external power source is shut off. The shutoff unit includes a shutoff valve driven by a motor that shuts off the flow of the refrigerant and a valve control unit which controls an action of the shutoff valve. In a case where the refrigerant leakage is detected together with a power shutoff, the valve control unit blocks the shutoff valve and increases an action speed of the shutoff valve.
Claims7
An air conditioner, comprising:
- an outdoor unit;
- an indoor unit which is connected to the outdoor unit by refrigerant piping;
- a shutoff unit which is capable of shutting off a flow of a refrigerant in the refrigerant piping between the outdoor unit and the indoor unit;
- a power storage unit which is capable of supplying power to the shutoff unit in a case where supply of power from an external power source is shut off;
- a refrigerant leakage detection unit which detects a refrigerant leakage;
- and
- a power source shutoff detection unit which detects that the supply of power from the external power source is shut off,
- wherein the shutoff unit includes a shutoff valve which shuts off the flow of the refrigerant in the refrigerant piping and a control unit which controls an action of the shutoff valve,
- wherein the shutoff valve is a motor-operated valve which is driven by a motor, and
- wherein, when the refrigerant leakage detection unit detects the refrigerant leakage and when the power source shutoff detection unit detects that the supply of power from the external power source is shut off, the control unit blocks the shutoff valve and performs control such that an action speed of the shutoff valve is faster when the refrigerant leakage is detected by the leakage detection unit than when shutoff of the supply of power from the external power source is detected by the power source shutoff detection unit.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.