Aircraft air chiller with reduced profile
AssigneeB/E Aerospace, Inc.
InventorsQiao Lu, William J. Godecker, James R. Forbes
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An improved aircraft air chiller unit particularly suited for an aircraft galley that requires refrigerated or cooled beverage/meal carts and/or chilled storage compartments. The chiller of the present invention takes the form of a line replaceable unit (“LRU”) and incorporates a liquid-cooled refrigerant vapor compression cycle, arranged in a housing with a vertical orientation. Because of the vertical orientation, ducting on the rear surface of the chiller is omitted, reducing the overall footprint.
Claims5
A liquid-cooled, vertically oriented, line replaceable unit (LRU) chiller for cooling adjacent aircraft galley carts having a reduced footprint through omission of ducting along a peripheral surface, comprising:
- a housing having at least one fan along an upper surface for drawing in air to the chiller unit through the upper surface and an opening in a bottom surface for expelling chilled air through the bottom of the housing;
- a pair of quick disconnect couplings for connecting with a condenser and an aircraft heat sink;
- an evaporator disposed directly below the at least one fan;
- a compressor;
- a heat exchanger;
- a liquid cooled condenser;
- an evaporator;
- and
- wherein warm air enters through an upper surface of the housing and chilled air is expelled through a bottom opening in the housing.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.