Refrigerant gas sensing system
AssigneeJohnson Controls Technology Company
InventorsWilliam F. McQuade, Neelkanth Gupte
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A refrigerant gas sensing system of a heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) system, wherein the refrigerant gas sensing system is configured to collect a sample from a monitored gas volume, to introduce an ignition source to the sample, to detect an amount of combustion product in the sample after ignition, to determine an amount of leaked refrigerant in the monitored gas volume based on the measured amount of combustion product, and to indicate the amount of leaked refrigerant in the monitored gas volume.
Claims31
A refrigerant gas sensing system of a heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) system, wherein the refrigerant gas sensing system is configured to:
- collect a sample from a monitored gas volume;
- introduce an ignition source to the sample;
- detect an amount of combustion product in the sample after the ignition source is introduced to the sample;
- determine an amount of leaked refrigerant in the monitored gas volume based on the measured amount of combustion product;
- and
- indicate the amount of leaked refrigerant in the monitored gas volume.
A heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) system having a refrigerant gas sensing system, wherein the refrigerant gas sensing system comprises:
- a sample preparation unit configured to collect a sample of gas from a monitored gas volume and prepare the sample for introducing the ignition source to the sample;
- an ignition unit configured to introduce the ignition source to the sample to convert refrigerant in the sample into combustion product;
- and
- a combustion configured to measure and provide an indication of an amount of combustion product in the sample after the ignition source is introduced to the sample.
A method of operating a refrigerant gas sensing system of a heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) system, comprising:
- collecting and preparing a sample from a monitored gas volume associated with the HVAC system;
- introducing an ignition source to the sample and measuring an amount of combustion products in the sample after ignition;
- determining an amount of leaked refrigerant present in the monitored gas volume based, at least in part, on the measured amount of combustion products in the sample after ignition;
- and
- modifying operation of the HVAC system when the amount of leaked refrigerant in the monitored gas volume is above a predetermined threshold value.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.