Method and Apparatus for Providing Supplemental Cooling to a Mechanical Refrigeration System
AssigneeAir Products and Chemicals, Inc.
InventorJon P. Trembley
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Additional refrigeration duty is provided as required to a mechanical refrigeration process used to cool a coolant used in an air conditioning system, primarily for a data center, in which heat is rejected to the ambient air using air-cooled condenser units. In situations where additional and/or supplemental refrigeration is required, such as hot weather events which cause sub-optimal cooling, cold and/or dry gas is added into air passing through the air-cooled condenser units of the existing mechanical refrigeration process to provide the additional refrigeration duty. The cold and/or dry gas may be produced by vaporizing a liquid cryogen.
Claims19
A process for providing additional refrigeration duty in a closed loop mechanical refrigeration cycle for cooling a first coolant circulating in a closed loop cooling circuit, said process comprising:
- cooling the first coolant by heat exchange against a first refrigerant circulating in the closed loop mechanical refrigeration cycle in which the first refrigerant is evaporated by heat exchange against the first coolant;
- condensing the first refrigerant by heat exchange against air in at least one air-cooled condenser unit in the closed loop mechanical refrigeration cycle;
- and
- as required, adding cold and/or dry gas into the air passing through the air-cooled condenser unit to provide the additional refrigeration duty for condensing the first refrigerant.
An apparatus for providing additional refrigeration duty in a closed loop mechanical refrigeration cycle for cooling a first coolant circulating in a closed loop cooling circuit, said apparatus comprising:
- a closed loop mechanical refrigeration cycle comprising:
- an evaporator configured to evaporate expanded refrigerant by heat exchange against a first coolant circulating in a closed loop cooling circuit to produce evaporated refrigerant, said evaporator in fluid flow communication with a compressor configured to compress the evaporated refrigerant to produce compressed refrigerant, said compressor in fluid flow communication with an air-cooled condenser unit configured to condense the compressed refrigerant by heat exchange against air to produce condensed refrigerant, said air-cooled condenser unit in fluid flow communication with an expander configured to the expand the condensed refrigerant to produce expanded refrigerant, said expander being in fluid flow communication with the evaporator;
- a source of cold and/or dry gas;
- and
- at least one nozzle in fluid flow communication with the source of cold and/or dry gas for adding cold and/or dry gas into air passing through the air-cooled condenser unit.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.