US 4,376,435 AGranted

Solar powered air conditioning system

OwnerCharles D. Pittmaninventor

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Abstract

An assembly that harnesses solar power for diverse applications. The principal application utilizes three closed loop elements for operating an air conditioning system. The first loop is a brine-carrying conduit, said brine being heated in a solar collector. The heat of said brine is exchanged, in a boiler means, to a refrigerant fluid carried by a second loop element. The vaporized refrigerant fluid drives a first double acting air cylinder which in turn drives a second air cylinder that can be single acting for some pumping application and which is double acting in the air conditioning application. In such air conditioning application, the second air cylinder serves as the refrigerant fluid compressor means for the assembly. A countershaft member which carries the fans for the evaporator and condenser coils of the air conditioning system is rotated by a linkage apparatus that converts axial oscillation of the output shaft of the first air cylinder member into unidirectional rotation of such countershaft member, and a pump that circulates the refrigerant fluid through the second loop is also driven by said countershaft member. A third loop element condenses the spent refrigerant fluid--in a heat exchanger means--for subsequent re-expansion in the first double-acting air cylinder member--by transferring the heat of said spent fluid to cool water circulating through said third loop, a portion of said third loop being underground to lower the temperature of such water.

Claims8

Dependent claims

An assembly for harnessing solar power to operate an air conditioning system, comprising,

a first conduit means defining a first closed loop element,
a first heat-absorbing fluid circulatable through said first loop element,
a second conduit means defining a second closed loop element,
a second fluid that has a low boiling point, relative to the boiling point of said first fluid, circulatable through said second loop element,
a first heat-exchanger means disposed in heat exchanging relation between said first and second loop element so that heat in said first fluid is transferred to said second fluid in amounts sufficient to vaporize said second fluid,
an engine expander means operatively connected in fluid communication to said first heat exchanger means so that said vaporized second fluid drives said engine expander means,
a third conduit means defining a third closed loop element,
a third heat-absorbing fluid circulatable through said third loop element,
a portion of said third loop element disposed in buried relation to the surface of the earth by a depth sufficient to cool said third fluid as it circulates through said buried portion,
a second heat-exchanger means disposed in heat exchanging relation between said second and third loop elements so that heat in said second fluid is transferred to said third fluid for the purpose of returning said second vaporized fluid to its liquid state prior to re-entry of said second fluid into said first heat-exchanger means,
whereby said engine expander means provides useful work responsive to heating of said first fluid by the sun, vaporizing by said first fluid of a second fluid which drives said engine expander means, and condensation of said second fluid, for subsequent reevaporation, by a third fluid made relatively cooler than said second fluid in a fourth heat-exchanger means provided by the earth.

8 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.