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US 6,233,967 B1Granted
Refrigeration chiller oil recovery employing high pressure oil as eductor motive fluid
AssigneeAmerican Standard International Inc.
InventorsJeffrey S. Seewald, Michael C. Boehde
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A refrigeration chiller makes use of the flow of oil from an oil sump location to the chiller's compressor to power an eductor to return oil which has made its way to the evaporator of the chiller system from the evaporator to the compressor.
Claims20
A refrigeration chiller comprising:
- a condenser;
- an expansion device;
- an evaporator;
- a compressor, said condenser, said expansion device, said evaporator and said compressor being connected for flow to form a refrigeration circuit;
- a source location from which oil is supplied to said compressor when said chiller is in operation, a portion of said oil making its way to said evaporator after being supplied to said compressor;
- and
- oil return apparatus, said oil return apparatus being connected for flow to said source location, to said compressor and to said evaporator so that the flow of oil being supplied to said compressor from said source location causes oil to be returned to said compressor from said evaporator.
4 more elements
A refrigeration chiller comprising:
- a condenser;
- an expansion device;
- an evaporator;
- a screw compressor, said compressor defining a working chamber in which a first and a second screw rotor are disposed, said condenser, said expansion device, said evaporator and said compressor being connected for flow to form a refrigeration circuit, oil being supplied to said compressor when said compressor is in operation, said oil becoming entrained in the flow stream of refrigerant gas that is compressed in and discharged from said compressor;
- an oil separator, said oil separator receiving said stream of refrigerant gas that is discharged from said compressor and in which oil is entrained, said oil separator acting to disentrain the majority of oil entrained in said refrigerant gas stream, said disentrained oil being supplied back to said compressor from said oil separator when said compressor is in operation and at least some of the oil which said oil separator fails to disentrain from said refrigerant gas stream flowing to said evaporator;
- and
- an eductor through which oil being supplied from said oil separator to said compressor flows, said eductor being connected for flow to said evaporator so that the flow of oil from said oil separator to said compressor through said eductor draws oil from said evaporator and delivers it back to said compressor when said compressor is in operation.
4 more elements
A method of returning oil from the evaporator to the compressor of a refrigeration chiller comprising the steps of:
- discharging a stream of compressed refrigerant gas in which oil is entrained from said compressor when said chiller is in operation;
- disentraining a majority of the oil entrained in said stream;
- collecting oil disentrained in said disentraining step at a source location;
- flowing the stream of refrigerant gas from which the majority of oil has been disentrained in said disentraining step to the evaporator of said chiller where at least a portion of the theretofore undisentrained oil settles, together with liquid refrigerant, to form an oil-rich mixture of oil and liquid refrigerant at the bottom of said evaporator;
- flowing oil from said source location to said compressor;
- and
- using oil flowing in said oil flowing step as the motive force by which to draw said oil-rich mixture from said evaporator for delivery to said compressor.
4 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.