Supercooling degree-controlled expansion valve
AssigneeTgk Co., Ltd.
InventorsHisatoshi Hirota, Tokumi Tsugawa, Yusuke Inoue
Life of this patent
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Abstract
To achieve a silent, noiseless operation supercooling degree-controlled expansion valve 10 wherein vibration of a valve element 14 induced by refrigerant flow changes is suppressed and a spring 18 presses valve element 14 in an oblique direction inclined with respect to an axial direction thereof against a surrounding member 12 to thereby restrict vibration of the valve element.
Claims8
A supercooling degree-controlled expansion valve, comprising:
- a refrigerant passage for supplying refrigerant to an evaporator via a restricted portion formed by a narrowed intermediate portion of the refrigerant passage;
- valve seat upstream of the restricted portion;
- a valve element at a valve seat downstream side for opening and closing the refrigerant passage;
- resilient urging means contacting and biasing the valve element towards the valve seat from the valve seat downstream side such that the refrigerant is supplied to the evaporator while being adiabatically expanded with a degree of supercooling, wherein the degree of supercooling is maintained substantially constant at an upstream side of the valve seat;
- an inner peripheral surface of the refrigerant passage laterally surrounding the valve element with a radial clearance at the valve seat downstream side;
- and
- wherein the valve element, the urging means and the inner peripheral surface of the refrigerant passage commonly form a valve element lateral vibration suppressing structure.
The supercooling degree-controlled expansion valve according to 1, wherein the urging means biases the valve element when lifted from the valve seat in an oblique direction inclined with respect to a center axis of the refrigerant passage into lateral contact with the surrounding inner peripheral surface of the refrigerant passage to suppress lateral vibrations of the valve element within the refrigerant passage.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.