Refrigeration Cycle
Thermodynamic heat pump cycles or refrigeration cycles are the conceptual and mathematical models for heat pump, air conditioning and refrigeration systems. A heat pump is a mechanical system that transmits heat from one location (the "source") at a certain temperature to another location (the "sink" or "heat sink") at a higher temperature. Thus a heat pump may be thought of as a "heater" if the objective is to warm the heat sink (as when warming the inside of a home on a cold day), or a "refrigerator" or "cooler" if the objective is to cool the heat source (as in the normal operation of a freezer). The operating principles in both cases are the same; energy is used to move heat from a colder place to a warmer place. Thermodynamic cycles According to the second law of thermodynamics, heat cannot spontaneously flow from a colder location to a hotter area; mechanical work is required to achieve this. An air conditioner requires work to cool a living space, moving heat from the int ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Thermodynamic System
A thermodynamic system is a body of matter and/or radiation separate from its surroundings that can be studied using the laws of thermodynamics. Thermodynamic systems can be passive and active according to internal processes. According to internal processes, passive systems and active systems are distinguished: passive, in which there is a redistribution of available energy, active, in which one type of energy is converted into another. Depending on its interaction with the environment, a thermodynamic system may be an isolated system, a Closed system#In thermodynamics, closed system, or an Open system (systems theory), open system. An isolated system does not exchange matter or energy with its surroundings. A closed system may exchange heat, experience forces, and exert forces, but does not exchange matter. An open system can interact with its surroundings by exchanging both matter and energy. The physical condition of a thermodynamic system at a given time is described by its ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Reversing Valve
A reversing valve is a type of valve and is a component in a heat pump, that changes the direction of refrigerant flow. By reversing the flow of refrigerant, the heat pump refrigeration cycle is changed from cooling to heating or vice versa. This allows a residence or facility to be heated and cooled by a single piece of equipment, by the same means, and with the same hardware. Operation The reversing valve has two states, relaxed (unactivated) versus energized. The energized state is typically achieved by applying 24 volts AC, which is commonly used in HVAC equipment. The heat pump can be designed by the manufacturer to produce either cooling or heating with the reversing valve in the relaxed state. When the reversing valve is energized, it will produce the opposite transfer of heat from its relaxed state. For example, a reversing valve installed in such a way as to produce cooling when relaxed will produce heating when energized. Likewise, a reversing valve installed to produce ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Propane
Propane () is a three-carbon chain alkane with the molecular formula . It is a gas at standard temperature and pressure, but becomes liquid when compressed for transportation and storage. A by-product of natural gas processing and petroleum refining, it is often a constituent of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), which is commonly used as a fuel in domestic and industrial applications and in low-emissions public transportation; other constituents of LPG may include propene, propylene, butane, butene, butylene, butadiene, and isobutylene. Discovered in 1857 by the French chemist Marcellin Berthelot, it became commercially available in the US by 1911. Propane has lower volumetric energy density than gasoline or coal, but has higher gravimetric energy density than them and burns more cleanly. Propane gas has become a popular choice for barbecues and portable stoves because its low −42 °C boiling point makes it vaporise inside pressurised liquid containers (it exists in two pha ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Solar Thermal Collector
A solar thermal collector collects heat by Absorption (optics), absorbing sunlight. The term "solar collector" commonly refers to a device for solar hot water panel, solar hot water heating, but may refer to large power generating installations such as solar parabolic troughs and Solar power tower, solar towers or non-water heating devices such as solar cookers or solar air heaters. Solar thermal collectors are either non-concentrating or concentrating. In non-concentrating collectors, the aperture area (i.e., the area that receives the solar radiation) is roughly the same as the absorber area (i.e., the area absorbing the radiation). A common example of such a system is a metal plate that is painted a dark color to maximize the absorption of sunlight. The energy is then collected by cooling the plate with a working fluid, often water or glycol running in pipes attached to the plate. Concentrating collectors have a much larger aperture than the absorber area. The aperture is ty ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Solar Thermal Energy
Solar thermal energy (STE) is a form of energy and a technology for harnessing solar energy to generate thermal energy for use in Industrial sector, industry, and in the residential and commercial sectors. Solar thermal collectors are classified by the United States Energy Information Administration as low-, medium-, or high-temperature collectors. Low-temperature collectors are generally unglazed and used to heat swimming pools or to heat ventilation air. Medium-temperature collectors are also usually flat plates but are used for heating water or air for residential and commercial use. High-temperature collectors concentrate sunlight using mirrors or Lens (optics), lenses and are generally used for fulfilling heat requirements up to () / 20 Bar (unit), bar (300 psi) pressure in industries, and for electric power production. Two categories include Concentrated Solar Thermal (CST) for fulfilling heat requirements in industries, and concentrated solar power (CSP) when th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Waste Heat
Waste heat is heat that is produced by a machine, or other process that uses energy, as a byproduct of doing work. All such processes give off some waste heat as a fundamental result of the laws of thermodynamics. Waste heat has lower utility (or in thermodynamics lexicon a lower exergy or higher entropy) than the original energy source. Sources of waste heat include all manner of human activities, natural systems, and all organisms, for example, incandescent light bulbs get hot, a refrigerator warms the room air, a building gets hot during peak hours, an internal combustion engine generates high-temperature exhaust gases, and electronic components get warm when in operation. Instead of being "wasted" by release into the ambient environment, sometimes waste heat (or cold) can be used by another process (such as using hot engine coolant to heat a vehicle), or a portion of heat that would otherwise be wasted can be reused in the same process if make-up heat is added to the sys ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ideal Gas
An ideal gas is a theoretical gas composed of many randomly moving point particles that are not subject to interparticle interactions. The ideal gas concept is useful because it obeys the ideal gas law, a simplified equation of state, and is amenable to analysis under statistical mechanics. The requirement of zero interaction can often be relaxed if, for example, the interaction is perfectly elastic or regarded as point-like collisions. Under various conditions of temperature and pressure, many real gases behave qualitatively like an ideal gas where the gas molecules (or atoms for monatomic gas) play the role of the ideal particles. Many gases such as nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, noble gases, some heavier gases like carbon dioxide and mixtures such as air, can be treated as ideal gases within reasonable tolerances over a considerable parameter range around standard temperature and pressure. Generally, a gas behaves more like an ideal gas at higher temperature and lower ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Thermodynamic Reversibility
In thermodynamics, a reversible process is a process, involving a system and its surroundings, whose direction can be reversed by infinitesimal changes in some properties of the surroundings, such as pressure or temperature. Throughout an entire reversible process, the system is in thermodynamic equilibrium, both physical and chemical, and ''nearly'' in pressure and temperature equilibrium with its surroundings. This prevents unbalanced forces and acceleration of moving system boundaries, which in turn avoids friction and other dissipation. To maintain equilibrium, reversible processes are extremely slow ( ''quasistatic''). The process must occur slowly enough that after some small change in a thermodynamic parameter, the physical processes in the system have enough time for the other parameters to self-adjust to match the new, changed parameter value. For example, if a container of water has sat in a room long enough to match the steady temperature of the surrounding air, for ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Coefficient Of Performance
The coefficient of performance or COP (sometimes CP or CoP) of a heat pump, refrigerator or air conditioning system is a ratio of useful heating or cooling provided to work (energy) required. Higher COPs equate to higher efficiency, lower energy (power) consumption and thus lower operating costs. The COP is used in thermodynamics. The COP usually exceeds 1, especially in heat pumps, because instead of just converting work to heat (which, if 100% efficient, would be a COP of 1), it pumps additional heat from a heat source to where the heat is required. Most air conditioners have a COP of 3.5 to 5. Less work is required to move heat than for conversion into heat, and because of this, heat pumps, air conditioners and refrigeration systems can have a coefficient of performance greater than one. The COP is highly dependent on operating conditions, especially absolute temperature and relative temperature between sink and system, and is often graphed or averaged against expected conditi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Refrigerator
A refrigerator, commonly shortened to fridge, is a commercial and home appliance consisting of a thermal insulation, thermally insulated compartment and a heat pump (mechanical, electronic or chemical) that transfers heat from its inside to its external environment so that its inside is cooled to a temperature below the room temperature. Refrigeration is an essential Food preservation, food storage technique around the world. The low temperature reduces the reproduction rate of bacteria, so the refrigerator lowers the rate of Food spoilage, spoilage. A refrigerator maintains a temperature a few degrees above the freezing point of water. The optimal temperature range for perishable food storage is .Keep your fridge-freezer clean and ice-free ''BBC''. 30 April 2008 A freezer is a specialized refrigerator, or portion of a refrigerator, that maintains its contents’ temperature below the freezing point of water. The refrigerator replaced the icebox, which had been a common househ ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Thermal Expansion Valve
A thermal expansion valve or thermostatic expansion valve (often abbreviated as TEV, TXV, or TX valve) is a component in vapor-compression refrigeration and air conditioning systems that controls the amount of refrigerant released into the evaporator and is intended to regulate the superheat of the refrigerant that flows out of the evaporator to a steady value. Although often described as a "thermostatic" valve, an expansion valve is not able to regulate the evaporator's temperature to a precise value. The evaporator's temperature will vary only with the evaporating pressure, which will have to be regulated through other means (such as by adjusting the compressor's capacity). Thermal expansion valves are often referred to generically as "metering devices", although this may also refer to any other device that releases liquid refrigerant into the low-pressure section but does not react to temperature, such as a capillary tube or a pressure-controlled valve. Theory of operation A ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Superheated Steam
Superheated steam is steam at a temperature higher than its vaporization point at the absolute pressure where the temperature is measured. Superheated steam can therefore cool (lose internal energy) by some amount, resulting in a lowering of its temperature without changing state (i.e., condensing) from a gas to a mixture of saturated vapor and liquid. If unsaturated steam (a mixture which contains both water vapor and liquid water droplets) is heated at constant pressure, its temperature will also remain constant as the vapor quality (think dryness, or percent saturated vapor) increases towards 100%, and becomes dry (i.e., no saturated liquid) saturated steam. Continued heat input will then "super" heat the dry saturated steam. This will occur if saturated steam contacts a surface with a higher temperature. Superheated steam and liquid water cannot coexist under thermodynamic equilibrium, as any additional heat simply evaporates more water and the steam will become saturate ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |