What is HVAC? How does AC work??

Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) equipment perform heating and cooling for residential, commercial or industrial buildings. The HVAC system may also be responsible for providing fresh outdoor air to dilute interior airborne contaminants such as odors from occupants, volatile organic compounds (VOC's) emitted from interior furnishings, chemicals used for cleaning, etc. A properly designed system will provide a comfortable indoor environment year round when properly maintained.

How Does AC Work??

An air conditioner cools and dehumidifies the air as is passes over a cold coil surface. The indoor coil is an air-to-liquid heat exchanger with rows of tubes that pass the liquid through the coil. Finned surfaces connected to these tubes increase the overall surface area of the cold surface thereby increasing the heat transfer characteristics between the air passing over the coil and liquid passing through the coil. The type of liquid used depends on the system selected. Direct-expansion (DX) equipment uses refrigerant as the liquid medium. Chilled water (CW) can also be used as a liquid medium. When the required temperature of a chilled water system is near the freezing point of water, freeze protection is added in the form of glycols or salts. Regardless of the liquid medium used, the liquid is delivered to the cooling coil at a cold temperature.

In the case of direct expansion equipment, the air passing over the indoor cooling coil heats the cold liquid refrigerant. Heating the refrigerant causes boiling and transforms the refrigerant from a cold liquid to a warm gas. This warm gas (or vapor) is pumped from the cooling coil to the compressor through a copper tube (suction line to the compressor) where the warm gas is compressed. In some cases, an accumulator is placed between the cooling coil and the compressor to capture unused liquid refrigerant and ensures that only vapor enters the compressor. The compression process increases the pressure of the refrigerant vapor and significantly increases the temperature of the vapor. The compressor pumps the vapor through another heat exchanger (outdoor condenser) where heat is rejected and the hot gas is condensed to a warm high pressure liquid. This warm high pressure liquid is pumped through a smaller copper tube (liquid line) to a filter (or filter/dryer) and then on to an expansion device where the high pressure liquid is reduced to a cold, low pressure liquid. The cold liquid enters the indoor cooling coil and the process repeats.

As this liquid passes through the indoor cooling coil on the inside of the heat exchanger, two things happen to the air that passes over the coil's surface on the outside of the heat exchanger. The air's temperature is lowered (sensible cooling) and moisture in the air is removed (latent cooling) if the indoor air dew point is higher than the temperature of the coil's surface. The total cooling (capacity) of an AC system is the sum of the sensible and latent cooling. Many factors influence the cooling capacity of a DX air conditioner. Total cooling is inversely proportional to the outdoor temperature. As the outdoor temperature increases the total capacity is reduced. Air flow over the indoor cooling coil also affects the coil's capacity and is directly proportional to the total capacity of an AC system. As air flow increases, the total capacity also increases. At higher air flow rates the latent capacity of the cooling coil is reduced. Indoor temperature and humidity also affect the total capacity of the AC system. As indoor temperature increase, the sensible capacity also increases. Similarly, as indoor relative humidity increases the latent capacity of the AC system increases. Manufacture of AC equipment typically provide a "performance map" of specific equipment to show how total, sensible and latent capacity change with changing indoor and outdoor temperatures and humidity. Power consumption and energy efficiency are also provided in these charts.