2020 Volume 37 Issue 3 Pages 267-
As a measure to improve the energy saving of air conditioners, we paid attention to the loss of piping systems that had not been actively improved until now. The air-conditioning refrigeration cycle uses copper pipes, and especially the compressor suction pipe tends to have a large pipe diameter. In order to prevent stress concentration due to the vibration of the compressor, the small air conditioner has a length of 1000 to 1500 mm with 2 to 3 U-shaped turns. This prevents stress concentration due to compressor vibration. Since the suction pipe is in a low-pressure gas state, the pressure loss is large and it is desirable to shorten the length as much as possible in order to improve the performance. In order to solve this problem, we changed the material of the suction pipe from a copper pipe to a rubber hose pipe, and tried to achieve both the reduction of stress concentration in the entire pipe and the reduction of pressure loss by shortening the pipe length. A trial calculation of the energy saving effect of the air conditioner system and a comparative analysis of the stress and vibration of the piping system were performed, and good results were obtained. In addition, we evaluated the vibration test and the 5000-hours endurance test using the prototype, and confirmed that there were no problems.
