JPH0735390A - Air conditioning apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To satisfactorily and effectually utilize redundant capability when there is produced a redundant capability of an outdoor machine. CONSTITUTION:There are provided an outdoor machine 1, a plurality of indoor machines A, B, C, D connected to the outdoor machine 1 and installed in a plurality of rooms, and a control unit 40. The control unit 40 groups the indoor machines A, B, C, D into the main indoor machines A, B, C and the auxiliary indoor machine D, and precidently provides capability of the outdoor machine 1 to the operation of the main indoor machines A, B, C, and as loads of the main indoor machines A, B, C are reduced, the control unit provides a redundant fraction of the main indoor machines A, B, C to the operation of the auxiliary indoor machine D.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an air conditioner for conditioning indoor air.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A conventional air conditioner that cools (or heats) indoor air to harmonize it has an outdoor unit and a plurality of indoor units installed in each room.

When the indoor air is cooled (or heated) and conditioned by this type of air conditioner, the load on each indoor unit is small except when all the indoor units are simultaneously operated at the maximum frequency. , Excess capacity is generated in each indoor unit.

Even if the indoor units in all the rooms are operated at the same time, an excess capacity is generated in each indoor unit depending on the load condition of the indoor unit in each room.

Especially during the summer season when high cooling capacity is required,
The surplus capacity of each indoor unit is large in the interim period other than the winter season when high heating capacity is required.

[0006]

When a surplus capacity is generated in the indoor unit of each room, in other words, when a surplus capacity of the outdoor unit is generated, the surplus capacity is operated in the indoor unit of another room. It was desired to make effective use of it.

The present invention has been made to solve the above problems, and when the surplus capacity of a main indoor unit occurs, the surplus capacity can be effectively utilized for an auxiliary indoor unit. , The purpose is to provide an air conditioner.

[0008]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides an outdoor unit, a plurality of indoor units connected to the outdoor unit and set in a plurality of rooms, and a plurality of the indoor units. Is divided into a main indoor unit and an auxiliary indoor unit, the capacity of the outdoor unit is applied with priority over the operation of the main indoor unit, and when the load of the main indoor unit is reduced, the main indoor unit is And a controller for applying the surplus of the capacity of 1. to the operation of the auxiliary indoor unit.

[0009]

According to the above structure, the capacity of the outdoor unit is applied to the operation of the main indoor unit, and when the load on the main indoor unit is reduced, the surplus capacity of the main outdoor unit is transferred to the auxiliary indoor unit. Apply.

[0010]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT A preferred embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

In FIG. 1, this air conditioner is provided with one outdoor unit 100, four indoor units 200 each containing indoor heat exchangers A, B, C and D, and one control box 40. ing.

The outdoor heat exchanger 1 in the outdoor unit 100 is
It is connected to the compressor 3 via one line 5 of the four-way valve 2. An accumulator 4 is connected to the compressor 3, and the accumulator 4 is connected to the other line 6 of the four-way valve 2.

Line 6 is four lines 7, 8, 9, 1.
The indoor heat exchangers A, B, C, and D are connected to the lines 7, 8, 9, and 10, respectively. In addition, each line 1 of these indoor heat exchangers A, B, C, D
Sub electric expansion valves 15, 1 are attached to 1, 12, 13, and 14.
6, 17, 18 are connected.

These electric expansion valves 15, 16, 17, 1
Motors 20, 21, 22, and 23 are provided on the motors 8, respectively. The main electric expansion valve 30 is connected between these electric expansion valves 15, 16, 17, 18 and the outdoor heat exchanger 1. A motor 32 is also provided in the main electric expansion valve 30.

The control box 40 includes a motor 32 of the main electric expansion valve 30, a sub electric expansion valve 15,
It is for controlling the operation of the motors 17, 21, 22, and 23 of the motors 16, 17, and 18.

In this embodiment, the control box 4
0 recognizes the indoor heat exchangers A, B, and C as the main indoor heat exchanger or the main indoor heat exchanger,
The indoor heat exchanger C is recognized as an auxiliary indoor heat exchanger or a sub indoor heat exchanger.

The main indoor heat exchanger or the main indoor heat exchanger is set in, for example, a living room, particularly a main room such as a dining room, a living room, a kitchen, a bedroom, a children's room, and a study room.

On the other hand, the auxiliary indoor heat exchanger or the sub indoor heat exchanger is set in a toilet, a washroom, a corridor or the like.

Next, the operation of the air conditioner having the above structure will be described.

The control box 40 recognizes the indoor heat exchangers A, B and C as the main indoor heat exchanger or the main indoor heat exchanger, and the indoor heat exchanger D as the auxiliary indoor heat exchanger or the sub indoor heat exchanger. Recognize as an indoor heat exchanger.

As an example, the indoor heat exchangers A, B and C are
It shall be used in the kitchen, living room, and bedroom. The indoor heat exchanger D is used for toilets, corridors, and washrooms.

The control box 40 detects or reads the set temperature relative to the room temperature of each room, and outputs the signal to the motor 32 of the main electric expansion valve 30 and the motors 20 of the auxiliary electric expansion valves 15, 16, 17, and 18. 21,2
2 and 23 to control the operation of each motor. By the control of the control box 40, the opening / closing degree of each electric expansion valve is set.

In FIG. 1, the solid line arrow indicates the direction of flow of the refrigerant during heating, and the broken line arrow indicates
The direction in which the refrigerant flows during cooling is shown.

First, the heating operation will be described. During heating, the indoor heat exchangers A, B, C, D are condensers, and the outdoor heat exchanger 1 is an evaporator. In this case, the four-way valve 2
Is switched to the circuit shown by the solid line.

In FIG. 1, the refrigerant compressed by the compressor 3 becomes a high temperature and high pressure gas, passes through the four-way valve 2 and enters each of the indoor heat exchangers A, B, C and D. As a result, the high-temperature and high-pressure gas passing through the indoor heat exchangers A, B, C, D is cooled by the intake air entering the indoor heat exchangers A, B, C, D, and the intake air is warm air. And each room is heated.

Then, the medium-temperature high-pressure liquid from each of the indoor heat exchangers A, B, C, D is converted into an auxiliary electric expansion valve 15, 1
After passing through 6, 17 and 18 and the main electric expansion valve 30, it enters the outdoor heat exchanger 1 as a low temperature low pressure liquid.

In this outdoor heat exchanger 1, the low-temperature low-pressure liquid comes into contact with the outside air, receives heat from the outside air, and becomes low-temperature low-pressure gas, which is guided to the compressor 3 described above. In this way, the heating operation of each room is performed.

Next, the cooling operation will be described. During cooling, the indoor heat exchangers A, B, C, D are evaporators and the outdoor heat exchanger 1 is a condenser. In this case, the four-way valve 2
Is switched to the circuit shown by the broken line.

In FIG. 1, the refrigerant compressed by the compressor 3 becomes high-temperature and high-pressure gas, passes through the four-way valve 2 and enters the outdoor heat exchanger 1. As a result, the high-temperature and high-pressure gas that has passed through the outdoor heat exchanger 1 exchanges heat with the outside air and the heat is taken away to the outside air and cooled.

The medium-temperature high-pressure liquid from the outdoor heat exchanger 1 is supplied to the main electric expansion valve 30 and the auxiliary electric expansion valve 1.
Each of the indoor heat exchangers A, B, C and D is passed through 5, 16, 17 and 18 as a low temperature and low pressure liquid. The low-temperature low-pressure liquid passing through the indoor heat exchangers A, B, C, D comes into contact with the sucked air to cool it, and blows cold air into each room. In this way, the cooling operation of each room is performed.

In the case of performing such heating operation and cooling operation, in the embodiment of the present invention, paying attention to the surplus capacity of each main indoor heat exchanger A, B, C, the following heating operation or There is a feature in performing cooling operation.

That is, each main indoor heat exchanger A,
Focusing on the surplus abilities of B and C, control box 4
0 reads the set temperature with respect to the room temperature of each room, and outputs a signal related to the set temperature to each auxiliary electric expansion valve 15, 16,
It sends to 17, 18 and the main electric expansion valve 30, and controls.

The control box 40 gives priority to the main indoor heat exchangers A, B, C when the loads on the main indoor heat exchangers A, B, C are small and there is surplus capacity. The sub indoor heat exchanger D is operated.

On the other hand, if the control box 40 detects that the cooling load or the heating load of the main indoor heat exchangers A, B, C has increased and the surplus capacity has decreased, the control box 40 first The cooling capacity or the heating capacity of the sub indoor heat exchanger D is reduced, and the sub indoor heat exchanger D is stopped.

Referring now to FIG. FIG. 2 shows the capacity relationship between the main indoor heat exchangers (indoor units) A, B, C and the sub indoor heat exchangers (indoor units) D during cooling.

The total cooling capacity of the outdoor heat exchanger 1 in this example is, for example, 6.8 KW. Therefore, the total cooling capacity of the main indoor heat exchangers A, B, C and the sub indoor heat exchanger D is 6.8 KW or less.

In the example of FIG. 2, the main indoor heat exchangers A,
The capacity of B is 3.2 kW and the capacity of the main indoor heat exchanger C is 4.0 kW.

As the sub indoor heat exchanger D, 3
There are two, and each ability has 2.2, 2.
It is 8,3.2 kW.

As shown in column X of FIG. 2, and as shown in FIG. 3, for example, both the main indoor heat exchangers A, B, C are operated, or two of the three are operated and operated. When the total capacity of the main indoor heat exchanger reaches the capacity of the outdoor heat exchanger 1 and there is no surplus capacity, the sub indoor heat exchanger D is not operated at all as indicated by zero.

On the other hand, one of the main indoor heat exchangers A, B and C is illustrated in the Y column of FIG. 2 and as shown in FIG.
If surplus capacity occurs when one is not driven, one
Alternatively, a plurality of sub indoor heat exchangers D can be operated.

Further, as illustrated in the Z column of FIG. 2, when the main indoor heat exchangers A, B and C are not operated,
The sub indoor heat exchanger D can be fully operated. In any case, if excess capacity occurs in the main indoor heat exchangers A, B, C, within the range of the capacity of the outdoor heat exchanger 1,
The cooling capacity of the sub indoor heat exchanger D can be increased.

As described above, according to the embodiment of the present invention, with respect to the connection between the outdoor heat exchanger and the plurality of indoor heat exchangers, the main (main) indoor heat exchanger side and the auxiliary (sub) indoor It is divided into the heat exchanger side and usually gives priority to the main indoor heat exchanger side to give the capacity of the outdoor heat exchanger, and when the load on the main indoor heat exchanger side becomes small, the outdoor heat exchange The surplus of the capacity of the reactor is turned to the auxiliary indoor heat exchanger side.

As a result, in the cooling (heating) operation,
Focusing on the surplus capacity of the outdoor heat exchanger, the capacity of the outdoor heat exchanger can be used sufficiently effectively. For this reason, it is not necessary to set an outdoor heat exchanger having an unnecessarily high capacity.

The present invention is not limited to the above embodiment.

For example, in the present invention, the number of main indoor heat exchangers (indoor units) is not limited to three, and the number of sub indoor heat exchangers (indoor units) is not limited to one. Further, in the present invention, the number of outdoor units is not limited to one, and there may be a plurality.

[0046]

As described above, according to the present invention, when excess capacity occurs in a main indoor unit, in other words, when excess capacity occurs in the outdoor unit, the excess capacity is used as an auxiliary indoor unit. Can be used effectively enough to drive. Therefore, it is possible to constantly and efficiently operate the main indoor unit and the auxiliary indoor unit within the range of the capacity of the outdoor unit according to the operating state of the main indoor unit.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram of a refrigerant circuit showing a configuration of a preferred embodiment of an air conditioner of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a main view of the embodiment of FIG. 1 during cooling.
The figure which shows the example of the capacity | capacitance relationship between the indoor heat exchanger side and the auxiliary (sub) indoor heat exchanger side.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing whether the auxiliary indoor heat exchanger can be operated with respect to the operation status of the main indoor heat exchanger.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Outdoor heat exchanger (outdoor unit) 2 Four-way valve 3 Compressor 4 Accumulator A, B, C, D Indoor heat exchanger (indoor unit) 15, 16 Electric expansion valve 17, 18 Electric expansion valve 32 Electric expansion valve 40 Control Box (control device)

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. An outdoor unit, a plurality of indoor units connected to the outdoor unit and set in a plurality of rooms, and a plurality of the indoor units are divided into a main indoor unit and an auxiliary indoor unit, and The capacity of the outdoor unit is applied with priority over the operation of the main indoor unit, and when the load on the main indoor unit decreases, the surplus capacity of the main indoor unit is applied to the operation of the auxiliary indoor unit. An air conditioner characterized by comprising: