Air Cycle Heat Pumps

Abstract

Air cycle refrigeration and heat pump were one of the earliest forms of cooling or heating. Air cycle heat pumpwith turbochargerIn recent years, the development of air cycle refrigeration/heat pump system with moderate capacity of cooling has become unpromising in automotive or home use until the seriousness of ozone-depletion and global-warming potentials from CFC refrigerants was widely recognized. The heat pump operating with reversed Brayton cycle that employs air as the refrigerant, which is environmental friendly, seems to be necessarily reexaminated for domestic and other heating service, especially, due to the confluence of a number of technical advances, such as small physical size and reasonable efficiency of turbomachine, together with the development of air bearings and ceramic components. The prospect of using natural air appears to have been one of the driving forces behind this renewed interest in air cycle refrigeration/heat pump.