Greetings everyone! I have a question that I'm hoping some
people may help me out with. At the high school I teach, one of the
school tutors came to me to ask a question about air conditioning/heating
for one of the general science students. The diagram and explanation
they use in the book I think may not be accurate. It's kind of hard to
explain a diagram over the internet, but I'll give it a shot.
The diagram looks like a cut-away of a window air-conditioner.
The description I'll try to explain is for summer cooling. From the
compressor, the freon travels through the tubes in the back where a fan
blows over them and the diagram show that the freon is "hot". It then
goes through a condensor (?) and through a capillary tube. From the
capillary tube, the tube gets larger and passes in front of the
air-conditioner (the part inside of the house) where the freon is a gas.
Air is circulated over the tubes and the tubes return back to the
compressor.
Personally, I think this is backwards. It was my understanding
that the freon from the compressor is compressed into a liquid, where it
releases its heat energy to the outside. The freon is then circulated to
the front where it picks up heat energy and the freon goes from a liquid
into a gas. The gas is then brought into the back and is compressed in
the capillary tube and back into the compressor where it releases a large
amount of heat energy.
Can anyone help? Can anyone explain steb by step how a heat pump
works and what goes on in an air-conditioner/heater? What happens when
an air-conditioner is put into reverse and becomes a heater?
Any help would be very much appreciated.