Table of ContentsTechnical Description: Air ConditionerCooling TowerCooling towers come in all shapes and sizes:CompressorSource YorkChilled Water SystemPerformance SpecificationsTechnical Description: Air ConditionerAir conditioning is the conditioning of air in a defined space, usually a residence or place of business. Conditioning typically involves heating or cooling, humidifying or dehumidifying, and filtering or cleaning the air. If you have a central air conditioner, your system cools and dehumidifies the defined space. After a little background, this technical description provides details on three main parts of the air conditioning unit: Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the Original Essay Cooling Tower Compressor Chilled Water System Background An air conditioner is essentially a refrigerator without the insulated box. A typical air conditioner does exactly the same thing, in exactly the same way. You can see a typical air conditioner with this diagram: Cooling Tower In air conditioning systems, air is used to dissipate heat from the outdoor coil. In some systems, efficiency can be significantly improved by using a cooling tower. The cooling tower creates a flow of low temperature water. This water passes through a heat exchanger and cools the hot coils of the air conditioner. The system costs more to purchase up front, but the energy savings can be significant (especially in low humidity areas) over time and the system pays for itself fairly quickly. Cooling towers come in all shapes and sizes: Source Author Source How it works However, they all work on the same principle. A cooling tower blows air through a stream of water so that some of the water evaporates. Typically, water flows through a thick sheet of open plastic mesh and air blows through the mesh perpendicular to the water flow. Evaporation cools the water jet. Since some water is lost to evaporation, the cooling tower constantly adds water to the system to make up the difference. Compressor The compressor compresses cold freon gas, turning it into hot freon gas at high pressure (red in the diagram). This hot gas passes through a set of coils so it can dissipate its heat and condenses into a liquid in the process. Liquid Freon passes through an expansion value, and in the process it evaporates to become a cold, low-pressure Freon gas (light blue in the diagram). This cold gas passes through a set of coils that allow the gas to absorb heat and cool the air inside the building. The compressor is the main engine of the air conditioner. This is the part that manages the entire system. The compressor is rated in BTU. One BTU is, generally, the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of one pound of water one degree F. More specifically, one BTU is 1,055 joules, but the first definition is easier to understand. A “ton,” in heating and cooling terms, is 12,000 BTUs. A typical air conditioner may be rated at 10,000 BTUs. This means that the air conditioner has the capacity to cool 10,000 pounds of water (about 1,200 gallons) by one degree in one hour. Or it could cool 5,000 pounds to 2 degrees in an hour. Or 2,500 pounds of 4 degrees in one hour, and so on. Source York Chilled Water System In a chilled water system, the entire air conditioner is on the roof or behind the building and cools the water to 40 or 45.