Air Cooled Scroll Chiller

An air-cooled chiller is a system that utilizes ambient air as the cooling medium within a refrigeration cycle to generate chilled water. Its core operating principle is the vapor-compression refrigeration cycle, which primarily consists of four key components: the compressor, condenser, expansion device (such as an expansion valve), and evaporator.

Compression: The compressor draws in and compresses the low-temperature, low-pressure refrigerant gas, transforming it into a high-temperature, high-pressure gas.

Condensation: This high-temperature, high-pressure gas then flows into the air-cooled condenser. Here, fans force ambient air across the condenser coils, removing heat and causing the refrigerant to condense into a medium-temperature, high-pressure liquid.

Expansion: The liquid refrigerant passes through an expansion valve, where its pressure and temperature drop drastically. This process causes it to become a low-temperature, low-pressure mixture of liquid and vapor.

Evaporation: This cold, two-phase refrigerant circulates through the evaporator. Here, it absorbs heat from the process fluid (a glycol-water solution) in a heat exchange process. The refrigerant evaporates into a gas, while simultaneously cooling the glycol solution to the required low temperature (typically a chilled mixture between -2°C and 2°C).

The resulting low-temperature, low-pressure gas is once again drawn into the compressor, and the cycle repeats continuously.