Method for determining shutoff valve and refrigerant leakage sensor interlinking for an air-conditioning system
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing air-conditioning system design methods lack provisions for addressing safety concerns, particularly in preventing and containing refrigerant leaks, which is crucial due to the use of flammable and toxic low GWP refrigerants.
Innovation Solution
A method for determining the interlinking of shutoff valves and refrigerant leakage sensors in an air-conditioning system, involving a structured approach to represent correspondence relationships between system elements, allowing for automatic or manual implementation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If design assistance devices calculate refrigerant charge ratio and inform users of safety measures, then safety awareness is improved, but the system only addresses local inclusion of safety measures and does not comprehensively address all potential leakage sources including pipes
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the air-conditioning system into discrete elements (indoor units, pipes, shutoff valves, rooms) and creates individual correspondence relationships for each element. This segmentation allows comprehensive tracking of all potential leakage sources while maintaining manageable complexity through structured data organization.
Solution Approach 2:
The correspondence relationship system serves multiple functions: it identifies leakage sources, determines affected areas, selects appropriate shutoff valves, and generates control logic. This universal approach comprehensively addresses all potential leakage sources including pipes, not just indoor units, thereby improving safety measure coverage.
2Productivity
If prior art systems evaluate and dimension air-conditioning systems, then system design capability is improved, but no provisions are made for addressing system safety
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary safety analysis during the design phase by establishing correspondence relationships between all system elements before actual installation. This preliminary action integrates safety considerations into the design process itself, rather than adding them as an afterthought, thereby improving both design capability and system safety.
Solution Approach 2:
The system generates control logic that creates feedback loops between leakage sensors, correspondence relationships, and shutoff valve control. This feedback mechanism ensures that safety measures are automatically activated based on sensor inputs, integrating safety seamlessly into system operation while maintaining design productivity.
3Ease of operation
If a structured tabular representation of correspondence relationships is used, then ease of manual and automatic processing is improved, but the complexity of establishing comprehensive interlinking increases
Solution Approach 1:
The correspondence relationship tables serve as intermediaries between physical system elements and control logic. By introducing this structured data layer, the system transforms complex physical interlinking into manageable tabular representations that are easy to process manually or automatically, while still comprehensively capturing all relationships.
Data Source
AI summary
The current invention relates to a Method for determining shutoff valve and refrigerant leakage sensor interlinking for an air-conditioning system. The method comprises the steps of preparing a floorplan of a building with multiple rooms, mapping indoor units of the air-conditioning system and shutoff valves on the floorplan, mapping pipes between the shutoff valves and the indoor units on the floorplan, identifying each room having at least one indoor unit and/or refrigerant carrying piping, identifying each refrigerant leakage sensor installed in each room having at least one indoor unit and/or refrigerant carrying piping. This information is then used to determine correspondence relationships between each refrigerant leakage sensor and each room, between each valve and each pipe and between each pipe and each room through which said pipe passes and/or enters. These three types of correspondence relationships are used to determine a fourth correspondence relationship each between shutoff valve and each refrigerant leakage sensor.