Chillers

How Chilling Works: Vapor Compression Cycle

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Super-heating vapors.

The process of vapor compression cycles lowers the temperature of a system by removing heat. The refrigerant will absorb heat from the system via the evaporator, which then travels to a compressor; This pressurizes the vapor into an even denser form, which in turn increases the heat.

This is now considered a “superheated vapor“. The advantage of this vapor is that it is now at the correct pressure and temperature to be condensed via a condenser.

Removing excess heat.

The excess heat can now be discharged or removed from the system via a fan or liquid cooling, for example. The newly-condensed refrigerant is now back to a state in the cycle called saturated liquid.

Refrigerants in this state are pumped to a device called an expansion valve, which reduces the pressure on the saturated liquid dramatically, allowing rapid evaporation to occur (called an adiabatic flash).

This process lowers the temperature of the refrigerant and vapor mixture to the point at which it is now colder than the temperature of the system that it is meant to cool. The chiller repeats this process, giving you the cooling effect you’re looking for.

This cycle involves a coolant or refrigerant which undergoes a phase change. This process is repeated over and over again to create a cooling cycle. This method of cooling is the most widely used for everyday applications such as cars, food, and homes, which all use this process for cooling.