Patent ID: 8261574

Claim:
An air conditioning system having an outdoor heat exchanger and an indoor heat exchanger between which a refrigerant circulates to effect a heat exchange between the refrigerant and outdoor air at the outdoor heat-exchanger and to effect another heat exchange between the refrigerant and indoor air at the indoor heat exchanger, the air conditioning system comprising: a compressor that sucks the refrigerant to compress and that discharges the resulting refrigerant; a liquid pump that sucks the refrigerant to discharge; an expansion valve that expands the refrigerant; an accumulator that serves for gas-liquid separation of the refrigerant and that accumulates the refrigerant in liquid phase, wherein when the compressor is brought into operation for indoor air cooling, the compressor, the outdoor heat exchanger, the expansion valve, the indoor heat exchanger, and the accumulator are connected in such an order to circulate the refrigerant therethrough; and a bypass circuit used to switch a portion, to which the discharge line of the liquid pump connects, from an outdoor heat exchanger side to an indoor heat exchanger side when the operation is conducted only by the liquid pump, wherein suction lines of the respective compressor and liquid pump are in parallel to suck the refrigerant from the accumulator, and wherein when the compressor and the liquid pump are concurrently operated for indoor air cooling, a discharge line of the liquid pump is connected to the outdoor heat exchanger to discharge the refrigerant therefrom.