Patent ID: 7040117

Claim:
A gas-liquid separator for a refrigerant cycle, the refrigerant cycle including: a compressor for compressing refrigerant; a radiator which cools refrigerant discharged from the compressor; an evaporator for evaporating refrigerant; and an ejector including a nozzle for converting a pressure energy of high-pressure refrigerant from the radiator to a speed energy so that the high-pressure refrigerant is decompressed and expanded and gas refrigerant evaporated in the evaporator is sucked, and a pressure-increasing portion in which the speed energy is converted to the pressure energy so that the pressure of refrigerant is increased while refrigerant discharged from the nozzle and the gas refrigerant from the evaporator are mixed, the gas-liquid separator comprising a tank body for separating refrigerant, flowing from the ejector, into gas refrigerant and liquid refrigerant, an inlet which opens at an upper region of an inner hollow chamber in the tank body and is connected with an outlet of the ejector directly to introduce the gas-liquid two phase refrigerant into the inner hollow chamber; a first outlet which opens at an upper region of the inner hollow chamber in the tank body but below the inlet and is connected with the compressor to enable the compressor to draw gaseous refrigerant from the inner hollow chamber; and a second outlet which opens at a lower region of the inner hollow chamber in the tank body and is connected with the evaporator to enable the ejector to draw liquid refrigerant from the inner hollow chamber through the evaporator; wherein: the tank body is disposed such that the gas refrigerant in the tank body is supplied to a suction side of the compressor and the liquid refrigerant in the tank body is supplied to the evaporator; the tank body has an equivalent inner diameter (D) that is set in a range of 2 cm–6 cm; a ratio of a vertical dimension (H) of the tank body to the equivalent inner diameter (D) thereof is larger than 1; the outlet of the ejector is coupled to the tank body at a portion above the upper surface of the liquid refrigerant therein; and the inlet is provided on an end of a passage which directs the refrigerant introduced into the inner hollow chamber via the inlet with a horizontal direction component.