Patent ID: 7299645

Claim:
An ejector cycle comprising: a gas-liquid separator for storing gas-phase and liquid-phase refrigerant; a compressor connected to the gas-liquid separator and for sucking refrigerant from the gas-liquid separator and compressing the same; a heat exchanger connected to the compressor and for cooling down the refrigerant pumped out from the compressor; an evaporator for evaporating refrigerant; and an ejector connected to the heat exchanger, the evaporator and the gas-liquid separator, wherein the ejector comprises: an inlet port connected to the heat exchanger, through which the refrigerant from the heat exchanger is supplied to the ejector; a suction port connected to the evaporator, through which the refrigerant is sucked from the evaporator into the ejector; a discharge port connected to the gas-liquid separator, through which the refrigerant is discharged from the ejector to the gas-liquid separator; an ejector nozzle for depressurizing and expanding the refrigerant from the heat exchanger, by converting pressure energy to speed energy; a pressure increasing portion for sucking the gas-phase refrigerant from the evaporator by a refrigerant flow ejected from the nozzle and having a high flow velocity, for mixing the refrigerant ejected from the ejector nozzle with the refrigerant sucked from the evaporator, and for increasing fluid pressure of the refrigerant while converting the speed energy of the refrigerant to pressure energy; a first bypass channel for making the refrigerant bypass the nozzle; and a first passage changeover means provided in the ejector for leading the high-pressure refrigerant from the heat exchanger to the ejector nozzle in a normal cooling operation, and for changing a flow passage in order that the refrigerant from the heat exchanger bypasses the ejector nozzle and for leading the refrigerant to the bypass channel in a bypass cooling operation in which an input amount of the refrigerant from the heat exchanger to the ejector is decreased.