Patent Document

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS 
     This Application: claims benefit of U.S. provisional Application Ser. No. 60/220,277 filed Jul. 24, 2000. 
    
    
     FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
     The present invention relates generally to the field of air conditioners. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     The present invention, which is described in detail below, is designed to replace current home, car, commercial and industrial air conditioners with a benign and environmentally friendly system. This new system eliminates all working fluid gases that act as the heat transfer medium. 
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
     FIG. 1 schematically illustrates one presently preferred embodiment of the invention. 
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 
     Referring now to FIG. 1, work is performed on an elastic medium by a drive motor  10  running at a faster rate than a breaking motor  12 . The drive motor  10  is connected to a roller  14   a  via a pinion gear (not shown). To prevent the drive motor from overpowering the breaking motor, the breaking motor is connected to its roller  16   a  via a worm gear  18 . 
     Rollers  14   a ,  14   b  and  14   c  ( 14   b  and  14   c  act as idlers) are geared together as a set and rollers  16   a-c  are similarly configured (with  16   b  and  16   c  acting as idlers). Rollers  14   a  and  14   b , and  16   a  and  16   b  act as grippers. Rollers  14   b  and  16   b  are adjustable for this purpose. 
     The area between the breaking and drive motors could be described as the compressor and evaporator sections of a traditional air conditioner. The elastic medium  20  is stretched and heated while at the same time it is cooled to room temperature. In actuality, when an elastic medium is stretched, it is in fact being compressed; i.e., compressed in its cross-sectional dimension but never-the-less compressed, like the working fluid in a traditional air conditioner. The stretched (compressed) portion of the elastic medium  20  is then passed on to what is considered the evaporator section of a typical air conditioner. After the stretched, room temperature elastic medium is allowed to return to normal, uncompressed, cross sectional size, it absorbs heat. 
     Fan  22   a  blows air across the slackened rubber band, giving up its heat. 
     All of the sensors and controls  30 ,  40  are there to prevent the drive motor from running away and snapping the rubber band and also to maintain automatic temperature control. 
     The controls 
     Reference numbers  30  and  40  in FIG. 1 generally denote the controls and sensors mentioned above. Each of these is further identified as follows: 
     
       
         
               
               
               
             
           
               
                   
                   
               
             
             
               
                   
                 TE 
                 temperature sensing element 
               
               
                   
                 TT 
                 temperature transmitter 
               
               
                   
                 TIC 
                 temperature indicating controller (thermostat) 
               
               
                   
                 MC 
                 drive electronics for the drive motor 10 
               
               
                   
                 IE 
                 current sensing element 
               
               
                   
                 IT 
                 current transmitter 
               
               
                   
                 IC 
                 drive motor controller, and 
               
               
                   
                 IHC 
                 a manual setpoint for biasing the IC&#39;s output. 
               
               
                   
                   
               
             
          
         
       
     
     The whole system is cascaded from the room temperature controller TIC, which operates as a normal indicating (or nonindicating if one desires) temperature controller, although its output controls the speed of the breaking motor. “IHC” is a manual “factory” adjustment of the drive motor&#39;s controller, “IC”. It is an empirically derived setting that accounts for the largest temperature differential between the “condenser” and “evaporator” sections of the system while also taking into account the amount of tension of the “condenser” area. “IE” senses the current load and sends the signal to “IC” to be compared to the setpoint established by “IHC”. “IC” then outputs a signal to the drive motors&#39; electronics, “MC” to speed up or slow down the drive motor.

Technology Category: 2