|Publication number||US6568196 B2|
|Application number||US 09/911,653|
|Publication date||May 27, 2003|
|Filing date||Jul 23, 2001|
|Priority date||Jul 24, 2000|
|Also published as||US20020035837|
|Publication number||09911653, 911653, US 6568196 B2, US 6568196B2, US-B2-6568196, US6568196 B2, US6568196B2|
|Original Assignee||Douglas Pittman|
|Export Citation||BiBTeX, EndNote, RefMan|
|Patent Citations (3), Classifications (17), Legal Events (4)|
|External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, Espacenet|
This Application: claims benefit of U.S. provisional Application Ser. No. 60/220,277 filed Jul. 24, 2000.
The present invention relates generally to the field of air conditioners.
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.
FIG. 1 schematically illustrates one presently preferred embodiment of the invention.
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.
Reference numbers 30 and 40 in FIG. 1 generally denote the controls and sensors mentioned above. Each of these is further identified as follows:
temperature sensing element
temperature indicating controller (thermostat)
drive electronics for the drive motor 10
current sensing element
drive motor controller, and
a manual setpoint for biasing the IC'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'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' electronics, “MC” to speed up or slow down the drive motor.
|Cited Patent||Filing date||Publication date||Applicant||Title|
|US3036444 *||Jan 26, 1959||May 29, 1962||Robert W Cochran||Methods of and apparatus for air conditioning|
|US3599443 *||Oct 22, 1969||Aug 17, 1971||Nasa||Manually actuated heat pump|
|US5339653 *||Oct 29, 1992||Aug 23, 1994||Degregoria Anthony J||Elastomer bed|
|U.S. Classification||62/132, 62/467|
|International Classification||F25B30/00, C09K5/14, F25B23/00, F24F5/00, F24J3/00|
|Cooperative Classification||F25B23/00, F25B2700/2104, F24F5/0007, C09K5/14, F25B30/00, F24J3/00|
|European Classification||F25B30/00, F24J3/00, F24F5/00C, C09K5/14|
|Nov 21, 2006||FPAY||Fee payment|
Year of fee payment: 4
|Jan 3, 2011||REMI||Maintenance fee reminder mailed|
|May 27, 2011||LAPS||Lapse for failure to pay maintenance fees|
|Jul 19, 2011||FP||Expired due to failure to pay maintenance fee|
Effective date: 20110527