This application is a U.S. National Stage Application under 35 U.S.C § 371 of International Patent Application No. PCT/JP2017/042374 filed 27 Nov. 2017, the disclosures of all of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entireties.
The present invention relates to an air conditioner and a motor controller.
Japanese Patent No. 4265601 as listed below describes in claim 1, as a technique of controlling a motor of a compressor such as in an air conditioner, “the control unit, upon receiving a stop instruction, detects the rotation speed of the motor in operation by the speed detector and decelerates the motor, by the speed changing ratio changer, to a stopping speed at which an amount of torque control by an inverter is equal to or larger than a predetermined value, and then stops the motor at a rotor position specified by the stop position determiner.”
Incidentally, Japanese Patent No. 4265601 fails to particularly describe the relationship between the resonance frequency of the piping connected to the compressor of the air conditioner and the stopping speed. However, vibrations and noises generated by the compressor, piping and the like are increased, depending on the relationship between the resonance frequency and the stopping speed, to cause a problem that the user feels discomfort. The present invention has been made in view of the above-identified problems, and is intended to provide an air conditioner and a motor controller that reduce user discomfort due to vibrations and noises at a compressor, piping and the like.
In order to solve the above problems, an air conditioner of the present invention includes: a compressor that has a motor and a compression mechanism driven by the motor; a speed detector that detects a rotation speed of the motor; a drive mode controller that controls a drive mode of the motor; and refrigerant piping that is connected to the compression mechanism and allows a refrigerant to flow therethrough, wherein the drive mode controller, for stopping the motor, decelerates the motor to a rotation speed equal to or lower than a resonance frequency between the compression mechanism and the refrigerant piping.
The present invention reduces user discomfort due to vibrations and noises at a compressor, piping, and the like.
<Configuration>
Hereinbelow, a description will be given of a configuration of an air conditioner A according to a first embodiment of the present invention, with reference to
The remote controller Re is operated by a user to transmit an infrared signal to a remote control transceiver Q of the indoor unit 100. The signal includes a command such as a start request, a change in preset temperature, a timer, a change in operation mode, a stop request, and the like. Based on these signals, the air conditioner A executes air conditioning operation such as in a cooling mode, in a heating mode, and in a dehumidifying mode. In addition, the indoor unit 100 transmits data such as room temperature information, humidity information, and electricity charge information from the remote control transceiver Q to the remote controller Re. The indoor unit 100 has a vertical louver 102 provided at a front lower end thereof for controlling a vertical air flow direction. The vertical louver 102 is closed when the operation of the air conditioner A is stopped.
In the outdoor unit 200, the rectifier circuit 26 rectifies the AC voltage supplied from a commercial power supply 30, and the smoothing capacitor 28 smoothes an output voltage of the rectifier circuit 26 to output a DC voltage Edc. The DC voltage Edc is inputted to the inverter 20. In addition, a shunt resistor 24 is inserted between the inverter 20 and the rectifier circuit 26. The inverter 20 has switching elements 22a to 22f and freewheeling diodes (having no reference numeral) connected back-to-back. Note that the switching elements 22a to 22f are collectively referred to as a “switching element 22” in some cases. In the present embodiment, an IGBT (Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor) is used for each of these switching elements.
In the inverter 20, two switching elements 22 are connected in series to configure upper and lower arms for each phase. In the example in
The outdoor unit controller 40 and the indoor unit controller 140 each include hardware as a general computer such as a CPU (Central Processing Unit), a RAM (Random Access Memory), and a ROM (Read Only Memory), wherein the ROM stores a control program to be executed by the CPU, various data, and the like. Within the outdoor unit controller 40 in
That is, the outdoor unit controller 40 includes a current calculator 41, a DC voltage detector 42, a speed detector 43, a speed controller 44, a PWM signal generator 46, a drive mode controller 48, a storage unit 51, and a communication unit 52. The DC voltage detector 42 detects the DC voltage Edc as described above. The current calculator 41 calculates a current value flowing through the inverter 20, based on a voltage drop in the shunt resistor 24.
The speed detector 43 detects a speed detection value ω1 of the motor 12 without using any sensor, based on the detection result of the current calculator 41. The drive mode controller 48 integrates the speed detection value ω1 to calculate an electrical angle of the motor 12, multiplies the electrical angle by the number of pole pairs of the motor 12 to calculate a mechanical angle of the motor 12, and outputs a torque command value according to the mechanical angle. A load torque generated by the compressor 10 pulsates so as to have a peak at a certain rotation angle. Then, the drive mode controller 48 outputs the torque command value (motor torque command value) that pulsates according to pulsation of the load torque, to reduce vibrations of the compressor 10.
The speed controller 44 outputs a voltage command value V* that achieves the motor torque according to the torque command value, based on the torque command value outputted from the drive mode controller 48 and the speed detection value ω1. The PWM signal generator 46 outputs a PWM signal according to the voltage command value V*. This PWM signal is buffered by the driver 21 and supplied to each switching element 22.
The communication unit 52 transmits and receives various commands and information to/from the indoor unit controller 140. The storage unit 51 stores various parameters to be used by the drive mode controller 48. In particular, the storage unit 51 stores one or more resonance frequencies ωp. Here, the resonance frequency ωp is a resonance frequency of vibration generated between the compressor 10 in
<Operation>
In step S102 in
Next, in step S104, the indoor unit controller 140 closes the vertical louver 102 of the indoor unit 100 (see
In the stop routine, the vertical louver 102 is closed in step S104 before the indoor unit fan 61 is stopped in step S108, and the reason for doing this is as follows. In the present embodiment, the compressor 10 is gradually decelerated after the user has initiated stop operation of the air conditioner A using the remote controller Re (see
However, if the operation of the indoor unit fan 61 is simply continued, the user may have a doubt. The reason is that if the indoor unit fan 61 continues operation even though the user has initiated stop operation on the remote controller Re, the stop operation seems to be ignored. Then, in the present embodiment, once the stop routine (see
In step S2 in
Here, the “around the resonance frequency ωp” is more particularly in a range between “ωp+ωk1” and “ωp−ωk2,” where ωk1 and ωk2 are the upper and lower speed deviations, respectively. In this manner, the speed deviations ωk1 and ωk2 in the present embodiment are constants to define the range where the speed command value ω* has its decreasing rate (absolute value of acceleration) reduced. Note that when a speed (e.g., speed command value ω*) is added to, subtracted from, or compared with a frequency (e.g., resonance frequency ωp), the unit of frequency is Hz (Hertz) and the unit of speed is RPS (revolutions per second).
If the determination result is “Yes” in step S2 in
In contrast, if the determination result is “No” in step S6, the processing proceeds to step S10, to set the speed command value reduction amount Δω to a predetermined value Δω1. Note that this step S10 is also executed when the determination result is “No” in step S2 as described above. Next, in step S12, the outdoor unit controller 40 reduces the speed command value ω* by the speed command value reduction amount Δω. Here, in the present embodiment, the predetermined values Δω1 and Δω2 have a relationship of “Δω1>Δω2.”
Next, in step S14, the outdoor unit controller 40 determines whether or not the speed command value ω* is equal to or less than a predetermined control end speed ωd. Here, the control end speed ωd is a speed at which the outdoor unit controller 40 ends controlling the motor 12, and can be “0.” If the control end speed ωd is “0,” the outdoor unit controller 40 executes the torque control by the drive mode controller 48 until the motor 12 stops. Alternatively, the control end speed ωd may be a value exceeding “0.” However, in order to reduce vibrations and noises of the compressor 10, the control end speed ωd preferably satisfies a relationship of “ωd≤ωp−ωk2” for all the resonance frequencies ωp.
If the determination result is “No” in step S14, the routine ends. Therefore, as long as the speed command value ω* exceeds the control end speed ωd, the speed command value ω* decreases by the predetermined value Δω1 or Δω2 every time a timer interruption occurs. When the speed command value ω* becomes equal to or less than the control end speed ωd, the determination result is now “Yes” in step S14, and the processing proceeds to step S16.
In step S16, the outdoor unit controller 40 transmits the above-mentioned end notification to the indoor unit controller 140. As a result, the indoor unit fan 61 is stopped in the indoor unit 100, as described above (in step S108 in
At time t0, the speed command value ω* exceeds “ωp+ωk1,” and then the speed command value ω* decreases with a slope in proportion to the predetermined value Δω1. Once “ω*≤ωp+ωk1” holds true at time t1, the speed command value ω* decreases thereafter with a slope in proportion to the predetermined value Δω2. As described above, the predetermined values Δω1, Δω2 have a relationship of “Δω1>Δω2” in the present embodiment, and accordingly the speed command value ω* has a smaller decreasing rate (absolute value of acceleration) after time t1 than that before time t1.
As described above, when the speed command value ω* decreases at the decreasing rate in proportion to the predetermined value Δω2, the speed command value ω* eventually becomes equal to or less than “ωp−ωk2.” It is assumed that this timing is time t2. As a result, the speed command value ω* has its decreasing rate in proportion to the predetermined value Δω1 again after time t2. When the speed command value ω* reaches the control end speed ωd at time t3, the outdoor unit controller 40 stops controlling the motor 12, and the motor 12 is decelerated naturally thereafter and stops before long. It is assumed that the motor 12 stops at time t4.
As described above, when stopping the motor 12, the drive mode controller 48 in the air conditioner A of the present embodiment decelerates the motor 12 to a rotation speed equal to or lower than the resonance frequency ωp between the compression mechanism 14 and the refrigerant piping 68. As a result, vibrations and noises of the motor 12 are reduced, and accordingly user discomfort due to vibrations and noises is also reduced.
In addition, when the rotation speed of the motor 12 falls within a predetermined range between “ωp+ωk1” and “ωp−ωk2” centered around the resonance frequency ωp, the drive mode controller 48 controls the motor 12 so that the absolute value of the acceleration of the motor 12 is smaller than that when the rotation speed falls otherwise. This allows control by the drive mode controller 48 to further reduce vibrations and noises of the motor 12 around the resonance frequency ωp.
Further, the drive mode controller 48, for stopping the motor 12, decelerates the motor 12 to a rotation speed equal to or lower than the resonance frequency ωp between the compression mechanism 14 and the refrigerant piping 68, while controlling a torque of the motor 12. This torque control further reduces vibrations and noises of the motor 12. Additionally, with the configuration in which the motor 12 is decelerated to a rotation speed of zero, while the torque of the motor 12 is controlled, vibrations and noises are further reduced until the motor 12 stops.
Next, a description will be given of an air conditioner according to a second embodiment of the present invention. The hardware configuration and program contents of the air conditioner according to the second embodiment are the same as those of the first embodiment (
Once “ωd≤ωp−ωk2” holds true at time t5, the speed command value ω* has its decreasing rate in proportion to the predetermined value Δω1 again. Then, when the speed command value ω* reaches the control end speed ωd at time t6, the outdoor unit controller 40 stops controlling the motor 12, and the motor 12 is decelerated naturally thereafter and stops before long. It is assumed that the motor 12 stops at time t7.
When vibrations and noises are generated by the compressor 10 and the refrigerant piping 68, the user feels discomfort at a level expressed roughly as a function of “(the magnitude of vibrations and noises)×(duration time).” Then, there can be two ways to reduce discomfort: “reducing the magnitude of vibrations and noises” and “shortening the duration time.” The first embodiment as described above is intended to reduce discomfort by “reducing the magnitude of vibrations and noises.” In contrast, the present embodiment is intended to reduce discomfort by “shortening the duration time.”
In the present embodiment, the decreasing rate of the speed command value ω* is larger, during the period from time t1 to time t5, than that during the period from time t1 to time t2 in the first embodiment (see
As described above, when the rotation speed of the motor 12 falls within the predetermined range between “ωp+ωk1” and “ωp−ωk2” centered around the resonance frequency ωp, the drive mode controller 48 in the present embodiment controls the motor 12 so that the absolute value of the acceleration of the motor 12 is larger than that when the rotation speed falls otherwise. This allows for shortening the time during which the motor 12 generates vibrations and noises, to reduce user discomfort.
The present invention is not limited to the embodiments as described above, and various modifications are possible. The embodiments as described above are shown for the purpose of illustrating the present invention, and are not necessarily limited to those having all the components as described. In addition, some component of an embodiment can be replaced with a component of another embodiment, and some component of an embodiment can be added with a component of another embodiment. Further, some component of each embodiment can be deleted, or added/replaced with another component. Furthermore, the control lines and information lines shown in the drawings indicate what are considered to be necessary for the description, and do not necessarily show all the necessary control lines and information lines on the product. In practice, it is safe to say that almost all the components are mutually connected. Possible modifications to the above embodiments are as follows, to name but a few.
(1) In steps S2, S6, and S14 in the above embodiments, the speed detection value ω1 may be applied instead of the speed command value ω*. That is, it may respectively be determined in steps S2, S6, and S14 whether or not “ω1≤ωp+ωk1,” “ω1≥ωp−ωk2,” and “ω1≤ωd” hold true.
(2) In the above embodiments, the “one-cylinder rotary compression mechanism” is applied as the compression mechanism 14, but the type of the compression mechanism 14, the number of cylinders, and the like may be appropriately changed. In the above embodiments, the “permanent-magnet three-phase synchronous electric motor” is applied as the motor 12, but the type of the motor 12 may also be changed as appropriate. In the above embodiments, examples are shown to have the IGBT applied as the switching element 22, but a MOSFET (Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistor) or the like may be applied as the switching element 22.
(3) The hardware of the outdoor unit controller 40 and the indoor unit controller 140 (see
(4) The processes shown in
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
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PCT/JP2017/042374 | 11/27/2017 | WO | 00 |
Publishing Document | Publishing Date | Country | Kind |
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WO2019/102611 | 5/31/2019 | WO | A |
Number | Name | Date | Kind |
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6220045 | Kim | Apr 2001 | B1 |
20060198744 | Lifson | Sep 2006 | A1 |
20170254575 | Beckmann | Sep 2017 | A1 |
Number | Date | Country |
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105698453 | Jun 2016 | CN |
3291284 | Jun 2002 | JP |
2005-009772 | Jan 2005 | JP |
4265601 | May 2009 | JP |
2012-110077 | Jun 2012 | JP |
10-2016-0097697 | Aug 2016 | KR |
Entry |
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Korean Office Action received in corresponding Korean Application No. 10-2018-7027837 dated Sep. 26, 2019. |
Taiwanese Office Action received in corresponding Taiwanese Application No. 107103175 dated Dec. 5, 2018. |
International Search Report of PCT/JP2017/042374 dated Feb. 6, 2018. |
Number | Date | Country | |
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20190368797 A1 | Dec 2019 | US |