The 4 way valve It is a differentiating element of a heat pump reversible and allows mechanical compression equipment to operate in heating or in mode refrigeration.
Your mission is reverse coolant circulation inside the refrigeration circuit, in such a way that the battery that worked as a condenser starts working as an evaporator and the battery that worked as an evaporator starts working as a condenser. In the following photograph you can see this refrigeration device with each of its paths identified.
Each valve path must be connected to a specific element of the circuit, taking the previous photograph as a reference:
- Path A: connected to the compressor discharge.
- Path B: connected to the compressor suction.
- Path C: connected to battery I.
- Path D: connected to battery II.
To understand the operation of the 4-way valve we will go to the specific example of a domestic machine with an indoor battery installed in the home and an outdoor battery installed on the terrace. When the internal battery works as an evaporator we are operating in cooling mode (we steal heat from the environment) and when it functions as a condenser we are operating in heating mode (we give off heat to the environment).
The 4 way valve It allows us to select which battery to discharge the compressor as shown in the following figures:
Cooling mode: We take the discharge from the compressor to the external battery.
External battery: Works as a capacitor.
Indoor battery: Works as an evaporator.
Heating mode: We take the discharge from the compressor to the external battery.
Outdoor coil: Works as an evaporator.
Internal battery: Works as a capacitor.
