What is an A/C, and How Does It Work?
Air conditioners are systems designed to reduce ambient temperature, remove excess moisture, and provide fresh air to the environment by using a cooling cycle. The key part is the removal of humidity in addition to the reduction of ambient temperature.
The presence of excessive humidity makes breathing much harder than excessive temperature. A significant increase in humidity can slow down your reactions, which puts you and your passengers at unnecessary risk. For example, air with a temperature of 104 °F and 10% humidity is better than air at 86 °F and 80% humidity. Battling humidity is arguably a more important feature in certain parts of the world.
In many systems, there is also a function that allows for circulating of air inside the vehicle. It is one of the indispensable systems for the comfort of the driver and passengers. Today, air conditioning is used as a standard in most models of the cars being produced.
Vehicle air conditioning systems work on the same principle as refrigerator systems. In short, a magnetic clutch transfers the rotational movement from the engine to the air conditioner compressor via the accessory belt. The compressor pulley is constantly spinning when the engine is running, but the compressor itself is only activated when the magnetic clutch is pressed against the pulley. This is what happens when you press that A/C button.
At that moment, the A/C compressor starts driving the low pressure refrigerant from the evaporator part of the A/C system, turns it into a high temperature, high pressure gas and drives it into the condenser unit.
The condenser cools the gas into a high pressure liquid. From there, this highly pressurized liquid is sent into the receiver/dryer and further into the expansion valve. Once it leaves the expansion valve, it enters the evaporator where the liquid begins to boil, turning into low pressure gas. This process chills the evaporator. Then, a set of blower fans push air through the now cool evaporator, which is then sent into the passenger cabin. For source info, Click here!