Electric compressor control device, electric compressor, and electric compressor control method

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12377713-B2
Application number	US-202218283680-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	May 12, 2022
Priority date	May 12, 2021
Publication date	Aug 5, 2025
Grant date	Aug 5, 2025

Abstract

This electric compressor control device comprises: a control unit of an inverter which controls a motor that drives a compressor; a physical quantity calculation unit which calculates, on the basis of one or a plurality of predetermined detection values acquired from the inverter, a physical quantity that varies depending on a workload of the compressor; a number-of-revolutions acquisition unit which acquires the number of revolutions of the motor; a storage unit which stores information representing a first threshold that varies depending on the number of revolutions of the motor, and defines whether or not the physical quantity is a normal value; and a refrigerant abnormality determination unit which determines whether or not there is an abnormality in a refrigerant system by comparing the calculated physical quantity with the first threshold, depending on the acquired number of revolutions.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. An electric compressor control device comprising:
a control unit of an inverter that controls a motor that drives a compressor;
a physical quantity calculation unit that calculates a physical quantity that changes according to a workload of the compressor based on one or a plurality of predetermined detection values obtained from the inverter;
a rotation speed acquisition unit that acquires a rotation speed of the motor;
a storage unit that stores:
information representing a first threshold value that changes according to the rotation speed of the motor and defines whether or not the physical quantity is a normal value; and
information representing a second threshold value that changes according to the rotation speed of the motor and defines whether the physical quantity is a slight abnormality or severe abnormality in a case where the physical quantity is not normal; and

a refrigerant abnormality determination unit that determines whether or not there is an abnormality in a refrigerant system by comparing the calculated physical quantity with the first threshold value according to the acquired rotation speed, wherein
the refrigerant abnormality determination unit determines whether the refrigerant system is in a normality, slight abnormality, or severe abnormality by comparing the calculated physical quantity with the first threshold value and the second threshold value according to the acquired rotation speed, and
in a case where determination is made to be the severe abnormality, the refrigerant abnormality determination unit determines that operation is not continuable when a time from the determination to be the slight abnormality to the determination to be the severe abnormality is shorter than a first time.

2. The electric compressor control device according to claim 1 wherein the refrigerant abnormality determination unit determines that operation is continuable in a case where determination is made to be the normality or slight abnormality and determines that the operation is not continuable in a case where determination is made to be the severe abnormality.

3. The electric compressor control device according to claim 1 , wherein in a case where determination is made to be the severe abnormality, the refrigerant abnormality determination unit determines that the operation is not continuable when the time from the determination to be the slight abnormality to the determination to be the severe abnormality is shorter than the first time, and determines that the operation is not continuable when a time from the determination to be the severe abnormality is longer than a second time.

4. The electric compressor control device according to claim 3 , wherein the second time is determined to be short in a case where the rotation speed of the motor is high and to be long in a case where the rotation speed of the motor is low.

5. The electric compressor control device according to claim 1 , wherein the physical quantity is input power or output power of the inverter.

6. An electric compressor comprising:
a compressor;
a motor that drives the compressor;
a control unit of an inverter that controls the motor;
a physical quantity calculation unit that calculates a physical quantity that changes according to a workload of the compressor based on one or a plurality of predetermined detection values obtained from the inverter;
a rotation speed acquisition unit that acquires a rotation speed of the motor;
a storage unit that stores:
information representing a first threshold value that changes according to the rotation speed of the motor and defines whether or not the physical quantity is a normal value; and
information representing a second threshold value that changes according to the rotation speed of the motor and defines whether the physical quantity is a slight abnormality or severe abnormality in a case where the physical quantity is not normal; and

a refrigerant abnormality determination unit that determines whether or not there is an abnormality in a refrigerant system by comparing the calculated physical quantity with the first threshold value according to the acquired rotation speed, wherein
the refrigerant abnormality determination unit determines whether the refrigerant system is in a normality, slight abnormality, or severe abnormality by comparing the calculated physical quantity with the first threshold value and the second threshold value according to the acquired rotation speed, and
in a case where determination is made to be the severe abnormality, the refrigerant abnormality determination unit determines that operation is not continuable when a time from the determination to be the slight abnormality to the determination to be the severe abnormality is shorter than a first time.

7. The electric compressor according to claim 6 , wherein the physical quantity is input power or output power of the inverter.

8. An electric compressor control method which is a control method of an inverter that controls a motor that drives a compressor, the method comprising:
a step of calculating a physical quantity that changes according to a workload of the compressor based on one or a plurality of predetermined detection values obtained from the inverter;
a step of acquiring a rotation speed of the motor;
a step of determining whether or not there is an abnormality in a refrigerant system by comparing the calculated physical quantity with a first threshold value that changes according to the rotation speed of the motor and defines whether or not the physical quantity is a normal value according to the acquired rotation speed; and
a step of determining whether the refrigerant system is in a normality, slight abnormality, or severe abnormality by comparing the calculated physical quantity with the first threshold value and a second threshold value according to the acquired rotation speed, wherein the second threshold value changes according to the rotation speed of the motor and defines whether the physical quantity is a slight abnormality or severe abnormality in a case where the physical quantity is not normal, wherein
in a case where determination is made to be the severe abnormality, the method further comprises determining that operation is not continuable when a time from the determination to be the slight abnormality to the determination to be the severe abnormality is shorter than a first time.

9. The electric compressor control method according to claim 8 , wherein the physical quantity is input power or output power of the inverter.

Assignees

• Mitsubishi Heavy Ind Thermal Systems Ltd

Inventors

• Watanabe Kyohei
• Yoshioka Akinori
• Takeuchi Makoto
• Hase Tomoki
• Mitsumata Takashi
• Hamamoto Shinya

Classifications

• H02P29/026

  the fault being a power fluctuation · CPC title

• B60H2001/3292

  Compressor drive is electric only · CPC title

• B60H2001/3238

  related to the operation of the compressor · CPC title

• F04B2203/0205

  Temperature · CPC title

• F04B2203/0202

  Voltage · CPC title