Heat pump applications: by Emory N. Kemler and Sabert Oglesby, Jr.300 pages, illustrations, 16 × 24 cm. New York, McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 1951. price, $6.00

✍ Scribed by A.D. Hay

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1951
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 77 KB
• Volume: 252
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0016-0032
• DOI: 10.1016/0016-0032(51)90469-3

✦ Synopsis

The authors have capitalized on the growing demand for heat pumps which will both heat a dwelling in the winter and cool it in the summer. Both have contributed much to the development of the heat pump through their inventions and through their published articles.

The book is primarily a summary of heat-pump literature published in both this country and Europe. There is an abundance of this literature available, and the authors have selected the material well and have included a lengthy bibliography at the end of almost every chapter. Many examples of the application of heat pumps to commercial, industrial, and residential installations are illustrated and described, usually accompanied by performance data.

The book takes up the various heat-pump cycles, explaining the advantages and disadvantages of each. Individual chapters treat the component parts of the heat pump, such as compressor, fan, electric motor, heat exchanger, and accessories. The thermodynamics of refrigerants within the heat pump is well treated. The chapter on heat sources is particularly good and includes information about many recent studies in this field. The reviewer feels that the psychrometrics, which is involved in air conditioning, has been slighted. A short chapter considers standard design data and comfort without reference to a psychrometric chart. A longer chapter discusses how to select an electric motor to drive the heat pump, one which would be quite suitable for a textbook in electrical engineering. A book treating heat pumps should place much emphasis on heat, and the study of psychrometrics and precise design data forms an important part of this thermodynamics.