AIR CONDITIONING APPARATUS FOR VEHICLE AND METHOD FOR SWITCHING OPERATION THEREOF

摘要

Disclosed is an air conditioning apparatus for a vehicle. The air conditioning apparatus is provided with a refrigeration cycle, a high-pressure detector, and a controller. The refrigeration cycle has: a compressor; an outdoor condenser; an indoor condenser; an evaporator; an expansion valve (7); a bypass passage which bypasses the outdoor condenser; a cooling circulation passage which circulates a refrigerant through the outdoor condenser (4); a heating circulation passage which circulates the refrigerant through the bypass passage (11); and a flow passage switching valve which switches a refrigerant circulation passage to either the cooling circulation passage or the heating circulation passage. The high-pressure detector detects pressure at a high-pressure side of the refrigeration cycle. When an instruction is given to switch to a heating operation during a cooling operation, the controller controls a flow passage switching device in such a way that the refrigerant circulation passage is switched from the cooling circulation passage to the heating circulation passage after the pressure at the high-pressure side detected by the high-pressure detector becomes equal to or lower than a reference pressure. The air conditioning apparatus makes it possible to properly adjust the amount of the refrigerant in the heating circulation passage without complicating and increasing costs and so on for the refrigeration cycle.