An Application of Heat Pump for Infant Incubator

The purpose of this study is to develop an infant incubator that is efficient, simple to implement, and can be utilized especially in the rural area of Thailand. Instead of the current one which employed electrical heater, an electrical operated heat pump infant incubator is designed. The requirement of the air conditioning system to provided the room temperature lower than the desired temperature in the incubator (30–38 °C) in no longer needed. An electrical operated heat pump infant incubator using a simple four ways control valve will switch the incubator side to become evaporator when the ambient temperature is higher than the desired temperature and, in contrary, condenser in the when the ambient temperature is lower. A large mass heat exchanger attached to the indoor coils is desired to store energy sufficient that air temperature in the incubator would not drop lower than 0.5 °C from the set point between the compressor cut-out and cut-in. This application of heat pump could provided the opportunity for over six thousand small hospitals in the rural area of Thailand to employ the infant incubator.