KR101843129B1 - Dehumidifier having bypass airway and driving method thereof - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a dehumidifier and a method of operating the same, and a dehumidifier according to the present invention includes a case having a main inlet, an auxiliary inlet, and a discharge port; A heat exchanger installed inside the case and performing dehumidification by heat exchange with air sucked through the main inlet; A fan installed inside the case and sucking air through the main inlet and / or the auxiliary inlet and blowing air to the outlet; And a motor for rotating the fan, wherein the auxiliary suction port is selectively openable and closable, the air sucked through the main suction port is discharged to the discharge port via the heat exchanger and the fan, and the air sucked through the auxiliary suction port Is discharged to the discharge port via the fan without passing through the heat exchanger. According to the present invention, there is no need to increase the processing capacity of the heat exchanger, and it is possible to prevent the entire dehumidifier from becoming larger in spite of the increase in the amount of airflow, and to prevent the instability due to the overload of the dehumidification system (heat exchanger).

Description

[0001] The present invention relates to a dehumidifier having a bypass air flow path,

The present invention relates to a dehumidifier, and more particularly, to a dehumidifier having a function of discharging a large amount of air, such as a laundry drying mode, in addition to a general dehumidification mode, and a method of operating the dehumidifier.

The dehumidifier is a device used to maintain a proper humidity in a wet place. The dehumidifier removes water vapor from the air introduced through the inlet and discharges the dehumidified air through the discharge port to lower the humidity of the surrounding space. To this end, a dehumidifier typically has a fan for sucking and discharging air into the case having a suction port, a discharge port and an internal flow path, a motor for rotating the fan, and a heat exchanger for performing dehumidification through a heat exchange process with the sucked air And a water tank for holding the water condensed in the heat exchanger.

In recent years, the dehumidifier is also used for drying laundry in addition to the general dehumidification as described above. To this end, dehumidified air can be discharged toward the laundry and guide means for changing the discharge direction of the air (Patent Document 2) that can concentrate air toward a specific laundry (for example, a running shoe).

However, in such a laundry drying mode, it is also necessary to guide the discharge direction of air, but in order to efficiently dry, it is important to increase the air volume of discharged air. The increase in the air volume of the discharged air can be achieved by increasing the capacity of the dehumidification system such as a motor, a fan, and a heat exchanger.

However, the increase in the capacity of such a dehumidifying system leads to an increase in the size of the entire dehumidifier, an increase in manufacturing cost, and an increase in power consumption. In order to avoid this problem, if the air volume is increased by simply increasing the fan rotation speed without increasing the capacity of the dehumidification system (or by increasing the capacity of some parts), the entire dehumidification system is unstable Can be.

Patent Document 1: Publication No. 10-2015-0060347 Patent Document 2: Publication No. 10-2002-0084679

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above problems of the prior art, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a dehumidifier capable of discharging a large amount of air when a large amount of air is required, such as a laundry drying mode, without increasing the size or capacity of the dehumidifier, And to provide the above objects.

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, in the present invention, when a large amount of air is required, the air sucked through the auxiliary inlet is further sucked, and the air sucked through the auxiliary inlet is not dehumidified (the heat exchanger is bypassed ) Simple blowing and discharging with dehumidified air.

That is, a dehumidifier according to one aspect of the present invention includes a case having a main inlet, an auxiliary inlet, and a discharge port; A heat exchanger installed in the case and performing dehumidification by heat exchange with air sucked through the main inlet; A fan installed inside the case and sucking air through the main inlet and / or the auxiliary inlet to blow air to the outlet; And a motor for rotationally driving the fan, wherein the auxiliary suction port is selectively openable and closable, the air sucked through the main suction port is discharged to the discharge port via the heat exchanger and the fan, and the auxiliary suction port The air sucked through the fan is discharged to the discharge port via the fan without passing through the heat exchanger.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, the main suction port is formed on one side of the case, and the air sucked through the main suction port passes through the heat exchanger, the fan, and the discharge port in order, And the air sucked through the auxiliary suction port passes through the fan and the discharge port in order to discharge the air.

At this time, it is preferable that the discharge port is adjustable in opening degree.

The opening adjustment operation of the discharge port and the opening and closing operation of the auxiliary suction port are performed such that the opening degree of the discharge port increases when the auxiliary suction port is opened and the opening degree of the discharge port decreases when the auxiliary suction port is closed .

A method of operating a dehumidifier according to another aspect of the present invention is a method of operating a dehumidifier that dehumidifies air sucked through an air inlet using a fan and discharges the air to a discharge port, wherein the dehumidifier includes a main inlet and an auxiliary inlet Wherein the operation mode includes an operation step according to a general dehumidification mode and an operation step according to an air flow rate increase mode for discharging air having an air flow rate that is larger than the air flow rate of the air discharged to the discharge port in the general dehumidification mode to the discharge port In the normal dehumidification mode, the air sucked through the main intake port is passed through the heat exchanger while the auxiliary suction port is closed, and is dehumidified and then discharged to the discharge port. In the air amount increasing mode In addition to the operation according to the normal dehumidification mode, The intake air with Sikkim before increasing the speed, by opening the sub-intake through the secondary air inlet is discharged with the discharge port via the paenman without going through the heat exchange group.

Preferably, the dehumidifier is capable of adjusting the opening degree of the discharge port, and the opening degree of the discharge port can be increased in an operation step according to the airflow increasing mode.

According to the dehumidifier and the operating method of the present invention, when it is necessary to discharge a large amount of air by selectively opening and closing the auxiliary inlet, in addition to the inhalation and dehumidification of the outside air through the main inlet, The air sucked through the auxiliary intake port is discharged to the discharge port without passing through the heat exchanger, so that the airflow increasing mode can be realized without increasing the capacity of the dehumidifying system (heat exchanger).

Therefore, according to the present invention, there is no need to increase the processing capacity of the heat exchanger, and it is possible to prevent the entire dehumidifier from becoming larger in spite of the increase of the air flow rate and to prevent the instability due to the overload of the dehumidification system (heat exchanger) have.

1 is a perspective view illustrating an appearance of a dehumidifier according to an embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing the internal structure of the dehumidifier shown in FIG. 1 with the case removed. FIG.
3 is a cross-sectional view taken along the line III-III of Fig. 1 showing a main internal configuration of the dehumidifier shown in Fig.
4 is a cross-sectional view taken along the line IV-IV of Fig. 1 showing a main internal configuration of the dehumidifier shown in Fig.
FIG. 5 is a perspective view conceptually showing the air flow rate and the direction of the discharged air according to the respective operation modes of the dehumidifier shown in FIG. 1. FIG.
FIG. 6 is a graph illustrating a comparison between the laundry drying mode of the dehumidifier according to the embodiment of the present invention shown in FIG. 1 and the laundry drying rate according to the elapsed time in the normal dehumidifying mode.

Hereinafter, preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. Prior to this, terms and words used in the present specification and claims should not be construed as limited to ordinary or dictionary terms, and the inventor should appropriately interpret the concepts of the terms appropriately It should be interpreted in accordance with the meaning and concept consistent with the technical idea of the present invention based on the principle that it can be defined. Therefore, the embodiments described in the present specification and the configurations shown in the drawings are only the most preferred embodiments of the present invention and do not represent all the technical ideas of the present invention. Therefore, various alternatives It is to be understood that equivalents and modifications are possible.

In the drawings, the size of each element or a specific part constituting the element is exaggerated, omitted or schematically shown for convenience and clarity of description. Therefore, the size of each component does not entirely reflect the actual size. In the following description, it is to be understood that the detailed description of known functions and configurations incorporated herein will be omitted when it may make the subject matter of the present invention rather unclear.

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing an outer appearance of a dehumidifier 100 according to an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing an internal configuration with the case removed, FIG. 3 is a cross- Fig. 4 is a cross-sectional view taken along line IV-IV in Fig. 1. Fig.

1 to 4, the dehumidifier 100 according to the present embodiment includes a case 10, a heat exchanger 70, a fan 50, and a motor 60 as main components.

The case 10 defines an outer appearance of the dehumidifier 100. The housing 10 houses internal components. The case 10 includes a suction port for sucking outside air and a discharge port for discharging air, Ducts are formed or installed. In addition, the case 10 is provided with an operation panel 16 on which buttons and switches for operating the dehumidifier according to the operation mode described later by the user and a display for indicating the operating state are formed.

In the dehumidifier 100 of the present embodiment, the inlet includes a main inlet 20 for sucking outside air in a normal dehumidification mode and an air volume increasing mode to be described later, and an auxiliary opening / And includes an air inlet (25). In this embodiment, the main inlet 20 is formed in the form of a dehumidifier, that is, a grill and a filter (not shown) on one side of the case 10. The auxiliary suction port 25 is implemented in the form of a door 26 that is opened or closed so that air passing through the grill 12 and the filter (not shown) is selectively sucked or cut off on the side opposite to the main suction port 20. That is, the auxiliary suction port 25 is opened and closed by the door 26 that is rotated by the motor 27 capable of rotating in the forward and reverse directions, as shown in Figs. 2 and 3. Of course, the opening of the auxiliary suction port 25 may be opened or closed by an opening / closing means such as a solenoid valve other than the motor 27. In the present embodiment, the auxiliary suction port 25 is formed to have a smaller suction area than the main suction port 20, but the present invention is not limited thereto.

In the dehumidifier 100 of the present embodiment, the discharge port 30 is formed in the form of a grill 14 on the front surface of the dehumidifier 100, which is a surface different from the surface on which the suction ports 20 and 25 are formed.

On the other hand, in this embodiment, the opening degree, that is, the opening degree of the discharge port is adjustable. This is to diffuse and increase the air volume of the increased air volume in the laundry drying mode which is one of the air volume increasing modes to be described later. To this end, specifically, in this embodiment, the discharge port is composed of the main discharge port 30, which is always open, and the auxiliary discharge port 35, which is selectively opened and closed in accordance with the operation mode.

4, the auxiliary discharge port 35 is formed on the front main discharge port 30 of the case 10, and the lid portion 36 closing the auxiliary discharge port 35 is rotated by a motor And the auxiliary discharge port 35 is opened and closed by raising and lowering the discharge port 35 upward and downward by the discharge port 37 and the screw 38 (Figure 4 (a) shows a state in which the lid portion 36 is lowered and the auxiliary discharge port 35 is closed (B) is a state in which the lid part 36 rises and the auxiliary discharge port 35 is opened). It is preferable that the auxiliary discharge port 35 is formed so that the discharged air is spread more widely than the main discharge port 30 (see Fig. 5 (b)).

The opening of the auxiliary discharge port 35, that is, the opening of the discharge port and the opening operation of the auxiliary suction port 25 described above may be interlocked with each other. The control algorithm of the dehumidifier 100 is set such that the auxiliary discharge port 35 is automatically opened in the air flow rate increase mode in which the auxiliary discharge port 35 is opened and also the normal dehumidification mode in which the auxiliary discharge port 35 is closed Mode, the auxiliary discharge port 35 can be automatically closed.

The opening and closing structure of the auxiliary discharge port 35 can be realized by a solenoid valve and plunger other than the motor 37 and the screw 38 or a gear such as a rack and a pinion gear, But may be implemented by a door which is opened and closed by rotation. Furthermore, the main discharge port 30 can be directly opened without adjusting the auxiliary discharge port 35 that can be opened and closed.

As shown in Figs. 2 and 3, the duct 40, which is an internal duct for guiding air sucked through the suction ports 20 and 25 to the discharge ports 30 and 35, An auxiliary inlet port 44 opposing the inlet port 42 and the auxiliary inlet port 25 is formed and is open toward the discharge ports 30 and 35 while surrounding the fan 50. [ The air introduced through the main inlet 20 and the main inlet 42 and the air introduced through the auxiliary inlet 25 and the auxiliary inlet 44 are combined in the duct 40 to form the discharge ports 30 and 35 As shown in FIG.

The fan 50 is disposed inside the case 10 or more precisely inside the duct 40 and rotatably driven by the motor 60 to discharge air sucked through the inlets 20 and 25 to the outlets 30 and 35, Lt; / RTI >

The motor 60 rotates the fan and is preferably an alternating current motor that can adjust the rotational speed, but the present invention is not limited thereto.

The heat exchanger 70 is disposed between the main inlet 20 and the main inlet 42 and performs heat exchange with the air sucked through the main inlet to perform dehumidification. The heat exchanger 70 includes an evaporator 71 in which a liquid refrigerant flows, And a condenser 72 through which gas refrigerant vaporized in the condenser 71 flows. That is, the outside air sucked through the main inlet 20 is cooled on the surface of the evaporator 71, condensed with moisture, and is dehumidified and passes through the duct 40, the fan 50, and the discharge ports 30 and 35 in that order And is discharged. Meanwhile, the refrigerant vaporized in the evaporator 71 flows into the condenser 72 through a compressor (not shown), and the gas refrigerant in the condenser 72 is cooled by the dehumidified air, Passes through a cycle of being liquefied and flowing into the evaporator 71 while passing through a capillary (not shown). On the other hand, although not shown, a water tank for receiving water droplets condensed on the surface of the evaporator 71 is disposed below the evaporator 71.

Here, the heat exchanger 70 is disposed only on the side of the main suction port 20, and a separate heat exchanger is not disposed on the side of the auxiliary suction port 25. That is, the outside air sucked through the auxiliary suction port 25 is discharged to the discharge ports 30 and 35 as it is by the fan 50 without being dehumidified separately. Therefore, in the dehumidifier 100 of the present embodiment, the heat exchanger 70 is provided with a capacity necessary for dehumidification of the air sucked through the main inlet 20.

Next, the operation of the dehumidifier according to the present invention will be described by describing the operation of the dehumidifier according to the present embodiment as described above.

The dehumidifier of this embodiment mainly includes a general dehumidification mode and an airflow increasing mode.

In the normal dehumidification mode, the fan (50) is rotated by the motor (60) to suck outside air through the main inlet (20). The air sucked through the main suction port 20 is dehumidified through the heat exchanger 70 and the dehumidified air is discharged to the main discharge port 30 through the main inlet port 42 and the duct 40. At this time, the auxiliary suction port 25 and the auxiliary discharge port 35 are in a closed state. Therefore, in the normal dehumidification mode, the dehumidified air is discharged through the main discharge port 30 to the front of the dehumidifier 100 as shown in FIG. 5 (a).

On the other hand, in the normal dehumidification mode, the dehumidification rate is increased by increasing or decreasing the rotational speed of the fan 50 within the capacity limit of the dehumidifying system, that is, the heat exchanger 70, taking into consideration the difference between the target humidity and the target humidity and the present humidity It can also be adjusted.

On the other hand, when it is necessary to increase the amount of air to be discharged, that is, the amount of air to be discharged, in order to rapidly dry a large amount of laundry, it is operated in the air amount increasing mode.

(The main air inlet 20, the heat exchanger 70, the duct 40, the fan 50, and the main outlet 30) in the normal drying mode in the airflow increasing mode (laundry drying mode) In addition to increasing the rotation speed of the fan 50, the auxiliary suction port 25 and the auxiliary discharge port 35 are opened. The duct 40 is then supplied with the dehumidified air introduced through the main intake port 20, the heat exchanger 70 and the main inlet port 42 and the auxiliary intake port 25 and the auxiliary inlet port 44 The outside air that has not been dehumidified flows together. The dehumidified air and the dehumidified air combined in the duct 40 are led to the discharge ports 30, 35 by the fan 50. At this time, since the lid portion 36 rises and the auxiliary discharge port 35 is opened as shown in FIG. 4 (b), the air accumulated in the duct 40 flows into the main discharge port 30 as well as the auxiliary discharge port 35 (see Fig. 5 (b)).

As described above, in the airflow increasing mode (the laundry drying mode), the outside air sucked by the increased airflow is discharged through the discharge openings 30 and 35 without bypassing the heat exchanger 70 It is not necessary to increase the processing capacity of the heat exchanger 70, and it is possible to prevent the entire dehumidifier from becoming larger in spite of the increase in the amount of air and to prevent the instability due to the overload of the dehumidification system (heat exchanger) .

At this time, the opening of the auxiliary suction port 25 and the opening of the discharge port, that is, the opening operation of the auxiliary discharge port 35, can be controlled to be interlocked in the airflow increasing mode (laundry drying mode).

On the contrary, the opening of the auxiliary suction port 25 and the opening of the auxiliary discharge port 35 may be made independent of each other. That is, the rotation speed of the fan 50 is increased and the auxiliary suction port 25 is opened while the auxiliary discharge port 35 is closed to increase the airflow. In other words, it operates in the simple air volume increase mode (turbo mode). The duct 40 is then supplied with the dehumidified air introduced through the main intake port 20, the heat exchanger 70 and the main inlet port 42 and the auxiliary intake port 25 and the auxiliary inlet port 44 The outside air that has not been dehumidified flows together. The dehumidified air and the dehumidified air combined in the duct 40 are led to the discharge port 30 by the fan 50. At this time, since the auxiliary discharge port 35 is in the closed state, the air combined in the duct 40 is discharged only through the main discharge port 30 (see FIG. Such a turbo mode is effective when dehumidifying / drying is performed on an object arranged intensively such as a closet, a shoe box, and a small amount of laundry.

Next, an experiment conducted on the effect of the airflow increasing mode (laundry drying mode) of the dehumidifier according to the present invention will be described.

First, clothes (cotton pants 1, jeans 2, shirt 1, t-shirt 6, underwear 2, and towel 9) having a total weight of about 3.8 kg in a dry state were prepared and the weight before dehydration was measured after washing, After calculating the weight, the drying rate was defined as follows so that the amount of water left after drying was 0 kg, that is, the drying rate in the fully dried state was 100%.

Drying rate (%) = (weight of water before dehydration - weight of water left after drying) / (weight of water before dehydration) × 100

The laundry prepared in the above manner is dehydrated and spreads uniformly on the laundry drying table. The dehumidifier according to the above-described embodiment is placed in front of the laundry drying machine. In the laundry drying mode, the rotation speed of the fan is increased to double the discharge air volume, The inlet and the auxiliary outlet opening). Further, for comparison, the dehumidifier according to the present embodiment was operated in the normal dehumidification mode for the same laundry. At this time, the initial temperature of the surrounding environment was about 25 ° C and the relative humidity was about 70%. The weight of the laundry in the general dehumidification mode and the laundry drying mode with the passage of time was measured, and the drying rate of the laundry was calculated. The graphs of Table 1 and FIG. 6 are shown below.

Elapsed time
(hr) Normal dehumidification mode Laundry Drying Mode Laundry weight
(g) Drying rate
(%) Laundry weight
(g) Drying rate
(%) 0.0 7000 54.3 6934 54.8 0.5 6712 56.6 6503 58.4 1.0 6400 59.4 6045 62.9 1.5 6115 62.1 5665 67.1 2.0 5846 65.0 5366 70.8 2.5 5588 68.0 5069 75.0 3.0 5356 70.9 4813 79.0 3.5 5146 73.8 4576 83.0 4.0 4951 76.8 4307 88.2 4.5 4779 79.5 4181 90.9 5.0 4618 82.3 4075 93.3 5.5 4473 85.0 3969 95.7 6.0 4346 87.4 3889 97.7 6.5 4233 89.8 3829 99.2 7.0 4140 91.8 3798 100 7.5 4057 93.7 8.0 3991 95.2 8.5 3932 96.6 9.0 3883 97.9 9.5 3841 98.9 10.0 3810 99.7 10.5 3800 100

As shown in Table 1 and FIG. 6, in the general drying mode, it takes about 10.5 hours to complete drying, whereas in the laundry drying mode, it is completely dried within 2 hours of the drying time of 7/2 hours.

From the above experiments, it can be seen that, by further sucking and bypassing the outside air through the auxiliary intake port, a quick laundry drying effect can be obtained without increasing the capacity (load) of the dehumidifying system (heat exchanger).

While the present invention has been particularly shown and described with reference to exemplary embodiments thereof, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to the disclosed exemplary embodiments. And various modifications and variations are possible within the scope of the appended claims.

Dehumidifier: 100 Case: 10
Grille: 12, 14 Operation panel: 16
Main inlet: 20 Auxiliary inlet: 25
Door: 26 Motor: 27
Main outlet: 30 Auxiliary outlet: 35
Cover section: 36 Motor: 37
Screw: 38 Duct: 40
Main inlet: 42 Auxiliary inlet: 44
Fans: 50 Motors: 60
Heat Exchanger: 70 Evaporator: 71
Condenser: 72

Claims (6)

A case having a main suction port, an auxiliary suction port, a main discharge port and an auxiliary discharge port;
A heat exchanger installed in the case and performing dehumidification by heat exchange with air sucked through the main inlet;
A fan installed inside the case and sucking air through the main suction port and / or the auxiliary suction port and blowing air to the main discharge port and / or the auxiliary discharge port; And
And a motor for rotationally driving the fan,
The auxiliary suction port and the auxiliary discharge port are selectively openable and closable, respectively,
Wherein the auxiliary discharge port is formed on the main discharge port in the case, and the air discharged from the main discharge port is formed so as to be horizontally widened,
Wherein the lid portion is provided with a lid which surrounds the auxiliary discharge port and is configured to open and close the auxiliary discharge port by lifting up and down the lid portion,
Wherein at least one of the following three modes is operable in the dehumidifier.
(a) normal dehumidification mode: a mode in which the main intake port and the main discharge port are opened and the auxiliary suction port and the auxiliary discharge port are closed to discharge the air sucked through the main suction port to the main discharge port via the heat exchanger and the fan ;
(b) laundry drying mode: opening the main inlet, the auxiliary inlet, the main outlet and the auxiliary outlet, increasing the rotational speed of the fan over the normal dehumidification mode, and the air sucked through the main inlet, And the air sucked through the auxiliary suction port is discharged to the main discharge port and the auxiliary discharge port via the fan without passing through the heat exchanger; And
(c) Turbo mode: the main suction port, the auxiliary suction port and the main discharge port are opened, the auxiliary discharge port is closed, the rotation speed of the fan is increased more than the normal dehumidification mode, The air is discharged to the main discharge port via the heat exchanger and the fan, and the air sucked through the auxiliary discharge port is discharged to the main discharge port via the fan without passing through the heat exchanger. The method according to claim 1,
The main intake port is formed on one surface of the case,
Wherein the auxiliary suction port is formed on a surface of the case different from a surface on which the main suction port is formed. delete delete delete delete

Images