AU2421400A - An air acclimatizer for vehicle transport cabins and a method to install same on an inclined roof - Google Patents

Description

AUSTRALIA

Patents Act 1990 COMPLETE SPECIFICATION STANDARD PATENT Applicant(s): COL-VEN S.A.

Invention Title: AN AIR ACCLIMATIZER FOR VEHICLE TRANSPORT CABINS AND A METHOD TO INSTALL SAME ON AN INCLINED ROOF o;,o rooo 6 oo oooo r o *0 oo h.

*f The following statement is a full description of this invention, including the best method of performing it known to me/us: T AN AIR ACCLIMATIZER FOR VEHICLE TRANSPORT CABINS AND A METHOD TO INSTALL SAME ON AN INCLINED ROOF FIELD OF THE INVENTION This invention refers to the climatization of truck cabins, and could eventually be extended to other types of medium and long distance cargo transports, road building and agricultural units and other means of locomotion. More particularly, it refers to an acclimatizer of the type, which can be mounted on the roof of the cabin and is provided with an external air intake, which is cooled and circulated within the cabin.

The cooling is generally carried out by passing the air through a radiator/evaporator manufactured from a porous material which is kept humid, which fulfils the double function of thermical exchanger, taking heat from the air, and humidifier, which gives the sensation of the air having been cooled. The cabin is 0. 15 cooled by the lower temperature of the acclimatized air and by the evaporation of humidity, which comes in with the air. This invention specifically refers to the humidifying arrangement of the evaporator.

These acclimatizing units are attractive due to their cost and lower maintenance compared with the traditional air conditioning units, furthermore they 20 do not require to take any energy from the engine of the truck, which means operative economy as also reducing the available power which the transport vehicle uses for its own locomotion. These acclimatizers can also be adapted to other uses, such as, transitory or precarious living quarters, for example, workshops The advantage in these static installations is the avoidance in the use of compressors and electrical consumption.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Acclimatizers of the type described in the previous chapter are known on the market. These units have a water deposit and a pump which circulates the water towards the evaporator in order to keep it humid. An electro-ventilator passes the air from the intake towards the interior of the cabin, passing through the evaporator, where it is conditioned, giving out heat and absorbing humidity.

These units are commercially successful due to their simplicity and the advantages previously stated. Argentine Patent Number235.114 and the United

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States of America Patent Number 3,867,486 describe acclimatizers with those characteristics.

Figure 1 illustrates schematically a typical acclimatizing unit which responds, in general, to the characteristics of Argentine Patent Number 235,114. It is made in a plastic cabinet 1 whose front is an air intake grid 12. The air is sucked through a tubular evaporator 7 with a porous lateral wall, the cooled air leaving through a throat made 11 in the base of the cabinet into the cabin, through an orifice made in the roof. The humidifying water comes from an extemal deposit 29 and is fed, by means of a pump 31 and an 8 mm in diameter hose 6, to a coil 5 within the cabinet 1 which doses it in the wall of the evaporator 7. The return water precipitate- on the bottom of a collecting pan 14, from where it returns to the deposit 29 by means of a 13 mm diameter descending hose 15, whose ends are connected, respectively, to the rear part of the acclimatizing unit and the upper wall of the deposit 29, penetrating approximately 20 mm within same.

15 Modern trucks are being designed with special care on the aerodynamics of their external forms, as they are faster than their predecessors and in order to economise the consumption of fuel. To that effect, the roofs of the new cabins are inclined forwards, in order to ease penetration and reduce drag. These modern lines mean that mounting an acclimatizer as the one previously mentioned, that the same S• 20 should be inclined forwards, in line with the inclined roof.

The most frequent disadvantage in the installation of acclimatizers in units with forwardly sloped roof cabins is the return towards the deposit of the excess water collected from the evaporator, since the return hose in the rear part would be at a higher level than the water collected and not permanently descending (see, for reference, the important note on page 11 of the installation manual of the VIESA acclimatizer). For aesthetic reasons and interference with the external air intake preclude the possibility of placing the return hose coming out by the front part of the acclimatizing unit. In the case of the North American Patent Number 3,867,486, the deposit is housed within the cabinet of the acclimatizer; however, the problem subsists due to the fact that the recirculation hose does not remain connected to the lower part of the deposit.

Therefore, installers currently have two viable options in order to solve this inconvenience. The first and simplest one, is to raise the front part of the unit, which aerodynamically and aesthetically leaves it out of line. The other option is to add a second pump in order to overcome the difference in level and pump the water back.

This second solution implies the addition of another component, which affects the cost and maintenance, specially taking into account the fact that the attractiveness of these units lies in their simplicity and economy.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Therefore, an objective of this invention is to resolve efficiently and aesthetically the problem of the water return in acclimatizing units installed in sloped cabin roofs.

Another objective of the invention is to provide a water return system without additional pumps in acclimatizers installed slopingly forwards.

Another objective of the invention is to ease the circulation of the return water towards the rear part of the acclimatizer without lifting up the front part of S. same from its natural position accompanying the line of the cabin roof.

This invention achieves these and other objectives and advantages which 15 will be seen in this development, in an ingenious manner eliminating the connection of the return hose to the upper wall of the water deposit and carry out the return by means of a hose communicated to the outlet of the pump, in parallel with the pressure hose which feeds the evaporator. Suitably, the pump operates intermittently on the basis of a predetermined useful cycle to maintain the 20 evaporator wet within the practical limits of humidity and the section of the return o* hose, is of a smaller section, actual or effective, than the one feeding the coil, is dimensioned so that each useful cycle of the pump will be enough to purge it with a minimal entry of water into the collecting pan.

Preferably, the useful cycle of work of the pump is lower than 10%, more preferable 1:12, approximately. In this way, in each useful cycle, the pump supplies a greater volume of flow of water from the deposit to the coil through the larger hose to humidify the evaporator efficiently and a lesser volume of flow of water towards the pan/bin sufficient to purge the smaller return hose, so that the former will siphon return water from the pan towards the deposit during the rest cycles of the pump.

In addition to solving the stated problem efficiently, this invention has the advantage that it does not oblige modification to the acclimatizer and likewise, is applicable to models of existing units changing the return hose and its connection from the side of the deposit.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS These and other characteristics and details of the object of this invention and the way in which it can be developed, implemented and put into practice can be understood by means of the following detailed description of an example of an embodiment which is illustrated in the accompanying drawings, where: Figure 2 is a schematically longitudinal section of a acclimatizer, in accordance with a preferred embodiment of this invention.

Figure 3 is a time diagram regarding the working of the acclimatizer of Figure 2.

PREFERRED EMBODIMENT OF THE INVENTION The acclimatizer represented in Figure 2 is made up of a cabinet 1 provided with an air intake grid 12. The air is sucked through a tubular evaporator 7, which can be for example cylindrical or quadrilateral, by means of a twin turbo electroventilador 19. The side wall of the evaporator 7, preferable cylindrical, comprises wood shavings of adequate properties or other porous material which can be 15 humidified 8, which is maintained humid by a coil 5 which has a plurality of orifices distributed on the perimeter of the evaporator 7. The passage of hot air evaporates S- water from the porous wood material 8, the air leaving cooled and humidified, that is to say conditioned or acclimatized, by a grid 23 with deflectors located on the roof of the cabin 43.

S 20 An external deposit 29, with a capacity of 24 litres and manufactured from a non translucent material to avoid the formation of moss, feeds humidifying water to the coil 5, the water being pumped through a hose 6 towards the top of the cabinet 1 of the acclimatizer by means of a pump 31 coupled to one of the lower angles of the deposit 29. A filter with a surface of 250 cm2 abutting against the internal angle formed by the three walls which externally house the pump 31 retains strange particles and protects the mechanism of the pump 31.

The excess water from the evaporator 7 precipitates on an annular evaporator-holding tray 45 from where it is returned by the hose 15' to the deposit 29. In accordance with this invention, the lower end of the return hose 15"of the excess water from the evaporator 7 is connected to the outlet of the pump 31 together with the lower end of the feed pump of the coil 5. To this effect, a coupling is connected T 47 to the outlet nipple of the pump 31, from where two hoses are raised 6 and 15' to the cabinet 1 of the acclimatizer. The feed hose 6 of the evaporator 7 is connected, as in the conventional installation, to the distributor coil while a return hose 15', 6,4 mm in diameter, for example, accompanies the feed hose 6 to the cabinet 1, penetrating into the interior of the latter crossing the base of the cabinet 1 until it connects its corresponding end to a nipple 14 provided in the front part, that is to say, the lowest level, of the collecting tray The pump 31 is intermittently operated in accordance with a predetermined work relationship to maintain the porous material 8 of the evaporator sufficiently humidified so that it can perspire and so evaporate humidity continually to the flow of the incoming air. In one embodiment, the pump 31 operates automatically with useful cycles in the order of 35 seconds altemrnated with rest cycles of 7 minutes, approximately.

During the useful cycle, the pump 31 starts and pumps a greater flow of rising water (arrow A) by the feed pump 6 to the coil 5 so that this same can dossify S. the evaporator homogeneously 7, humidifying the porous element 8, and a smaller flow of water, also rising (arrow by the return hose 15', enough to completely .i 15 purge it at the end of the useful cycle. At this moment, the pump stops 31 and the flow of water through those hose stops 6. The return hose 15' is full of water and drains the collecting tray, saving the rising step for the siphon effect 48 towards the raised bend 49 due to the forward inclination of the climatizer's cabinet 1, accompanying the line of the roof of the cabin, then dropping (arrow R) the water S" 20 down to the deposit 29, passing by the stopped pump 31.

The time diagram of Figure 3 represents a working example of the acclimatizer. The useful cycle TA during which the pump 31 works is 36 seconds, during which time the water is pumped to the deposit 29 by both hoses 6 and checking that the return hose 15' requires a time Tp of 8 seconds to be purged.

During this interval TA, the flow through the feed hose 6 is such that the flow through the retumrn hose is of (blank). When the pump stops 31, the drainage of the collecting tray 45 starts, for a time TR of 74 seconds, after which there is a relatively long waiting time TE until the useful cycle starts again. Logically, the duration of these cycles as well as the working relationship between same can be adapted to different forms of operation, such as mean ambience temperature and speed of ventilator 19, among other factors.

The retumrn hose 15' could have a smaller section than the feed 6 of the coil since the working cycle imposed gives sufficient time to drain the tray Nevertheless, in order to reduce the possibility of clogging up with a smaller section, it is preferable to use hoses of the same section as 6 and 15', for example 12,7 mm in diameter, and incorporate a limiting valve to the return duct which would allow a slow rise and a quick descent of the water.

It is indubitable that diverse modifications, variants and /or accessories may be introduced to the embodiment described herein, without altering the nature nor departing from the spirit of the invention. For example, the coupling 47 does not have to be necessarily positioned at the outlet of the pump 31, but can be positioned closer to the cabinet 1 of the acclimatizer, provided that it is positioned at a level sufficiently lower than the drain nipple 14 of the collecting tray 45. The proposed solution can be employed not only for forward inclination of the acclimatiz-r with a return drain towards the rear, but can be adapted to any predetermined sloping of the acclimatizer, positioning the return nipple 14 at the lower level of the collecting means 45 of water excess.

"For the purposes of this specification it will be clearly understood that the word "comprising" means "including but not limited to", and that the word "comprises" has a corresponding meaning.

Claims (10)

1. An air acclimatizer for cabins of transport vehicles and other S. dwellings, the acclimatizer comprising a cabinet provided with an external air intake which is sucked through a porous wall evaporator, where the air is acclimatized prior 0. 15 to leaving towards the cabin or dwelling, said evaporator being provided with a dossifier which receives humidifying water from a deposit, installed at a lower level than said evaporator, through a pump whose outlet is connected to said dossifier by means of a feed hose, while return water of said evaporator precipitates on a collector from where it is retumrned by means of a retum hose to the deposit, 20 characterised in that said return hose has an upper end connected to a lower part of said collector and lower end connected to said outlet of the pump, the same as the lower end of said feed hose, said pump having a predetermined intermittent control.

2. An acclimatizer in accordance with claim 1, characterized in that said return hose has a smaller section than said feed hose.

3. An acclimatizer in accordance with claim 1, characterised in that said return hose has a limiting valve of rising flow.

4. A acclimatizer in accordance with some of the preceding claims characterised in that said return hose crosses the rear part of said cabinet and its upper end reaches up to the front part of said collector.

5. An acclimatizer in accordance with some of the preceding claims, characterized in that said outlet of the pump is connected to a coupling in its tum connected to the respective lower ends of both feed hose and retum hose.

6. A method for installing a acclimatizer in accordance with some of the preceding claims on an inclined roof of a cabin or dwelling, characterised in that it I I comprises connecting the return hose of water between the lower part of the collector of the evaporator and the outlet of the pump of the water deposit and operate said pump with an intermittent control in which the duration of the useful cycles is dimensioned to purge said return hose.

7. A method in accordance with claim 6, characterised in that the flow of water through said feed hose is substantially greater than the flow of water through said return hose during the useful cycle of said pump.

8. A method in accordance with claim 6 or 7, characterised in that the useful cycle of said pump is lower than

9. A method in accordance with claim 8, characterised in that said useful cycle is in the order of 1:12.

10. A method in accordance with claim 6, 7 or 8, characterised in that said acclimatizer is installed in an inclined forward position, rising a stretch of the return hose. Dated this 30 day of March 2000 COL-VEN S.A. By their Patent Attorneys 20 GRIFFITH HACK Fellows Institute of Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys of Australia e* 2