JP2001029422A - Gas-heated wet type far infrared radiation sauna heater - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a gas-heated wet type far infrared radiation sauna heater which is excellent in profitability as well as in sauna effects. SOLUTION: A single gas burner combustor and an external-fin-equipped heat storage pipe are connected in series with each other and disposed approximately horizontally, and a far infrared radiation pipe 15 is connected in series with the external-fin-equipped heat storage pipe. The far infrared radiation pipe 15 is temporarily raised upward of the external-fin-equipped storage pipe and is then disposed in such a way as to meander approximately horizontally. A cluster of heat storage elements 16 is stacked on the external-fin-equipped heat storage pipe and a feed water line 11 for sprinkling water is provided on the cluster of heat storage elements 16 so that sprinkled water can be converted to humidifying moisture. A temperature and humidity control device is provided for controlling sauna indoor temperature to about 60 to 70 deg.C and for controlling relative humidity to about 30 to 60%.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a wet sauna heater having a relative humidity of about 30 to 50% in a medium to low temperature range of about 60 to 70.degree.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A sauna, which is said to have a medically useful effect such as improvement of peripheral circulation by heat effect, promotion of metabolism, purification of waste products by sweating, etc. More and more examples are installed in health lands and super public baths. Conventional saunas can be roughly classified into high-temperature, low-humidity dry saunas (Japanese Patent Laid-Open
Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 9-21913 discloses a gas-fired far-infrared radiation sauna heater, and a low-temperature and high-humidity wet sauna (Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. Hei 10-201814 discloses a mass-formed sauna for covering an outer surface of a combustion chamber. There is a device in which a heat storage material, that is, a pile of sauna stones is piled up, and water is applied from above to generate steam for humidification.) The elderly, children or those who are not confident about their health cannot take a bath with a sense of humidity or humidity of 10
The low-temperature wet sauna used at 0% had advantages and disadvantages, such as problems with odors and difficulty in bathing women due to wet hair.

[0003]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present inventors have conducted a number of experiments on a sauna heater using a massive heat storage element for generating humidifying steam and using a far-infrared radiation tube for heating a room temperature. Even when the temperature in the sauna room is about 60 to 70 ° C. and the relative humidity is about 30 to 50%,
It does not feel breathless, has a soft stimulus to the skin and hair, and has the same amount of sweat as a high-temperature dry sauna at 80 to 100 ° C. Therefore, the running cost is about 30 to 40% compared to a high-temperature dry sauna. The fact that can also be reduced.

[0004] The problem to be solved by the present invention is that the heating of the mass regenerator and the heating of the far-infrared radiation tube by the above-mentioned medium-temperature / low-temperature wet-type sauna heater by the dedicated gas burner combustor leads to an increase in equipment cost. To provide an efficient sauna heater with a single gas burner combustor. Another object of the present invention is to effectively maintain the high temperature of the massive heat storage body because the humidification steam can be immediately responded to when necessary. Furthermore, since all humidity sensors that can be used at high temperatures are expensive, it is necessary to enable humidity control without using such expensive humidity sensors.

[0005]

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, a wet gas sauna according to the present invention has the following features.
A gas burner combustor, a heat storage tube with an external fin and a far-infrared radiation tube that are heated by the combustion flame and combustion gas passing through the inside of the tube due to combustion in the gas burner combustor, and the heat storage tube with an external fin are The far-infrared radiation tube is connected in series with the gas burner combustor and arranged in a substantially horizontal direction, and the far-infrared radiation tube is connected in series with the heat storage tube with external fins and once rises above the heat storage tube with external fins. The block is arranged in a meandering manner in the horizontal direction, the block heat storage body is loaded on the heat storage tube with external fins, and a water supply pipe is provided for spraying water on the block heat storage body. The sauna room temperature is about 60 to 70 ° C. and the relative humidity is about 30.
A gas-fired wet far-infrared radiation sauna heater comprising a temperature / humidity control device for controlling the temperature to about 50%.

Further, the combustion control of the gas burner combustor is preferably performed in four stages of high, low, pilot and stop. A water supply solenoid valve that opens for a short time at each set operation time as in item 3 is provided, and the water supply pipe is provided on the fin of the heat storage tube with external fins to heat the water supply as in claim 4. be able to.

Further, the heat quantity of heat in the heat storage tube with external fins, the heat quantity of heat in the far-infrared radiation tube, and
The ratio with the amount of waste heat released to the outside is approximately 25: 60: 1.
5 is assumed.

According to a sixth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a temperature / humidity control device, comprising: a dry / wet bulb thermometer for measuring a dry / wet bulb temperature in a sauna room; and a relative humidity based on the measured dry / wet bulb temperature. An arithmetic circuit for performing the calculation and a control circuit for controlling the temperature and the humidity based on the measured dry-bulb temperature and the calculated relative humidity are provided.

[0009]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS In FIG. 1, 1 is a machine room, 2 is a partition wall having an opening 3 formed below, and 4 is a sauna room. The machine room 1 includes a fuel gas or water supply device 5 and a control panel 6 for controlling the gas, water, temperature and humidity of the sauna room.
The sauna room 4 has a safety protection fence 8 on the front.
Is installed, and a burner case 10, a water supply pipe 11, and an exhaust pipe 12 of a gas burner combustor to which a gas conduit 9 is attached are inserted through the opening 3 of the partition wall 2, and the exhaust pipe 12 is connected to the machine room. 1 is connected to an exhaust fan 18 installed in the apparatus. In FIG. 1, the heat storage tube 14 with external fins is connected in series to the burner case 10 of the gas burner combustor and is substantially horizontal as shown in FIG. The far-infrared radiation tube 15 is connected in series at the end of the heat storage tube 14 with external fins. As shown in FIG. 1, the far-infrared radiation tube 15 is first raised above the heat storage tube 14 with external fins and then disposed in a substantially horizontal meandering shape. The connection has been made. At the upper part of the casing 13, a massive heat storage body 16 stacked in a pile on the heat storage tube 14 with external fins is exposed. The bulk heat storage body 16 is most commonly a sauna stone (perfume stone), but is not limited to the sauna stone, and may be a bulk material having a large heat storage capacity such as an iron ball. The heat storage tube 14 preferably has a large tube thickness and a large heat storage capacity. By forming the outer fins 14a on the outer peripheral surface of the heat storage tube 14, a heated air layer is held between the outer fins 14a, and the heat storage capacity further increases, which contributes to maintaining the mass heat storage body 16 at a high temperature. be able to.

As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, the terminal end of the water supply pipe 11 extends above the massive heat storage body 16,
A plurality of spray nozzles 17 are attached thereto. When the water supply pipe 11 is mounted on the fin 14a of the heat storage pipe 14 and piped, the supply water is heated and the supply water temperature rises. Therefore, it is possible to reliably and easily use the heat of the massive heat storage body 16 to make the humidification steam. Become.

As shown in FIG. 2, a part of the heat obtained by burning in one gas burner combustor is consumed for heating the heat storage tube 14 with external fins, and the remaining heat is used to heat the far infrared radiation tube 15. The remaining heat is exhausted to the outside by the exhaust fan 18.

Contrary to the above, if an excessive amount of heat is applied to heat the heat storage tube 14, there arises a problem that heating of the far-infrared radiation tube 15 is insufficient and the rise of the room temperature is slow.
Therefore, the ratio of the heating heat of the heat storage tube 14 with external fins, the heating heat of the far-infrared radiation tube 15, and the waste heat released to the outside must be an appropriate ratio without excess or shortage,
The value of the ratio is approximately 25:60:15. Incidentally, the measured temperature value of each part is shown as follows: 400-500 ° C. for the heat storage tube 14 with fins, and 35 ° C. for the entrance of the far infrared radiation tube 15.
0 to 400 ° C., 150 to 250 ° C. for the mass regenerator 16 (sauna stone), 180 at the far infrared radiation tube 15 outlet
To 200 ° C. and 150 to 200 at the gas temperature of the exhaust pipe 12.
° C.

In order not to wet the surroundings with water that has not turned into steam when water is sprayed on the massive heat storage body 16, it is preferable to spray water intermittently rather than continuously. Therefore, in the illustrated example, a desired time (between 30 seconds and 60 seconds) is set by a timer provided in the control panel 6.
Is set, and each time the water supply solenoid valve 21 provided in the water supply pipe is energized and opened, and only for a certain time (for example, 0.5
Second) The valve is closed after opening.

Next, the combustion control of the gas burner will be described. Generally, the normal burner combustion control is a three-stage combustion control of high, low, and stop. However, in the three-stage combustion control, the temperature of the heat storage tubes 14 and the massive heat storage material 16 keeps decreasing due to the stoppage of the burner combustion, and the massive heat storage material When it is desired to generate humidifying steam by spraying water on the humidifier 16, inconvenience that cannot be taken immediately is likely to occur. Therefore, in the present invention, even under the condition in which the burner has been stopped because the temperature in the sauna room has been raised so far, the pilot operation in which combustion is continued with a small gas supply amount without stopping the burner is performed without stopping the burner. In addition, a four-stage combustion control of high, low, pilot, and stop was adopted. This makes it possible to maintain the heat storage tube 14 and the bulk heat storage body 16 at a high temperature for as long as possible, and efficiently generate humidifying steam when water is sprayed on the heat storage body 14. By the way, if the indoor set temperature is assumed to be 60 ° C, 4
As an example of the step combustion control, first, it is determined whether the temperature is increasing or the temperature is decreasing. When the temperature is increasing, the dry-bulb temperature measured by the dry-bulb temperature measuring thermistor 22 described later is 54 ° C.
High combustion up to 55 ° C, low combustion up to 55-59 ° C, 60
Pilot combustion up to 61 ° C, stop at 62 ° C or higher. On the other hand, when the temperature is decreasing, the dry bulb temperature is 60 ° C.
To start the pilot combustion, further lower the temperature to start low combustion at 58 ° C, and further lower the temperature to start high combustion at 53 ° C. In order to maintain good combustion when the combustion control of the burner is set to the high / low pilot, the intake fan damper (not shown) is controlled so that an appropriate amount of combustion air is proportional to the amount of combustion. Opening adjustment is required.

In FIG. 1, on the side of the sauna heater main body 7, a thermistor 22 for measuring a dry bulb temperature, a thermistor 23 for measuring a wet bulb temperature, and a gauze wound around a temperature sensing portion of the thermistor 23 for measuring a wet bulb temperature. A measuring unit 25 including a water storage tank 24 for immersing a lower end of the measuring unit 25 (not shown) is shown. A water supply tank (not shown) branched from the water supply pipe 11 is connected to the water storage tank 24. When the water supply electromagnetic valve 21 is opened, water is supplied to the water storage tank 24, and the water supply electromagnetic valve is opened. When the valve 21 is closed, supply is stopped. Hereinafter, the dry bulb temperature measured by the dry bulb temperature measuring thermistor 22 is indicated by d (° C.), and the wet bulb temperature measured by the wet bulb temperature measuring thermistor 23 is indicated by w (° C.).

In the present invention, in consideration of the present situation that there is no inexpensive humidity sensor that can be used at high temperatures, relative humidity is calculated by a microcomputer using the measured dry-bulb temperature d and wet-bulb temperature w. Temperature and humidity control is realized at low cost. The humidity control operation of this microcomputer will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.
Then, the relative humidity R is calculated by substituting the dry bulb temperature d and the wet bulb temperature w into the following equation. Relative humidity R = f / F × 100 where f is a water vapor pressure [mmHg] at d ° C., and f = a {1−0.0159 (d−w)} − 760.
(D−w) ｛0.000077−0.00002
8 (d−w)}. F is the saturated steam pressure at d ° C., a is the saturated steam pressure at w ° C., and the saturated steam pressure is obtained from the following approximate formula that can be created from the humid air table.

[0017]

As described above, in step 101, d
When the relative humidity R is calculated from the temperature C and the temperature w, the next step 102 is to determine that the start switch for starting the apparatus is ON, and the process proceeds to step 104 to turn the wet switch ON. Determine if it is.
If it is determined that the start switch is off, the process proceeds to step 103 to stop the process, and returns to step 101. The above-mentioned wet switch is provided on the control panel, and is turned on in advance if the user desires a medium / low temperature wet sauna, and is turned off in advance if the user desires a high temperature dry sauna. Step 104
If the wet switch is determined to be off in step 1
Moving to 05, the burner is selected so that a three-stage combustion control of high, low and stop is performed. If it is determined in step 104 that the wet switch is on, step 10
Moved to 6 and burner was 4 for high low pilot and stop
It is selected so that stepwise combustion control is performed. In the case of four-stage combustion control, a temperature setting between 60 and 70 ° C.
The setting of the relative humidity R between 50% and the setting of the energization interval of the water supply solenoid valve 21 between 30 seconds and 60 seconds are made in advance. In step 107, it is determined whether humidification may be started (for example, wet bulb temperature w ≧ 30 ° C.) and whether or not the calculated relative humidity R ≦ the set humidity is satisfied. Then, the process proceeds to step 108, where the water supply electromagnetic valve 21 is energized to open the water supply electromagnetic valve 21, and sprays onto the massive heat storage body 16 from the water spray nozzle 17 to generate steam. As described above, the water supply electromagnetic valve 21 is opened for a short time of about 0.5 second, then closed, and the energization is repeated at the arbitrarily set energization interval of the water supply electromagnetic valve 21. If it is determined in step 107 that the condition is not satisfied, step 10 is executed.
The water supply is stopped at 9 and the process returns to step 101.

[0019]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, since the mass heat storage material is on the heat storage tube with the external fin through which the combustion flame or the combustion gas obtained by the gas burner first passes, the mass heat storage material starts operating. From a relatively short time,
The water from the spray nozzle can be effectively evaporated,
The rise can be made faster. In addition, by adopting the heat storage tubes with external fins, the heated air layer between the external fins also contributes to an increase in the heat storage capacity, and together with the large heat storage capacity of the heat storage tubes, it is possible to maintain the mass heat storage body at a high temperature. it can.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, a pilot operation for continuing combustion even with a small amount of gas supply is added, so that it is possible to maintain the heat storage tubes and the massive heat storage body at a high temperature for as long as possible. Therefore, when spraying water on the heat storage body, it is possible to eliminate the inconvenience of not being able to generate humidifying steam without waiting for a while until the bulk heat storage body becomes hot, and it is possible to introduce a quick response system it can.

According to the structure of the third aspect, the surroundings are not flooded with water that has not become steam.

According to the fourth aspect of the invention, it is extremely easy to heat the feed water, and the warmed feed water is sprinkled on the massive heat storage body, so that the steam can be easily formed. It is effective in becoming.

According to the fifth aspect of the present invention, when the combustion flame or the combustion gas obtained by the gas burner combustor sequentially passes through the heat storage tube and the far-infrared radiation tube, each part can be heated without excess or shortage. It is possible to eliminate the problem that the temperature rise is poor or the temperature rise is poor at room temperature.

According to the configuration of the sixth aspect, desired temperature and humidity control can be easily performed at low cost without using an expensive heat-resistant hygrometer.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the overall configuration of a gas-fired wet far-infrared radiation sauna heater according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a sectional view showing a main part thereof.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing an operation of the microcomputer.

[Explanation of symbols]

 6 is a control panel 7 is a sauna heater main body 10 is a burner case 11 is a water supply pipe 14 is a heat storage tube with an external fin 15 is a far-infrared radiation tube 16 is a massive heat storage body 17 is a water spray nozzle 21 is a water supply solenoid valve 22 is a dry bulb temperature measurement Thermistor 23 is a wet bulb temperature measuring thermistor 24 is a water storage tank 25 is a measuring unit

Continuation of the front page (72) Inventor Sumio Higashi 1-32-4 Ikegami, Shirai-machi, Inba-gun, Chiba Prefecture (72) Inventor Satoshi 141-202 Nishibashi Sachimachi, Matsudo-shi, Chiba F-term (reference) 4C082 PA01 PC09 PE07 PG20 PJ08 4C094 BA18 BB18 DD08 EE03 EE13 EE32 EE34 FF01 FF02 FF16 FF18 GG04 GG13

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A gas burner combustor, a heat storage tube with an external fin and a far-infrared radiation tube which are heated when a combustion flame and a combustion gas by combustion in the gas burner combustor pass through the inside of the tube, and a far-infrared radiation tube. The heat storage tubes with fins are connected in series with the gas burner combustor and disposed in a substantially horizontal direction,
The far-infrared radiation tube is connected in series with the heat storage tube with external fins, and once rises above the heat storage tube with external fins, is disposed in a substantially horizontal meandering shape, and is placed on the heat storage tube with external fins. It is characterized by comprising a mass heat storage body loaded thereon, a water supply pipe for spraying water on the mass heat storage body, and a temperature / humidity control device for controlling a sauna room temperature to about 60 to 70 ° C. and a relative humidity to about 30 to 50%. Gas-fired wet far infrared radiation sauna heater. 2. The combustion control of the gas burner combustor is a high
2. The gas-fired wet far-infrared radiation sauna heater according to claim 1, wherein the heating is performed in four stages of low, pilot, and stop. 3. A water supply pipe for spraying water on the massive heat storage body,
2. The gas-fired wet far-infrared radiation sauna heater according to claim 1, further comprising a water supply solenoid valve which opens for a short time at each set operation time. 4. A gas-fired wet far-infrared radiation radiant sauna heater according to claim 1, wherein the water supply pipe is provided on a fin of the heat storage pipe with an external fin to supply and heat the water. 5. The ratio of the amount of heating heat in the heat storage tube with external fins, the amount of heating heat in the far-infrared radiation tube, and the amount of waste heat released to the outside is approximately 25:60:15. The gas-fired wet far-infrared radiation sauna heater according to claim 1. 6. A temperature / humidity control device comprising: a dry / wet bulb thermometer for measuring a dry / wet bulb temperature in a sauna room; an arithmetic circuit for calculating a relative humidity from the measured dry / wet bulb temperature; The gas-fired wet-type far-infrared radiant sauna heater according to claim 1, further comprising a control circuit for controlling the temperature and humidity from the measured dry bulb temperature and the calculated relative humidity to a set temperature and humidity.