JP2006009818A - Faucet valve - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a faucet valve having excellent slidable property and rigidity and manufacturable at a low cost. <P>SOLUTION: In this valve, a bottom plate 2 is fixed to the lower part of a valve box 1, a two inflow ports 3 are formed in the bottom plate 2, and a valve seat 5 is stacked on the bottom plate 2 through a packing 4. A valve hole 6 communicating with the inflow port is formed in the valve seat 5, a valve element 7 is slidably stacked on the valve seat 5, and a lever holder 8 is installed between the upper part of the valve element 7 and the valve box 1. A lever 9 having a lower end engaged with a recessed part in the upper surface of the valve element 7 is rotatably installed in the lever holder 8 through a pin 10. Then, at least the valve element 7 is formed of a resin bonded carbon. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to a faucet valve used for a hot and cold water mixing tap, a stop cock, and the like.

  Carbon has excellent self-lubricating properties. Therefore, in order to make use of this characteristic, Patent Documents 1 to 6 have proposed that a material containing carbon such as graphite is used for at least one member of a valve seat and a valve body which are in sliding contact with each other.

  Patent Document 1 proposes a ceramic valve in which 80 to 99% by weight of alumina powder and 1 to 20% by weight of carbon powder are mixed, and the surface roughness of the sliding surface is set to Ra2 μm or less by molding and firing. Yes.

  In Patent Document 2, 0.2 to 50 parts by weight of carbon (C) is added to 100 parts by weight of silicon carbide (SiC), and the peak area ratio of the laser Raman spectral intensity between the crystalline phase and the amorphous phase of carbon is as follows. 0.1 to 10.0 ceramic valves have been proposed.

  Patent Document 3 discloses a slide having a carbon domain diameter (the size of carbon particles distributed in a ceramic matrix or an aggregate thereof) of 0.01 to 30 μm and a carbon domain area ratio of 5 to 70%. Ceramic carbon-based composite materials used for moving parts have been proposed.

  In Patent Document 4, one of a fixed disk member and a movable disk member constituting a valve is made of a silicon carbide (SiC) -carbon (C) composite member, the other is made of alumina, and Ra of the sliding surface is 0. .1 to 0.3 μm has been proposed.

  Patent Document 5 proposes that one of a valve seat and a valve body constituting a disc valve is made of silicon carbide-carbon based self-lubricating ceramic and that the sliding contact surface has a medium-high shape.

  Patent Document 6 proposes a resin composition for a valve which is mainly composed of polyphenylene sulfide (PPS) resin and added with carbon fiber, glassy carbon, graphite, mica, talc, molybdenum disulfide and the like.

JP-A 63-297876 Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 3-199164 Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 5-9055 JP-A-7-190208 JP 9-42479 A JP 2003-14141 A

  The valve disclosed in Patent Document 1 seems to improve the slidability of the ceramic disk by taking advantage of the characteristics of carbon, but grease is applied for evaluation, and the self-lubricating property of carbon is utilized. Not.

  The valve disclosed in Patent Document 2 is mainly made of silicon carbide (SiC), which is very hard and difficult to process, and is expensive because it must be fired in a non-oxidizing atmosphere at 2000 ° C. or higher. In addition, since silicon carbide and carbon do not react with each other, there is a disadvantage that a material containing a large amount of carbon is easily lost.

  When the sliding member disclosed in Patent Document 3 is applied to a valve, a material that can be fired in the air must be fired in a vacuum or in a non-oxidizing atmosphere. Some have a large total porosity of 10% or more, and some have a problem of leaking water without being able to seal. Furthermore, since the matrix is ceramic, high-precision processing and surface roughness are required, leading to an increase in cost.

  The valve disclosed in Patent Document 4 is a typical ceramic valve in which one of a fixed disk and a movable disk is mainly made of Si-C and the other is made of alumina. Such a ceramic valve is disclosed in Patent Document 2 described above. Similarly, in order to prevent leakage, the surface roughness of the sliding surface must be extremely smooth, resulting in an increase in cost.

  Even in the valve disclosed in Patent Document 5, since the valve seat or the valve body is made of a silicon carbide (Si) -carbon (C) -based material, there are the above-mentioned problems, and the ceramic is in units of μm. However, it takes a lot of work to manage the processing machine to process it into a medium-high shape.

  When the resin composition disclosed in Patent Document 6 is applied to a valve dedicated to hot water mixing, when exposed to hot water, creep may occur or water may leak. Since injection molding is performed using a thermoplastic resin, there is a problem that heat resistance is not sufficient and a weld portion with low strength exists. Furthermore, since fluidity is required for the raw material at the time of molding, a large amount of filler for improving sliding characteristics cannot be added.

  As described above, as conventional valves, those with carbon added have been proposed in order to improve self-lubricating properties. However, all of them have ceramic or resin as the main component and carbon as the main component. Absent. As a result, the problem of the material mainly composed of ceramic and resin remains as it is.

  In order to solve the above problems, the present invention provides a water faucet valve in which a valve seat and a valve body are slidably overlapped, and at least the material of the valve body is a resin-bonded carbon composed of a thermosetting resin and carbon. did.

  The valve body is generally flat (disk shape), and water is stopped between flat surfaces finished with high accuracy. Therefore, it is suitable for press molding production. Moreover, since carbon and a thermosetting resin are used, it is excellent in heat resistance (there is no deformation or deterioration in hot water at 90 ° C.), and there is no weak part like a weld part in injection molding. Since the main component is carbon having self-lubricating properties, the sliding characteristics are also good.

  Thus, by producing the valve body with resin-bonded carbon, it is possible to make the valve excellent in sliding characteristics and inexpensive compared with a valve mainly made of ceramic or metal. Further, as compared with a valve mainly composed of a thermoplastic resin, it is possible to provide a valve having excellent sealing properties and excellent heat resistance, strength, and durability.

  For example, when the movable valve body is made of carbon and a thermosetting resin, when combined with a ceramic valve seat, the hardness is lower and the amount of wear is higher than that of ceramic. This is because there is no wear that leads to water leakage such as steps.

  Moreover, as a thermosetting resin used as the resin-bonded carbon composed of carbon and a thermosetting resin, a phenol-based resin can be used, and the ratio of the thermosetting resin is 10% by weight to 50% by weight. If it is less than 10% by weight, sufficient strength (bending strength) cannot be obtained, and if it exceeds 50% by weight, the amount of outgas at the time of thermosetting increases, and problems such as cracking tend to occur, lowering the Young's modulus, sliding properties There is a problem of deterioration (the wear coefficient is increased).

The surface roughness of the commonly used ceramic is Ra 0.25 μm or less on both the movable side and the fixed side, but in the case of resin-bonded carbon whose Young's modulus is significantly smaller than that of the ceramic. When the resin bond carbon was Ra 0.1 to 0.7 μm and the surface roughness of the ceramic was Ra 0.25 μm or less, the water could be stopped even when a water pressure of 17.5 kg / cm ² was applied. This is probably because the resin-bound carbon is elastically deformed by the pressing force from above and below. That is, in the case of a ceramic with a high Young's modulus, the amount of elastic deformation of the ceramic due to the pressing force is small, but in the case of a resin-bonded carbon with a low Young's modulus, the amount of elastic deformation at the seal surface is large, so the surface roughness is It is estimated that even if it is bad, it can be sealed.

  With regard to flatness, when ceramic is used, the finish is about 1 to 2 LB, but in the present invention, the ceramic on the fixed side needs to be finished with high precision. Even if the carbonaceous material was warped, it could be sealed if the flatness of the ceramic with a high Young's modulus was good. Similarly to the surface roughness, since the Young's modulus of the resin-bonded carbon is low, it is elastically deformed by the pressing force and follows the high-precision ceramic side.

According to the faucet valve of the present invention, since the valve seat is mainly composed of carbon, it has a large Young's modulus and is stable against hot water as compared with conventional materials mainly composed of resin. Therefore, the sealing effect can be exhibited, there is no problem such as water leakage, and when compared with ceramic materials, even if the surface roughness is rough and the flatness is poor, the elastic deformation causes a high water pressure (17.5 kg / cm ² ) can be sealed, and the operability can be improved.

  Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings. FIG. 1 is a sectional view of a single lever type valve as an example of a faucet valve according to the present invention. The valve has a bottom plate 2 fixed to a lower portion of a valve box 1, and two inlets 3 are provided on the bottom plate 2. Forming. In the figure, only one inlet is shown because the inlets overlap.

  A valve seat 5 is stacked on the bottom plate 2 via a packing 4. A valve hole 6 communicating with the inlet 3 is formed in the valve seat 5, and a valve body 7 is slidably stacked on the valve seat 5. 1 is provided with a lever holder 8, and a lever 9 whose lower end engages with a recess on the upper surface of the valve body 7 is rotatably mounted via a pin 10 in the lever holder 8.

  By the way, in the present invention, at least the valve body 7 is made of resin-bonded carbon. In the case of producing with resin-bonded carbon, it is produced as follows.

  After adding a phenolic resin as a binder to an aggregate composed of 50% by weight artificial graphite and 50% by weight earth-like graphite, pulverization and classification are performed to adjust the average particle size to 200 μm, and then molding is performed. Furthermore, it was cured at 200 ° C. to obtain a block-like resin-bonded carbon. Further, cutting was performed to obtain a target shape, and the surface related to the seal of the valve body was lapped to finish the surface roughness (Ra) to 0.7 μm or less.

By the way, the following (Table 1) is a graph which shows the experimental result of the content rate of the thermosetting resin with respect to the carbon which comprises resin bond carbon, the presence or absence of a crack, a bending strength, and a friction coefficient, From this graph. The following can be understood.
That is, for the resin-bonded carbon composed of a thermosetting resin and carbon, the ratio of the thermosetting resin to the whole is required to be 10% by weight to 50% by weight. The resin does not reach the whole and the strength becomes too low, and due to insufficient strength, cracks and chips are likely to occur during processing, assembly and use. If it is more than 50% by weight, the thermosetting resin may crack when cured, and the ratio of carbon with good slidability decreases, so the friction coefficient tends to increase.

Next, in order to perform the evaluation results of the carbon material as a valve, a valve was made using resin-bonded carbon, assembled to the cartridge of FIG. 1, and subjected to a pressure test and a durability test. The results are shown below (Table 2).
In Table 2, the center line surface roughness (Ra) was measured using a surface roughness meter S4C manufactured by Taylor Hopson Co., Ltd. In the pressure resistance test, the presence or absence of water leakage was evaluated visually by holding at a water pressure of 1.75 MPa for 1 minute. The endurance test was performed at a cycle time of 15 with a water side water pressure of 0.5 MPa and a hot water side water pressure of 0.5 MPa, with hot water side water stop-hot water side full open discharge-water side stop water-water side full open water-hot water side stop water as one cycle. 100,000 times per second.

  In order to satisfy the pressure resistance performance, the sample No. in (Table 2). 3 and sample no. 6 shows that the surface roughness (Ra) of the resin-bonded carbon constituting the movable side valve should be 0.7 μm or less, and the surface roughness (Ra) of the alumina constituting the stationary side valve is Sample No. It can be seen that it should be 4 to 0.25 μm or less. Further, the surface roughness (Ra) of the resin-bonded carbon is determined by the sample No. When it is too good as shown in 9 (0.1 μm or less), the initial operating force tends to be high.

In the case of impervious carbon with 100% carbon and sealability, there was no problem at the beginning, but when the durability test was continued, a sense of incongruity that would get caught during operation occurred. The reason is unknown, but in the case of 100% carbon, the amount of wear is large, and the alumina carbon of the mating material is transferred and slides between the carbons. There is a possibility that
In the case of sliding between aluminas, as is well known, it fixed in a short time without any grease.

Sectional drawing of the single lever type valve as an example of the faucet valve concerning the present invention

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Valve box 2 ... Floor board 3 ... Inlet 4 ... Packing 5 ... Valve seat 6 ... Valve hole 7 ... Valve body 8 ... Lever holder 9 ... Lever 10 ... Pin

Claims (3)

A faucet valve comprising a valve seat and a valve body slidably superimposed on the valve seat, wherein at least the material of the valve body is made of a thermosetting resin and carbon. A faucet valve characterized by being made of resin-bonded carbon. The faucet valve according to claim 1, wherein the valve body is formed by press molding, and a ratio to the whole thermosetting resin is 10 wt% or more and 50 wt% or less. valve. The faucet valve according to claim 1 or 2, wherein a material of the valve seat is ceramic, a surface roughness (Ra) of the valve body is 0.1 to 0.7 µm, and a surface roughness of the valve seat. A water faucet valve wherein (Ra) is 0.25 μm or less.