JP2007167808A - Water ejection apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a water ejection apparatus which is capable of affecting useful action to human body. <P>SOLUTION: At the water ejection part 12 of the shower head 10, a swirling chamber 16 to swirl water introduced so as to set the course in the tangential direction from a water introduction channel 15 along the peripheral wall and to transfer the swirled water to the center direction of swirling is formed. At the downstream of the swirling chamber 16, a throttling part 17 to eject the water introduced with a swirled state from the swirling chamber 16 is formed. At the downstream side of the throttling part 17, a mixing chamber 18 to swirl the water introduced in a swirled state from the throttling part 17 with bigger swirling radius and to eject the water outside through the water discharge aperture 14a is formed. Further, a first air introduction part channel 19 and a second air introduction channel 20 for releasing the air introduced from the outside from the throttling part 17 and the opening on the inner periphery of the mixing chamber 18 into the throttling part 17 and the mixing chamber 18 are formed. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a water discharge device such as a shower head and a bubble water discharge device for a bathtub, and more particularly to a water discharge device that generates microbubbles in a water flow to be discharged. In this specification, “water” includes “hot water” and “water”.

  Conventionally, as this type of technology, for example, there is a shower head described in Patent Document 1. As shown in FIG. 8, in this shower head 50, a water supply hose H is connected to a connector 52 attached to the base end of the head main body 51, and the water supply hose H is connected to the head main body via a water channel inside the connector 52. It is connected to the waterway in 51. On the water channel of the connector 52, a nozzle portion 53 that restricts the flow path of water introduced from the water supply hose H is formed, and an air-mixing tube nozzle 54 is formed on the downstream side of the nozzle portion 53. Further, the connector 52 is formed with an intake passage 55 for introducing air from the outside inside the air-mixing tube nozzle 54.

Then, the water supplied from the water supply hose H to the shower head 50 side first increases the flow velocity by the flow path being squeezed in the nozzle portion 53. The water whose flow rate has increased is discharged from the nozzle portion 53 to the air-mixing tube nozzle 54. At this time, a negative pressure due to cavitation is generated in the mixture pipe nozzle 54, and air is sucked into the mixture pipe nozzle 54 from the outside through the intake passage 55 by this negative pressure. The air mixes with water in the air-mixing tube nozzle 54 and is discharged from the shower head 50 together with water. According to the shower head 50, the human body cleaning effect can be enhanced by applying water mixed with air to the human body.
JP 2005-218681 A

  By the way, according to the shower head 50 of the said patent document 1, the water containing the bubble about diameter several millimeters is discharged. However, even if water containing bubbles of such a size is applied to the human body, it has not been possible to exert more useful actions on the human body, such as activating cells or promoting blood flow.

  An object of the present invention is to provide a water discharge device capable of exerting a useful action on the human body.

  In order to achieve the above object, the invention according to claim 1 is directed to a water introduction path through which water is supplied from the outside, and water introduced from the water introduction path in a tangential direction along the peripheral wall. The swirl chamber that swirls and moves the swirled water in the swivel center direction and the flow path of the water introduced from the swirl chamber while swirling is narrowed, and the flow velocity is increased while swirling and discharged. A constriction section, a mixing chamber that swirls water introduced from the constriction section in a swirling state with a larger swirl radius and discharges the water through the water discharge hole to the outside, and a gas introduced from the outside on the inner peripheral surface of the mixing chamber A gas introduction path for discharging into the mixing chamber from the opening is formed inside the housing.

The invention described in claim 2 is characterized in that, in the invention described in claim 1, the swirl chamber, the throttle portion, and the mixing chamber have a common axis.
According to a third aspect of the present invention, in the first or second aspect of the present invention, a plurality of the gas introduction paths are formed so as to extend radially on the outer periphery of the mixing chamber, and each of the gas introduction paths is formed outside the housing. It is characterized by being opened.

  According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, in the first or second aspect of the present invention, the gas introduction path is formed in an annular shape surrounding the mixing chamber on the outer periphery of the mixing chamber and outside the housing. It is characterized by comprising a common introduction path communicated with and a plurality of distribution paths extending radially from the inner peripheral side of the common introduction path to the mixing chamber.

  A fifth aspect of the present invention is the shower head according to any one of the first to fourth aspects.

  In this invention, the water supplied to the water introduction path from the outside becomes a swirl flow by being introduced into the swirl chamber from the water introduction path, and then remains in the swirl flow by the flow path being throttled by the throttle portion. Increase flow rate. Then, the water whose flow velocity is increased while the swirling flow is introduced into the mixing chamber in a swirling flow state, and swirls with a larger swirling radius. Then, since the pressure on the outer peripheral side in the swirling flow is lower than the pressure on the center side, gas is introduced from the outside into the mixing chamber via the gas introduction path. At this time, the gas introduced into the mixing chamber from the gas introduction path is sheared by the water swirling along the peripheral wall of the mixing chamber to form microbubbles. And this microbubble is discharged outside with water through a water discharge port from a mixing chamber. Therefore, since a water flow containing microbubbles can be discharged, by applying this water flow to the human body, more useful actions such as cell activation and blood flow promotion are exerted on the human body. In addition, according to the present invention, microbubbles can be generated in the water flow with a simple configuration in which the water channel and the air channel are formed on the upper side of the housing.

  Moreover, it is preferable that a plurality of gas introduction paths are formed so as to extend radially on the outer periphery of the mixing chamber, and each is opened to the outside of the housing. In this case, since air is efficiently introduced into the mixing chamber from the outside of the housing, water containing a larger amount of microbubbles made of air can be discharged.

  The gas introduction path is formed in an annular shape surrounding the mixing chamber on the outer periphery of the mixing chamber and communicates with the outside of the housing, and radially from the inner peripheral side of the common introduction path to the mixing chamber. It preferably comprises a plurality of extending distribution paths. In this case, since gas other than air can be supplied to the common introduction path, water containing microbubbles made of gas other than air can be discharged.

(First embodiment)
Next, a first embodiment in which the present invention is embodied in a shower head will be described with reference to FIGS. 1, 2, and 4.

  As shown in FIGS. 1A and 1B, the shower head 10 includes a handle 11 to which a water supply hose (not shown) is connected, and a water discharge portion 12 is integrally formed at the tip of the handle 11. Yes. The shower head 10 includes a synthetic resin housing 13 that forms the entire handle 11 and most of the water discharge portion 12, and a synthetic resin diffusion water discharge plate 14 that forms a part of the water discharge portion 12 and is integrated with the housing 13. It is comprised by.

  A water introduction path 15 through which water is supplied from a water supply hose H is formed inside the handle 11. The water introduction path 15 is connected to the swirl chamber 16 inside the water discharger 12 so as to go in the tangential direction. The swirl chamber 16 swirls the water supplied from the water introduction path 15 in the tangential direction inside along the peripheral wall, and the swirl flow in the swivel center direction (downward in FIG. 1A). It is designed to move. The swirl chamber 16 is formed in a shape that gradually increases in diameter in the direction in which the swirl flow proceeds.

  On the downstream side of the swirl chamber 16, a throttle portion 17 that is formed so as to have an axis common to the swirl chamber 16 and that introduces water from the swirl chamber 16 in the coaxial line direction is formed. The restricting portion 17 restricts the flow path of the water introduced from the swirl chamber 16 while keeping the swirling state, and discharges it while increasing the flow velocity while keeping the swirling state.

  In addition, a mixing chamber 18 is formed on the downstream side of the throttle portion 17 so as to have a common axis with the swirl chamber 16 and the throttle portion 17 and into which water flows from the throttle portion 17 in the coaxial line direction. . The mixing chamber 18 swirls water introduced from the throttle portion 17 in a swirling state with a larger swirling radius.

  Further, on the outer peripheral side of the throttle portion 17 and the mixing chamber 18, there are a first air introduction passage 19 and a second air introduction passage 20 as gas introduction passages for releasing air introduced from outside into the mixing chamber 18, respectively. Four are formed. A plurality of first air introduction passages 19 are formed so as to extend radially on the outer periphery of the mixing chamber 18, and one end of each first air opening 19 is opened on the peripheral wall of the mixing chamber 18 and the other end is opened on the surface of the housing 13. . Similarly to the first air introduction path 19, a plurality of the second air introduction paths 20 are formed so as to extend radially on the outer periphery of the mixing chamber 18, and one end of each second air introduction path 20 is opened on the inner peripheral surface of the throttle portion 17. In addition, the other end side is opened on the surface of the housing 13. The mixing chamber 18 is partitioned from the outside by the diffusion water discharge plate 14 and discharges water through a plurality of holes 14 a provided in the diffusion water discharge plate 14.

  Now, the shower head 10 is used by being directly connected to the water tap S, for example, as shown in FIG. The tap water supplied to the water introduction path 15 of the shower head 10 is supplied from the water introduction path 15 toward the swirl chamber 16 in a tangential direction, and turns into a swirl flow in the swirl chamber 16 to the throttle unit 17. Supplied. The water supplied to the throttle unit 17 flows into the mixing chamber 18 in a state where the flow velocity is increased while keeping the swirling flow.

  The tap water that has flowed into the mixing chamber 18 swirls within the mixing chamber 18 with a large turning radius due to centrifugal force. Then, the pressure on the outer peripheral side where the flow velocity is higher in the swirl flow is lower than the pressure on the center side of the swirl flow. For this reason, air is introduced into the mixing chamber 18 from the outside via the first air introduction paths 19 and the second air introduction paths 20. At this time, the air that is swirled along the peripheral wall of the mixing chamber 18 shears the air introduced into the mixing chamber 18 from each first air introduction path 19 and each second air introduction path 20 into microbubbles. The microbubbles are discharged from the mixing chamber 18 together with tap water through the holes 14 a of the diffusion water discharge plate 14. As a result, water containing microbubbles is discharged from the shower head 10.

  Therefore, according to the above-described embodiment, water containing microbubbles can be discharged, so that when the water is exposed to a human body, useful effects such as cell activation by microbubbles and promotion of blood flow are achieved. Is affected by the human body.

  In addition, a simple configuration in which the swirl chamber 16, the throttle unit 17, and the mixing chamber 18 as water passages, and the first air introduction passage 19 and the second air introduction passage 20 as air passages are formed inside the housing 13. Thus, microbubbles can be generated in the water stream.

  Further, since the air is efficiently introduced from the outside of the housing 13 by the plurality of first air introduction paths 19 formed to extend radially on the outer periphery of the mixing chamber 18, a larger amount of microbubbles made of air is contained. Water can be discharged.

  Next, an example of the shower head 10 of this embodiment configured as described above will be described.

  The microbubble generation state was examined for an example in which the size of the throttle portion 17, the mixing chamber 18, the first air introduction path 19 and the second air introduction path 20 of the shower head 10 of the above embodiment was as follows.

The inner diameter of the restrictor 17 is about 8 mm.
Inner diameter of mixing chamber 18 about 30mm
Inner diameter of the first air introduction path 19 is about 2 mm
Inner diameter of the second air introduction path 20 is about 2 mm
The shower head 10 was connected to a water pipe having a hydrostatic pressure of 0.3 MPa, and 10 liters of tap water per minute was supplied to the shower head 10. At this time, the bubbles in the water discharged from the shower head 10 were photographed in an enlarged state with an optical microscope, and the diameter was measured. As a result, the average diameter of the bubbles present in the water was 30 μm, and the range thereof was 10 to 100 μm. Therefore, according to the shower head 10 of this Example, it turned out that the water containing a microbubble is discharged. Note that bubbles having a diameter of less than 10 μm could not be measured due to insufficient resolution of the optical microscope.

(Second Embodiment)
Next, a second embodiment embodying the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. In addition, about the same structure as 1st Embodiment, the code | symbol is made the same and the description is abbreviate | omitted, and only the common introduction path 30, the distribution path 31, and the connection part 32 which differ from 1st Embodiment are explained in full detail.

  As shown in FIGS. 3A and 3B, in the shower head 10, unlike the shower head 10 of the first embodiment, the first air introduction path 19 and the second air introduction path 20 are water discharge portions. 12 is not formed. Instead, the shower head 10 is formed with a common introduction path 30 and a distribution path 31 for introducing gas such as air and carbon dioxide introduced from the outside through the connection portion 32 into the mixing chamber 18. Yes. The common introduction path 30 as a common introduction path is formed in an annular shape surrounding the mixing chamber 18 on the outer periphery of the mixing chamber 18, and communicates with the outside through the connection portion 32. The distribution path 31 as a distribution path extends radially from the inner peripheral side of the common introduction path 30 to the mixing chamber 18.

  Now, as shown in FIG. 5, the shower head 10, after connecting one end of the air pipe 33 to the connecting portion 32, sinks the shower head 10 into the water in the bathtub 34 and connects the other end of the air pipe 33 to the bathtub. It is used in the state which went out of 34 water. In this state, when tap water is supplied to the shower head 10, tap water is discharged from the shower head 10 into the water in the bathtub 34. At this time, air is sucked into the mixing chamber 18 through the air pipe 33 to become microbubbles, and is discharged into the water in the bathtub 34 together with tap water. That is, the bathtub 34 can be used as a jacuzzi by immersing the shower head 10 of this embodiment in the water of the bathtub 34.

  Therefore, when water discharged from the shower head 10 into the water in the bathtub 34 is bathed in the human body in the bathtub 34, more useful actions such as cell activation and blood flow promotion are exerted on the human body.

Moreover, since gas other than air can be supplied to the common introduction path 30 via the connection part 32, the water containing the microbubble which consists of gas other than air can be discharged.
Next, an example of the shower head 10 of this embodiment configured as described above will be described.

The microbubble generation state was examined for an example in which the inner diameters of the throttle portion 17, the mixing chamber 18, and the distribution path 31 of the shower head 10 of the above embodiment were as follows.
The inner diameter of the restrictor 17 is about 8 mm.
Inner diameter of mixing chamber 18 about 30mm
Inner diameter of distribution path 31 about 2mm
As in the example of the first embodiment, this shower head 10 is connected to a tap pipe having a hydrostatic pressure of 0.3 MPa, and 10 liters of tap water per minute is supplied to the shower head 10 in a state where the shower head 10 is submerged in water. Supplied. Then, simultaneously with the water flow, the cloudy water was discharged from the shower head 10 and spread over the entire water in the bathtub 34. At this time, the bubbles in the water discharged from the shower head 10 were photographed in an enlarged state with an optical microscope, and the diameter was measured. As a result, the average diameter of the bubbles present in the water was 30 μm, and the range thereof was 10 to 100 μm. Moreover, when the number of the bubbles which exist in the unit volume of the water of the bathtub 34 was counted, it was more than the number of the bubbles in the water discharged from the shower head 10 of 1st Embodiment. Therefore, according to the shower head 10 of this Example, it turned out that the water containing a microbubble is discharged. Note that bubbles having a diameter of less than 10 μm could not be measured due to insufficient resolution of the optical microscope.

In addition, you may change the said embodiment as follows.
As shown in FIG. 6, for example, an electric pump 35 is used to circulate and supply water in the bathtub to the shower head 10 submerged in the bathtub 34. In this case, since the water in the bathtub 34 is circulated by the electric pump 35, the state where the microbubbles are present in the water in the bathtub 34 can be maintained. Useful effects due to bubbles can be obtained. Also in the example in this case, the same result as in the example of the shower head 10 of the second embodiment could be obtained.

  As shown in FIG. 7, a carbon dioxide cylinder 37 is connected to the connection portion 32 of the shower head 10 via a gas hose 36, and water containing carbon dioxide microbubbles is discharged from the shower head 10. In this case, water containing carbon dioxide microbubbles can be bathed in the human body. Also in the example in this case, the same result as the example of the shower head 10 of the first embodiment could be obtained. However, there was a clear difference that carbon dioxide microbubbles were white and air microbubbles were blackish gray. This is considered to be due to the difference in refractive index at the interface between carbon dioxide gas and water. Or, since the gas is compressed to a high pressure inside the microbubble, it is considered that this gas was dissolved in the film and the properties of the film changed. In this case, in addition to the effects such as cell activation by microbubbles and blood flow promotion, a physiologically active effect by carbon dioxide gas can be obtained.

  As shown in FIG. 7, the shower head 10 supplied with carbon dioxide gas can be submerged in hot water in a bathtub, and hot water can be supplied to the shower head 10 from a water heater. That is, the shower head 10 is used as a jacuzzi that generates carbon dioxide microbubbles. In this case, the massage effect by the hot water jet spouted from the shower head 10 can be obtained. In addition, the carbonated spring can be concentrated around the skin of the human body. Furthermore, since the carbon dioxide gas can be dissolved in the hot water in the bathtub without escaping into the atmosphere, the effect of the carbonated mineral spring can be obtained. That is, unlike the case where the entire hot water in the bathtub is a carbonated mineral spring, the concentration of carbonic acid only in the hot water around the human skin can be increased. For this reason, the effect of a carbonated spring can be obtained at low cost without using large equipment.

  -In the said 1st Embodiment, as shown with a dashed-two dotted line in FIG.2 (b), the 1st air introduction path 19 and the 2nd air introduction path 20 are formed in the spiral shape which faces the turning direction of a water flow. Similarly, as shown by a two-dot chain line in FIG. 3B, in the second embodiment, the distribution path 31 is formed so as to face the swirl direction of the water flow.

(A) is a front view which shows the shower head of 1st Embodiment, (b) is the sectional view on the aa line in (a). (A) is the bb sectional view taken on the line in Fig.1 (a), (b) is the cc sectional view taken on the line in FIG.1 (b). (A) is a longitudinal cross-sectional view which shows the shower head of 2nd Embodiment, (b) is a bottom view similarly. The schematic diagram which shows the use condition of the shower head of 1st Embodiment. The schematic diagram which shows the use condition of the shower head of 2nd Embodiment. The schematic diagram which shows the use condition of the shower head of other embodiment. The schematic diagram which shows the use condition of the shower head of other embodiment. The longitudinal cross-sectional view which shows the conventional shower head.

Explanation of symbols

  DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 ... Shower head, 13 ... Housing, 15 ... Water introduction path, 16 ... Swirling chamber, 17 ... Throttling part, 18 ... Mixing chamber, 19 ... First air introduction path, 20 ... Second air introduction path, 30 ... Common introduction Road, 31 ... distribution path, 32 ... connection part.

Claims (5)

A water introduction channel through which water is supplied from the outside;
A swirl chamber that swirls the water introduced from the water introduction path in a tangential direction along the peripheral wall and moves the swirled water to the swirl center direction to discharge the water,
A throttle part that squeezes the flow path of water introduced from the swirl chamber in a swirling state and discharges it while increasing the flow velocity in the swirling state;
A mixing chamber that swirls water introduced in a swirling state from the throttle part with a larger swirl radius and discharges the water through a water discharge hole;
A water discharge device characterized in that a gas introduction path for discharging a gas introduced from outside into the mixing chamber from an opening on an inner peripheral surface of the mixing chamber is formed inside the housing.   The water discharge device according to claim 1, wherein the swirl chamber, the throttle unit, and the mixing chamber have a common axis.   The water discharge device according to claim 1 or 2, wherein a plurality of the gas introduction paths are formed so as to extend radially on the outer periphery of the mixing chamber, and each of the gas introduction paths is opened to the outside of the housing. .   The gas introduction path is formed in an annular shape surrounding the mixing chamber on the outer periphery of the mixing chamber and communicates with the outside of the housing, and radially from the inner peripheral side of the common introduction path to the mixing chamber The water discharging device according to claim 1 or 2, comprising a plurality of extending distribution paths.   It is a shower head, The water discharge apparatus as described in any one of Claims 1-4 characterized by the above-mentioned.

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