JP2012501714A - Hair dryer, accessories for hair dryers, and hair dryers with such accessories - Google Patents

Abstract

  The hair dryer 1 has a housing 2 having a central axis X. The housing 2 includes a discharge port 4 through which air flows and flow guide means. The flow guide means has a static flow guide surface for guiding the flow of air, the flow guide surface being at least partially angled with respect to the central axis X of the housing 2.

Description

  The present invention relates to hair dryers and accessories for hair dryers.

  There are a myriad of different ways to provide a consumer hair dryer. The main consideration for such hair dryers is that they provide a sufficient amount of heated air flow to evaporate moisture from the user's hair.

  This purpose is usually achieved using a blower or ventilator that directs air onto a heating device, such as a resistive coil, and then to the outlet. Axial and centrifugal blowers have been used in known hair dryers.

  Hair dryers, especially portable hair dryers, have been in common use for many years and have been found to be widely accepted in the consumer market. As the market matures, commercial success has demanded an increase in the main task of hair dryers, namely the ability to dry hair, while providing a quiet, safe and easy-to-use device.

  One way that would obviously be effective to increase the drying capacity is to simply increase the amount of heat released from the unit. This method has the disadvantage of increasing the possibility of burning the hair for the user.

  A solution is proposed by US Pat. No. 5,841,943, which discloses a pulsating accessory for use in an electric hair dryer. The pulsating accessory can be attached to the tubular end of the hair dryer. The accessory has an asymmetrical and unbalanced rotatable impeller that rotates as a single fan blade that shields a portion of the exit area. The released air causes the impeller or fan blade to rotate, causing a heated air area to cause a pulsating spiral flow that travels in a spiral fashion around the central axis of the hair dryer. If you look at the cross section of the air flow actually released from the hair dryer, you will see that the hot air area has a circular motion around the central axis. This means that the air flow is also applied to the user's hair in such a circular motion, which means that the user's hair receives an intermittent flow of hot air instead of a constant flow. It means deafness. Even though the elevated temperature can be used for air flow, if the user inadvertently moves the hair dryer in response to vibrations caused by unbalanced fan blades, the hair will burn. There is still the danger of doing so. Furthermore, the effect of the elevated air temperature of known hair dryers is at least partially reduced by interrupting the flow of hot air with rotating fan blades. In addition, many national laws prohibit the use of higher temperatures than ever before, due to user safety considerations.

  The present invention provides improved drying performance while maintaining the temperature of the released air within safe limits, a safe and easy-to-use hair dryer, a hair dryer accessory, and a hair dryer comprising such an accessory. The purpose is to provide.

  According to a first aspect of the present invention, an accessory for a hair dryer is provided, said accessory being adapted to be coupled to the outlet of said hair dryer for exhausting air flow; Flow guide means having a fixed flow guide surface for guiding the flow of air, said flow guide surface being at least partially angled with respect to the central axis of the accessory. The angled flow guide surface provides the air with a velocity component that leads to a substantially tangential direction in addition to the velocity component in the same direction as the central axis of the accessory, i.e., the main direction of air flow. . Due to this tangential component, the turbulence of the air flow passing through the accessory and leaving the hair dryer will increase, and the air flow will experience a mixing effect. This mixing effect then has the effect that the temperature of the air flow discharged by the hair dryer is equalized, a relatively slight temperature gradient will only exist through the cross section of the air flow, The temperature can be found at the interface between the air from the hair dryer and the ambient air.

  Since the air flow is not interrupted by an object with a substantially uniform temperature distribution, an almost constant temperature distribution is provided on the cross section that allows a good control of the maximum temperature of the air flow, It is ensured that there are no so-called hot spots often found in conventional hair dryers.

  Another advantage of an air flow with an equalized temperature distribution is that there is no hot spot so that the same amount of heat can be transferred with a low air flow. This will not only reduce the power consumption of the hair dryer, but in particular it will also reduce the amount of noise caused by the hair dryer. Alternatively, a more powerful hair dryer can be provided and more heat is transferred to the air stream. That is, the same air flow is maintained, but the heater transfers more heat.

  In an embodiment of the present invention, the flow guide means has a plurality of flow guide vanes extending radially inside the inner periphery of the accessory. The use of the vanes allows the air flow to be released from the hair dryer in the least restrictive manner simply by deflecting the air flow.

  In a practical embodiment of the invention, the flow guide means comprises a plurality of flow guide vanes extending radially inside the inner periphery of the coupling means. The use of the vanes allows the air flow to be released from the hair dryer in the least restrictive manner simply by deflecting the air flow. Having flow guide vanes extending into the inner periphery of the coupling means reduces the overall size of the accessory that is easier to use and easier to store.

  In an embodiment of the invention, the flow guide vanes are twisted and are twisted in particular around the respective longitudinal axis of the vanes. In this manner, the amount of deflection applied to the air flow emitted from the hair dryer, i.e., the velocity component in the tangential direction, can be more easily controlled.

  In an embodiment of the present invention, the flow guide vane has a portion of the flow guide surface substantially parallel to the central axis of the accessory and a portion of the flow guide surface substantially perpendicular to the central axis of the accessory. Is twisted along the longitudinal axis of each blade. This ensures that part of the air flow still has the main velocity component in the same direction as the accessory's central axis, and thus the direction the hair dryer is aiming for, and then the air flow maintains a good overall velocity. I promise that. By providing a portion of the flow guide surface substantially perpendicular to the central axis of the accessory, a portion of the air flow is provided with a strong tangential component that provides a characteristic mixing effect.

  In an embodiment of the invention, the flow guide surface is substantially perpendicular to the central axis of the accessory near the end of the flow guide vane. Alternatively, the flow guide surface is substantially parallel to the central axis of the accessory near the central axis. Both alternatives are believed to provide good mixing results.

  In an embodiment of the invention, the flow guide means is provided in a disc shape, so that the tangential velocity component imparted to the flow is independent of where the air flow is released.

  According to the second aspect of the present invention, there is provided a housing having an inlet and an outlet through which an air flow passes, the ventilation being drivable by a drive motor for flowing the air flow into the housing. There is provided a hair dryer having a housing containing a machine, a heater for heating the air flow, and an accessory according to the present invention coupled to an outlet.

  According to the third aspect of the present invention, the hair dryer has a housing having a central axis, and the housing has a discharge port through which air flows and a flow guide means. The flow guide means has a static flow guide surface for guiding the air flow, at least partially angled with respect to the central axis of the housing. The flow guide means belonging to the third aspect of the present invention can be viewed as embodying the same inventive concept as the flow guide means in all the embodiments of accessories described above, and thus have the same advantages. Present. These are not repeated here to avoid unnecessary repetition.

  Further advantageous embodiments of accessories according to the invention and hair dryers having such accessories are set forth in the claims and explained in the following description with reference to the drawings.

Fig. 2 shows a hair dryer having a schematically drawn temperature profile of a conventional hair dryer and a hair dryer with an accessory according to the invention. 1 schematically shows the outlet of a hair dryer with an accessory according to the invention. Fig. 2 shows a front view of an accessory according to the invention. FIG. 3B shows a perspective view of the accessory of FIG. 3A. 2 shows a temperature distribution on a cross section AA in FIG.

  FIG. 1 shows, in a side view, a hair dryer 1 having a housing 2 and having an inlet 3 for allowing air to enter the housing 2. The hair dryer further has an outlet 4 through which air can be released from the hair dryer 1. The housing 2 further has a handle 5 in which a plurality of switches 6 are provided. The switch 6 is used to control the hair dryer 1 and has, for example, an on-off switch, a speed switch, and a temperature control switch. Inside the housing 2 is a ventilator or blower that accelerates the air across a heater (not shown) that heats the air, passing through the inlet 3 towards the outlet 4 and into the housing 2 if necessary. A drive motor for driving is provided. In the example of FIG. 1, the drive motor is an electric motor driven using the mains, but a battery-powered hair dryer is also conceivable.

  FIG. 1 further schematically shows how a hot stream of air is emitted from the outlet 4 of the hair dryer 1 as indicated by the arrow 10. The air flow has a substantially conical cross section indicated by a dashed boundary line 11. Due to the interaction with the surrounding air that slows down the air flow and entrains the surrounding air into the air flow, the cross section of the air flow is the longitudinal or central axis X of the housing 2 as indicated by the dashed line. It increases along. A cross section AA of the air flow at a specific distance away from the outlet 4 of the hair dryer 1 is shown. Two temperature profiles, temperature profile I and temperature profile II, respectively, are drawn on the left side of section AA in FIG. 1, showing the temperature distribution in section AA in two different situations. The temperature profile II will be described in more detail later in conjunction with the description of FIGS.

  Temperature profile I is a typical temperature profile found in conventional hair dryers. Such hair dryers have outlets that are fully open to the surroundings, but are often equipped with a grid to prohibit easy external access to the internal mechanisms within the hair dryer. . Along the central axis X, the temperature T of the air flow in the section AA (see FIG. 4, which is an example showing no temperature, without scale) is given. Looking only at the temperature profile I, the profile I has a wide maximum value Max1, a local minimum value Min2 at the location of the central axis X, and a minimum value Min1 found on the conical boundary 11. It can be seen that it has a very prominent profile shown. In practice, this means that a user using a conventional hair dryer will feel so-called hot spots in the air stream emitted from the hair dryer.

  In use, the user will feel the temperature of the air flow, especially those hot spots that are the hottest areas of the air flow. Due to user ease of use, retail requirements, and aspects of safety considerations, the maximum temperature of the air flow is limited to, for example, up to 100 ° C. Therefore, in the case of temperature profile I, this maximum temperature is the value of Max1. This means that the amount of heat supplied to the air flow by the heater is limited by the value of Max1, and thus a drying behavior far from optimal is realized due to hot spots.

  Another problem associated with conventional hair dryers is that the amount of heat that can be transferred to the air stream is limited by the occurrence of hot spots. Apart from the above mentioned problems relating to the recent prior art shown, the further problem of the generation of hot spots in older hair dryers is also solved by the present invention. Because it has been found that by mixing the air flow as it is released from the hair dryer, the air-fuel mixture that will be generated will equalize the temperature distribution and thus reduce or even eliminate the occurrence of hot spots. It is.

  This is depicted by temperature profile II, which has been found to yield a more flattened temperature profile. This will be explained in more detail with reference to FIGS.

  FIG. 2 shows the discharge port 4 of the hair dryer 1 of FIG. 1 in a sectional view. As indicated by arrow 12, the air flow is flowing through the housing 2. Connected to the discharge port 4 is an accessory 20 having a coupling means 21, hereinafter referred to as a coupling frame 21, comprising a flange 22 and a recess 23 that contacts the inner surface 24 of the discharge port 4. . The recess 23 has an annular groove 25. The accessory further comprises a flow guide means indicated generally by the reference numeral 30. The flow guide means 30 has a plurality of flow guide vanes 31 that extend radially inside the inner periphery of the coupling frame 21. In particular, the flow guide vanes 31 can be considered to extend radially inward from the inner surface of the housing 2. In the example of FIG. 2, the coupling frame 21 has a circular cross section. However, other cross-sectional shapes depending on the specific design of the outlet 4 of the hair dryer 1 are also conceivable. The flow guide vane 31 is fixedly mounted on the coupling frame 21 and then fixedly coupled to the discharge port 4 and has a static flow guide surface 32 for guiding the air flow. The flow guide surface 32 is at least partially angled with respect to the central axis B of the coupling frame 21. As can be seen in FIG. 2, the air flow indicated by the arrow 12 passes through the accessory 20 under the influence of a blower not shown, and the longitudinal velocity as indicated by the arrow 13 and arrow 13 ′. That is, in addition to the main velocity, a tangential velocity component is given, where the solid arrow 13 indicates the direction of flow in the upper half of the accessory and the dashed arrow 13 'indicates flow in the lower half of the accessory. Indicates the direction. It will therefore be clear that a rotational movement is provided in the air flow emitted from the hair dryer 1.

  A front view of a single accessory 20 is shown in FIG. 3A, and how the air flow emitted from the hair dryer is rotating is also indicated by arrows 14.

  As shown in FIG. 3B, the flow guide vanes 31 are preferably spirally twisted along their respective longitudinal axes h, which is shown in FIG. 3B for only one flow guide vane 31a. And a portion 33 of the flow guide surface 32 is substantially parallel to the central axis B of the coupling frame 21, and a portion 34 of the flow guide surface 32 is relative to the central axis B of the coupling frame 21. It is substantially orthogonal. In particular, the flow guide surface 32 near the coupling frame 21, i.e. the flow guide surface 32 near the end of the flow guide vane 31, is substantially relative to the central axis B of the coupling frame 21. Orthogonal. This is shown more clearly in FIG. 3B. The effect of this twisting would be that the hot spot, ie the area where the maximum temperature Max1 is found, will receive a greater mixing effect.

  The isothermal effect of the accessory 20 and the tangential velocity component applied to the heated air stream released from the hair dryer can be learned in more detail from FIG.

  4 shows the temperature distribution of the cross-section AA of FIG. 1, the upper figure shows the temperature distribution corresponding to the temperature profile I, the lower figure comprises the temperature profile II, ie the accessory according to the invention. The temperature distribution corresponding to a hair dryer is shown. As can be clearly seen, in the situation where the accessory of the present invention is installed, the temperature of the air flow fluctuates between 50 ° C and 70 ° C, while a hair dryer without such accessory is between 30 ° C and 100 ° C. In both cases, the amount of heat transferred by the hair dryer heater was kept the same.

  In the example above, it is shown that the flow guide vanes 31 are uniformly distributed and all vanes are the same or at least similar in design. However, the present invention is not limited to this. In particular, a mode in which the flow guide vanes 31 are dispersedly arranged in an irregular pattern is conceivable, which can contribute to increasing the amount of turbulence in the air flow discharged through the discharge port 4 of the hair dryer 1. It is also conceivable that the design of the flow guide vanes 31 is different for the individual flow guide vanes. This can also contribute to increasing the amount of turbulence in the air flow emitted through the outlet 4 of the hair dryer 1.

  In the above, the present invention is described using an accessory for a hair dryer, the accessory having flow guide means for realizing different aspects of the present invention.

  However, the invention is not limited to the accessory embodiment, but can equally be applied to a hair dryer having a housing, which is part of the accessory described above and thus has the same advantages. It has a flow guide means that realizes the same inventive concept as the flow guide means in all the embodiments presented. This embodiment of the present invention is not further depicted in the drawings in order to avoid unnecessary repetition, but how to provide a housing with flow guide means according to the present invention, for example a housing It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that if is made of plastic material, it is provided by injection molding.

  It should further be noted that the accessory need not necessarily have a coupling frame. It is also conceivable for the flow guide vanes to couple with the inner surface of the housing in some manner, for example using a circumferential groove that houses (a part of) the end of the flow guide vane.

  While the preferred embodiment of the invention has been illustrated and described, it will be appreciated that various modifications and changes other than those specifically described above can be made without departing from the scope of the invention.

Claims (15)

Accessories for hair dryers,
-A coupling means coupled to the outlet of the hair dryer to release a flow of air;
A flow guide means at least partially angled with respect to the central axis of the accessory and having a static flow guide surface for guiding the air flow;
Have
The angled static flow guide surface provides a velocity component directed substantially tangential to the air flow in addition to a velocity component in the same direction as the central axis of the accessory. And accessories.   The accessory according to claim 1, wherein the flow guide means has a plurality of flow guide vanes extending radially inside the inner periphery of the accessory.   3. An accessory according to claim 2, characterized in that the flow guide vanes are twisted, in particular spirally around each longitudinal axis of the vanes.   The flow guide vanes such that a part of the flow guide surface is substantially parallel to a central axis of the accessory and a part of the flow guide surface is substantially perpendicular to the central axis of the accessory. An accessory according to claim 3, characterized in that is twisted about the longitudinal axis of each of the blades.   The accessory of claim 4, wherein the flow guide surface is substantially perpendicular to a central axis of the accessory near a distal end of the flow guide vane.   The accessory according to claim 4, characterized in that the flow guide surface is substantially parallel to the central axis of the coupling means, near the central axis.   The accessory according to any one of claims 2 to 6, wherein the flow guide vanes are provided in a disc-like pattern.   A hair dryer having a housing having a discharge port and a suction port for flowing an air flow, and the accessory according to any one of claims 1 to 7, wherein the housing transmits the air flow. A hair dryer that incorporates a ventilator that can be driven by a drive motor to flow through and a heater that is coupled to the outlet for heating the air flow. -A housing having a central axis and having an outlet through which air flows;
-Flow guide means;
A hair dryer having
The flow guide means has a static flow guide surface for guiding the air flow, the flow guide surface being at least partially angled with respect to the central axis of the housing; A hair dryer characterized by that.   The hair dryer according to claim 9, wherein the flow guide means has a plurality of flow guide vanes extending radially inward from the inner surface of the housing.   11. Hair dryer according to claim 10, characterized in that the flow guide vanes are twisted, in particular spirally around the longitudinal axis of each of these vanes.   The flow guide vanes are twisted, and in particular along a longitudinal axis of each of the vanes, a part of the flow guide surface is substantially parallel to the central axis of the housing. The hair dryer according to claim 11, wherein the portion is spirally twisted so as to be substantially orthogonal to the central axis of the housing.   13. A hair dryer according to claim 12, wherein the flow guide surface is substantially orthogonal to the central axis of the housing near the inner surface of the housing.   13. A hair dryer according to claim 12, wherein the flow guide surface is substantially parallel to the central axis of the housing near the central axis.   The hair dryer according to any one of claims 10 to 14, wherein the flow guide vanes are provided in a disc-like pattern.

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