JP3057848B2 - Clothes dryer - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a clothes dryer used at home, for industrial use, and the like.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A conventional method for controlling the drying time of a clothes dryer will be described below. That is, assuming that the temperatures before and after the heat exchanger provided in the dryer are T1 and T2, respectively, the drying operation is performed for a certain period of time from the time when T1 reaches a predetermined temperature, or
After the differential value of (T1-T2) falls within a predetermined range (so-called constant rate drying section), the method is terminated when the differential value reaches a predetermined value or more.

[0003]

However, according to the above-mentioned method, in the case of clothing in which a constant-rate drying section does not often occur, such as small-quantity clothing and semi-dry clothing, the finished drying state is over-dried or undried. There was a problem that it might be. Because, in the above method, the drying operation is performed for a certain period of time from the time when T1 reaches a predetermined value, but originally the final drying state is constant unless the drying time is appropriately changed according to the amount of cloth and the wetness at that time. Is difficult to do.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to solve the above problems, and a first object of the present invention is to provide a clothes dryer in which the finished and dried state is kept constant irrespective of the amount of clothes and the degree of wetness. And

[0005] A second object is to provide a clothes dryer in which the finished and dried state is kept even more constant.

[0006]

First means of the present invention, in order to solve the problem] is intended to achieve the first object, a drum for accommodating clothes, a heating device for heating the drying air, from the drum an exhaust temperature sensor for detecting the exhaust gas temperature, circumferential outside the drum
An outside air temperature sensor for detecting the temperature of the surroundings, a time until the exhaust gas temperature by the exhaust gas temperature sensor reaches a predetermined value, an initial outside air temperature by the outside air temperature sensor, and the heating when controlling the temperature at a predetermined temperature. This is a clothes dryer having a fuzzy inference unit for determining the heating time from the ON / OFF cycle of the means.

A second means of the present invention is to achieve the second object, to detect a drum for accommodating clothes, a heating device for heating the drying air, the exhaust gas temperature from the drum exhaust a temperature sensor, an outside air temperature sensor for detecting the temperature around the outer drum, wherein the time until the exhaust temperature by the exhaust temperature sensor reaches a predetermined value, and the initial ambient air temperature by the outside air temperature sensor, an outside air temperature rise of And a fuzzy inference unit for determining a heating time from an ON / OFF cycle of the heating means when controlling the temperature at a predetermined temperature.

[0008]

The operation of the first means is as follows. That is, taking into account the effect on the drying efficiency due to the difference in the outside air temperature, the time until the exhaust gas temperature reaches a predetermined value,
The drying time according to the amount and wetness of the dried clothes is determined by fuzzy inference from the initial outside air temperature by the outside air temperature sensor and the ON / OFF cycle of the heating means at the time of temperature control.

The second means takes into account the effect of the difference in the outside air temperature on the drying efficiency, the time required for the exhaust air temperature to reach a predetermined value, the initial outside air temperature detected by the outside air temperature sensor, and the outside air temperature. ON / O of heating means during temperature control and temperature rise
From the FF cycle, the drying time according to the amount of dry clothes and the degree of wetness is determined by fuzzy inference.

[0010]

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings. In FIG. 1, a clothes dryer includes a main body 1.
And a drum 2 for storing dried clothes, a heating device 3 for heating circulating air for drying, a heat exchanger 4 for circulating air and exchanging heat, and a temperature of circulating air exhausted from the drum 2. an exhaust temperature sensor 5 to be detected, and has a outside air temperature sensor 6 for detecting the temperature around the outer drum 2. The drum 2 and the heat exchanger 4 are driven by a motor 7 via belts 8 and 9.

The processing unit 10 calculates the initial outside air temperature, the outside air temperature rise degree, and the time until the exhaust gas temperature reaches a predetermined temperature, based on the outputs of the exhaust gas temperature sensor 5, the outside air temperature sensor 6, and the timer 11. And the ON / OFF cycle of the heating device 3 at the time of controlling the temperature at a predetermined temperature, and outputs it to the fuzzy inference unit 12. The fuzzy inference unit 12 determines a drying time based on information obtained from the processing unit 10. The control unit 13 controls the heating device 3 and the motor 7 according to the set temperature and drying time.
Control.

In this embodiment, a heater is used for the heating means 3 and a thermistor is used for the exhaust temperature sensor 5 and the outside air temperature sensor 6, but this is not restrictive. Further, the processing unit 10,
The clocking means 11, the fuzzy inference unit 12, and the control unit 13 can be easily realized by the microcomputer 14.

Next, the characteristics of the output of the exhaust temperature sensor 5 when the clothes are dried will be described with reference to FIG. When the amount of the dried clothes is small, the temperature rise degree is steep, and the arrival time ts until the temperature reaches the predetermined temperature Ts is short. Conversely, as the amount of dry clothing increases, the arrival time ts increases. In addition, the predetermined temperature
Although the temperature is controlled by Ts, the temperature adjustment cycle tc becomes long when the wetness of the dry clothing is high, and the temperature adjustment cycle tc becomes short when the wetness is low. Therefore, the amount and wetness of the dried clothes can be detected from the arrival time ts and the temperature control cycle tc, and an appropriate drying time can be estimated. However, the arrival time ts and the temperature control cycle tc
Varies depending on the initial outside air temperature Ti and the rise in the outside air temperature due to heat generation, and the appropriate drying time also varies depending on these effects.

It is difficult to formulate the relationship between the above-mentioned arrival time ts, temperature adjustment cycle tc, initial outside air temperature Ti, temperature rise degree Td, and proper drying time td. Therefore, a method of expressing this complicated relationship by fuzzy inference will be described below.

The fuzzy inference is that "if the initial outside air temperature Ti is high, the temperature rise degree Td is large, the ON / OFF cycle tc is long, and the arrival time ts is long, the drying time td becomes very long."
It is performed based on such rules. As shown in FIG. 3, 24 such rules are used. According to these rules, the initial outside temperature Ti is “high” or the temperature rise Td
Qualitative and ambiguous concepts such as "large", ON / OFF cycle tc "long", arrival time ts "long", and drying time td "very long" are shown in FIGS. 4 (a) and (b). ), (c) and the membership functions shown in FIGS. 5 (a) and 5 (b).

In this embodiment, as a method of fuzzy inference,
The normal MIN-MAX centroid method is used, but not limited to that.

[0017]

Effects of the Invention clothes dryer as described above, the present invention is suited for the drying time by fuzzy inference in accordance with the amount of drying clothes and wetness, disadvantage overdried or undried is no, due to excessive drying Cloth damage can be prevented. In addition, high-efficiency drying without waste of power consumption can be performed.

In the present invention, not only the outside air temperature but also the degree of increase is taken in as information for fuzzy inference, so that the finished and dried state can be made more constant.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram showing one embodiment of a clothes dryer of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram for explaining a sensor output state of the clothes dryer.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a rule table for fuzzy inference of the clothes dryer.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a membership function of the fuzzy inference.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a membership function of the fuzzy inference.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Main body 2 Drum 3 Heating device 5 Exhaust air temperature sensor 6 Outside air temperature sensor 10 Processing part 11 Clocking means 12 Fuzzy inference part

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (72) Inventor Masafumi Sadahira 1006 Kadoma Kadoma, Osaka Prefecture Inside Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Shoji Shoji 1006 Kazuma Kadoma, Kazuma, Osaka Prefecture Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (56) References JP-A-3-158198 (JP, A) JP-A 62-130599 (JP, U) (58) Field surveyed (Int. Cl. ⁷ , DB name) D06F 58/02 D06F 58/28

Claims (2)

(57) [Claims] A drum 1. A housing clothes, a heating device for heating the drying air, and the exhaust gas temperature sensor for detecting the exhaust gas temperature from the drum, the outside air temperature sensor for detecting the temperature around the outer drum, The heating time is calculated from the time until the exhaust gas temperature by the exhaust gas temperature sensor reaches a predetermined value, the initial outside air temperature by the outside air temperature sensor, and the ON / OFF cycle of the heating means when controlling the temperature at a predetermined temperature. A clothes dryer having a fuzzy inference unit for determining. A drum wherein accommodating clothes, a heating device for heating the drying air, and the exhaust gas temperature sensor for detecting the exhaust gas temperature from the drum, the outside air temperature sensor for detecting the temperature around the outer drum, The time until the exhaust gas temperature by the exhaust gas temperature sensor reaches a predetermined value, the initial outside air temperature by the outside air temperature sensor, the outside air temperature rise degree, and the ON / OFF of the heating means when controlling the temperature at a predetermined temperature. A clothes dryer having a fuzzy inference unit for determining a heating time from a cycle.