JPH031062A - Artificial snowfall device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To obtain an artificial snowfall device, producing the crystal of ice sufficiently and capable of scraping an ice layer down effectively, by a method wherein a snow arresting body, consisting of a flexible tubular body opened in the upper and lower parts thereof and provided with ventilating property, a snow seed supplying nozzle, injecting water, a cooler for cooling the inside of a chamber and a fan for circulating cooling air are provided in a snow generating chamber. CONSTITUTION:A snow arresting body 3, provided at the substantially center of a snow generating chamber, is constituted of a cylindrical body, consisting of the woven material and the like of rough cloth or fibers having air permeability, having a flexibility and opened in the upper and lower parts thereof. A scraper 4, consisting of a brush body for scraping snow, generated on the snow arresting body, down, is provided at the outside of the snow arresting body 3. A cooler 7 is provided in a cooling chamber 6 partitioned in the snow generating chamber 2 by a partitioning plate 5, on which a fan 8, sucking air in the snow arresting body to supply it to the cooler, is provided at a ventilating hole bored on the partitioning plate 5. A snow seed generator or two-fluid nozzle 15 is provided at the upper opening of the snow arresting body 3. The snow arresting body is a cylinder, whose upper and lower parts are opened, and therefore, a cylinder scraper is enough whereby the device may be simplified and the manufacturing cost of the same may be reduced. Cooling air is sent into the snow arresting body from upper and lower openings respectively in opposite directions and, therefore, snow seeds, blown off downwardly, will never fall down into a snow falling chamber but are levitated in the snow arresting body whereby they are frozen sufficiently during stagnating and changed into the crystals of ice.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Industrial Application Field] The present invention relates to an artificial snow-making device for a snow-making laboratory or a snow-making exhibition room.

[Prior art and its problems] The artificial snow-making device previously developed by the applicant company is equipped with a 644-top cylindrical snow accelerator with air permeability and flexibility in the snow generating chamber, and inside the snow trapping body. Cooling air at a temperature below freezing is sent through the lower opening, and a two-fluid nozzle sprays water in the form of a mist, and the adiabatic expansion of the air instantly freezes the mist to form ice crystals.

Ice crystals adhere to the inner surface of the snow trap (inner surface and top inner surface) due to the upward air current inside the snow trap, grow and become an ice layer.
By mechanically scraping off this ice layer with a scraper such as a brush that slides on the outer surface of the snow trap, it is peeled off as snow particles of a certain size, thereby creating a snowfall state. There is.

This prior art requires scrapers for the body and top of the snow catcher.

The scraping action with a scraper such as a brush is
The synergistic action of the promoting body removes the snow. That is, when the brush slides under pressure due to sufficient bending of the catching body, the elasticity of the bristles of the brush produces a striking effect on the catching body, and the ice layer is peeled off into pieces of ice and falls as snow.

However, although this action works effectively on the sides of the cavity of the trapping body, on the upper surface of the top, the trapping body cannot be sufficiently bent due to molding, and therefore, due to the action with the brush, the snow flakes off and falls. is not carried out effectively, resulting in insufficient snow particles.

In addition, since the nozzle sprays from below toward the lower opening of the snow trap, it must be positioned so that all the spray enters the lower opening, so the nozzle installation position is limited. , it also requires a fairly large amount of space.

[Object of the Invention] The present invention provides a scraper that scrapes off the ice layer formed on the snow trap into pieces of ice by a body scraper that slides only the trunk of the snow trap, and a horizontal sliding scraper for the top. Therefore, the scraper device can be simplified and the manufacturing cost can be reduced.Furthermore, the floating and residence time of the snow scraper fed into the snow catcher can be lengthened to prevent the formation of ice crystals. To provide an artificial snow-making device which can perform snow-making sufficiently and can also effectively scrape off an ice layer with a body scraper.

[Configuration of the present invention]

The artificial snow-making device according to the present invention includes a snow-generating chamber in which a part of the snow-producing chamber communicates with the snow-producing chamber above the snow-producing chamber, and inside the snow-producing chamber,
A snow trapping body consisting of a cylindrical body made of an air-permeable flexible material and having an open upper and lower part, and a snow seed supply nozzle that sprays water into the snow trapping body from the upper opening toward the outside. , a cooler for cooling the inside of the snow generating chamber to below freezing point; cooling air from the cooler is sent into the snow trapping body through an upper opening and a lower opening; and the air that has passed through the snow trapping body is returned to the cooler. The structure includes an artificial snow generating device including a blower that circulates cooling air within the snow generating chamber.

[Example] The present invention will be described below with reference to a specific example shown in the accompanying drawings.

In the figure, reference numeral 1 indicates a snow-making chamber, and a snow-generating chamber 2 is provided above the snow-making chamber.

An artificial snow generating device is provided in the snow generating chamber z, and a specific example thereof will be described in detail below.

Reference numeral 3 denotes a snow trap installed approximately in the center of the snow generating chamber, and is composed of a flexible cylindrical body made of coarse cloth or fiber fabric with zero air permeability, and is open at the top and bottom.

A scraper 4 made of a brush body or the like is provided on the outside of the snow trap to scrape off snow generated on the snow trap.
The scraper 4 is reciprocated up and down by a suitable vertical movement mechanism (an example of which will be described later), and scrapes off the ice layer that has formed on the snow trap as small pieces of snow in the snow chamber 1.

Inside the snow generation chamber 2, there is a cooling chamber 6 divided by a partition plate 5, and a cooler 7 is provided in this chamber. A blower 8 is provided to suck out the trapped body and send it to the cooler.

The air sent into the cooler 7 by the above-mentioned air supply ytaa is brought to a temperature below freezing (for example, -5°C to -10°C).
A part of the cold air from the cooler is sent to the wall side duct 9.
, upper opening 1 into the snow trap 3 via the ceiling duct 10
1 and the remaining cold air is blown out from the outlet 13 of the lower duct 12 and sucked into the snow catcher 3 from the lower opening.

The lower duct 12 is provided with a circular snow passage hole that communicates the interior of the snow trap 3 with the interior of the snow chamber 1, and the air outlet 13 is formed on the inner periphery of this hole.

A two-fluid nozzle 15 serving as a snow accumulation generator is provided at the upper opening of the snow trap 3, and a pump 18 is installed in this nozzle 15.
Water is supplied from the near compressor 17, and compressed air is supplied from the near compressor 17, so that the compressed air blows out water downward in the form of a mist.

There may be various mechanisms for vertically moving the scraper 4 for the snow catcher, and examples thereof will be explained with reference to FIGS. 3 to 5.

Each of the left and right scrapers 4 is attached to a carrier 4a that is provided integrally with each geared motor M, and the carrier 4a has a fitting portion 4b that is attached to a non-racked portion 41a of a vertical rack rod 18 provided in the snow generation chamber 2. The pinion 19, which is slidably fitted to the rotating shaft of the motor M and is also firmly fitted to the rotating shaft of the motor M, engages with the rack teeth 18b of the rack rod 18, and the fitting part 4b of the carrier and the pinion 13 of the motor engage the rack. It is sandwiching the rod 18.

Therefore, the carrier 4a moves vertically along the rack rod by the forward and reverse rotation of the motor M, and the scraper 4 slides vertically on the circumference of the snow catcher.

Incidentally, when the scraper 4 reaches the upper limit, the rotation of the motor M is reversed by operating the upper limit switch and the first LSI, and the scraper 4 starts to descend.

) When the scraper reaches the limit, the lower limit switch LS2
By activating the motor M, the motor M rotates in the normal direction and begins to rise, thereby repeating the up and down reciprocating motion.

The artificial snow making device of the above-described embodiment is suitable for snow resistance tests of automobiles and houses, or for viewing and displaying snow experiments.

The air in the snow generation chamber 2 is kept at below freezing point (approximately -5℃) by the cooler 7.
~-1O℃), and inside the snow species 1 foot body 3,
Water is blown directly downward as a type of mist from the two-fluid nozzle 15 at the upper opening.

One type of fog is blown directly downward, but in addition to the cooling air blown into the snow trap from the upper opening 11, cooling air is also blown toward the snow trapping body from the lower opening. This generates an updraft, and this updraft causes the snow mist to float and stay inside the snow trap.

During this retention, the fog freezes into ice crystals, which adhere to the snow trap and grow into an ice layer.

The ice layer that has grown and adhered to the snow trap 3 is scraped off into ice pieces by the scraper 4 that moves up and down, and falls into the snow chamber 3 as snow due to its own weight.

[Effects of the Invention] According to the present invention described above, since the snow catching body is cylindrical with the upper and lower parts open, the scrubber 11-pa only needs to be a trunk scraper, and an upper sliding member that horizontally rotates the upper part, etc. No scraper is required, which simplifies the entire device and reduces manufacturing costs.

In addition, one type of cooling air is supplied downward from the upper opening into the snow trapping body, but cooling air is sent vertically in opposite directions from the upper opening and the lower opening into the snow trapping body.
The first type that is blown downward does not fall directly into the snow trap, but instead floats on the second snow trap, and while it stays there, it freezes sufficiently to form ice crystals, which adhere to the inner surface of the snow trap and grow. An ice layer is formed, and this ice layer is scraped off into ice flakes by a body scraper, resulting in snowfall that is similar to natural snow.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a vertical cross-sectional view showing an example of an artificial snow-making device according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view taken along the line II to II of FIG. Figure 4 shows the top and bottom of the scraper! FIG. 5 is a cross-sectional view of the am structure, and FIG. 5 is a vertical cross-sectional view of the scraper vertical movement mechanism. Figure Middle L...Snowfall chamber 2...Snow generating silkworms 3...Snow trapping body 49 Old scraper 4a φ carrier
4bφ・Mating part 5・・Partition plate 6・・
Cooler room 7... Cooler 8 Fog/Blower 9...
Wall side duct) 10... Ceiling duct 11- Opening 12-φ Lower duct 13- Exit
! 4.φ zero passage hole 15...1 millet supply nozzle
lθ・・Pump l7◆ Near compressor 18・Hook rod 8a Toothless part 8b・Toothed part Binion

Claims (1)

[Claims] A snow generating chamber whose lower part communicates with the snow generating chamber is provided in the upper part of the snow generating chamber, and within this snow generating chamber there is provided a snow trapping body consisting of a cylinder made of a flexible material with ventilation and having an open upper and lower part. a snow seed supply nozzle that sprays water downward from an upper opening into the snow trapping body; a cooler that cools the inside of the snow generating chamber to below freezing; and a cooling air from the cooler into the snow trapping body. An artificial snow making device comprising an artificial snow generating device comprising a blower that sends air through an upper opening and a lower opening, and sends air that has passed through the trapping body again to the cooler to circulate the cooled air within the snow generating room. Device.