JPH0739690Y2 - Evaporator case for vehicle air conditioner - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (Industrial field of application) The present invention relates to an evaporator case for a vehicle air conditioner, and more particularly to a sealing device for an outlet / outlet portion of a refrigerant inlet / outlet pipe of the evaporator case.

(Prior Art and Problems Thereof) Conventionally, as an evaporator case of an air conditioner for a vehicle, the case is divided into upper and lower parts, and a pair of refrigerants of the evaporator is provided at a joint portion between the two parts. A notch opening defining an outlet of the inlet / outlet pipe is provided, and when the evaporator to which the pipe is attached is housed in a case, the pipe is inserted through the outlet of the notch opening, and then a sealing member is provided. Evaporator cases in which the pipe is closely fixed to the case side are known, for example, from Japanese Utility Model Publication Nos. 54-63344, 55-75506 and 57-147103.

However, in any of the above-mentioned prior arts, a fitting recess is provided on the periphery of the seal member, and when the evaporator is stored in the case,
First, the evaporator is attached to the lower case, and then the lower half of the fitting recess of the seal member is fitted into the cutout opening of the lower case, and then the upper case is fitted with the cutout opening. It was designed to be fitted into the upper half portion of the fitting concave portion of No. 1 and mounted. Therefore, until the upper and lower cases are tightly attached, the pair of pipes extending from the evaporator are not fixed to the case side by the seal member, and thus are unstable. Since it is necessary to support and position it, the assembly work is complicated and takes time.

Furthermore, in order to keep the inside of the case airtight after assembly, the fitting dimension tolerance of the seal member and the notch opening on the case side is tight so that the seal member does not rattle, and the pipe is made of resin or the like. Since the insulator made of is covered, it is necessary to strongly compress the upper case and the lower case to clip them together. Therefore, there is a problem that the clip fixing work becomes difficult and the assembling work takes more time.

On the other hand, a grommet having a pair of through holes for a refrigerant conduit in a notch formed in the side wall edge of the cooler unit case foam at the connection surface (longitudinal section) between the cooler unit case containing the evaporator and another unit ace. The one in which the refrigerant conduit (pipe) is tightly fixed to the cooler unit case by pressing the (seal member) by the connection auxiliary frame of the other unit case is known from, for example, Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 57-188518. ing.

However, the above-mentioned prior art (actual development 57-188518) also
Similar to the above-mentioned prior art (Actual No. 54-63344, etc.), a grommet (sealing member) has a fitting recess formed on the peripheral edge so that it fits on the cooler unit case side. First, the grommet with the refrigerant conduit inserted must be fitted into the notch of the cooler unit, and the refrigerant conduit must be supported and positioned by hand during assembly, which again complicates the assembly work and takes time. There was a point.

(Object of the Invention) The present invention has been made in order to solve the above conventional problems, and an object thereof is to provide an evaporator case for an air conditioner for a vehicle, which enables easy and quick assembly work. To aim.

(Means for Solving the Problems) In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides an outlet of a refrigerant inlet pipe connected to an evaporator in an evaporator case that accommodates the evaporator of a vehicle air conditioner. The case is provided with a notch opening defining the above, and a seal member having a thin hinge in the center is pressed against the edge of the notch opening in a state of being bent by the thin hinge, and the seal member or the case side. It is characterized in that the seal member is locked to the cutout opening through a projection provided on the.

(Operation) While the seal member is bent by the thin hinge, the seal member is pressed against the edge portion of the notch opening portion of the case and mounted on the case. At this time, the seal member is locked to the cutout opening via a protrusion provided on the edge of the seal member or the edge of the cutout opening on the case side. Therefore, after assembling the upper and lower cases, a seal member can be attached to the notch opening to seal the pipe outlet, and the assembling work can be performed easily and quickly.

Embodiment An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 is an overall configuration diagram showing a cooler unit having an evaporator case of a vehicle air conditioner according to a first embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, 1 is a cooler unit, and the unit 1 is an evaporator case 2, an evaporator 3, and a refrigerant inlet / outlet pipe.
It is composed of 4A and 4B.

The evaporator case 2 is divided into an upper case 2a and a lower case 2b, and ribs 2c and 2d are formed around the entire circumference of the lower edge of the divided case 2a and the upper edge of the divided case 2b (however, as will be described later. Two
(Excluding the notch opening 5 and the air inlet / outlet openings 21 and 22), and the cases 2a and 2b are joined by clips 20 at predetermined positions of the ribs 2c and 2d. The case 2 is formed with a cutout opening 5 through which the refrigerant inlet / outlet pipes 4A, 4B connected to the evaporator 3 pass. The opening 5 is
As shown in FIG. 2, the opening 5a formed at the lower edge of the upper case 2a and the opening 5b formed at the upper edge of the lower case 2b.
The upper end of the opening 5a and the lower end of 5b are respectively formed with semicircular cutouts 5c, 5d, and the semicircular cutouts 5c, 5d have outer peripheral surfaces of the pipes 4A, 4B. Are in contact with each other via insulators (resin materials) 4a and 4b (Fig. 5) covering the outer peripheral surface.

A seal member 6 is attached to the notch opening 5 as described later in detail, and the seal member 6 is provided with the notch opening 5.
And the pipes 4A and 4B are fixed to the case 2.

The evaporator 3 is arranged in the case 2, and the refrigerant inlet / outlet pipes 4A, 4B extend from the evaporator 3 and penetrate the notch opening 5 of the case 2.

The case 2 is provided with inlet / outlet openings 21 and 22 for air introduced by a blower (not shown). The air inlet / outlet openings 21 and 22 are provided with a heater unit connecting seal member 2
3. Sealing members 24 for connecting the blower unit are provided respectively.

As shown in FIG. 3 (a), the seal member 6 is made of a thin plate, and semicircular cutouts 6a and 6b are formed at the upper and lower ends in the longitudinal direction, respectively. Similar to the semicircular cutouts 5c, 5d of the cutout opening 5 described above, the cutouts 6a, 6b have insulators 4a, 4b on which the outer peripheral surfaces of the pipes 4A, 4B cover the outer peripheral surfaces.
It is designed to be contacted via.

A thin hinge 7 having a substantially V-shaped cross section is cut in the center of the back surface of the seal member 6, and can be bent into a substantially V shape by the thin hinge 7 of the seal member 6 as shown in FIG. 3 (b). is there.

Further, projections 8, 9, 10, 11 having locking tabs at the tips are provided on both side edges 6c of the back surface of the seal member 6 so as to be able to mesh with side edges 2e, 2f of the cutout opening 5, as will be described later. There is.

The width of the seal member 6 is set to be slightly larger than the width of the notch opening 5, and when the seal member 6 is mounted, the both side edges 6c of the back surface of the seal member 6 are provided at both side edges 2g, 2h (second
(Fig.).

To mount the seal member 6 in the notch opening 5 of the case 2, first, as shown in FIG. 4A, the seal member 6 is bent by a thin hinge 7 into a substantially V shape, and then the seal member is sealed. Member 6
Both side edges 6c of the upper and lower ends are attached to both side edges 2g, 2h of the cutout opening 5.
Press ((b) in the figure). At this time, the seal member 6 is expanded into the original flat plate shape, and the projections 8-11 of the seal member 6 are inserted into the cutout openings 5 and the side edges 2 of the cutout openings 5 are inserted.
The seal member 6 is engaged with the e and 2f and is locked in the cutout opening 5 (FIG. 5C, FIG. 5 and FIG. 6) to seal the cutout opening 5. At the same time, the seal member 6 tightly fixes the pipes 4A and 4B extending from the evaporator 3 to the case 2 via the insulators 4a and 4b (Fig. 5).

As described above, according to the first embodiment of the present invention, the thin hinge 7 and the protrusion 8-11 are provided on the seal member 6, and the thin hinge 7 is provided.
The seal member 6 bent at is pressed against the edge portion of the cutout opening portion 5 of the evaporator case 2 so that the protrusion 8-11 is formed on the side edge 2 of the opening portion 5.
Since it is made to engage with e and 2f, the seal member 6 is installed after the evaporator 3 having the pipes 4A and 4B extended is assembled in the case 2.
Can be assembled with one touch. Further pipes 4A, 4
Since B is closely fixed to the case 2 by the semicircular cutouts 6a, 6b, 5c, 5d of the seal member 6 and the notch opening 5 after assembling the cases 2a and 2b, the pipes 4A, 4B The positioning can be performed easily and accurately. Furthermore, after assembling the cases 2a and 2b, the seal member 6 is provided with the thin hinge 7
Since it can be mounted from the bent state, the dimensional tolerance between the seal member 6 and the cutout opening 5 and the semicircular cutouts 6a, 6b, 5c, 5d of the seal member 6 and the cutout opening 5 and the pipe 4A. ,
It can be mounted even if the dimensional tolerance with 4B is set slightly tight, so that the pipes 4A and 4B can be securely fixed.

7 to 9 show a second embodiment of the present invention. In the second embodiment, the same components as those in the first embodiment are designated by the same reference numerals and the description thereof will be omitted.

In this embodiment, in contrast to the above-described first embodiment, instead of the protrusions 8 and 10 at the upper end of the seal member 6, protrusions having locking hooks at both upper ends of both side edge portions 2g and 2g of the cutout opening portion 5 are provided. 78,80 are provided,
As shown in FIG. 8, the difference is that the upper end portion of the seal member 6 is fitted into the concave portions of the protrusions 78 and 80.

In this configuration, in order to mount the seal member 6 in the cutout opening 5, as shown in FIGS. 7 to 9, the upper end of the seal member 6 is the projections 78, 80 and the lower end is the projections 9, 11. Since each of them is locked in the cutout opening 5, the seal member 6 is attached to the cutout opening 5 to seal the cutout opening 5 after the evaporator 3 is assembled in the case 2 as in the first embodiment. Therefore, the same effects as those of the above-described first embodiment can be obtained.

10 and 11 show a third embodiment of the present invention. Incidentally, in the third embodiment, the same components as those in the first embodiment are designated by the same reference numerals and the description thereof will be omitted.

In this embodiment, unlike the first embodiment, the seal member 6 is not provided with projections (locking claws) 8, 9, 10 and 11, and the cutout opening 5 is formed.
Protrusions 10 with locking hooks at the upper and lower ends of both side edges 2g, 2h of
The difference is that 8,109,110,111 are provided respectively. That is, this embodiment is the same as the second embodiment except that both side edges of the notch opening 5 are formed.
Protrusions similar to the protrusions 78 and 80 provided at the upper ends of 2g are also provided at the lower ends of both side edge portions 2h of the opening 5, respectively.
1, The same effect as the second embodiment is obtained.

Although the thin hinge 7 of the seal member 6 is cut on the back surface side of the seal member 6 in each of the above-described embodiments, the present invention is not limited to this, and the thin hinge 7 is provided on the front surface of the seal member 6. The structure may be cut to the side.

(Effects of the Invention) As described in detail above, according to the present invention, in the evaporator case that houses the evaporator of the vehicle air conditioner, the outlet of the refrigerant inlet / outlet pipe connected to the evaporator is defined. A notch opening provided in the case and a sealing member provided with a thin hinge in the center is pressed against the edge of the notch opening in a state of being bent by the thin hinge and provided at the seal member or the case side. Since the seal member is locked to the cutout opening through the projection, the seal member can be attached to the cutout opening with one touch after the evaporator is assembled to the case, and the pipe extending from the evaporator can be installed. Positioning and fixing can be performed reliably. Therefore, it is possible to perform the assembling work of the case easily and quickly, and it is possible to significantly reduce the time required for the assembling work.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a cooler unit having an evaporator case of a vehicle air conditioner according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing a cutout opening of the evaporator case, and FIG. 3 is a first view of the present invention.
FIGS. 4A and 4B are perspective views showing a seal member according to an embodiment, FIG. 4A is a diagram showing a mounted state, FIG. 4B is a diagram showing a state of being bent by a thin hinge during mounting, and FIG. FIG. 6 is a procedure explanatory diagram when the seal member is attached to the cutout opening in the view of the arrow A of FIG.
The same figure (a) before mounting, the same figure (b) when mounted, the same figure (c)
Are diagrams showing when the mounting is completed, and FIG. 5 is B of FIG. 4 (c).
Fig. 6 is a sectional view taken along the line VI-VI of Fig. 5, and Fig. 7 is an explanatory view of a procedure for mounting the seal member according to the second embodiment of the present invention in the cutout opening. (a) is before mounting, (b) is at the time of mounting, (c) is a diagram showing the completion of mounting,
FIG. 8 is an enlarged view of portion C in FIG. 7 (b), FIG. 9 is a view in the direction of arrow D in FIG. 7 (c), and FIG. 10 is a cutout opening of the sealing member according to the third embodiment of the present invention. FIGS. 10A and 10B are diagrams for explaining the procedure for mounting on a part, where FIG. 11A is before mounting, FIG. 11B is during mounting, and FIG. c)
FIG. 2, 2a, 2b ... Evaporator case, 3 ... Evaporator, 4A, 4B ... Refrigerant inlet / outlet pipe, 5, 5a, 5b ... Notch opening, 6 ... Seal member, 7
… Thin hinges, 8,9,10,11,78,80,108,109,110,111… Protrusions.

Claims (1)

[Scope of utility model registration request] 1. An evaporator case for accommodating an evaporator of a vehicle air conditioner, wherein a notch opening defining an outlet of a refrigerant inlet / outlet pipe connected to the evaporator is provided in the case, and a central portion is provided at the center. A seal member provided with a thin hinge is pressed against the edge of the cutout opening in a state of being bent by the thin hinge, and the seal member is attached to the cutout opening via a seal member or a protrusion provided on the case side. An evaporator case for a vehicle air conditioner, characterized in that the evaporator case is locked.