JPS60200804A - Oxygen enriching device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To attenuate noise and to enable quiet operation by restricting the distance for passing cold air from a noise source to an outlet of the air and the vibration generated on the wall surface around an oxygen enriching device. CONSTITUTION:The oxygen enriching device comprises an air suction port 2 and discharging port 11 provided to a housing 1, a pump housing chamber 7, a passage 5 for introduced air restricting the stream of air from the inlet port 2 to the outlet port of the air 8, and a passage 10 for discharging the air restricting the stream of air from the outlet 9 of the air to a discharging port 11 of the air. A motor and a pump means are housed in said pump housing 7 to which said outlet 8, 9 are provided. Each length of said passages 5, 10 is designed to be larger than the minimum length between both ends of confronting surfaces constructing the housing 1, and the number of bending of each passage 5, 10 is designed to be >=3.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention] a. Industrial application field The present invention is for stably and efficiently extracting oxygen-rich air from the atmosphere (
The present invention relates to an oxygen enricher suitable for medical use.

In recent years, many patients have been suffering from respiratory system obstruction such as asthma, pulmonary oboronia, and chronic bronchitis, and this is one of the most effective treatments.
One method is oxygen inhalation. Most current oxygen sources for this oxygen inhalation method include supplying pure oxygen obtained by cryogenic separation into cylinders, or directly evaporating liquefied oxygen and supplying it through piping. Monitoring for oxygen exhaustion, complexity and severity of fire control due to pure oxygen gas, which is a high-pressure gas, and strict management of handling of high-pressure gas cylinders are required, making replacement and transportation of cylinders complicated. However, when using piping, complicated equipment and routes and high installation costs are required, making this method particularly difficult to use in general households.

On the other hand, oxygen enrichers that separate and concentrate atmospheric oxygen in close proximity to patients are attracting attention as a simple oxygen supply source. Such an oxygen enricher uses an adsorption separation method using an adsorbent such as zeolite, which adsorbs nitrogen more selectively than oxygen.
'To allow oxygen to permeate at a rate greater than 1 element.
- Broadly divided into membrane separation methods using selectively permeable membranes: 2
There are different types.

The present invention improves the noise that is most problematic in the oxygen enricher as described above, especially when it is used near a patient.

b. Prior Art In both the adsorption separation method and the membrane separation method, the oxygen enricher described above drives the pump with the power of an electric motor, and in the adsorption separation method, the atmosphere is compressed by 1 to s ki/cda K. In the membrane separation method, the oxygen-rich gas that has passed through a selective permeable membrane is heated to 100 to 300 T.
The structure is such that a predetermined oxygen concentration is obtained by maintaining the vacuum state at orr.

In order to continuously obtain air enriched in oxygen components (hereinafter referred to as enriched air), the adsorption separation method requires air to be adsorbed and desorbed by the adsorbent, so the operating pressure is pressurized and/or
Alternatively, there is a so-called pressure swing method in which pressure reduction is repeated, and the noise caused by the compressor is loud and the noise repeatedly increases and decreases, causing pain to users, especially sick people. In the membrane separation method, the generated enriched air is only evacuated and the pressure (degree of vacuum) is also constant, so the noise generated by the vacuum pump is considerably lower than that in the adsorption separation method. Low ambient noise levels can be distressing for the patient or for people living nearby at night, especially when sleeping.

Currently, the technology of salt oxygen enrichers is focused on improving the quality of the enriched air or downsizing the oxygen enricher, and no deeper consideration has been given to noise countermeasures from the user's perspective.

In an oxygen enricher, the pump means is driven by the power of the electric motor, so the electric motor is cooled and the gas is compressed (in the adsorption separation method, the atmosphere is transferred, and in the membrane separation method, the enriched air is transferred from vacuum to atmospheric pressure). It is an essential requirement for the oxygen enricher to operate stably and efficiently to prevent as much as possible the temperature rise of the pump itself, which occurs due to the production and compression. Therefore, in general, a method is adopted in which an amount of air several to several ten times larger than the enriched air is brought into contact with the electric motor and pump via a cooling fan to cool them3. As air passages for cooling, a large opening is installed on the outer wall for air to flow in and out, and a flow path with a large space is installed inside the opening.

On the other hand, the pump that generates noise in the oxygen enricher.

Electric motors and cooling fans are the main components, and in the adsorption separation method, when the adsorbent is regenerated by pressure swing, the air rich in phonetic components adsorbed by the adsorbent is depressurized and the air that is released and discharged into the atmosphere is emitted. Although it is instantaneous, it is relatively large.

The easiest and surest way to keep noise levels low is to install the noise source in a closed space, but as is clear from the above explanation, it is best to install air passages to cool each part. It is difficult to adopt the above measures due to the need to ensure the above.

C1 Purpose of the Invention The present invention has focused on the above-mentioned points, and has particularly focused on the distance through which the cooling air passes from the noise source to the opening provided in the outer wall of the oxygen enricher, and the wall vibration that occurs on the peripheral wall around the noise source. The object of this invention is to provide an oxygen enricher with a low noise level, particularly an oxygen enricher suitable for medical use.

d1 Constituent of the Invention In an rR atomizer for obtaining oxygen-enriched air from the atmosphere using at least one pump means driven by the power of an electric motor, a rR atomizer is provided on a surface forming an outer shell of the pattern enricher. A chamber structure that houses an air intake inlet and an air outlet, and an electric motor and skeleton pump means built in the enricher, and is provided on a surface forming a weighing structure, and air flows into the chamber structure. at least one pump housing chamber having an opening and an atmospheric outflow opening from the chamber structure; an atmospheric inflow passage restricting the flow of atmospheric air from the atmospheric intake to the atmospheric inflow opening; and an atmospheric outflow opening. an atmosphere exhaust passage that restricts the flow of atmosphere from the atmosphere outlet to the atmosphere exhaust port, and each of the length of the atmosphere inflow passage and the length of the atmosphere exhaust passage is in the plane constituting the outer shell of the enricher. An oxygen enricher characterized in that the length between opposing ends is longer than the minimum value, and the number of bends of each of the atmospheric inflow passage and the atmospheric discharge passage is three or more times; and Furthermore, the oxygen enricher is characterized in that it has a space at least partially inside the outer shell on the front side of the oxygen enricher.

The oxygen enricher according to the present invention obtains so-called oxygen-enriched air having a higher oxygen concentration than the atmosphere, and either adsorption separation or membrane separation may be used as a means for increasing the oxygen concentration. Further, the nucleic acid enrichment device incorporates at least one pump means, such as a vacuum pump or a compressor, driven by the power of an electric motor. Such a pump means is housed in a pump storage chamber forming a part of the enricher, but the storage chamber can accommodate one or more pump means, and the storage chamber usually has one or more pump means. It is preferable that the number is 1, but the number may be 2 or more. The blower used in the enrichment device may be placed in the middle of the atmospheric passage, but if the generated noise is large, it may be built into the nuclear chamber.

The atmosphere flowing through the oxygen enricher of the present invention does not mean air flowing through a pipe connected to the pump means, but air flowing through a relatively large passage such as a duct.

The oxygen enricher according to the present invention will be explained in more detail, but the drawings merely show one embodiment of the present invention, and the present invention is not limited by the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows a schematic structure of a membrane separable oxygen enricher (hereinafter abbreviated as demolding enricher) to which the present invention is applied.

In the exchange type enricher, by sweeping a large amount of air to one side of the separation membrane and keeping the other side at a low level, oxygen is concentrated (enriched) on the low-pressure side due to the permselectivity of the scum of the separation membrane. A practical configuration in which a large number of such separation membranes are stacked together is called a module.

In the figure, a housing 1 has an air passage formed by a large number of wall members, and the air taken in from outside the housing through an air intake port 2 is passed through a blower 3. Atmospheric inflow passage 5 including membrane module 4
The air is fed into the storage chamber through the large opening 8 of the storage chamber 7 in which the vacuum pump 6 is installed.

In the storage chamber 7, heat is exchanged with the pump part and motor of the vacuum pump 6, and the warmed atmosphere is discharged from the storage chamber 7 through the atmosphere outflow opening 9, passes through the air inflow passageway 0, and is discharged from the atmosphere exhaust port 11. It is ejected outside the casing.

Among the above atmospheric passages, the part with the highest noise level is the pump storage chamber 7, and the key technical point is how to suppress the noise generated from this storage chamber 7 or prevent it from propagating outside the housing. Since the noise from the blower is small, it will be ignored here and considered as part of the air inflow passage as described above.

In order to reduce the noise level in the storage chamber 7, measures such as using a low-noise vacuum pump or installing sound-absorbing materials in the storage chamber 7 are taken, but these measures alone do not meet the current requirements. The noise level of the medical oxygen enricher cannot be satisfied, and it is necessary to devise ways to suppress the propagation of sound from the storage chamber 7.

One way to do this is to install sound insulating materials in addition to sound absorbing materials inside the storage chamber 7. This will considerably suppress the propagation of sound through the walls of the storage chamber 7, but it will also reduce the amount of noise necessary for cooling the vacuum pump. Since the amount of air is large, there is a limit to reducing the area of the air inflow opening 8 and the air outflow opening 90, and the leakage of sound from these parts is at a relatively high level, and the problem with the enrichment device is how to suppress this noise. This affects the overall noise level. In the exchange type enricher, as shown in FIG. The leaked noise is considerably attenuated until it reaches the atmosphere intake port 2, and the leaked noise from the atmosphere outflow opening 9 becomes dominant.

As a result of intensive studies to suppress the leakage noise, the inventors of the present invention found that the opening 8 or 9 provided in the storage chamber 7 has a passage length of 11, that is, the passage length of 2→8. The passage length and the passage length of 9->Table y movement 11 should each be set larger than the minimum value of the enricher Wip, and the number of bends in the passage should be small (if both are bent 3 times or more, the leakage noise can be greatly attenuated). This has led to the present invention.

Generally speaking, the longer the distance through which the atmosphere travels, the lower the noise level will be.However, in the case of noise with a mixture of various frequencies, such as from an enricher, if the distance through which the atmosphere travels is not selected carefully, it will cause resonance. There is a possibility that sound at a specific frequency will be amplified. However, if the atmospheric passage is bent an appropriate number of times, it is possible to suppress resonance if the passage distance is a certain length or more, and at the same time, it is sufficient to ensure that the noise of various frequencies is preferably 81.5 times or more. If the passage distance is too short, low frequency sounds will not be attenuated.

On the other hand, there is reflection before the sound absorption effect occurs at the bending part of the atmospheric passage, or prevention of sound resonance, which has a great effect on noise reduction, but unnecessarily increasing the number of bends complicates the structure of the enricher. In addition to increasing the cost of the housing,
The pressure loss of the atmosphere also increases, which increases the noise level of the blower, which is not desirable. The number of bends is preferably three or more in order to effectively reduce the noise level down to the low frequency range. Furthermore, it is more preferable to install a sound absorbing material or a sound absorbing material and a sound insulating material at the bent portion. Noise countermeasures for general equipment deal with high frequency noise of around 4000 Hz, but oxygen enrichers deal with high frequency noise of around 100 to 2000 Hz.
The above-mentioned means are very effective in reducing the noise level below 500 Hz.

FIG. 2 shows various embodiments of atmospheric exhaust passages in a demolding enricher. In Figure 2, the left side of the drawing is the front side of the enricher (
In the figure, the part marked with a circle in the middle of the dashed line indicates the essential bending part. It is preferable to ignore the bending and exhaustion at the atmosphere exhaust port, as this does not result in a significant reduction in noise.

Figure 2 (a) schematically shows the atmospheric passage in Figure 1, where the number of bends is 3, (b) (c) (4 and 3.4 times on the Φ side, respectively). As shown in FIG. 2(c), the operation side housing wall member 12 and the storage chamber wall member 1
3 to form the space 14, it is very effective to prevent the surface noise generated around the storage chamber 70 from being directly emitted outside the housing (noise level oil extraction 1), and also to make the space 14 (
It is very preferable to use it as a part of the air path as shown in Figures a) or (b) from the viewpoint of preventing the front surface of the storage chamber, increasing the path length, and increasing the number of bends.

As mentioned above, it is effective to install sound absorbing material at the bend in the air path shown by the dashed line in FIG. It is more preferable that the total length including the bent portion is 115 or more.

The adsorption enricher does not require a large amount of swept air like the model, but because the pump temperature rises large, it ultimately requires the same amount of cooling air as the model. In the adsorption type, since the pump is a compressor, the generated noise is louder than the model, and the structure of the enricher itself is simple, so if the present invention is applied and the cooling air path is devised, the noise level can be significantly reduced. FIG. 3 illustrates an embodiment of the present invention.

The part shown in FIG. 2 shows a state in which the flow path is divided into two in the direction perpendicular to the plane of the paper, and is intended to simplify the housing structure, increase the passage length, and increase the number of bends.

E1 Effects of the Invention According to BAK, it is possible to attenuate leakage noise from the oxygen enricher and provide an oxygen enricher that can operate extremely quietly.

As an example, the demolding enricher is bent twice as shown in Fig. 4, as shown in Fig. 2 (C>), and as shown in Fig. 2 (b).
The following table shows the results of measuring the noise reduction effect four times.

In addition, the noise reduction effect is 15 dB (A) to give a sense of quietness.
This is said to be the above.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Fig. 1 shows a schematic structure of a demolding enricher to which the present invention is applied, Fig. 2 shows an example of an embodiment of the outlet flow path, and Fig. 3 shows an adsorption type enricher to which the present invention is applied. An example of the embodiment is shown, and FIG. 4 shows an outlet side flow path of a demolding enricher which was bent twice in order to investigate the effects of the present invention. Patent Applicant Teijin Ltd. Agent Patent Attorney Former 1) Hiroshi Jun

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] (1) In an oxygen enricher for obtaining oxygen-enriched air from the atmosphere using at least one pump means driven by the power of an electric motor, a surface forming the outer shell of the enricher A chamber structure for accommodating an air inlet and an air outlet provided therein, the electric motor built in the enricher, and the pump means, the chamber structure being provided on a surface forming the chamber structure. at least one pump housing chamber having an atmospheric inflow opening and an atmospheric outflow opening from the chamber structure; and an atmosphere exhaust passage that restricts the flow of atmosphere from the atmosphere outflow opening to the atmosphere exhaust port, and the length between the opposite ends of each of the atmosphere inflow passage and the atmosphere exhaust passage is greater than or equal to the minimum value. An oxygen enricher characterized in that it is configured to be bent three times or more. (2: The atmospheric inflow passage and/or the atmospheric discharge passage are
The oxygen enricher according to claim 1, wherein a sound absorbing material is provided on at least a portion of the inner surface of the oxygen enricher. (3) The atmospheric inflow passage and/or the atmospheric discharge passage are
The oxygen enricher according to claim 2, wherein a sound absorbing material is installed on one or more inner surfaces of the oxygen enricher. (4) The atmospheric inflow passage and/or the atmospheric discharge passage are
The oxygen enricher according to claim 2, wherein a sound absorbing material is installed on the inner surface of at least one bent portion. (5) In an oxygen enricher that obtains oxygen-enriched air from the atmosphere using at least one pump means driven by the power of an electric motor, an air intake port provided on the surface forming the outer shell of the enricher. and an atmospheric air outlet, and an atmospheric inflow opening into the heavy structure provided on a surface forming the heavy structure, the heavy structure accommodating the electric motor and the pump means built into the enricher; a pump storage chamber having an air outflow opening from the skeleton structure; an air inflow passageway that restricts the flow of air from the air intake to the air inflow opening; and a wrinkled air outflow opening. and an atmospheric exhaust passage that restricts the flow of atmospheric air from the axillary atmospheric outlet to the axillary atmospheric exhaust port, and the length of the atmospheric inflow passage and the length of the atmospheric exhaust passage are each relative to each other in the plane constituting the shell of the carcass enricher. The length between both ends of the atmosphere inflow passage and the nuclear atmosphere exhaust passage are each bent three times or more, and the inner side of the outer shell on the screen side of the enricher is (6) Claim 5', wherein the space is a part of the atmosphere inflow passage and/or the atmosphere discharge passage. The oxygen enricher according to Item 94. (7) #Claim 5, wherein the atmosphere inflow passage and/or the atmosphere exhaust passage have a sound absorbing material installed on at least a part of the inner surface thereof. .!j [Oxygen enricher according to any of the above.