KR20030072956A - Ceiling-installed air conditioner - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: A ceiling type air conditioner is provided to prevent noise and increase of load on a fan. CONSTITUTION: An air conditioner includes a case(10) installed in a ceiling, and having an inlet(11) and an outlet formed on a bottom thereof to be connected with a room; a fan(20) installed in the case near the outlet, and including a rear guide(22) and a stabilizer(23) forming a channel for discharged air to introduce and discharge indoor air; a heat exchanger(30) installed in the case near the inlet to cool down introduced indoor air; and a drain pan(40) installed on a lower end of the heat exchanger to collect condensed water generated during heat exchange. The heat exchanger is separated from the outlet by fixed distance(L), preferably 35-63mm, to prevent interference between flow of air passing the heat exchanger and flow of air around the fan. The heat exchanger is installed to be inclined toward the inlet by angle(theta), preferably 50-60 deg. Flow resistance between the heat exchanger and the fan is reduced by the distance between the outlet and the heat exchanger.

Description

Ceiling air conditioner {CEILING-INSTALLED AIR CONDITIONER}

The present invention relates to an air conditioner, and more particularly, to an air conditioner in which an indoor unit is installed on a ceiling.

In general, an air conditioner is a type of air conditioner that cools or purifies indoor air to circulate it in order to create a comfortable environment in the room. Such an air conditioner may be divided into an integral type in which a part constituting a cooling cycle is provided in one unit and a separate type in which two units are separately provided. On the other hand, the air conditioner may be classified into a wall-hung type that hangs the indoor unit on the wall and an upper type that installs the indoor unit on the floor, and a ceiling type that hangs the indoor unit on the ceiling or installs the inside of the ceiling according to the product type.

Among these, the ceiling cassette type air conditioner is a type of ceiling type air conditioner installed inside the ceiling to suck and cool indoor air and supply it to the room again. The ceiling cassette type air conditioner includes an outdoor unit for compressing and liquefying refrigerant by embedding the above-mentioned separate type, that is, a compressor and a condenser, and an indoor unit for cooling indoor air by evaporating the refrigerant by incorporating an evaporator. It is generally composed of units).

On the other hand, in recent years, reflecting the needs of users has been developed ceiling type air conditioner having a variety of structures to meet the purpose of use. At the same time, the structural improvement of the ceiling type air conditioners for performance improvement and production cost reduction is continuously made, and this development trend is further increased due to the development of related technologies.

The present invention has been devised in accordance with this tendency, and an object of the present invention is to provide a ceiling-type air conditioner of a new structure suitable for use.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a ceiling type air conditioner that can improve performance or reduce production costs.

1 is a side sectional view showing an indoor unit of a ceiling air conditioner according to the present invention.

Figure 2 is a bottom cross-sectional view showing the indoor unit of the ceiling air conditioner according to the present invention.

3 is a graph showing a change in noise level with respect to a change in the heat exchanger separation distance from the discharge port.

Description of the main parts of the drawing

10 case 11 inlet

12: discharge port 20: blowing fan

21: unit fan 21a: boundary plate

21b: Blade 22: rear guide

23: stabilizer 24: motor

30 heat exchanger 40 drain pan

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention is installed in the ceiling, the case having a suction port and a discharge port formed on the bottom surface to communicate with the room; A blower fan that sucks and discharges indoor air, including a rear guide and a stabilizer that form a flow path for air discharged and installed in the case and adjacent to the discharge port; A heat exchanger installed in the case adjacent to the suction port and cooling the sucked indoor air; And a ceiling fan installed at the bottom of the heat exchanger and including a drain fan collecting the condensate generated during the heat exchange, so that interference does not occur between the air flow passing through the heat exchanger and the air flow around the blower fan. The heat exchanger provides a ceiling type air conditioner, characterized in that spaced apart from the discharge port by a predetermined distance.

Preferably, the heat exchanger is installed to be inclined toward the suction port, and the inclination angle is 50 ° -60 °.

In addition, the separation distance of the heat exchanger is preferably 35mm-63mm.

Hereinafter, with reference to the accompanying drawings, preferred embodiments of the present invention can be specifically realized. In describing the present embodiment, the same name and the same reference numerals are used for the same configuration and additional description thereof will be omitted below.

In the present invention, since the outdoor unit of the ceiling type air conditioner has the same structure as the general outdoor unit of the separate type air conditioner, a detailed description thereof will be omitted. Hereinafter, the indoor unit structure of the ceiling type air conditioner will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings. If outlined as follows.

1 is a side cross-sectional view showing the indoor unit of the ceiling air conditioner according to the present invention, Figure 2 is a bottom cross-sectional view showing the indoor unit of the ceiling air conditioner according to the present invention.

The indoor unit of the ceiling type air conditioner is a case 10 installed inside the ceiling as a whole, a blower fan 20 which is installed at one side of the case 10 and forcibly sucks and discharges indoor air, and the case 10. It is installed on the other side of the inner heat exchanger (30) for cooling the indoor air sucked by the blowing fan (20). In addition, the indoor unit of the ceiling-type air conditioner is installed at the lower end of the heat exchanger 30 and the drain pan (40) having a box shape having an upper surface open to collect the condensate generated during the heat exchange process Include.

First, the case 10 has a box shape (ie, a cassette), and basically protects components such as an internal blower fan 20 or a heat exchanger 30. In addition, the case includes a suction port 11 and a discharge port 12 formed at a bottom thereof and communicating with a room, respectively. More specifically, the inlet 11 is adjacent to the heat exchanger 30, the discharge port 12 is adjacent to the blowing fan 20. In addition, a control unit (not shown) is attached to the outside of the case 10, and a controller and related parts for controlling the operation of the blower 20 and the heat exchanger 30 according to an external input therein. Is located.

The blower fan 20 is a cross-flow fan in the present invention, and the cross-flow fan sucks and discharges air in a plane perpendicular to the axis of the fan instead of the suction flow in the axial direction. . A crossflow fan having such characteristics is generally advantageous for air conditioners, particularly ceiling type air conditioners such as the present invention, because it can produce a fixed pressure large airflow and evenly flow in the axial direction.

More specifically, the crossflow blower fan 20 is rotatable entirely, as shown in FIG. 2, in which some components such as the heat exchanger 20 are omitted for detailed illustration of the blower fan 20. Directly connected to the motor 24 provided on one side by the drive shaft. In addition, the blowing fan 20 is composed of a plurality of unit fans 21 connected in series via an annular boundary plate 21a. Each unit fan 21 includes a pair of boundary plates 21a and a plurality of blades 21b arranged in the circumferential direction thereof between the boundary plates 21a. In addition, the blower fan 20 includes a rear guide 22 and a stabilizer 23 having a structure for guiding the discharged air due to the characteristics of the crossflow fan. Here, the rear guide 22 is a plate-shaped member installed at the rear of the outer shell of the blower fan 20, and is curved according to a predetermined curvature to guide the discharged air to the discharge port 12. In addition, the stabilizer 23 is a plate-shaped member installed along the axial direction at the bottom of the outer shell of the blower fan 20. The stabilizer 23 stabilizes the vortices occurring in the inner and peripheral regions of the blower fan 20 and forms a flow path extending to the discharge port 12 for air discharged together with the rear guide 22. .

The heat exchanger 30 is an evaporator which is connected to a compressor and a condenser and a refrigerant pipe provided in an outdoor unit to form a refrigeration cycle. It cools the indoor air. In addition, the heat exchanger 30 is preferably inclined toward the inlet 11 as shown in FIG. 1 in order to increase the heat transfer area. Here, when the heat exchanger 30 is inclined too much, condensed water may fall from the heat exchanger 30 to the outside of the drain pan 40 by its own weight. Therefore, the inclination angle θ of the heat exchanger 30 with respect to the horizontal plane is preferably set to about 50 ° -60 ° in consideration of the condensate flow in the heat exchanger 30.

Finally, the drain pan 40 includes a drain pipe (not shown) connected to one side and communicating with the outside in order to discharge the condensed water continuously generated during operation. In addition, although not shown in the drain pipe is connected to the drain pump for forcibly discharging the condensed water in the drain pan 40 to the outside.

On the other hand, the flow resistance is generated due to the interference generated between the air flow passing through the heat exchanger 30 and the air flow around the blower fan 20 during operation, the flow resistance is noise and the blower fan 20 Causes an increase in load). In this case, when the specifications of the blower fan 20 are actually determined in the design, the flow resistance is relatively largely influenced by the position of the heat exchanger 30. Therefore, in order to reduce the flow resistance, it is important to find the optimum position of the heat exchanger 30, and the experimental results for the optimum position are shown in FIG.

The position of the heat exchanger 30 here was measured relative to the distance L from the discharge port 12. And as mentioned above, since the flow resistance is accompanied by the generation of noise, the change in noise (db) size with respect to the separation distance (L) was measured. As shown in FIG. 3, when the separation distance L is less than 35 mm, other design conditions must be changed for installing a heat exchanger, and noise is also increasing. And when the separation distance (L) exceeds 63mm, the occurrence of noise appears to increase rapidly. Therefore, when the separation distance (L) is 35mm-63mm, it can be seen that the heat exchanger 30 is in the optimum position for reducing the flow resistance.

Referring to the operation of the ceiling-type air conditioner according to the present invention having such a configuration as follows.

First, when the blowing fan 20 is rotated by the motor 24, a vortex is generated inside the blowing fan 20, the forced flow of air is generated by this vortex. More specifically, a low pressure region is formed in front of the blowing fan 20 (right side in the drawing) and a high pressure region is formed in the rear side (left side in the drawing) during the rotation. That is, the air is sucked into the blower fan 20 through the low pressure region, and becomes a vortex that rotates and is discharged through the high pressure region while being guided by the rear guide 22 and the stabilizer 23. As such, the indoor air forcedly sucked through the suction port 11 formed on the bottom surface of the case 10 by the action of the blowing fan 20 is cooled while passing through the heat exchanger 30, and then flows through a predetermined distance. The cooling fan 20 is finally cooled by being introduced into a predetermined indoor space through the discharge port 12.

The heat exchanger 30 is installed at an optimal position due to the separation distance L previously set according to the present invention during this series of processes. Therefore, the air passing through the heat exchanger 30 can be fully developed before being sucked into the blower fan 20, thereby making the flow itself uniform and reducing the relative flow resistance.

Although several embodiments have been described above, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that the present invention may be embodied in many other forms without departing from the spirit and scope thereof. Accordingly, the described embodiments are to be considered as illustrative and not restrictive, and all embodiments within the scope of the appended claims and their equivalents are included within the scope of the present invention.

Referring to the effect of the ceiling-type air conditioner according to the present invention.

In the present invention, the optimum position of the heat exchanger is determined by experiment as a distance of the heat exchanger relative to the discharge port, and the distance between the blower and the heat exchanger is appropriately set due to this distance. Therefore, the flow resistance between the heat exchanger and the blowing fan is substantially reduced. As a result, the reduction of the flow resistance prevents the noise and the blowing fan from increasing the load and improves the overall air conditioner performance itself.

Claims (3)

A case installed inside the ceiling and having a suction port and a discharge port formed on a bottom surface thereof so as to communicate with a room; A blower fan that sucks and discharges indoor air, including a rear guide and a stabilizer that form a flow path for air discharged and installed in the case and adjacent to the discharge port; A heat exchanger installed in the case adjacent to the suction port and cooling the sucked indoor air; And In the ceiling air conditioner is installed on the bottom of the heat exchanger and including a drain pan for collecting the condensate generated during the heat exchange, And the heat exchanger is spaced apart from the discharge port by a predetermined distance so that interference does not occur between the air flow passing through the heat exchanger and the air flow around the blower fan. The method of claim 1, The heat exchanger is installed to be inclined in the direction of the inlet, the ceiling air conditioner, characterized in that the inclination angle is 50 °-60 ° The method of claim 2, Ceiling air conditioner, characterized in that the separation distance of the heat exchanger is 35mm-63mm.