WO1995010654A2

WO1995010654A2 - Drying device, particularly for drying laundry

Info

Publication number: WO1995010654A2
Application number: PCT/FR1994/001180
Authority: WO
Inventors: Serge Taquoy
Original assignee: Serge Taquoy
Priority date: 1993-10-14
Filing date: 1994-10-11
Publication date: 1995-04-20
Also published as: WO1995010654A3; FR2711154B1; FR2711154A1

Abstract

A drying device (1) for textile articles, particularly laundry, comprises a set of walls (3) defining an internal drying volume (5), an array of drying bars (7) for hanging the laundry to be dried, and mobile drying air circulating means (21a, 21b) on at least one of said walls, directed inwardly into said drying volume and made up of mobile diffuser elements rigidly secured to drive means and connected to a hot or cold air source.

Description

DRYING DEVICE, PARTICULARLY FOR DRYING LAUNDRY

The present invention relates to a device for drying textile pieces, in particular laundry pieces, comprising a set of walls delimiting an internal drying volume, and a network of hanger bars for hanging the laundry to be dried.

Already known in the prior art a plurality of laundry drying devices, ranging from extreme simplicity to great sophistica¬ tion, especially when used in a professional setting.

Thus, drum devices are already known in which the content removed from a conventional washing machine is loaded. To dry the laundry, the drum is rotated to evacuate the water by gravitation, and / or heated to evacuate part of the water by evaporation.

These drying devices have several drawbacks: they tend to crumple the laundry, or even to break the fibers in the context of repeated use. In addition, they require connection to water or steam evacuation pipes, and take several hours to dry their load, which leads to high electricity consumption. Finally, taking into account the presence in these devices of a drum rotating at high speeds of the order of 1000 revolutions / minute, the assembly is quite massive and of an expensive realization.

In order to remedy some of these drawbacks, clothes dryers have been designed, the principle of which is to hang the laundry on fixed clothes bars, then extract the moisture from the laundry by sending it a stream of hot air, if necessary. dried up. Such a device has been described in EP 0501400. This device is intended for professional use indoors, since it consists of a large rigid box in which two powerful side blowers inject hot air which is extracted through an orifice in the vicinity of the part top of the box. Given the structure and size of this device, it is clear that it does not lend itself well to domestic use for which space and the power involved would be superfluous, or for mixed use indoors and outdoors .

Also known, from French patent 2501251 a transportable device for the rapid drying of lingerie objects. This device consists of a case incorporating a hot air fan, a cover intended to be adapted on the case when the latter is open, and a linkage on the one hand to support the cover and on the other hand to hang 1 ' together with a support such as a door. This dryer is intended for episodic use since it is designed to be able to be taken on the move, and is not suitable for drying several kilograms of wet laundry from a conventional washing machine. In addition, this dryer simply uses the convection of hot air. As the hot air rises directly after it leaves the fan, this device is unable to stir the drying air and distribute it among all the parts to be dried, which considerably limits its effectiveness.

Given this state of the art, the object of the invention is to provide a device for drying textile pieces, in particular linen pieces, which is suitable for pieces of all sizes, and which has a light and removable structure which can be used. both indoors and outdoors.

Another object of the invention is to provide a particularly effective, reliable and economical drying device, requiring no connection to a water or steam evacuation circuit, and allowing drying of the laundry without creasing and without break the fibers.

To this end, the invention relates to a device for drying textile pieces, in particular laundry pieces comprising a set of walls defining a volume. internal drying system, a network of drying bars for hanging the laundry to be dried, characterized in that it comprises means for stirring the drying air, arranged on at least one of said walls and oriented towards the interior of said drying volume.

According to other characteristics of the invention:

- Said stirring means are constituted by mobile diffusing elements, integral with a drive means and connected to a source of hot or cold air;

the mobile diffusing elements consist of arms in the form of fan blades, extending in a plane substantially parallel to one of said walls, said arms being mounted on a hollow central hub actuated by said drive means and connected said source of hot or cold air; said arms are provided with a plurality of air diffusion channels having an air outlet opening oriented towards the laundry to be dried, and an air inlet opening connected to said hollow central hub; said movable diffusing elements are constituted by blowing orifices arranged in said hollow central hub; - Said movable diffuser elements are mounted on a rotational drive shaft integral with a drive block, the latter comprising a first electric motor for driving said movable diffuser elements, and a second electric motor for driving a fan whose air flow is directed towards said hollow central hub;

- Said first electric motor is a motor with high torque and low rotational speed of the order of several revolutions per minute, and in that said second electric motor is a motor with high rotational speed, of the order of several hundred revolutions per minute; - The drive means of said fan are constituted by an electric motor with high speed of rotation, and in that the drive means of the mobile diffusing elements are constituted by this same motor, coupled to a speed reducer;

- Said walls consist of a flexible textile or plastic sheet, hung on foldable frame elements;

- At least one of said walls is in the form of a partially hollow body, in the hollow of which are arranged said means for driving the movable diffuser elements and / or said fan.

The invention will be described in more detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings given solely by way of non-limiting example and in which:

- Figure 1 is an elevational view of the drying device according to the invention, showing the interior volume of the device;

- Figure 2 is an elevational view in section 2-2 of the device of Figure 1, showing the path of the drying air passing through the device;

- Figure 3 is a top view of the drying device of Figure 1;

- Figure 4 is a top view of the device of Figure 1, in the folded position;

- Figure 5 is a more detailed elevational view of the drying block of the device of Figure 1;

- Figure 6 is a side view of the drying block of Figure 5;

- Figure 7 is an exploded perspective view of a particular embodiment of the components of the drying block.

Reference is made to Figures 1,2,3 and 4. The drying device 1 according to the invention mainly consists of a set of walls 3 delimiting an internal drying volume 5, a network of drying bars 7 for hanging the laundry to be dried, and a drying block 9 intended to bring hot air to the damp laundry to dry it. The set of walls is in particular constituted by a folding frame made of metal tubes, made of plastic or wood, on which is stretched a fabric or a sheet of plastic. The chassis is obtained by a dismountable assembly of tubular elements connected to each other by conventional fixing means, such as joints or hinges. According to a preferred embodiment, the drying device has a substantially parallelepiped shape and for this purpose comprises four vertical walls, an upper wall and possibly a lower wall.

The tubular frame has at its upper part 11 a network of horizontal spreading bars 7, in the form of a grid, one side 13 of which is hingedly attached to the frame, and the other side of which is temporarily locked. to the chassis in the operating position, so that it can be detached from the chassis to ensure the folding of the entire device, as shown diagrammatically in FIG. 4.

At least one drying block 9 is integrally integrated in one of the walls 3 of the chassis of the drying device 1.

Reference is made to FIGS. 5, 6 and 7. In these Figures there is shown a more detailed view of the drying block 9 of the device according to the invention. This drying block 9 comprises a fixed casing 17 attached to one of the walls 3 of the articulated frame, heating means, in particular an electrical resistance 19 for heating arranged inside the casing 17, and means 21 drying air circulation. According to the invention, the stirring means 21 are constituted by a set of mobile diffusing elements 21, intended to send hot air to the textile pieces to be dried, while constantly varying the path of the air flow.

The mobile diffusing elements comprise on the one hand a plurality of arms 21a disposed on a hub 23, and on the other hand blowing orifices 21b arranged in the hub 23 itself.

Each arm 21a is hollow and has an air supply channel 25 (in broken lines) having an inlet orifice receiving hot or cold air, and having a plurality of air outlet orifices 27, oriented towards the laundry to be dried, allowing the diffusion of the drying air as shown in Figure 6.

Several orientations and dimensions of the orifices 27 of the arms 21a and of the blowing orifices 21b of the hub 23 can be chosen to ensure the diffusion and the mixing of the drying air inside the drying volume. However, circular holes (Figure 5) or, better, in the form of longitudinal slots (Figure 7), are optimally suitable. The arms 21a constituting mobile diffusing elements can advantageously have the shape of the blades of a fan (FIG. 5), which makes it possible to combine with the effect of air diffusion through the orifices 27, a stirring effect of the hot air through the arms. The hub 23 is movable in rotation about an axis of rotation 29 mounted on the casing 17. The hub 23 is preferably hollow in order to house a fan 31 mounted so as to draw the air outside the drying device 1 and to send it first to heating resistance elements 19, then to the mobile diffusing elements 21a, 21b, since the hollow internal volume of the casing 17 opens into the hollow hub 23 and into the air supply channels 25 towards the arms.

The drive of the air suction fan 31 is preferably carried out by means of a first electric motor 33 (FIG. 7), and the drive mobile diffusing elements 21a, 21b is also carried out using a conventional electric motor 35, mounted on the axis of rotation 29, and supplied by a simple electric supply cord (not shown). According to an advantageous embodiment of the invention, said first electric motor 33 is a motor with high torque and low rotational speed of the order of a few revolutions per minute, and said second electric motor 35 is a motor with rotational speed high, of the order of a few hundred revolutions per minute.

According to a variant, the fan drive means consist of an electric motor 33 with a high rotational speed, and the drive means of the movable diffuser elements consist of this same motor, followed by a speed reducer (not shown) driving the drive axis 29 of the hub 23 carrying the movable diffuser elements. According to an additional variant, at least one of said walls may be in the form of a partially hollow planar body, in the hollow of which are arranged said means for driving the movable diffusing elements and / or said fan. This keeps all the interior volume 5 available for drying. To use the drying device 1 according to the invention, the procedure is as follows. From a possibly folded position of the device (FIG. 4), the drying device 1 is mounted as shown in FIGS. 1 to 3. Then the laundry to be dried is typically hung on the network of drying bars 7 several kilograms of laundry, the contents of a conventional washing machine.

When the power supply to the drying device is connected, the suction fan 31 draws cold air out of the device and passes it past the heating resistors 19, then the ejects into the housing and the movable arms which are themselves provided with a rotation drive at an appropriate speed. As a result, hot air is not only uniformly diffused inside the drying volume 5 through the orifices of the arms, but the hot air is also distributed and circulated efficiently due to the rotation of the arms and possibly of their blade-shaped profiles.

At the end of the drying cycle, simply unhook the laundry and put it away.

It follows from the above that the drying device according to the invention perfectly fulfills its objectives by proposing a particularly simple and reliable drying device, having a light and foldable structure, making it possible to dry the laundry without wrinkling it and without alter the fibers. Thanks to the combined action of the diffusion and circulation of hot air, drying is particularly effective at all points of the drying volume, whether in interior or exterior use of the device.

Claims

1. drying device (1) for textile pieces, in particular for laundry pieces, comprising a set of walls (3) delimiting an internal drying volume (5), a network of spreading bars (7) for hanging the laundry to be dried, and means (21a, 21b) for stirring the drying air, arranged on at least one of said walls (3) and oriented towards the inside of said drying volume (5), characterized in that said means stirring (21a, 21b) are constituted by mobile diffusing elements, integral with drive means (23, 35) and connected to a source of hot or cold air (31).

2. Drying device according to claim

1, characterized in that the movable diffusing elements consist of arms (21a) in the form of fan blades, extending in a plane substantially parallel to one of said walls, said arms (21a) being mounted on a hub central (23) hollow actuated by said drive means (35) and connected to said source of hot or cold air.

3. Drying device according to claim

2, characterized in that said arms (21a) are provided with air supply channels (25) opening into a plurality of air outlet orifices (27) oriented towards the laundry to be dried.

4. Drying device according to claim 1, characterized in that said movable diffusing elements consist of blowing orifices (21b) arranged in said hollow central hub (23).

5. Drying device according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that said mobile diffusing elements (21a, 21b) are mounted on an axis (29) of rotational drive (9) driven by a first electric motor ( 35) for driving said mobile drying means (21a, 21b), and a second motor electric (33) drives a fan (31) whose air flow is directed towards said hollow central hub (23).

6. Drying device according to claim 5, characterized in that said first electric motor (35) is a motor with high torque and low speed of rotation of the order of a few revolutions per minute, and in that said second electric motor (33) is a motor with a high rotational speed, of the order of several hundred revolutions per minute.

7. Drying device according to claim

5, characterized in that the drive means of said fan are constituted by an electric motor (33) with high rotational speed, and in that the drive means of the mobile diffusing elements (21a, 21b) are constituted by this same motor, coupled to a speed reducer.

8. Drying device (1) according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that said walls (3) consist of a flexible textile or plastic sheet, hung on foldable frame elements.

9. A drying device according to claim 8, characterized in that at least one of said walls is in the form of a partially hollow body, in the hollow of which are arranged said means for driving the movable diffusing elements and / or said fan.