WO2009076957A1

WO2009076957A1 - Solarium cabin with means for drying a person

Info

Publication number: WO2009076957A1
Application number: PCT/DK2008/000432
Authority: WO
Inventors: Peter Laursen
Original assignee: Peter Laursen
Priority date: 2007-12-17
Filing date: 2008-12-11
Publication date: 2009-06-25
Also published as: EP2231275A1; DK200701802A

Abstract

A solarium cabin for a solarium, said solarium cabin comprising air focusing means focusing a part of the air flowing into said solarium cabin into an air stream where the air flow of said air stream has a defined direction and limited extent. A person can then be positioned in the air stream whereby sweat and humidity will vaporize from the person's body.

Description

SOLARIUM CABIN WITH MEANS FOR DRYING A PERSON

Field of the invention

The present invention relates to solarium cabins for solariums.

Background of the Invention

Today many people want to improve their looks or well-being and therefore many people use solariums in order to become suntanned and/or to relax. Many people therefore visit suntan centers with a number of solariums set up in a number of solarium cabins and typically buy access to one of the solariums. The users of solariums often want as much tanning effect as possible and/or want to enjoy relaxing in the solarium for a long period of time. The user therefore often uses very powerful solariums for a long period of time in order to achieve high tanning effect and/or to relax for a long period of time. Suntan treatments are typically very hot and most users begin to sweat during the tanning period, and the user's body is therefore often humid or wet after the suntan treatment. Therefore the user needs to dry his/her body after the suntan treatment, to which purpose a towel or the like is typically used. However, many users forget to bring a towel to the suntan center and therefore use a large amount of the paper towels, which are typically provided in the solarium carbine causing a large waste of paper. Alternatively, the user simply takes on his/her clothes without drying his/her body, but most people find this very uncomfortable as their clothes get humid and there is further a great risk that the person's odor gets very bad due to the sweat.

Object and Summary of the Invention

It is an object of the invention to overcome some or all of the above mentioned problems. This is achieved by the invention as defined by the independent claims, and other advantageous embodiments of the invention are defined by the dependent claims. The benefits and advantages of the present invention are explained and discussed in the detailed description.

Brief Description of the Drawings

In the following, preferred embodiments of the invention will be described referring to the figures, where

figure 1 illustrates a perspective overview of a solarium cabin according to the present invention;

figure 2 illustrates a detailed view of the air focusing means of the solarium cabin illustrated in figure 1 ;

figure 3 illustrates another embodiment of the solarium cabin according to the present invention;

figure 4 illustrates another embodiment of the solarium cabin illustrated in figure 3.

Detailed Description of Embodiments

Figure 1 illustrates a perspective overview of a solarium cabin (101) for storing a solarium (103). The solarium cabin is delimited by a number of sides comprising a floor (105), four side walls (107) and a roof (109), and the solarium is thus positioned inside the cabin. The delimiting sides (105, 107, 109) are for illustration purpose transparent in figure 1. The solarium comprises ventilation means (110) that would ventilate the fluorescent tubes in order to cool them down such that their service life is extended and their efficiency is increased. The ventilation means is typically embodied as a fan that blows or sucks air through the solarium as illustrated by dotted arrow (112). The fan is connected to a hose (114), and the air will be let through the hose and out of the solarium cabin as illustrated by dotted arrow (116). As a consequence, low air pressure will be created inside the solarium cabin, and the solarium cabin therefore comprises a number of ventilation inlets (111), where air is allowed to flow into the solarium cabin in order to equalize the low air pressure as illustrated by dotted arrows (113). The ventilation inlets (111 ) are in the illustrated embodiment positioned in one of the side walls but the skilled person would realize that they could be positioned in any of the delimiting sides as long as air is allowed to flow into the solarium cabin.

The illustrated solarium cabin further comprises air focusing means adapted to focus the air flowing into the solarium cabin into a fast flowing stream of air (115). The air focusing means are in the illustrated embodiment carried out as a ventilation duct (117), illustrated in dashed lines, comprising an air stream outlet (119). The duct collects the air flowing into the solarium cabin from the ventilation inlets and directs the air towards (121) the air stream outlet. The air stream outlet is in the illustrated solarium cabin embodied as a circular hole in the ventilation duct and the air flowing into the ventilation duct will flow out of the ventilation duct at the air stream outlet. The ventilation duct is in the shown embodiment positioned at the top of the solarium cabin such that the air stream outlet would direct the air stream downwards as illustrated. A person (123), e.g. the user of the solarium, can therefore position himself/herself under the air stream outlet, and the air stream will then dry the person because sweat and other humidity will vaporize faster due to the air stream. A solarium user could therefore position himself/herself under the air stream after he/she has used the solarium and thereby dry his/her body without the need of a towel or the like. The air stream is created by using the air that will anyhow flow into the solarium cabin and be used to cool down the solarium. The air stream for drying a person can therefore be created in a very simple way, which uses the existing air flow and therefore no additional energy is needed when constructing the air flow. Such air stream therefore creates an air shower where the person can dry off after having used the solarium and the problems of drying off after one has used a solarium is therefore solved in a very simple and cheep way.

Figure 2 illustrates a detailed view of the air focusing means of the solarium cabin illustrated in figure 1. The ventilation duct comprises a side wall (201) and a bottom wall (203) secured to the roof (109) and side wall (107a) by using fitting (205) and (207), respectively. The side wall (203) and bottom wall (205) extend from the front side wall (not shown) to the back side wall (107b) of the solarium cabin, and the air (113) that enters the solarium cabin at the ventilation inlets will thus be collected inside the ventilation duct (117). The air is only allowed to exit the ventilation duct through the air stream outlet (119), and the air that enters the solarium cabin will therefore be focused into an air stream (115). The air flow of the air stream is thus larger/faster relatively to the remaining air inside the solarium cabin, and the extent (207) and direction (209) of the air stream is defined by the size and position of the air stream outlet (119). The speed of the air stream depends on the cross section area of the air stream outlet as the amount of air entering the ventilation duct would exit the ventilation duct through the air stream outlet and since the same amount of air entering and exiting the ventilation duct is the same. The speed of the air stream will therefore increase as the cross section area of the air stream outlet decreases because the air needs to pass through the air stream outlet at a larger speed in order for the same amount of air to pass through the outlet. Same principle applies to the extent (207) of the air stream.

The position and angling of the air stream outlet determines the direction of the air stream, and the air stream outlet is in the illustrated embodiment positioned at the top of the solarium cabin, such that a person can stand beneath the air stream outlet. The air stream will then flow around the person such that the sweat and other humidity will vaporize to the air stream from the entire body.

Figure 3 illustrates another embodiment of the solarium cabin (301) according to the present invention. The air focusing means is in the embodiment designed as a hollow cone (303) positioned in the roof of the solarium cabin. The ventilation inlet comprised in the delimiting sides walls of the solarium cabin illustrated in figure 1 is in the illustrated embodiment omitted, and air will therefore flow (305) into the solarium cabin through the hollow cone, which focuses the inflowing air into an air stream (115) due to the narrowing of the hollow cone. The air focusing means could alternatively to the hollow cone be embodied as a circular cutout positioned in one of the delimiting sides of the solarium cabin, and air would thus flow into the solarium cabin through the air stream outlet.

Figure 4 illustrates another embodiment of the solarium cabin illustrated in figure 3, where an external ventilation duct (401) is positioned on top of a number of the solarium cabins (301a, 301 b), and air flows (405) through the external ventilation duct (403). A part of the air flowing through the external ventilation duct will flow (405) into the solarium cabins through the hollow cones (105) and be focused into an air stream (115) as described above.

It is to be understood that the illustrated embodiments only serve as illustrating examples rather than limiting the scope of the claims. A person skilled in the art may therefore be able to construct alternative embodiments within the scope of the claims.

Claims

1. A solarium cabin for a solarium, said solarium cabin comprises air focusing means focusing a part of the air flowing into said solarium cabin into an air stream where the air flow of said air stream has a defined direction and limited extent.

2. A solarium cabin according to claim 1 , wherein said air focusing means is formed as a cut-out in at least one of the delimiting sides of the solarium cabin.

3. A solarium cabin according to claim 1 , wherein said air focusing means is formed as a ventilation duct collecting air flowing into said solarium cabin, said ventilation duct comprises an air stream outlet formed as a cut-out in said ventilation duct, and said collected air flows through said air stream outlet whereby said air stream is created.

4. A solarium cabin according to claim 3, wherein said collected air flows into said solarium cabin through a number of ventilation inlets.

5. A solarium cabin according to claim 1-4 further comprising air blowing means adapted to blow air out of said solarium cabin.