Patent Application
20060291999
This application claims the benefit under 35 U.S.C. §119 from Korean Patent Application No. 2005-54449, filed on Jun. 23, 2005 in the Korean Intellectual Property Office, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein in its entirety by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present general inventive concept relates to an air purifier, and more particularly, to an air purifier, which comprises a bell-mouth having an enhanced structure toward an intake side of a blowing fan to prevent a high level of noise at a particular frequency.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, an air purifier comprises a filter unit to purify air and a blowing fan to forcibly blow the air within a housing. When the air purifier is operated to purify indoor air, the blowing fan forces the indoor air to pass through a filter unit to filter dust, odor and bacteria from the air therethrough, and then forces purified air to be discharged into a room space.
The air purifier must have a compact structure for convenient installation in the room space, and a high purifying capability. Therefore, the air purifier has the filter unit placed close to the blowing fan within the housing. A bell-mouth placed toward an intake side of the blowing fan increases the amount of air circulated through the air purifier.
A conventional air purifier having the bell-mouth is disclosed in Korean Utility Model Registration No. 20-0273754. The bell-mouth is placed toward an intake side of a blowing fan, and has an inlet port formed at a center thereof. The inlet port has a flow guide formed at an edge to extend toward the blowing fan.
However, if the bell-mouth constructed as described above is included in the air purifier having the filter unit very close to the blowing fan within the housing, an unpleasant excessive noise is generated at a particular frequency when air passes through the bell-mouth.
The present general inventive concept provides an air purifier, which comprises a bell-mouth having an enhanced structure to prevent generation of an excessive level of noise at a particular frequency when air flows to a blowing fan through the bell-mouth.
Additional aspects and/or advantages of the general inventive concept will be set forth in part in the description which follows and, in part, will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the general inventive concept.
The foregoing and/or other aspects and advantages of the present general inventive concept are achieved by providing an air purifier, including a housing, a filter unit and a blowing fan inside the housing, and a bell-mouth placed toward an intake side of the blowing fan, wherein the bell-mouth includes an inlet port formed at a center of the bell-mouth, a flow guide extending from a periphery of the inlet port toward the blowing fan, and a flat section positioned to discontinue the flow guide in a section to increase a distance between the blowing fan and the bell-mouth.
The flat section may be formed at the section of the flow guide where air flows at a relatively high speed through the inlet port of the bell-mouth.
The flat section may be formed at the section in the range of approximately 240°˜330° with respect to a starting point of a scroll inside the bell-mouth.
The flat section may have a saw-tooth shape to distribute the air passing therethrough.
The flow guide may extend a length of about 5 mm from the periphery of the inlet port.
The blowing fan may include a centrifugal fan.
The foregoing and/or other aspects and advantages of the present invention general inventive concept may also be achieved by providing an apparatus to purify air inside a room including a filter to purify air passing therethrough, a fan to force the air to pass through the filter, and a bell-mouth disposed between the filter and the fan to guide the air toward the fan, the bell-mouth including a semicircular flange portion extending toward the fan to provide a first distance between the bell-mouth and the fan, and a semicircular flat portion completing a circle with the semicircular flange portion to provide a second distance between the bell-mouth and the fan.
The foregoing and/or other aspects and advantages of the present invention general inventive concept may also be achieved by providing a flow guide to lower the noise when guiding an air flow to a fan including a main guide portion to guide the air flow toward the fan, the main guide portion having a semicircular flange portion to cause a first distance to be maintained between the fan and the main guide portion, and a secondary guide portion positioned where the air flow rate through the fan is greater, the secondary guide portion having a semicircular flat portion completing a circle with the semicircular flange portion such that the distance between the fan and the secondary guide portion where the secondary guide portion is positioned is greater than the first distance.
The foregoing and/or other aspects and advantages of the present invention general inventive concept may also be achieved by providing an air flow control apparatus including a circular plate shaped body, a circular inlet hole formed through a center portion of the circular plate, and a flow guide extending around a predetermined portion of an inner edge of the circular plate where the circular inlet hole is formed.
These and/or other aspects and advantages of the present general inventive concept will become apparent and more readily appreciated from the following description of the embodiments, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, of which:
Reference will now be made in detail to the embodiments of the present general inventive concept, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings, wherein like reference numerals refer to like elements throughout the description. The embodiments are described below to explain the present general inventive concept while referring to the figures.
As illustrated in
A plurality of air inlets 11 through which indoor air flows into the housing 10 are formed at the bottom of the housing 10, and a plurality of air outlets 12 through which purified air is discharged to a room space are formed on one side of the housing.
The air inlets 11 and the air outlets 12 may be placed on a front surface and an upper surface of the housing 10, respectively, depending on an arrangement of the filter unit 20 and the blowing fan 30 within the housing 10.
Since the filter unit 20 has a structure which includes various types of filters including a dust collecting filter, an antibacterial filter, and a deodorization filter that are compactly combined within the structure, the filter unit 20 can effectively remove dust, bacteria and odors present in the air.
The blowing fan 30 can be one of a centrifugal fan having a plurality of radially arranged fans, such as a Sirocco fan, which rotates at a high speed by a driving motor 31. However, the blowing fan 30 is not limited to a particular type of fan, but may be any fan that performs the intended purpose of the general inventive concept. The blowing fan 30 forces the indoor air to flow into the housing 10 and to circulate therein.
The blowing fan 30 is placed inside a fan casing 50. The fan casing 50 includes a lower portion with a substantially circular scroll 51, which has an intake port 52 formed at a lower center of the scroll 51 and a discharge port 53 formed on the circular scroll in a position facing the air outlets 12.
In order to conveniently transport and install the air purifier, the housing 10 is made as compact as possible, and, consequently, the filter unit 20 and the blowing fan 30 are located close to each other within the housing 10.
The bell-mouth 40 is placed between a rear side of the filter unit 20 and an intake side of the blowing fan 30 to guide air purified through the filter unit 20 to smoothly flow into the fan casing 50.
The bell-mouth 40 includes a base plate 41 having a predetermined size, a substantially circular inlet port 42 formed at the center of the base plate 41, a flow guide 43 extending from a periphery of the inlet port 42 toward the blowing fan 30, and a flat section 44 formed by cutting off a section of the flow guide 43. That is, the flow guide 43 has a discontinuous section corresponding to a length of the flat section 44.
The upper, lower, left and right ends of the base plate 41 are fixed to upper, lower, left and right ends of the housing 10, respectively, and the inlet port 42 has a diameter corresponding to a diameter of the intake port 52 of the fan casing 50 having the blowing fan 30 equipped therein. A grill 45 is formed in the inlet port 42 to reinforce the base plate 41 while allowing the air to stably flow into the bell-mouth 40 through the inlet port 42.
The flow guide 43 extends for a predetermined length in a round shape toward the intake port 52 of the fan casing 50 in order to allow the air that entered the housing 10 through the plurality of air inlets 11 to effectively flow into the fan casing 50.
Typically, since the air purifier has a compact structure, the filter unit 20 and the fan casing 50 are located close to each other within the housing 10. Therefore, the flow guide 43 may have an extension length L of 5 mm or more in order to smoothly guide the air into the fan casing 50.
In contrast with a conventional bell-mouth, in which a flow guide is formed around an entire periphery of an inlet port to have a continuous round surface, spacing between the conventional flow guide and a fan casing is generally small, so that air can be guided. However, in this case, there is a problem in that noise is considerably increased at a particular frequency as the air flow rate is increased.
According to the embodiments of the present general inventive concept, the flat section 44 is formed to discontinue the circular shape of the flow guide 43, and acts to separate the bell-mouth 40 by a relatively large distance from the fan casing 50, thereby overcoming the noise problem described above with respect to the conventional device. The flat section 44 may be located at a section of the circular inlet 42 where the air flows at a relatively high speed through the intake port 52 of the fan casing 50.
In practice, it has been observed that the air flowing into the fan casing 50 has a highest flow rate in the range of approximately 240°˜330° with respect to a starting point P of the scroll 51 of the fan casing 50 having a substantially circular shape.
Accordingly, the flat section 44 acting as the discontinuous section of the flow guide 43 at the periphery of the inlet port 42 of the bell-mouth 40 is formed at a section in the range of about 240°˜330° with respect to 0°, the starting point being located at P of the scroll 51, as illustrated in
With the air purifier constructed as described above, when the blowing fan 30 is rotated at a high speed by operating the driving motor 31, indoor air flows into the housing 10 through the plurality of air inlets 11.
The air flow that enters into the housing 10 passes through the filter unit 20, where dust, bacteria and odor are removed from the air. Thereafter, the purified air flows into the inlet port 42 of the bell-mouth 40, and is guided along the flow guide 43.
The purified air guided along the flow guide 43 is taken into the blowing fan 30 as a smooth flow through the intake port 52 of the fan casing 50, and is then discharged into the room space after passing through the discharge port 53 of the fan casing 50 and the air outlets 12, so that the indoor air is purified.
Meanwhile, the air having an increased flow rate while passing through the section in the range of about 240°˜330° from the starting point P of the scroll 51 of the fan casing 50 flows through the section where spacing between the bell-mouth 40 and the fan casing 50 is relatively large, i.e., the section where the flat section 44 is positioned and where the flow guide 43 is not formed. Thus, noise of a particular frequency which noise is otherwise generated when air passes at a high flow speed through a small gap is prevented.
As illustrated by a comparison of
With regard to this,
As illustrated in
In contrast,
As is apparent from the above description, the air purifier according to the embodiments of the present general inventive concept includes a bell-mouth located between a filter unit and a fan casing to prevent an increase in noise level at a particular frequency, so that the air purifier can be operated quietly and can provide a comfortable environment.
Although a few embodiments of the present general inventive concept have been shown and described, it would be appreciated by those skilled in the art that changes may be made in these embodiments without departing from the principles and spirit of the invention, the scope of which is defined in the claims and their equivalents.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2005-54449 | Jun 2005 | KR | national |
