The present invention relates to a fuel gas valve, and more particularly to a fuel gas valve that is applicable to natural gas (NG) and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).
A fuel gas valve is used to open or close a flow of fuel gas passing therethrough and to regulate the flow (in order to make switching between strong and weak flames).
Fuel gas that is commonly used in daily living generally includes two kinds, which are liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and natural gas (NG). Fuel valves for use with the two kinds of fuel gas are structurally different because for natural gas, the fuel gas inlet pressure is generally smaller than the inlet pressure of the liquefied petroleum gas, and correspondingly, the outlet pressure of the natural gas is smaller than the outlet pressure of the liquefied petroleum gas. As the fuel gas valves for natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas have to support different gas pressures and different burning efficiencies, fuel gas valves that are currently available in the market are grouped into two structures to respectively correspond to and use with natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas.
For the manufacturers, two fuel gas valve specifications often result in excessive inventory as well as other issues. Therefore, a single fuel valve structure applicable to both natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas is currently available and this helps reduce difficulties associated with procurement and installation. However, the fuel gas valve that is currently available for application to both natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas has a complicated structure, involves a large number of parts, requires a high production cost, and is difficult to assemble, and is also difficult for operation.
In view of the above, the present invention is made to alleviate the problems of the prior art that the known fuel gas valve applicable to both natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas has a complicated structure, involves a large number of parts, requires a high production cost, and is difficult to assemble and also difficult to operate.
An objective of the present invention is to provide a fuel gas valve that is applicable to natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas and has a simple structure, involves a reduced number of parts, is easy to assemble and operate and can effectively reduce the production cost.
Another objective of the present invention is to provide a fuel gas valve that is applicable to natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas and is operable to regulate a flow channel volumetric size for fuel gas flowing through a valve opening, in order to achieve an effect of changing an outlet pressure.
For such objectives, the present invention provides a fuel gas valve applicable to natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas, comprising: a valve body, which comprises a flow channel formed in an interior thereof, an inlet opening adapted to communicate the flow channel with an outside, and an outlet opening adapted to communicate the flow channel with the outside in order to allow a fuel gas to flow in through the inlet opening to pass through the flow channel to then flow out of the outlet opening, a valve opening being arranged in an interior of the flow channel; a top cover, which is mounted on the valve body and comprises a mounting hole, a small flame limiting portion, and a large flame limiting portion, the mounting hole being formed with a top-cover internal thread; a sealing gasket, which is interposed between the valve body and the top cover, the sealing gasket comprising a deformable portion located in the flow channel; a regulation device, which comprises an intermediary member, a pin axle, a spring, a fine adjustment knob, a plug axle unit, and a dual-spring unit, wherein the intermediary member is formed with an axle hole penetrating therethrough in an axial direction, the axle hole being formed, on an inside wall surface thereof, with an intermediary-member internal thread, the intermediary member being formed, on an external circumferential surface, with an intermediary-member external thread and an intermediary-member external circumferential toothed portion, the intermediary member being located in the mounting hole by having the intermediary-member external thread screwed to the top-cover internal thread, the pin axle being formed, in a middle section thereof, with a circumferential protrusion portion protruded in an annular form, the pin axle being located in the axle hole of the intermediary member, the spring being located in the axle hole of the intermediary member and having a top end supported on a bottom surface of the circumferential protrusion portion of the pin axle and a bottom end supported on an internal wall of the intermediary member to provide the pin axle with an upward-biasing elastic preloading force, the fine adjustment knob comprising a fine-adjustment-knob external thread, the fine-adjustment-knob external thread being screwed to the intermediary-member internal thread to have the fine adjustment knob located inside the axle hole and contact a top surface of the circumferential protrusion portion of the pin axle to limit a highest position of the pin axle, the plug axle unit being located in the valve opening of the valve body, the plug axle unit having an external circumferential surface that comprises a closure face, the dual-spring unit comprising an upper holding plate, a lower holding plate, an external spring, and an internal spring, the upper holding plate being supported on a bottom end of the pin axle, the lower holding plate being mounted to a top end of the plug axle unit, the lower holding plate and the plug axle unit jointly clamping a deformable portion of the sealing gasket therebetween, the external spring being connected between the upper holding plate and the lower holding plate, the internal spring being located in an interior of the external spring, a bottom end of the internal spring being supported on the lower holding plate; a drive interface, which is disposed on the top cover and comprises a limiting projection, the drive interface being connected to the intermediary member of the regulation device to drive the regulation device to move upwards and downwards for changing a size of a gap between the closure face of the plug axle unit and the valve opening to adjust a flow rate of the fuel gas flowing through the valve opening for adjustment between a small flame and a large flame, the small flame limiting portion and the large flame limiting portion of the top cover being located in a rotation path of the limiting projection; and a switching device, which comprises an external knob and an internal knob, an external circumferential surface of the external knob being formed with an external-knob external thread, an internal circumferential surface of the external knob being formed with an external-knob internal thread, the internal knob comprising an internal-knob external thread, the internal-knob external thread being screwed to the external-knob internal thread to couple the internal knob in an interior of the external knob, the switching device being selectively detachable for rearrangement to have the external-knob external thread screwed to the intermediary-member internal thread of the intermediary member, such that the switching device, when coupled with the intermediary member, drives the pin axle and the external spring and the internal spring to be pressed for downward moving to cause deformation of the deformable portion of the sealing gasket to change a volume of the flow channel to achieve adjustment of a pressure of the fuel gas flowing out of the outlet opening, so that an effect of being applicable to both natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas is realized, achieving the advantage of reducing components, simplifying structure complication, lowering production cost, easing assembling, and making operation easy.
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Thus, the above provide a description to the components of the fuel gas valve 100 applicable to natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas according to the first preferred embodiment of the present invention and the way of assembling thereof, and features of operation thereof will be described below, with reference to examples that the fuel gas valve is operated with natural gas with a 7-inch water column gas pressure set at the inlet opening end and a 1.7 (small flame) to 3.5 (large flame) inch water column gas pressure set at the outlet opening end and that for operation with liquefied petroleum gas, the fuel gas valve is set with a 12-inch water column gas pressure at the inlet opening end thereof and a 5-5.5 (small flame) to 10-10.5 (large flame) inch water column gas pressure at the outlet opening end:
Firstly, the flow channel 11 of the valve body 10 is closable (as shown in
With the flow channel 11 of the valve body 10 being opened, in case that the user attempts to use natural gas as the fuel gas, with the switching device 60 being not coupled with the regulation device 40, for the user attempting to adjust down to a state of small flame, the drive interface 50 provides a rotating force in a rotating direction, meaning the step motor 51 drives the driving gear 52 to rotate and the driven gear 53 simultaneously drives the intermediary member 41 to rotate until the limiting peg 532 contacts the small flame limiting portion 221 (as shown in
With the flow channel 11 of the valve body 10 being opened, in case that the user attempts to use natural gas as the fuel gas, with the switching device 60 being not coupled with the regulation device 40, for the user attempting to adjust up to a state of large flame, the drive interface 50 provides a rotating force in an opposite rotating direction, meaning the step motor 51 drives the driving gear 52 to rotate in an opposite direction and the driven gear 53 simultaneously drives the intermediary member 41 to rotate until the limiting peg 532 contacts the large flame limiting portion 222 (as shown in
At this moment, due to the elastic acting force of the external spring 463, the fuel gas that enters the inlet opening 12 and has a 7-inch water column gas pressure maintains a 1.7 (small flame)-3.5 (large flame)-inch water column gas pressure at the outlet opening 13 to suit the needs for operation.
Then, when the flow channel 11 of the valve body 10 is opened, for the user attempting to use liquefied petroleum gas as the fuel gas, it needs to set the switching device 60 to couple with the intermediary member 41 of the regulation device 40, namely the external-knob external thread 611 of the external knob 61 is screwed to and coupled with the intermediary-member internal thread 412 of the intermediary member 41, so that the internal knob 62 of the switching device 60 pushes the pin axle 42 to move downwards to compress the spring 43, and also to compressing the internal spring 464 of the dual-spring unit 46 to apply a force to the deformable portion 31 of the sealing gasket 30 to cause deformation of the deformable portion 31 for reducing a volume of the flow channel 11 in this area and thereby increasing the gas pressure of the liquefied petroleum gas that passes over the deformable portion 31 to flow out of the outlet opening 13.
Next, when the user attempts to make adjustment down to a small flame state, the drive interface 50 provides a rotating force in a rotating direction, meaning the step motor 51 drives the driving gear 52 to rotate and the driven gear 53 simultaneously drives the intermediary member 41 to rotate until the limiting peg 532 contacts the small flame limiting portion 221 (as shown in
For the user attempting to use liquefied petroleum gas as the fuel gas and attempting to make adjustment up to a large flame state, the drive interface 50 provides a rotating force in an opposite rotating direction, meaning the step motor 51 drives the driving gear 52 to rotate in an opposite direction and the driven gear 53 simultaneously drives the intermediary member 41 to rotate until the limiting peg 532 contacts the large flame limiting portion 222 (as shown in
Thus, coupling the switching device 60 to the intermediary member 41 of the regulation device 40 causes deformation of the deformable portion 31 of the sealing gasket 30 and the deformation induced on the deformable portion 31 makes the volume of the flow channel 11 in this area reduced to increase the gas pressure of the liquefied petroleum gas that passes over the deformable portion 31 to flow out of the outlet opening 13. In other words, with the switching device 60 coupled to the intermediary member 41 of the regulation device 40, the elastic acting force of the external spring 463 and the internal spring 464 allows the fuel gas that enters the inlet opening 12 and has a 12-inch water column gas pressure to maintain at a 5-5.5 (small flame) to 10-10.5 (large flame) inch water column gas pressure when flowing out of the outlet opening 13 to suit the needs for operation.
In this way, the present invention enables adjustment between a small flame and a large flame and also utilizes the situation where the switching device 60 is coupled to the intermediary member 41 of the regulation device 40 or not to achieve switching of operation with liquefied petroleum gas or the natural gas. As such, the present invention has a simple structure, involves a reduced number of parts, is easy to assemble and operate, and can effectively reduce the production cost to allow for easy operation by a user and to greatly improve market competition power.
Further, as shown in
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In the instant embodiment, the drive interface 80 is a manually-operating rotary knob 81, which is disposed on the top cover 20 and is coupled to the regulation device 40 to allow a user to rotate, with a hand, for adjusting the small flame and large flame state in order to suit the needs of operation for different users.
Number | Name | Date | Kind |
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2928382 | Hans | Mar 1960 | A |
20140072919 | Deng | Mar 2014 | A1 |
Number | Date | Country |
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116877730 | Oct 2023 | CN |