Patent Application
20080066893
The patent or application file contains at least one drawing executed in color. Copies of this patent or patent application publication with color drawing(s) will be provided by the Office upon request and payment of the necessary fee.
The above and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will be apparent from the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments of the invention in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:
Reference will be now made in detail to the preferred embodiment of the present invention with reference to the attached drawings.
The same reference numerals are used to designate the same or similar components as those of the prior art without repeated description thereof.
While it is apparent that the present invention shall be applied equally to one-tank, two-tank and four-tank type heat exchangers, the following description will be made only in conjunction with the single tank type heat exchanger for the sake of convenience.
As shown in the drawings, the heat exchanger 1 according to the present invention includes: a plurality of tubes 100, each tube formed by bonding two plates 101 having a pair of parallel cups 104 formed at the top thereof, each tube having a pair of tanks 140 formed by bonding the cups 104 with each other and U-shaped flow channels 102 formed therein centering around a partition bead 103 vertically formed between the tanks 140 to a predetermined length to fluidically communicate the tanks 140 with each other;
heat radiation fins 50 interposed between the tubes 100 in a bent form for promoting a heat exchange performance by widening an electric heat area; and
two end plates 30 mounted at the outermost sides of the tubes 100 and the heat radiation fins 50 to reinforce them.
In addition, the tubes 10 also include manifold tubes 20 projecting to sides of the tanks 40, in which one of the manifold tubes 20 has an inlet manifold 21 connected with an inlet pipe 2 for introducing refrigerant and manifold tubes 20a projecting to the other sides of the tanks 40, in which one of the manifold tubes 20a has an outlet manifold 21a connected with an outlet pipe 3 for discharging refrigerant.
Here, the manifold tubes 20 and 20a are the same as the tubes 10 except the inlet and outlet manifolds 21 and 21a protruding to the sides.
Moreover, the tank 140 having the inlet and outlet manifolds 21 and 21a has a baffle 60 formed therein for partitioning introduced refrigerant and discharged refrigerant from each other.
The laminated tubes 100 are divided into an inlet side 4 for introducing refrigerant and an outlet side 5 for discharging refrigerant by the baffle 60.
Therefore, refrigerant introduced into the inlet pipe 2 flows along the U-shaped flow channels 102 of the tubes 20 and 100 of the inlet side 4 divided by the baffle 60 and flows to the outlet side 5. After that, refrigerant flows along the U-shaped flow channels 102 of the tubes 20a and 100 of the outlet side 5, and then, discharged through the outlet pipe 3. Of course, refrigerant cools the external air through heat exchange with the external air during the process that refrigerant flows the tubes 100 of the inlet side 4 and the outlet side 5 in order.
The heat exchanger 1 has refrigerant distributing sections 106 formed at the inlet side and the outlet side of the flow channels 102 of the tubes 100 and having a plurality of passageways 106b partitioned by a plurality of second beads 106a.
Here, since the flow channel 102 is formed in a “U” shape by the partition bead 103 formed at the center of the plate 101, the inlet and outlet of the flow channel 102 are formed in parallel. Of course, in this instance, the above heat exchanger is the one-tank type heat exchanger, but, in the two-tank type or four-tank type heat exchanger, the inlet and outlet of the flow channel 102 are formed in the opposite directions.
In addition, the second beads 106a are formed and arrange asymmetrically with respect to the central line (CL) of the cup 104 to distribute and introduce refrigerant stored in the tank to the flow channels 102 uniformly.
That is, the second beads 106a are formed asymmetrically with respect to the central line (CL) of the cup 104 in the number, interval or shape.
Of course, in the drawing, the second beads 106a are formed asymmetrically in number, interval and shape, but the present invention is not restricted to the above, and can be formed asymmetrically in at least one of number, interval and shape.
Moreover, each of the second beads 106a is formed asymmetrically in an interval from the first array of the first beads 105. Here, it is preferable that at least one of the second beads 106a is formed asymmetrically, but it is preferable that an interval (L3) of the second bead 106a adjacent to the partition bead 103 from the first array of the first beads 105 is larger than an interval (L1) of the outermost second bead 106a from the first array of the first beads 105.
In addition, the sectional area of the passageway 106b formed at the side of the partition bead 103 with respect to the central line (CL) of the cup 104 is smaller than the sectional area of the passageway 106b formed at the other side, whereby refrigerant concentrated on the center is induced to the outside of the flow channel 102 when refrigerant inside the tank 140 is introduced into the flow channel 102. In this instance, the second bead 106a formed toward the larger passageway 106b is formed greater than other beads 106a to prevent that excessive refrigerant is crowded to the outside.
Furthermore, it is preferable that the refrigerant distributing sections 106 and the first beads 105 are formed symmetrically from the partition bead 103 for commonness of the plate 101 when the heat exchanger is manufactured.
That is, two plates 101 are faced and bonded to each other when the tube 100 is manufactured, and in this instance, the first and second beads 105 and 106a formed on the two plates 101 are bonded with each other to enhance pressure resistance of the heat exchanger. As described above, if the refrigerant distributing sections 106 and the first beads 105 are formed symmetrically from the partition bead 103, only one-type plates 101 can be manufactured in one press mold to be used for commonness with no need to manufacture two plates 101 separately for manufacturing the tube 100.
Meanwhile, the shape and size of the second beads 106a of the refrigerant distributing sections 106 are gradually increased toward the outside, and at least one second bead 106a and at least one first bead 105 are arranged on the same line.
Additionally, a plurality of the first beads 105 arranged by bonding sides of a pair of the plates 101 facing with each other are formed, so that a turbulent flow of refrigerant is formed in the flow channel 12 of the tube 100.
That is, the first beads 105 protrudes inwardly along the flow channels 102 of the plate 101 by an embossed-molding method, and are obliquely arranged in a lattice form to improve fluidity of refrigerant and induce the turbulent flow of refrigerant. The first beads 105 formed on the two plates 101 are bonded to each other by brazing in a state where they are in contact with each other.
In addition, arrays of the first beads 105 have the same number of the first beads 105 and arranged at regular intervals to make a flow distribution of refrigerant uniform, but it is preferable that the arrays of the first beads 105 are repeatedly arranged in zigzag.
In this instance, it is preferable that the first beads 105 formed at the uppermost end of the flow channels 102 are formed asymmetrically with respect to the central line (CL) of the cup 104.
Therefore, refrigerant can be distributed uniformly through combination of the asymmetric structure of the refrigerant distributing sections 106 and the asymmetric structure of the first beads 105 of the uppermost end. That is, refrigerant flowing inside the tank 140 can flow more uniformly into the flow channels 102.
Moreover, the first beads 105 are formed in a streamline form to reduce a pressure drop of refrigerant.
That is, the streamlined first beads 105 cause reduction of pressure drop of refrigerant, so that refrigerant can flow smoothly along the streamlined surfaces of the first beads 105 without occurring large pressure at stagnation points in a refrigerant inflow direction of the first beads 105.
Therefore, the first beads 105 according to the present invention are formed in streamline form to reduce pressure of the front ends thereof in the refrigerant inflow direction, remove non-uniformity in refrigerant flow distribution, and enhance the electrically heating performance, but are restricted in the ratio (W/L) of width (W) to length (L).
As shown in the graph of
However, when the width to length ratio (W/L) of the first beads 105 is large, the heat radiation performance is increased and the pressure drop of refrigerant is also increased, and thereby, the refrigerant flow distribution becomes ununiform.
Therefore, it is preferable that the width to length ratio (W/L) of the first beads 105 satisfies the following formula, 0.3≦W/L≦0.9, which is a proper range.
Therefore, refrigerant crowded around the central portion of the refrigerant distributing sections 106 can be induced to both sides of the flow channels 102.
Meanwhile,
Also in this case, the second beads 106a of the refrigerant distributing sections 106 are formed asymmetrically with respect to the central line (CL) of the cup 104, and the first beads 105 are in the streamline form, and in this instance, the arrays having the first beads 105 of the same number are repeatedly arranged in zigzag.
As described above, without regard to the number of the first beads 105 and the second beads 106a, the second beads 106a of the refrigerant distributing sections 106 are formed asymmetrically with respect to the central line (CL) of the cup 104, the first beads 105 are in the streamline form, and the arrays having the first beads 105 of the same number are repeatedly arranged in zigzag, whereby the refrigerant flow distribution becomes uniform, the pressure drop of refrigerant is reduced so that a heat radiation amount is increased and the heat exchange efficiency is enhanced thereby to facilitate the miniaturization of the heat exchanger into a compact size.
As described above, the arrangement type of the first beads 105 and the second beads 106a is applied to the one-tank type heat exchanger 1, but the present invention is not restricted to the above, and the first beads 105 and the second beads 106a can be modified in various ways within the scope of claims of the present invention. In addition, the same structure can be also applied to the two-tank type or four-tank type heat exchanger to obtain the same effects as the present invention.
The plate for the heat exchanger includes the second beads formed asymmetrically on the refrigerant distributing sections of the plate with respect to the central line of the cup and the streamlined first beads formed along the flow channels, each array of the first beads being arranged in the same number in the form of a zigzag to distribute and introduce refrigerant of a tank to flow channels of tubes, thereby increasing the heat radiation amount and enhancing the heat exchange efficiency by forming the uniform flow distribution and reducing the pressure drop of refrigerant, and miniaturizing the heat exchanger into a compact size.
While the present invention has been described with reference to the particular illustrative embodiments, it is not to be restricted by the embodiments but only by the appended claims. It is to be appreciated that those skilled in the art can change or modify the embodiments without departing from the scope and spirit of the present invention.
