Drying and gas or vapor contact with solids – Apparatus – Houses – kilns – and containers
Patent
1998-06-09
2000-05-30
Gravini, Stephen
Drying and gas or vapor contact with solids
Apparatus
Houses, kilns, and containers
34225, 34233, F26B 1900
Patent
active
060677252
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The present invention relates to a personal or communal drying cubicle.
The invention may be used in a home or in communal installations such as swimming pools, water sports centres, sports clubs, or alternatively in the hotel trade and health farms.
Shower cubicles are already known which can, in an elaborate version, be equipped with a distribution device with multiple water jets at constant temperature.
German Offenlegungsschrift No. 35 17 334 discloses a personal drying device comprising an air-distributor comprising an outer wall provided with an opening which can be connected to a duct for supplying drying air, and an inner wall pierced with outlet orifices for distributing drying air inside the cubicle.
The known drying device comprises an air-distributor which comprises two separate arms which each has a separate supply of hot air. Each of the arms is provided with a single row of outlet openings, and the arms can be moved vertically. Alternatively, the arms of the drying device can have a vertical extension which equals the length of a person.
Nothing in the German specification suggests that the drying device can have only one air supply, and that by selecting the shape of the internal space between the inner and outer walls properly a uniform distribution of the drying air through the outlet orifices with a minimum drop in pressure can be obtained.
The main objective of the present invention is therefore to produce a drying cubicle which allows uniform distribution of the drying air inside the said cubicle, while minimizing the drops in pressure head of the flow of air between the pipe supplying the drying air and orifices for distributing air inside the cubicle. Such a drying cubicle has also to have a small size, low manufacturing costs, and be relatively easy to maintain.
In particular, the hygiene and safety of users of such a cubicle have to be fully ensured.
To this end the drying cubicle according to the invention is characterized in that the outer wall is provided with a single opening and in that the outer and inner walls are arranged one with respect to the other in such a way as to delimit between them an internal space with a substantially crescent-shaped transverse section in order to obtain a uniform distribution of the drying air through the outlet orifices with a minimum drop in pressure.
Indeed, such a drying cubicle is designed so that the variation in the crescent-shaped transverse section of the internal space, determined as a function of the inlet pressure of the drying air to the internal space, the distribution and the surface area of the outlet orifices in the inner wall, makes it possible to obtain a uniform distribution of the flows of drying air into the drying cubicle via the outlet orifices with a minimum drop in pressure.
In this way a simple and effective solution with only one air supply is obtained.
Reference is made to International patent application publication No. 91/07 900 relating to a dryer comprising a hot air generator connected to a hand-held distributor by means of an elongated flexible hose. This publication is not relevant to the present invention because it is concerned with a hand-held distributor. Reference is further made to U.S. Pat. No. 4 871 900, which publication discloses an air dryer comprising a flexible skirt which is suspended from a circular header and which is provided with several elongated vertical flexible chambers, wherein each chamber has several side openings which are provided with a nozzle for directing the air flow and communicates with the circular header. This publication discloses that the drying air flows vertically from the circular header through each of the vertical flexible chambers, and thus in one dimension only. Therefore this publication is not relevant to the present invention. Reference is finally made to International patent application publication No. 95/02 984, which relates to a drying cabin having a side wall and means for introducing drying air at the top of the drying cabin in such a way the drying air can
REFERENCES:
patent: 3128161 (1964-04-01), Hudon
patent: 4972606 (1990-11-01), Stoltz
patent: 5099587 (1992-03-01), Jarosch
patent: 5369892 (1994-12-01), Dhaemers
patent: 5752326 (1998-05-01), Trim
Gravini Stephen
Shell Research Limited
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