Patent Publication Number: US-8112901-B2

Title: Seal unit of gas dryer

Description:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
     This invention is involving gas dryer, especially the seal unit of gas dryer. 
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     Gas dryer is a kind of drying device using natural gas to heat and in which the clothes are drived to roll by motor. This drying device is very popular in the USA because of its low cost and fast drying speed. 
     Power consumption of the electric quantity of drying unit load is an important technical index. The lower the value is, the less the power consumption of the machine would produce, it means to save more energy. 
     On the premise of guarantee the production process, optimizing the air sealing of the hot-air duct would save more energy and cost less in one hand, as well as raise the drying speed and efficiency and improve the harmoniousness of washer and dryer in the other hand (at present drying time-consumption is shorter in washer than in dryer, and performance degradation of dryer would further perplex the customers). As above, the sealing of hot-air duct is the key point of gas dryer. Worse sealing performance would lead more energy consumption; and unstable air flow would affect the stability of burner of gas dryer and slow the drying speed. Furthermore, the most important part of sealing structure is the seal between rotatable chamber and still air duct (heating disk or rear board). 
     There is a present sealing system between chamber and heating disk shown in  FIG. 1 . The chamber  10  of the present dryer shown in  FIG. 1  is integrated part, heating disk  11  and hot-air duct  13  are assembled on the case. The structure of the sealing system is as follow: felt  12  is set perpendicularly on one end of heating disk  11 . Felt  12  is also fixed on the chamber rear wall for sealing. 
     The above-mentioned dryer is of better production process and low cost, but the consistency of the production, the sealing performance and the durability would be worse. The sealing system is the felt perpendicular to the end of heating disk to seal the rotatable chamber with heating disk. Because of the rotating of the chamber, sloshing would easily appear on both end of chamber. Thus the gap between the chamber and heating disk would change ceaselessly. To settle this problem, the producer employ elastic felt to compensate the widen and narrowed gap caused by the sloshing. The above elastic felt has 5 mm thick and 20-30 mm height. But this elastic felt is of finite elastic and hardly compensating all the gaps, thus directly affect the sealing performance and have less service life than 10 years. And it would also lead low efficiency and slow drying speed, as well as high energy consumption and cost. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     The present invention is focus on the objections of the present arts, to provide a seal unit of gas dryer of effective sealing performance, long service life and easily processing and assembling. 
     The technical scheme to realize the invention is as follow: 
     A seal unit of gas dryer is assembled on the chamber rear wall. The end of heating disk is compressing said seal unit which comprises seal loop shaped as a ring, said seal loop is composed of inner fix part with the shape of flat-sheet ring which is fixed on the chamber rear wall, and outer seal part for sealing chamber rear wall with heating disk, said outer seal part joints with one end of the flat-sheet ring of the inner fix part, heating disk is compressing on the outer seal part which has a ring section. 
     Said outer seal part has a shape of closed ring and its section is also a closed ring formed by the crimp of one end of the flat-sheet ring of inner fix part to the other end. Flexible porous material is filled in the section of said outer seal part on which surface salients are mounted. The ratio of the diameter of the section ring of the outer seal part to the difference value between the inner and outer radius of said flat-sheet ring is 0.5-1.2. 
     Said outer seal part has a shape of closed ring and its section is an open ring formed by the crimp of one end of the flat-sheet ring of inner fix part to the other end, a cirque made of elastic material which has the same shape of the section of said open ring is filled in this open ring, an amount of salients are set on the surface of the outer seal part. 
     Said seal loop is fixed on the chamber rear wall by thermosol. The seal unit further comprises a fixed loop assembled between the chamber rear wall and heating disk, this fixed loop is composed of fastening teeth for fixing seal loop and fixed structure for assembling the fixed loop on the chamber rear wall. 
     The fastening teeth are set on the outer end of the circumference of the fixed loop and said fixed structure is formed by fixed holes set on the fixed loop, and corresponding fixed blocks with at least one threaded hole are respectively set on the chamber rear wall. Said fixed loop is fixed on the chamber wall with screws through fixed holes and blocks with threaded holes, and inner fix part is fixed on the chamber rear wall by fastening teeth. 
     Said seal loop is made of wool felt. 
     The advantages of the invention are as follow:
         1. The outer seal part of the seal unit concerned in the invention has closed structure with a ring section. When the chamber rotates, sloshing would easily appear at both the front and back end of the chamber. And when the gap between the chamber rear wall and heating disk is narrowed, the end of the chamber would tightly compress on the outer seal part, the sealing performance is effective; when the gap between the chamber rear wall and heating disk is widen, the outer seal part would effectively make up the widen gap because of its good elasticity to guarantee the effective sealing performance between the chamber rear wall and heating disk.   2. The flexible porous or elastic materials filled in the ring section of the outer seal part would enhance the elasticity of the seal unit, and the salients on the outer surface of the outer seal part would also enhance the friction between the seal loop and heating disk to bring better sealing performance. Because of the said more effective sealing performance, the leakage of the hot-air would be decreased, the drying speed could increase by 5-10% meanwhile.   3. It is convenient to use fastening teeth to fix the felt on the chamber without any staple.   4. The felt with long service life of 10 years would play effective sealing performance.   5. The sealing unit concerned in this invention is also easily assembled without any worry about the dislocation or inclination of the felt.       

     To further introduce the structure and performance of this invention, it would provide several preferred embodiments in accordance with the drawings below. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         FIG. 1  is a schematic view of the structure of a present sealing system; 
         FIG. 2  is a schematic view of the structure of the seal unit of gas dryer of the invention; 
         FIG. 3  is the decomposition schematic view of the fixed structure of seal loop of gas dryer; 
         FIG. 4  is the disassembly elevational view of the fixed structure of seal loop of gas dryer; 
         FIG. 5  is the disassembly elevational view of the seal unit of gas dryer; 
         FIG. 6  is the sectional view of the seal loop of embodiment 1 of the invention; 
         FIG. 7  is the sectional view of the seal loop of embodiment 2 of the invention. 
     
    
    
     The names of the devices marked in the drawings 
     
       
         
           
               
               
               
               
               
               
             
               
                   
               
             
            
               
                 20 
                 chamber 
                 21 
                 chamber body 
                 22 
                 chamber rear wall 
               
               
                 23 
                 hot-air hole 
                 24 
                 supporting shaft 
                 25 
                 threaded hole 
               
               
                 26 
                 fixed block 
                 30 
                 heating disk 
                 40 
                 hot-air duct 
               
               
                 50 
                 seal loop 
                 51 
                 outer seal part 
                 52 
                 inner fix part 
               
               
                 60 
                 fixed loop 
                 61 
                 fixed hole 
                 70 
                 filling cirque 
               
               
                 80 
                 salient 
                 81 
                 fastening teeth 
               
               
                   
               
            
           
         
       
     
     THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS OF THE INVENTION 
     This invention provides a seal unit of gas dryer, shown in  FIG. 2-FIG .  7 , chamber body  21  is integrated with chamber rear wall  22 , an amount of hot-air holes  23  are set on the chamber rear wall  22  in which center there set an supporting shaft  24 ; a concavity part is formed in the center of the heating disk  30  shaped as a round disc, a bearing inside the concavity part is rotatably assembled with supporting shaft  24 ; heating disk  30  is fixed with heating-air duct  40 , hot-air is blown into heating disk  30  by hot-air duct  40 , further into the chamber  20  through hot-air holes  24  to dry clothes in chamber  20 . 
     EMBODIMENT 1 
     Shown in FIG.  2 -FIG.  6   
     To prevent hot-air from leaking from the gap between the rotatable chamber rear wall  22  and still heating disk  30 , seal loop  50  shaped as a ring is mounted between the chamber rear wall  22  and heating disk  30 . To overcome the objections of the present felt, seal loop  50  provided by this present invention is divided into inner fix part  52  and outer seal part  51 , said inner fix part  52  has a shape of flat-sheet ring, said outer seal part  51  has a shape of closed ring and its section is also a closed ring formed by the crimp of one end of the flat-sheet ring of inner fix part  51  to the other end. Flexible porous materials is filled in the section of said outer seal part  51  on which surface salients are mounted. The ratio of the diameter of the section ring of the outer seal part  51  to the difference value between the inner and outer radius of said flat-sheet ring is 0.5-1.2. Seal loop  50  is made of wool felt. 
     Seal loop  50  is fixed on the chamber rear wall  22  either by thermosol or by a fixed loop  60 . Inner fix part  52  of seal loop  50  is fixed on the chamber rear wall  22  by fixed loop  60 . Fixed loop  60  compresses on the outer seal part  51  with ring section to seal with chamber rear wall  22 . Said outer seal part  51  of seal loop  50  have better elasticity and even more elastic module than present felt, because of its ring section, to make up the deficient sealing performance caused by the axial sloshing in the chamber  20  rotating process, and prevent hot-air from leaking, decrease the power consumption and fast the drying speed. 
     On said fixed loop  60  there set fixed holes  61 , and corresponding fixed blocks  26  with at least one threaded hole  25  are respectively set on the chamber rear wall  22 , fixed loop  60  is mounted on the chamber rear wall  22  by the fixed holes  61  and threaded holes  25  on the fixed blocks  26 , it&#39;s preferred that the amount of fixed holes  61  and corresponding fixed blocks  26  with threaded holes  25  on the chamber rear wall  22  are respectively 3, and the angle between every two of them is 120 degrees. To firmly fix the seal loop  50  on the chamber rear wall and prevent from loosening and displacement of seal loop  50 , fixed loop  60  is enclosed with fastening teeth  81  on the outer end of the circumference of the fixed loop  60  which is fixed on the chamber rear wall  22  by said fastening teeth. 
     EMBODIMENT 2 
     Shown in FIG.  2 -FIG.  5  &amp; FIG.  7   
     Seal loop  50  is assembled between chamber rear wall  22  and heating disk  30 , said seal loop  50  is comprised of inner fix part  52  and outer seal part  51 , outer seal part  51  has a shape of closed ring and its section is a open ring formed by the crimp of one end of the flat-sheet inner fix part  52  to the other end, a cirque  70  made of elastic material and with the same shape of the section of open ring is filled in this open ring, an amount of salients  80  are set on the outer surface of the outer seal part  51 . Seal loop  50  is made of wool felt. 
     As a result of The ring section of outer seal part  51  of seal loop  50  along with filling cirque  70  made of elastic material filled inside, the seal unit has better elasticity, sealing performance, and efficiently compensates the gap between rotatable chamber  20  and still heating disk  30 , as well as prevents hot-air from leaking, decreases energy consumption, raises drying speed. The elastic material is easily assembled because of the structure of open ring of outer seal part  51 . The salients on the surface of outer seal part  51  would improve the friction and sealing performance. 
     Seal loop  50  is fixed on the chamber rear wall  22  by either thermosol or a fixed loop  60 . Inner fixed part  52  of seal loop  50  is fixed on the chamber rear wall  22  by fixed loop  60 . On said fixed loop  60  there set fixed holes  61 , and corresponding fixed blocks  26  with at least one threaded hole  25  are respectively set on the chamber rear wall  22 , fixed loop  60  is mounted on the chamber rear wall  22  by the fixed holes  61  and threaded holes  25  on the fixed blocks  26 , it&#39;s preferred that the amount of fixed holes  61  and corresponding fixed blocks  26  with threaded holes  25  on the chamber rear wall  22  are respectively 3, and the angle between every two of them is 120 degrees. To firmly fix the seal loop  50  on the chamber rear wall and prevent from loosening and displacement of seal loop  50 , fixed loop  60  is enclosed with fastening teeth  81  on the outer end of the circumference of the fixed loop  60  which is fixed on the chamber rear wall  22  by said fastening teeth. 
     The protection scope of the present invention isn&#39;t restricted by the record of the specification. All meet the joint of technique features in claims are protected by this invention