Patent ID: 8079405

Claim:
An air conditioning apparatus for a vehicle, comprising: a blower, for suctioning air and blowing the air into a passenger compartment of the vehicle, the blower including a fan and a fan casing that houses the fan; a unit case defining an air passage through which the air blown from the blower flows, the unit case having side walls opposed to each other with respect to a direction along an axis of rotation of the fan; a cooling heat exchanger disposed in the unit case downstream of the blower with respect to a flow of the air in the unit case for cooling the air, the cooling heat exchanger having an end adjacent the fan casing; a heating heat exchanger disposed in the unit case downstream of the cooling heat exchanger with respect to the flow of the air in the unit case for heating the air, the heating heat exchanger having an end located adjacent the fan casing and adjacent the end of the cooling heat exchanger, and a distance between the heating heat exchanger and the cooling heat exchanger increases as a function of a distance from the fan casing; side openings provided in the side walls of the unit case at locations downstream of the heating heat exchanger with respect to the flow of the air for blowing out the air that flows downstream of the heating heat exchanger; and a door disposed in the unit case for opening and closing the side openings by moving along the side walls; a hollow tubular part provided in the unit case at a location between the end of the heating heat exchanger and the fan casing and extending in the direction along the axis of rotation of the fan, wherein the tubular part includes a passage wall that opposes a space downstream of the heating heat exchanger, the passage wall is provided with a communication portion for allowing communication between an inner space of the tubular part and the space downstream of the heating heat exchanger, the unit case further has passage openings at locations corresponding to opposite ends of the tubular part with respect to the direction along the axis of rotation of the fan for blowing out air, which is introduced in the inner space of the tubular part through the communication portion, the side openings are disposed adjacent to the passage openings, the door includes a rotation shaft, first planar plate door portions and a second planar plate door portion, the rotation shaft extending in a direction perpendicular to the side walls, the first planar plate door portions being perpendicular to and integrally connected to the rotation shaft and configured to move along the side openings for opening and closing the side openings, the second planar plate door portion being perpendicular to and integral with the first planar plate door portions and parallel to the passage wall for opening and closing the communication portion; and the door opens and closes the communication portion simultaneously with the side openings.