Air delivery unit

Abstract

An air delivery unit includes a casing, an air delivery device arranged in a fan passage in the casing, and a fan guard that is arranged at an air outlet of the casing and has an air blowing surface having a grill structure and a hollow frame wall portion. An air blowing opening is formed in the frame wall portion of the fan guard. This structure allows the air to be blown also from the opening of the frame wall portion of the fan guard. This reduces the amount and the speed of the air blown from the air blowing surface of the fan guard having the grill structure. As a result, rise of static pressure of the air delivery device is suppressed and noise caused by interference between bars of an air blowing grill and the air is reduced.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD[0001]The present invention relates to the structure of a fan guard arranged in an air delivery unit of an outdoor unit of an air conditioner or the like.BACKGROUND ART[0002]Typically, an air delivery unit, such as an outdoor unit of an air conditioner, has a fan guard having a grill structure, which covers an air outlet in order to ensure safety and protect blades of an air delivery device (see, for example, Patent Documents 1 to 3). However, the fan guard resists the stream of the air blown from the air outlet. In other words, the fan guard is one of the factors that raises the static pressure of the air delivery device. Also, interference between the air blown by the blades and the grill bars of the fan guard produces loud noise, which raises the level of the noise generated by the outdoor unit.[0003]This problem is substantially negligible in, for example, a fan guard 9 having a grill structure formed only by steel wires a, b, c, d, which fan guard 9 employs a gri...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0014]Accordingly, it is an objective of the present invention to provide an outdoor unit of an air conditioner that reduces the amount and the speed of air blown from an air blowing surface of a fan guard having a grill structure, suppresses rise of the static pressure of an air delivery device, and reduces noise caused by interference between bars of the fan guard grill and the air.

[0017]Accordingly, an opening is easily formed in the frame wall portion of the fan guard. Further, unlike conventional configurations, it is unnecessary to form a special passage configuration in the casing. It is also unnecessary to shape a bellmouth in such a manner as to guide a flow of air or machine a partition board into a predetermined shape. Further, since the fan guard is configured as the attachment frame with respect to the casing, the fan guard has high rigidity and is not easily deformed. Also, in order to prevent a short circuit, the air blowing opening is arranged in the frame wall portion of the fan guard only at the position spaced from the air outlet of the casing. The air is thus blown from an opening of the frame wall portion of the fan guard. This correspondingly decreases the amount and the speed of the air blown from the air blowing surface having the grill structure. As a result, rise of the static pressure of the air delivery device is suppressed, and noise caused by interference between the bars of the air blowing grill and the air is reduced.

[0018]The short circuit, which is the phenomenon in which the blown air is drawn to the air inlet located close to the heat exchanger, is avoided. The heat exchange efficiency is thus maximally prevented from being lowered. This decreases excessive drive load acting on the fan motor and reduces the power consumption. Further, the heat exchange efficiency of the heat exchanger is prevented from decreasing.

[0020]In the above-described air delivery unit, it is preferable to form a rib reinforcing the frame wall portion in the vicinity of the openings in the fan guard. This increases the rigidity of the frame wall portion having the openings, and allows sufficient reinforcement of the frame wall portion. Also, the amount of deformation of the frame wall portion with respect to pressing force is reduced to a low level.

Problems solved by technology

Further, unlike conventional configurations, it is unnecessary to form a special passage configuration in the casing.

Further, since the fan guard is configured as the attachment frame with respect to the casing, the fan guard has high rigidity and is not easily deformed.

Images