Evaporative Cooler Passage Separation Prevents Air Contamination
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional evaporative coolers contaminate indoor air due to the flow of contaminated evaporative water and air from the wet channel into the interior, leading to bacterial growth, as their design lacks spatial separation between air supply and bleeding passages.
Innovation Solution
The evaporative cooler incorporates spatially separated air supply and bleeding passages, with a passage separation guide to prevent fluid mixing, and includes an ultraviolet sterilization lamp in the water tank to prevent bacterial growth, along with a bleeding blower to dry the wet channel and water tank during operation and termination.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the evaporative cooler uses a conventional design with shared air supply and bleeding passages, then the device complexity is reduced, but contaminated evaporative water and air flow into the interior causing bacterial growth and indoor air contamination
Solution Approach 1:
The air passage is divided into separate air supply passage and bleeding passage that are spatially separated and do not communicate with each other. The air supply passage delivers fresh air to the interior while the bleeding passage exhausts contaminated air and evaporative water to the exterior, preventing contamination of indoor air.
Solution Approach 2:
The bleeding passage is extracted as a separate pathway from the air supply passage. By taking out the bleeding function into an independent passage that opens to the exterior, the patent eliminates the risk of contaminated evaporative water and air entering the interior through the air supply system.
2Productivity
If the evaporative cooler operates continuously without drainage, then the cooling performance is maintained, but bacterial growth occurs in the water tank due to stagnant evaporative water
Solution Approach 1:
The drainage operation is performed periodically during the cooling cycle as a preliminary action to prevent bacterial growth. By draining stagnant water from the water tank at intervals, the system maintains water quality while continuing cooling operations, eliminating the need to stop productivity for water quality maintenance.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements periodic drainage operations during continuous cooling. The control unit schedules drainage at appropriate intervals, creating a periodic action that prevents bacterial growth while maintaining continuous cooling productivity. This periodic maintenance action ensures water quality without interrupting overall system operation.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This configuration effectively blocks contaminated evaporative water and air from entering the interior, maintaining a clean indoor environment and preventing bacterial growth by ensuring separate passage flow and using UV sterilization to manage water quality.
Implementation Method 1
heat exchange unit (20) having a dry channel (DC) and a wet channel (WC) and configured to cool air passing through the dry channel (DC) by using evaporative latent heat of water via the wet channel (WC)
Implementation Method 2
an ultraviolet sterilization lamp (51) provided inside the water tank (50)
Data Source
AI summary
An evaporative cooler which has a main body that has an air supply inlet, an air supply outlet, a bleeding inlet, and a bleeding outlet; and a heat exchange unit. An air supply passage and a bleeding passage are spatially separated from each other to prevent fluid passing through the bleeding passage from being introduced to indoors via the air supply passage.