JP2000142098A - Vehicular air conditioner - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To quickly operate an air cleaner to dirty outside air entering from clearance of a vehicle by providing an air cleaning operation means for operating the air cleaner when a detecting pollution level by an outside air pollution detecting means exceeds a prescribed pollution state even in an inside air circulating mode. SOLUTION: A controller 22 calculates a target blowoff temperature for blowing off air in a cabin by reading respective signals from respective sensors 23 to 25 and a control panel 26 to control an air conditioning unit 1 on the basis of this target blowoff temperature. By the way, in an inside air circulating mode, a part of air from a drain port is exhausted, and since pressure of cabin inside air is reduced more than pressure of outside air, the outside air enters from clearance of a vehicle. Then, when judging that a pollution level of the outside air is higher than a reference value on the basis of the signal from the outside gas sensor 23, an inside/outside air mode of the air conditioning unit 1 is controlled in response to a target blowoff level. An air cleaner 15 is controlled by being switched to the inside air circulating mode to clean air in the cabin.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a vehicle air conditioner for purifying air blown into a vehicle interior from an air conditioning unit by an air purifier.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In such a vehicle air conditioner, for example, as described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 57-7715, air pollution outside the vehicle compartment is detected by an outside air pollution sensor provided downstream of an inside / outside air switching door. In some cases, the suction port is set to the inside air mode upon detection, and then the air cleaning device is operated upon detecting air contamination in the vehicle interior by the inside air pollution sensor provided on the rear package tray.

[0003]

The inventors of the present invention have conducted trial manufacture of the above-described conventional air conditioner for a vehicle, and as a result, it has been found that the following problems occur.

[0004] That is, in the air conditioner, a drainage channel to the outside of the vehicle compartment is provided downstream of the air of the evaporator in order to drain the condensed water generated by the dehumidifying action of the evaporator. Here, when the air conditioner operates and the fan rotates, the pressure of the air on the downstream side of the fan becomes higher than the outside of the cabin due to the pressurizing action of the fan, so that part of the air that has passed through the evaporator is drained. Is discharged from In this case, in the inside air circulation mode, since a part of the air is discharged from the drain passage as described above, the pressure of the vehicle interior air becomes lower than the pressure of the outside air. Of the same amount of outside air enters through a gap in the vehicle.

[0005] Therefore, if the occupant of the vehicle interior does not smoke, the only source of air pollution in the vehicle interior during the internal air circulation mode is the external air entering through the above-mentioned vehicle gap. Is provided on the rear package tray, it is not possible to quickly cope with the dirt of the outside air entering from the gap of the vehicle as described above. As a result, it has been found that there is a problem that the air purifying device cannot be operated even though the interior of the vehicle interior is gradually becoming dirty due to the intrusion of the outside air.

Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to operate the air purifier immediately when dirty outside air enters from a gap in a vehicle in the inside air circulation mode.

[0007]

The present invention uses the following technical means to achieve the above object.

The invention according to claims 1 to 3 operates the air cleaning device (15) even when in the inside air circulation mode, when the degree of pollution detected by the outside air pollution detecting means (23) exceeds a predetermined pollution state. Air cleaning operation means (S120, S
150).

The above-mentioned "predetermined degree of contamination" refers to a material having a certain width (the width between G1 and G2 in FIG. 6) such as a material having hysteresis as shown in FIG. Including.

According to the above means, even in the inside air circulation mode, when the degree of contamination of the air outside the vehicle compartment exceeds a predetermined level, the air purification in the vehicle compartment can be started. Even if outside air exceeding a predetermined degree of contamination enters, the air can be cleaned.

In particular, in the invention according to claim 2, when the degree of contamination detected by the outside air pollution detecting means (23) exceeds the predetermined degree of pollution, the inside air introduction port (3) is fully opened and the outside air introduction port (3) is opened. Since 4) is completely closed, that is, the inside air circulation mode is set, it is possible to prevent dirty outside air from being introduced into the vehicle interior from the outside air introduction port (4).

In the invention according to claim 3, the degree of contamination detected by the outside air pollution detecting means (23) is lower than the predetermined degree of contamination, and the air cleaning device (1) is provided for a predetermined time.
It is characterized in that the operation of 5) is continued.

That is, even if the air outside the cabin becomes clean, some external air remains in the cabin at that time. Therefore, if the operation of the air purifying device (15) is stopped immediately because the detected pollution degree becomes lower than the predetermined pollution degree, the slightly remaining dirty outside air still remains in the vehicle interior. It will remain.

On the other hand, according to the third aspect of the present invention, the air purifying device (15) is not stopped immediately because the air outside the cabin becomes clean, but the operation thereof is continued for a while, so that the air purifying device (15) is operated. The remaining dirty outside air can be purified.

[0015]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment in which the present invention is applied to an automotive air conditioner will be described below with reference to FIGS.
First, the air conditioning unit 1 will be described with reference to FIGS.

The air conditioning unit 1 is provided inside an instrument panel at the front seat of the vehicle as shown in FIG.
As shown in FIG. 1, the air conditioning unit 1 includes an air conditioning case 2 as an air passage for guiding air into a vehicle interior. An air inlet 3, an outside air inlet 4, and an inside / outside air switching door 5 that opens and closes each of the inlets are provided at an air upstream side portion of the air conditioning case 2. It is driven by a servo motor 6 (see FIG. 2) as driving means.

On the downstream side of the inside / outside air switching door 5,
A fan 7 is provided as blowing means for generating an air flow, and the fan 7 is driven by a blower motor 8 (see FIG. 2) as driving means. further,
An evaporator 9 and a heater core 10 are provided at a position downstream of the blower motor 8 on the air side.

The evaporator 9 is a cooling heat exchanger that forms a well-known refrigeration cycle together with a compressor, a condenser, a receiver, and an expansion valve (not shown). A heater core 10 is a heating heat source that uses cooling water of an engine (not shown) as a heat source. It is a heat exchanger.

On the downstream side of the evaporator 9, there is provided a cool air passage 11 through which the air passing through the evaporator 9 bypasses the heater core 10, and further passes through the cold air passage 11 among the air passing through the evaporator 9. An air mix door 12 for adjusting the ratio of the cool air to the warm air passing through the heater core 10 to adjust the temperature of the air flow, and a step motor 13 as a driving means therefor are provided (see FIG. 2). A well-known blowing mode switching mechanism that blows air adjusted to a desired temperature by the air mixing door 12 to each predetermined portion in the vehicle compartment is provided downstream of the heater core 10 in the air.

On the downstream side of the evaporator 9 in the air,
A drain port 14 is provided to drain condensed water generated by dehumidifying the air passing through the evaporator 9 to the outside of the vehicle.

Next, the air purifier 15 will be described with reference to FIGS.
This will be described with reference to FIG.

As shown in FIG. 2, the air purifier 15 is provided below the rear package tray 16 on the rear seat side of the vehicle. As shown in FIG. 3, the air purifier 15 has an air inlet 17 at one end and an air outlet 18 at the other end.
, A fan 19 that sucks air from the air suction port 17 and feeds the air toward the air discharge port 18, a fan motor 20 as a driving unit thereof, and dirt introduced by the fan 19. And a filter 21 that adsorbs contaminated components in the air.
Further, the air purifier 15 includes a control device 2 as described later.
When the fan motor 20 is driven based on the output signal from the second motor 2, the operation state is established.

Next, the configuration of the control system of the present embodiment will be described with reference to FIG.

Inside the control device 22, a CP (not shown)
A known microcomputer including a U, a ROM, a RAM, and the like, an A / D conversion circuit, and the like are provided.

When an ignition switch (not shown) is turned on, the control device 22 is supplied with electric power from a battery (not shown) to be activated.

The input terminals of the control unit 22 include an outside air gas sensor 23 for detecting the degree of air pollution outside the cabin, an inside air gas sensor 24 for detecting the degree of air pollution inside the cabin, and a sensor for detecting environmental factors affecting the air conditioning environment. Each signal is input from a group 25 (for example, an inside air temperature sensor for detecting the temperature inside the vehicle), an air conditioning instruction member (for example, a temperature setting device) provided on the control panel 26, and the like.

The outside air gas sensor 23 is provided at a position (for example, in front of a condenser) in the engine room where the degree of outside air pollution (concentration of harmful gas contained in exhaust gas) can be detected satisfactorily. It comprises a semiconductor element that reacts to the harmful gas and an electric heater that increases the reaction speed of the semiconductor element. Further, in the present embodiment, the higher the degree of contamination of the outside air, the smaller the sensor processing value in the microcomputer described later.

The inside air gas sensor 24 is provided on the rear package tray 16 and is constituted by an optical sensor.

The signals from the sensors 23 to 25 and the control panel 26 are converted by the A / D conversion circuit into analog signals.
After the / D conversion, it is configured to be input to the microcomputer. Control signals are output from an output terminal of the control device 19 to the servo motor 6, the blower motor 8, the step motor 13, the driving means in the above-mentioned blow mode switching mechanism, and the fan motor 20 of the air purifier 15.

Next, control processing performed by the microcomputer will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. The routine in FIG. 4 starts when the ignition switch is turned on. Immediately after this routine is started, a contamination flag described later is off.

When the routine shown in FIG. 4 is started, signals from the sensors 23 to 25 and the control panel 26 are read in step S100.

In the next step S110, a target outlet temperature TAO to be blown into the vehicle compartment is calculated based on signals from the sensor group 25 and the control panel 26, and based on the target outlet temperature TAO, the air conditioning unit 1 is operated. The state of each air conditioner is controlled. That is, the rotation speed of the fan 7,
The opening degree of the air mix door 12 and the above-mentioned blowing mode are respectively controlled.

Here, when the fan 7 is rotated by the processing in step S110, the pressure of the air downstream of the fan 7 becomes higher than the outside of the vehicle due to the pressurizing action of the fan 7, so that the air passing through the evaporator 9 A part is discharged from the drain port 14. In this case, in the inside air circulation mode to be described later, since a part of the air is discharged from the drain port 14 as described above, the pressure of the vehicle interior air becomes lower than the pressure of the outside air. The same amount of outside air as the air in the section enters through a gap in the vehicle.

Therefore, in the present embodiment, step S120
In the following, even if dirty outside air enters from the gap of the vehicle as described above, it can be quickly cleaned.

That is, in step S120, based on the signal from the outside air gas sensor 23, the outside air
It is determined whether the degree of contamination is higher than the reference value G1 of YE.
If determined to be S, the process proceeds to step S130, and if determined to be NO, the process proceeds to step S140.

In step S130, the contamination flag is set to ON, and the flow advances to the next step S150. Step S1
At 40, it is determined whether or not the contamination flag is ON. If the determination is YES, the process proceeds to step S150, and if the determination is NO, the process proceeds to step S160.

In step S160, the inside / outside air mode of the air-conditioning unit 1 is controlled in accordance with the target outlet temperature TAO based on the map shown in FIG. Here, the inside air circulation mode is a mode in which the inside air introduction port 3 is fully opened and the outside air introduction port 4 is completely closed, and the outside air introduction mode is a mode in which the inside air introduction port 3 is completely closed and the outside air introduction port 4 is fully opened. It is. afterwards,
It returns to step S100.

In step S150, the inside / outside air mode is set to the inside air circulation mode, and the routine goes to step S170. In the next step S170, the rotation state of the fan 19 of the air purifier 15 is controlled to purify the air in the passenger compartment.

In the next step S180, based on the signal from the outside air gas sensor 23, the degree of outside air
It is determined whether it is lower than a second reference value G2 which is smaller than the reference value G1. When YES is determined in this step S180, the process proceeds to step S190, and when NO is determined, the process returns to step S100. In step S190, the time T determined to be YES in step S180 is counted up, and in the next step S200, it is determined whether or not the counted time T has reached a predetermined time τ (for example, 2 minutes).

If YES is determined in step S200, the process proceeds to step S210. If NO is determined, the process returns to step S190. In step S210, the fan 19 of the air purifier 15 is turned off to stop the air purifier 15, and the process proceeds to step S220.

In the next step S220, the contamination flag is turned off and the process returns to step S100. The microcomputer ends this routine when the ignition switch is turned off. The operation of the air purifier 15 is controlled not only based on a signal from the outside air gas sensor 23 but also based on a signal from the inside air gas sensor 24.

As a result of the control based on the routine of FIG. 4, the air purifier 15 is controlled as shown in FIG.

As described above, in the present embodiment, even if the inside / outside air mode controlled in step S160 is the inside air circulation mode, if the outside air becomes highly polluted from that state, the polluted outside air is removed from the vehicle. Invading through the gap. At this time, assuming that the occupant of the vehicle compartment does not smoke, even if outside air has entered the vehicle compartment through the gap, the inside air gas sensor 24 is provided on the rear package tray and cannot detect the invading outside air. But,
In the present embodiment, the operation and stop of the air purifier 15 are controlled based on the signal of the outside air gas sensor 23 provided in the front part of the condenser in the engine room, so that the air purifier 15 can be quickly cleaned and the vehicle interior environment is always comfortable. Condition can be maintained. When the occupant in the vehicle interior is smoking, it goes without saying that the air purifier 15 is operated based on the signal of the inside air gas sensor 24.

After the degree of contamination of the outside air falls below the second reference value G2, the air purifier 1 is kept until a predetermined time τ elapses.
5, the harmful gas remaining in the vehicle cabin when the degree of outside air pollution falls below the second reference value G2 can be cleaned during the above-mentioned predetermined time τ.

In this embodiment, the degree of pollution of the outside air is
1 When the reference value G1 is reached, the inside air circulation mode is set in step S150, so that it is possible to prevent dirty outside air from being introduced into the vehicle interior from the outside air introduction port 4.

(Other Embodiments) In the above embodiment, the sensor serving as a trigger for controlling the operation of the air purifier 15 has been described as the outside air gas sensor 23 for detecting a harmful gas in the outside air. The effects of the present invention can be achieved by operating the air purifier 15 using a sensor that detects a substance entering from a gap in the vehicle interior as a trigger.

In the above embodiment, the degree of outside air pollution detected by the outside air gas sensor 23 is provided with a hysteresis (the width between G1 and G2 in FIG. 6). However, the present invention is not limited to this. . Further, in the above-described embodiment, the air purifier 15 is stopped when YES is determined in step S180. However, the air purifier 15 does not perform the air cleaning after a predetermined time has elapsed since the processing in step S170 was first performed. The device 15 may be stopped. In this case, the predetermined time may be changed according to the degree of the outside air pollution degree.

In the above embodiment, step S18
After determining YES at step S0, the processing of step S210 is performed after the processing of step S190 and step S200. However, the processing of step S210 is immediately performed without performing the processing of step S190 and step S200.
May be performed.

Also, in the above embodiment, once step S
After the air purifier 15 is set to the operating state in 170, the operating state is continuously maintained until the operation is stopped in the next step S210. Instead, the operation state and the stop state may be intermittently repeated. In this case, the time of the operation state may be changed according to the degree of the outside air pollution degree (for example, the time of the operation state is shortened as the outside air pollution degree increases).

In the above embodiment, step S12
Although the air purifier 15 is operated immediately when it is determined to be YES at 0, the air purifier 15 may be operated after a predetermined time. Further, in the above embodiment, when the outside air gas sensor 23 detects outside air contamination, the inside air circulation mode is set in step S150, and then the air purifier 1 is turned on.
5 was operated, but the air purifier 1 was kept in the outside air introduction mode.
5 may be operated.

In the above embodiment, step S17
Although the air purifier 15 is operated at a constant capacity at 0, the present invention is not limited to this. For example, the capacity may be varied according to the degree of outside air pollution.

In the above-described embodiment, the outside air gas sensor 23 is provided in the engine room of the vehicle at a position in front of the condenser. However, the outside gas sensor 23 may be provided anywhere as long as the degree of contamination of the outside air can be detected satisfactorily.

In the above embodiment, the inside air gas sensor 24 is provided, and the air purifier 15
Is operated, but a dust sensor may be provided instead of the inside air gas sensor 24, and the operation may be performed based on the dust sensor.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of an air conditioning unit 1 according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a vehicle mounted state of the air conditioning unit 1 and the air purifier 15 of the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a configuration diagram of an air purifier 15 of the embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a control process performed by the microcomputer of the embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a map showing a state of an inside / outside air mode with respect to a target outlet temperature (TAO) of the embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a state transition between operation and stop of the air purifier 15 of the embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

 2 ... air conditioning case, 3 ... inside air inlet, 4 ... outside air inlet, 5 ... inside / outside air switching door (inside / outside air switching means), 7 ... fan (blowing means), 9 ... evaporator (cooling heat exchanger), 14 ... drain port (drainage channel), 15 ... air purifier (air purifier), 23 ... outside air gas sensor (outside air pollution detecting means).

 ────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuing on the front page (72) Inventor: Saito Ninomiya 1-1-1, Showa-cho, Kariya-shi, Aichi Prefecture Inside Denso Corporation (72) Inventor: Masafumi Kawashima 1-1-1, Showa-cho, Kariya-shi, Aichi Co., Ltd. Inside DENSO

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. An air conditioning case (2) forming an air passage into a vehicle interior, an inside air inlet (3) provided upstream of the air conditioning case (2) for introducing air inside the vehicle, and the air conditioning. An outside air inlet (4) provided upstream of the case (2) for introducing air outside the vehicle compartment, and an inside and outside air for selectively opening and closing the inside air inlet (3) and the outside air inlet (4). Switching means (5, 6), provided in the air conditioning case (2), for sucking air from the inside air inlet (3) or the outside air inlet (4),
Blowing means (7, 8) for pressure-feeding the suction air into the vehicle interior
In the air conditioning case (2), the blowing means (7,
8) The air blowing means (7, 8) provided downstream of the air.
Heat exchanger (9) for cooling the air flow generated in
A drain passage (14) for draining condensed water generated in the cooling heat exchanger (9) to the outside of the vehicle, an air purifier (15) for purifying air in the vehicle, and Outside air pollution detection means (2)
3) and fully opening the inside air inlet (3), and opening the outside air inlet (4).
Air purifying operation means (S120, S120) for operating the air purifying device (15) when the degree of pollution detected by the outside air pollution detecting means (23) exceeds a predetermined degree of pollution even in the inside air circulation mode in which S150). 2. The inside / outside air switching means (5, 6) so that the inside air circulation mode is set when the degree of contamination detected by the outside air pollution detection means (23) exceeds the predetermined degree of pollution.
And outside air control means (S120, S140) for switching control of
The vehicle air conditioner according to claim 1, further comprising: 3. An air cleaning continuation for continuously operating the air cleaning device (15) for a predetermined time after the pollution degree detected by the outside air pollution detecting means (23) becomes lower than the predetermined pollution degree. Means (S160, S180, S19
The vehicle air conditioner according to claim 1 or 2, further comprising (0).