JPH0670494B2 - Temperature control valve - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to a temperature control valve mainly used for floor heating.

Traditionally, hot water type floor heating has used a temperature control valve to keep the temperature of circulating water from the heater almost constant to prevent overheating. There are a wax thermoelement type that electrically controls the valve and a wax thermoelement type that mechanically controls the valve by utilizing expansion and contraction due to the temperature change of the wax. However, the former has a defect that the cost is very high, and the latter has a relatively low cost, but it requires a structure to escape excessive expansion of the wax, the valve itself is complicated, and the number of parts is large. There is a defect, and further, there is a defect that the temperature is difficult to control because the wax inevitably senses the temperature from the entrance for the structure.

The present invention is intended to provide a temperature control valve that eliminates the above-mentioned defects, has an extremely simple structure and is inexpensive, and operates by sensing the temperature of return hot water. Instead of opening the four ports of the tap hole, the return hot water inlet and the flow outlet, and moving the valve by the wax element and the spring, the valve is moved by the spring and the bias spring using the shape memory alloy, and A coil spring made of a shape memory alloy is exposed between an inlet and an outlet of the return hot water, and the coil spring is operated according to the temperature of the return hot water to facilitate temperature control.

The present invention will be described below with reference to the embodiments shown in the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows an embodiment of the present invention. Hot water or an antifreeze liquid having a constant temperature (hereinafter referred to as hot water) warmed by a heater a such as a boiler passes through a temperature control valve b of the present invention and a fine coil. Heat is dissipated in c and passes through pump d to temperature control valve b
Then, the heater a is entered again and the circulation is repeated.

2 and 3 show an embodiment of the temperature control valve of the present invention, the valve box 1 has a cylinder wall 2 inside, and a hot water inlet 3 opening to the cylinder wall is located above. Further, a tap hole 4 is provided below it, and an inflow port 5 and an outflow port 6 for returning water are further provided below it. A movable valve 7 that moves up and down along the cylinder wall 2 is housed in the valve box 1,
The coil spring 8 made of a shape memory alloy is biased from below, and the bias spring 9 is biased from above.

A plug 10 is fastened to the bottom of the valve box 1 and holds a coil spring 8. Nut 12 with internal threads 11 at the top
The bias spring 9 is held by the adjusting rod 13 screwed onto the screw 11.

The coil spring 8 is shaped and memorized so as to extend to a predetermined length at a set temperature, for example, around 35 ° C., and at a temperature below that, the biasing force of the bias spring 9 is overwhelmed and the coil spring 8 is maintained in a largely compressed state. is doing.

Next, the operation mode of the present invention will be described.

In FIG. 1, hot water from the heater a enters the cylinder through the hot water inlet 3, passes through the hot water outlet 4, and passes through the fine coil c and the pump d as described above to return water inlet 5
From the inside to the inside of the cylinder again, and circulates to the heater a through the outlet 6. In this state, the temperature of the hot water is still 35
Since the temperature does not reach ℃, the movable valve 7 is pressed downward by the coil spring 8 of the bias spring 9 to close the passage between the inflow port 5 and the tap hole 4. From this state, when the heated water temperature of the heater a gradually rises and the sensible temperature of the coil spring 8 exposed between the inflow port 5 and the outflow port 6 reaches about 35 ° C.,
The coil spring 8 undergoes phase transformation to expand to a predetermined memory length, compresses the bias spring 9 and raises the movable valve 7. Therefore, the hot water outlet 4 is largely closed by the movable valve 7, the passages of the inflow port 5 and the hot water outlet 4 are opened, and most of the hot water pumped by the pump d is from the inflow port 5 to the hot water outlet 4 and the fine coil c. After that, a small amount of hot water that has entered the heater a through the outlet 6 circulates from the inlet 3 to the outlet 4.

Therefore, even if the hot water that enters the cylinder from the heater a through the hot water inlet 4 is quite high, the temperature of the hot water flowing through the fine coil c always maintains a constant temperature of 35 ° C to 40 ° C. When the temperature of the hot water from the heater a has dropped to some extent, the sensible temperature of the coil spring 8 also drops, causing a phase change and being pressed by the bias spring 9 to lower the movable valve 7,
A large amount of high-temperature water flows into the cylinder from the hot water inlet 3, and tries to raise the hot water temperature. Thus, the temperature of the hot water flowing through the coil spring 8 is always almost constant. If the adjusting rod 13 is lowered and the bias spring 9 is strengthened, the set temperature becomes higher, and conversely, the set temperature becomes lower. Since the movable valve 7 is supported on the upper and lower sides by springs, there is an advantage that a structure for escaping the excessive expansion of the wax is unnecessary unlike the case where the wax thermoelement method is adopted.

As described above, in the temperature control valve of the present invention, since the coil spring made of the shape memory alloy is used as the temperature sensitive element, the number of parts is reduced as compared with the wax thermoelement method, and the structure is much simpler. In addition, since the temperature-sensing part can be exposed to the return hot water part, the temperature can be easily controlled as compared with the conventional method of sensing the temperature from the hot water inlet.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a vertical sectional view showing an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 3 is a vertical sectional view in a direction perpendicular to the same. 1 is a valve box, 2 is a cylinder wall, 3 is a hot water inlet, 4 is a hot spring outlet,
Reference numeral 5 is an inlet, 6 is an outlet, 7 is a movable valve, 8 is a coil spring, 9 is a bias spring, and 13 is an adjusting rod.

Claims (1)

[Claims] Claim: What is claimed is: 1. A hot water inlet on the upper side, a hot water outlet on the lower side, and a valve box which returns to the lower side to open an inlet and an outlet for the hot water on the cylinder wall, and a space between the hot water inlet and the hot water outlet at the maximum rise. Substantially shut off and open between the tap opening and the inlet, and when the maximum descent, cut off between the tap and the inlet, and fit into the cylinder wall to open the tap and the tap A movable valve having an outer diameter of a fixed length, a coil spring made of a shape memory alloy that is exposed between the inlet and the outlet and presses the movable valve from below, and a bias spring that presses the movable valve from above as well. Temperature control valve consisting of.