Air compressor and extraneous-matter removing apparatus

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10717418-B2
Application number	US-201715795412-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 27, 2017
Priority date	Dec 1, 2016
Publication date	Jul 21, 2020
Grant date	Jul 21, 2020

Abstract

An air compressor according to an embodiment, which includes a cylinder and a rotating body provided to be rotatable around a rotation axis in the cylinder so as to generate compressed air through intake and exhaustion caused by rotation of the rotating body, includes an intake valve. The intake valve takes air in the intake and exhaustion. The intake valve is provided in the cylinder.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An air compressor comprising:
a cylinder;
a rotating body that is inside of the cylinder and that is rotatable around a rotation axis;
intake valves located inside of the cylinder to take air; and
a nozzle extending from the cylinder, wherein
the cylinder includes:
a cylinder chamber that houses the rotating body and is formed in a cylindrical shape; and
two cylinder walls that (i) are plate-shaped and (ii) are arranged so as to segment the cylinder chamber along a substantially radial direction of the cylinder chamber and at positions that are in point symmetry with the rotation axis as a center point;

the rotating body includes:
a rotation base that is round-plate-shaped and is rotatable around the rotation axis; and
two vanes that are arranged on the rotation base so as to be in point symmetry with the rotation axis as a center point;

the intake valves are check valves and are provided in respective ones of the vanes so that each of the intake valves penetrates the corresponding vane in a rotation direction of the vanes;
the nozzle is configured to communicate with the intake valves so as to eject compressed air obtained by compressing air between the vanes and the cylinder walls;
the intake valves are opened when the vanes are rotated in a direction away from the respective cylinder walls and are closed when the vanes are rotated in a direction approaching the respective cylinder walls; and
a valve opening pressure of each of the intake valves is lower than an intake resistance of air via the nozzle into an inside of the cylinder.

2. The air compressor according to claim 1 , wherein
the rotating body takes air by rotation of the vanes in the direction away from the respective cylinder walls to expand a room between each vane and the corresponding cylinder wall, and exhausts compressed air by rotation of the vanes in the direction approaching the respective cylinder walls to compress the rooms,
each of the vanes includes a first wall surface and a second wall surface, the first wall surface being a wall surface that does not face a corresponding one of the rooms and the second wall surface being a wall surface that faces the corresponding room, and
each of the intake valves allows passage of air in one direction from the corresponding first wall surface to the corresponding second wall surface.

3. The air compressor according to claim 2 , wherein the intake valves include respective thin-film elastic bodies that are arranged on the second wall surfaces, the thin-film elastic bodies being provided so as to deflect to be opened when the vanes are rotated in the direction away from the respective cylinder walls and to deflect to be closed when the vanes are rotated in the direction approaching the respective cylinder walls.

4. The air compressor according to claim 2 , further comprising:
intake ports through which air outside of the cylinder is taken into the cylinder chamber; and
exhaust ports through which the compressed air is exhausted to outside of the cylinder chamber, wherein
each of the intake ports is opened on an outer wall of the cylinder so that (i) one of multiple segmented chambers formed by the two cylinder walls that includes a first wall surface of the corresponding cylinder wall, the first wall surface not facing the corresponding room, and (ii) the outside of the cylinder are in communication with each other, and
each of the exhaust ports is opened to be in communication with a second wall surface of the other cylinder wall facing the corresponding room, and to be shut from the cylinder chamber by the corresponding vane when the vanes are in contact with the second wall surfaces of the cylinder walls.

5. An extraneous-matter removing apparatus comprising:
the air compressor according to claim 1 , wherein
the extraneous-matter removing apparatus ejects, to an optical sensor, the compressed air generated by the air compressor to remove an extraneous matter adhered to the optical sensor.

6. The extraneous-matter removing apparatus according to claim 5 , wherein the optical sensor includes an on-vehicle camera provided in a vehicle.

7. An air compressor comprising:
a cylinder;
a rotating body that is inside of the cylinder and that is rotatable about a rotation axis; and
intake valves located inside the cylinder to take air, wherein
the cylinder includes:
a cylinder chamber that houses the rotating body and is formed in a cylindrical shape; and
two cylinder walls that (i) are plate-shaped and (ii) are arranged so as to segment the cylinder chamber along a substantially radial direction of the cylinder chamber and at positions that are in point symmetry with the rotation axis as a center point;

the rotating body includes:
a rotation base that is formed in a round-plate shape and is configured to be rotatable around the rotation axis; and
two vanes that are arranged on the rotation base so as to be in point symmetry with the rotation axis as a center point;

the intake valves are provided in the respective vanes;
the rotating body takes air by rotation of the vanes in a direction away from the respective cylinder walls to expand a room between each vane and the corresponding cylinder wall, and exhausts compressed air by rotation of the vanes in a direction approaching the respective cylinder walls to compress the rooms;
each of the cylinder walls and the vanes includes a first wall surface and a second wall surface, each of the first wall surfaces being a wall surface that does not face a corresponding one of the rooms and each of the second wall surfaces being a wall surface that faces the corresponding room, the first wall surface of each cylinder wall being configured not to contact the first wall surface of the corresponding vane, the second wall surface of each cylinder wall being configured to contact the second wall surface of the corresponding vane;
each of the intake valves allows passage of air in one direction from the first wall surface of the corresponding vane in which the intake valve is provided to the second wall surface of the corresponding vane in which the intake valve is provided;
the intake valves include respective thin-film elastic bodies that are arranged on the second wall surfaces of the vanes in which the intake valves are provided, the thin-film elastic bodies being provided so as to deflect to be opened when the vanes are rotated in the direction away from the respective cylinder walls and to deflect to be closed when the vanes are rotated in the direction approaching the respective cylinder walls; and
each of the thin-film elastic bodies includes one or more protrusion parts that are configured to contact the corresponding cylinder wall prior to the second wall surface of the corresponding vane contacting the corresponding cylinder wall when the second wall surface of the corresponding vane rotates to contact the corresponding cylinder wall.

8. The air compressor according to claim 7 , wherein the one or more protrusion parts are arranged along an outer periphery of each of the thin-film elastic bodies.

Assignees

• Fujitsu Ten Ltd

Inventors

• Yamanaka Yasutaka
• Koseki Tomohisa
• Otomi Masashi

Classifications

• F04C29/126

  of the non-return type · CPC title

• F04C21/002

  the piston oscillating around a fixed axis · CPC title

• F04C2210/221

  Air · CPC title

• G02B27/0006

  with means to keep optical surfaces clean, e.g. by preventing or removing dirt, stains, contamination, condensation (G02B1/18 takes precedence; cleaning in general B08B) · CPC title

• F04C25/00

  Adaptations of pumps for special use of pumps for elastic fluids · CPC title