WO2014084802A2

WO2014084802A2 - The washing machine including frictionless drum with magnetic bearing

Info

Publication number: WO2014084802A2
Application number: PCT/TR2013/000356
Authority: WO
Inventors: Oran BULENT; Oran OMER FARUK; Avci ELIF ORAN
Original assignee: Bulent Oran; Omer Faruk Oran; Elif Oran Avci
Priority date: 2012-11-27
Filing date: 2013-11-22
Publication date: 2014-06-05
Also published as: WO2014084802A3

Abstract

The invention relates to magnetic bearing system providing drum used as rotor to turn to different positions without friction, thanks to driving system formed by brushless, synchronous, servo electric motor constituted by caldron and drum which are in the washing machines.

Description

DESCRIPTION

THE WASHING MACHINE INCLUDING FRICTIONLESS DRUM WITH

MAGNETIC BEARING TECHNICAL FIELD

The invention relates to magnetic beanng system in the washing machines. This system providing drum used as rotor to turn to different positions without friction, thanks to driving system formed by brushless, synchronous, servo electric motor constituted by caldron and drum which are in the washing machines.

PRIOR ART

In today world, basic searching and developing activities for washing machines, which are indispensable parts of our lives, are not only decrease of water consumption and energy savings but also reducing level of noise at working time of washing machines.

But the washing machines produced by techniques already known, work with a system which have single phase motor, drum and drum strap put in the caldron. Single phase motor driving drum back and forward by using drum strap. Used additional apparatus such as large in diameter rotating pulley tied to the drum and stretching strap for decreasing velocity of the motor.

The electric motor drives the drum by using stretch strap and other apparatus for washing and squeezing operations. These apparatus are not only deformed inevitably but also make additional friction surfaces which increase energy consumption after every usage. This deformation makes the strap slack. This causes that the electric motor can't drive the drum effectively and also level of the machine noise will increase. Thus, efficiency of the machine will decline, and noise of the machine will increase after every usage. Also this type of single phase motor works with alternating current. The city electric system of alternating current has vibrations causing that single phase motor works noisy.

The number of TR201 1 1 1626 national patent application which is produced by in our efforts for solving these problems that we presented caldron as a stator and drum as a rotor structure. The result of working about our invention under the scope of protection which is in the patent mentioned before, we encountered some new technical problems. These are as follows;

The first one; when the bearings are new, they don't make any noise. But when they get older they start to make noise and this situation causes noise pollution in the house. And also energy losses get increase over the years.

The second one; the diameters of the caldron and drum has to be reduced in order to fit the bodies of the electric motors around caldron, that this causes reduction of the caldron volume that it means lower capacity of laundries or larger body of the washing machine. .

The third one; laundries which are accumulated should be separated one by one as white or colour. After this process they should be put into the machine due to the drum used as a rotor mounted fixed in the washing machine. This situation is very hard for the people who should work very much. Accumulating different types of the laundries in different drums enables great convenience.

The fourth one; the button, needle or metal coins which may be entered into the machine accidentally, and they may block the drainage tube. This is difficult to remove them from the drainage tube.

The fifth one; the axis of the drum is designed as parallel according to front and rear axis of the machine that it means increasing of a waste of little more water.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION.

The magnetic bearing used in the invention enables the drum suspended in the air of the caldron without any contact thanks to lifting force of the magnetic field generated by magnetic bearing.

As it is known, magnetic bearings can be active or passive. Active magnetic bearings are generally an electromagnetic system and they contain coils surrounding ferromagnetic axis shaft. There are also axis shaft position sensors with control system. The control system increases or decreases the power transferred to the coils in accordance with the signals transmitted from axis shaft position sensors. In this way, the magnetic field is adjusted continuously for electromagnetic coils. When it comes to passive magnetic bearings, permanent magnets are used more instead of electromagnetic magnets. The vibrations and dampening of passive magnetic bearings are not as good as active magnetic bearings.

Therefore, instead of using only passive magnetic bearings, in general, using both active magnetic bearings and passive magnetic bearings gives good results.

For this purpose permanent magnet in the axial and radial bearings are often used, and sometimes two or more of the active magnetic bearings are used together. When active magnetic bearings and passive magnetic bearings used together, a different control system and different position sensors are used for each active magnetic bearing and some modifications can be applied on the system. Magnetic bearings work as a shock absorber for a drum filled with load of laundry also they have many advantages like cleanliness, quiet and vibration free operation because, they don't need lubrication and they are not exposed to any friction. Also power loss is reduced %15, which means higher power and higher efficiency when the motor working with magnetic bearing which enables frictionless operation, on the condition without any load.

The noise problem was solved by using magnetic bearings instead of ball bearings which are worn off as the time passes, according to explanation of our invention which has the number of TR201 1 1 1626 application of national patent, thus, the noise of the drum is completely eliminated thanks to frictionless rotating which provides considerable savings in energy.

The drum on the magnetic bearing of the washing machine can be easily removed from its location because it is not mounted to the machine, to implement this operation; front cover width of the machine should be designed more wide than the diameter of the drum.

When the drum is removed from the machine, inside of the caldron can be easily seen. Thus button, needle, or metal coins can be easily taken away from the caldron. Also, the machine is received with the replacement drum or drums, the drums can be used as a basket of dirty laundry in the bathroom: whites laundries can be accumulated in the one of the drum and coloured laundries can be accumulated in the other drum and also private drums can be used for people in the hospitals and hotels which have general usage area of laundry room. Like that, the clothes of small babies and other clothes of family members can be accumulated different drums then washed. The drum which is filled with clothes or the drum which has the sequence will be put into the machine then washing operation will be started.

In laundry services the staffs wash the clothes in a sequence, so they can't know what kind of dirt of clothes of customer, that it causes serious problems. Because some of the microbes of the diseases cannot be eliminated at the washing temperature and they can infect the drum.

At the number of TR201 1 1 1626 application of national patent, the axis of the drum was designed as parallel according to front and rear axis of the machine that it meant increasing of a waste of little more water. A small degree slope from front to rear and from up to down was to be applied on the axis of the drum, which means lower water consumption.

The design of the electric motor body is carried out by mounting at the back of the caldron instead of around the caldron. In this way, the capacity of the machine caldron is increased. This means that the capacity of the laundry is not reduced. The stator generates a rotating magnetic field and drum used as a rotor turns back and forward in accordance with the magnetic field at the back of the caldron. There is an electric motor which has all components at the back of the caldron in the system developed by LG. This motor is connected to shaft axis of caldron and drums via a bearing and rotates the drum by using shaft axis turned by this electric motor.

In our invention, the only stator which is the component of the electric motor is mounted at the back of the caldron and drum rotating in the caldron used as a rotor. Also not only caldron but also drum has not an axis shaft, drum rotates on the magnetic bearing freely. There won't be any noise pollution in the system because there aren't any components of external electric motor driving the system, like belts, pulleys, bearings which make noise pollution. This motor is presented as new different concept with outstanding features in its field, because it works not only very quiet but also it can rotate forward and reverse direction easily at the different speed levels

THE MEANING OF THE FIGURES

FIGURE1. Section View

FIGURE 2. Exploded View

FIGURE 3. Operation View of the Drum at Horizontal Position

FIGURE 4. Operation View of the Drum at Angular Position

FIGURE 5. Operation View of The Drum At vertical Position

Description of the Reference Numerals.

1 . Motor Body

2. Electric Motor

2.1 . Rotor

2.1.1. Natural Magnet Sheet Metals

2.2. Stator

2.2.1 . Coil

2.3. Magnetic Bearing

2.3.1 . Magnetic Bearing Magnets

2.3.2. Magnet Protection

2.4. Handled Cover

2.5. K Lock

3. Power Supply

4. Battery DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The invention is characterized as an electric motor (2) consisting of caldron used as a stator (2.2) formed by using successive silicium sheet metals, the drum used as a rotor(2.1 ) which has natural magnet sheet metals (2.1 .1 ), the magnetic bearing (2.3) components enabling rotor(2.1 ) turns inside stator (2.2) freely, all of which constitute body (1 ) of the motor. The rotor is turned by the coils (2.2.1 ) on the stator (2. 2) actuating natural magnet sheet metals (2.1.1 ) mounted on the rotor (2. 1 ).

The invention is constituted by the parts of electric motor (2) which are motor body ( ) formed by rotor (2.1 ) which has natural magnet sheet metais on, the stator (2.2) consists of using successive silicium sheet metals,, the magnetic bearing (2.3) providing rotor (2.1 ) to turn inside of the stator (2.2) freely, the handled cover (2.4) of the rotor (2.1 ), the lock (2.5) enabling handled cover (2.4) to be removed and fit, the power supply (3) and battery (4).

The electric motor (2) used for the invention demonstrates the same properties of servo motor being brushless, synchronous and high efficiency. The electric motor (2) consists of two ferromagnetic parts which are the stator

(2.2) fixed and the rotor (2.1 ) which has motion and shape of hollow cylinder, both of them have same axis and separated each other with a little gap. The rotor (2.1 ) can turn inside of the stator (2.2) freely through magnetic bearings

(2.3) . There is a magnet protection (2.3.2) protecting magnetic bearing magnets (2.3.1 ) against outside factors.

The rotor (2.1 ) which is called drum can remove from locking (2.5) mechanism thanks to diameter of the machine is wider than the drum. In this way, the drum of the machine used as a laundry basket. The washing machine can make a decision of selecting of washing programs by itself according to coloured, white or sensitive clothes by using codes printed on the drum. At the end of the washing operation the drums can be disinfected and also customers can bring their drums to wash their laundries in industrial washing plants.

This is predicted that this washing machine will be A++ or A+++ class in order to minimize energy loss in the near future, (this classification is carried out according to amount of electric called KWh for one kilogram of clothes washed, A+++ class is defined as minimum energy consumption.)

When taken into account various type of motors are produced today, this system can work according to logic of not only synchronous servo motor but also asynchronous motors, the motors with copper rotor, direct or alternating current electric motor.

The city electric called alternating current is rectified for generating appropriate direct current to work direct current electric motor, by power supply or power(3) (called inverter). The battery (4) and uninterruptible power supply are used together to protect the system from cutting electric power and instantaneous dropping of voltage.

As it is known that the brushless servo motors work via a driver circuit and this circuit has a microprocessor loaded appropriate algorithms and software. Therefore, it will be possible to implement processes which we want about these motors; for example drum can be rotated 360 degree forward and 180 degree reverse or it can be rotated smaller degrees of forward and reverse that this system will enable considerable energy saving. This is system can be remote controlled via a special interface with a software from a computer by using a connecting cable or wireless also a pocket phone.

This is predicted that the invention will be an economic, environmental and indispensable product in the near future when considering its features which are silent and vibration less working, less energy consumption, containing one battery with one uninterruptible power supply, it can be remote controlled. Even it is predicted that the invention will be a perfect and indispensable system for new generation washing machine.

Claims

C L A I M S

This is the frictionless drum with magnetic bearing for washing machines, the feature is that it is characterized as containing at least one active and passive magnetic bearing (2.3) providing drum used as rotor (2.1 ) to turn inside of the caldron freely.

This is the drum used as rotor (2.1 ) mentioned in claim 1 , the feature is that it is characterized as including handled cover (2.4) enabling drum to be removed easily.

This is the caldron mentioned in claim 1 , the feature is that it is characterized as containing body of the motor and coils constituted stator ( . ).

This is the caldron and drum mentioned in claim 1 , the feature is that it is characterized as they can be positioned vertically according to horizontal axis of the machine.

This is the caldron and drum mentioned in claim 1 , the feature is that it is characterized as they can be positioned angular according to horizontal axis of the machine.

This is the caldron and drum mentioned in claim 1 , the feature is that it is characterized as they can be positioned parallel according to horizontal axis of the machine.

This is the drum used as rotor (2.1 ) mentioned in claim 2, the feature is that it is characterized as including washing program codes to be used by washing machine for determining appropriate programs automatically (according to drum of coloured sensitive white clothes)