1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vehicular air conditioner.
2. Description of Related Art
There is a vehicular air conditioner that turns blown air toward a driver seated in a driver seat when no passenger is in a passenger seat, whereby much air-conditioning wind directly hits the driver seated in the driver seat, for example, as described in Patent document 1 (JP-A-H8-25948) or Patent document 2 (JP-A-2000-142081).
In recent years, improvement of fuel consumption of the vehicle has been required, and therefore energy saving of the vehicular air conditioner has been desired.
Patent document 1 describes improving comfort for the occupant by turning the wind direction of the outlet on the passenger seat side toward the driver seat. However, nothing is described in Patent document 1 about the energy saving of the vehicular air conditioner.
There is a vehicular air conditioner that has a middle outlet for blowing warm air toward a lower body of an occupant extending from the tights to the waist, for example, as described in Patent document 3 (JP-A-2002-12020) and Patent document 4 (JP-A-2004-203190). For example, in the vehicular air conditioner described in Patent document 3, the middle outlet is formed in a side surface of a center console.
Such the vehicular air conditioner blows the warm air toward the lower body of the occupant during heating, thereby improving comfort of the occupant as compared to the case where the warm air is blown from a foot outlet toward the feet of the occupant.
In this way, by providing the outlet for blowing the air-conditioning wind toward the lower body of the occupant and by blowing the warm air from the outlet during the heating, the occupant's sensation of warmth can be improved as compared to the case where the warm air is blown from the foot outlet toward the feet of the occupant.
However, in the case where such the outlet is provided in front of the occupant with respect to a front-back direction of the vehicle, if the warm air blowing direction from the outlet heads to the head of the occupant when seen from an upper side of the vehicle, the warm air having flown above the thighs of the occupant flows along the upper body of the occupant, whereby the warm air strikes against the face and causes flush in the face.
Such the problem of the flush in the face occurs not only in the case where the outlet is provided in front of the occupant but also in the case where the outlet is provided in a position other than the front position in the vehicle.
There is a vehicular air conditioner having an air-conditioning case formed with a center face opening section and a side face opening section. The center face opening section is connected to a center face outlet used for blowing air-conditioning wind from a central portion in a vehicle compartment toward an upper body of an occupant. The side face opening section is connected to a side face outlet used for blowing the air-conditioning wind from both of right and left sides in the vehicle compartment toward the upper body of the occupant (for example, refer to Patent document 5: JP-A-2004-136844).
This kind of the vehicular air conditioner has a door section in the air-conditioning case for opening and closing the center face opening section and the side face opening section. The common vehicular air conditioner uses the door for opening or closing the respective face opening sections at the same time. However, for example, the vehicular air conditioner capable of performing the air conditioning independently between the right side and the left side of the vehicle uses a construction capable of adjusting the opening degree of the door that opens and closes the opening section on a passenger seat side independently in the face opening sections.
In recent years, it has been desired to make the various kinds of component parts of the vehicular air conditioner common among different types of vehicles because of demand for cost reduction of the vehicular air conditioner. For example, the air-conditioning case is one of the component parts, the common use of which is desired.
However, since the air-conditioning case incorporates various air-conditioning devices, it is difficult to make the air-conditioning case common among the various vehicular air conditioners. For example, if it is tried to install a door section for adjusting an opening degree of a part of multiple face opening sections independently into an air-conditioning case incorporating a door section for opening or closing multiple face opening sections at the same time, a large change of the air-conditioning case is required and cost increases. It is because the structure of the door section, a position of a door shaft of the door section and the like inside the air-conditioning case are different between the two air-conditioning cases. Such the problem occurs not only in the case of the face opening sections but also in the case of foot opening sections or the like.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds