JP2006009885A - Gas filling device - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a safe and inexpensive gas filling device simplifying a control mechanism for filling gas. <P>SOLUTION: A cylinder storing part (2) and a control mechanism storing part (3) are formed inside housings (4, 12), and a plurality of gas cylinders (17) are stored in the cylinder storing part (2). Each of the gas cylinders (17) is connected with a main pipe (19) via an auxiliary pipe (18) on which a cylinder selector valve (21) is interposed. A flowmeter (26) and a shut-off valve (27) are interposed on the main pipe (19), and a filling hose (5) is connected to a tip of the main pipe (19). A control device (42) to which a flow rate signal of the flowmeter (26) is input is provided in the control mechanism storing part (3). On an operating panel (13) provided in the control mechanism storing part (3), an indicator (43) for displaying an indication signal received from the control device (42) and operation parts of the cylinder selector valve (21) and the shut-off valve (27) are provided. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to a gas filling apparatus for filling hydrogen gas, natural gas or the like (for example, high-pressure gas) that is being put into practical use as a fuel for vehicles such as automobiles.

  Due to oil depletion and pollution problems, hydrogen gas, natural gas, and the like are being put to practical use as fuel for automobiles. These gases are stored in a gas supply tank, pressurized to a high pressure by a compressor of a gas filling device, and supplied to a fuel tank of an automobile.

Here, since the gas filling apparatus handles gas having high flammability, equipment such as a compressor is expensive, and installation work costs increase.
However, the number of automobiles that use hydrogen gas or natural gas as fuel is small at this stage, and even if expensive gas filling devices are installed, it is not economically profitable. For this reason, there are few places where gas filling devices are installed, and this is a vicious circle in which the spread of automobiles using gas as fuel does not progress.

  In order to break down such a vicious circle, it is desired to provide a safe and inexpensive gas filling apparatus, but there is no gas filling apparatus that can sufficiently meet such a demand at present.

As another conventional technique, for example, a stationary gas filling device (see Patent Document 1) in which a filling mechanism is provided in a housing has been proposed.
However, it is difficult to provide a safe gas filling device that is inexpensive enough to be installed and economically profitable with such a conventional technology.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-19716

  The present invention has been made in view of the above, and an object thereof is to provide a safe and inexpensive gas filling apparatus by simplifying a gas filling control mechanism.

  The gas filling device (1) of the present invention includes a cylinder (17) and a filling mechanism connecting the cylinder (17) and a single filling means (filling coupler 7) in a housing (4, 12). It is provided (claim 1).

  In the gas filling device (1) of the present invention, the cylinder storage part (2) and the control mechanism storage part (3) are formed in the housing (4, 12), and the cylinder storage part (2) has a plurality of gas cylinders. (17) is accommodated, and each gas cylinder (17) is connected to the main pipe (19) via a secondary pipe (18) having a cylinder switching valve (21) interposed therebetween, and further, a flow meter (26 ) And a shut-off valve (27), a filling hose (5) is connected to the tip, and a control device (42) for inputting a flow rate signal of the flow meter (26) is provided in the control mechanism housing (3). In addition, the operation panel (13) provided in the control mechanism housing (3) is provided with operation units for the cylinder switching valve (21) and the shutoff valve (27).

  The operation panel (13) is provided with a display (43) for displaying a display signal received from the control device (42).

  A check valve (24) is interposed between the main pipes (19) connected to the sub pipes (18), and a pressure adjustment valve (25) and a flow rate adjustment valve (28) are further provided in the main pipe (19). ) And a filling coupler (7) is provided on the filling hose (5) via a filling valve (29).

  Further, the control device (42) receives a flow rate signal from the flow meter (26) to calculate a filling flow rate and a filling amount, and the indicator (43) displays the filling flow rate and the filling amount received from the control device (42). indicate.

  The housing (4, 12) is provided with a plurality of slits (9).

The effects of the present invention having the above-described configuration are listed below.
(1) Since the gas cylinder and the control mechanism are integrally stored in the housing, it can be mass-produced in a factory and becomes an inexpensive gas filling device.
(2) Since a plurality of gas cylinders are accommodated in the gas cylinder portion, high-pressure gas can be obtained without using a compressor or the like, and a compact and inexpensive gas filling apparatus can be obtained.
(3) Since a check valve is provided between the main pipes connected to the sub pipes, gas does not flow backward.
(4) Since a safety valve is provided in the main pipe, it is possible to prevent abnormal pressure in the main pipe.
(5) Since a refill adapter for refilling gas is provided, it is possible to easily refill the gas cylinder.
(6) Since the residual pressure of the filling coupler and the refilling adapter can be released, the filling coupler and the refilling adapter can be easily removed.
(7) Since the filling flow rate is displayed on the display unit, gas filling at an excessive flow rate can be prevented by adjusting the flow rate adjusting valve while viewing this display.
(8) Since the housing is provided with a slit, the inside of the housing is ventilated, and when a gas leak occurs, dangerous gas does not stay in the housing.
(9) Since the gas sensor is provided in the housing, it is possible to quickly cope with a gas leak.
(10) Since a cheap and safe gas filling device can be mass-produced at the factory, the addition of gas filling stations can be planned and the spread of automobiles using gas as fuel can be promoted.

  Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.

  FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a gas filling apparatus 1 according to the present invention, and the gas filling apparatus 1 includes a cylinder storage unit 2 and a control mechanism storage unit 3.

  A plurality of gas cylinders, which will be described later, are accommodated in the housing 4 of the cylinder accommodating portion 2, and a filling hose 5 and two ground wires 6 a and 6 b are provided on the front surface of the housing 4, and are attached to the tip of the filling hose 5. The filled coupler 7 is hung on the coupler hook 8. A ventilation slit 9 is formed on the upper and lower sides of the housing 4, a caster 10 is provided at the lower part, and a diffusion tube 11 is provided at the rear end part. Although the caster 10 is provided in the illustrated example, the caster 10 is not necessarily provided.

  Devices such as valves, flow meters, pressure gauges, and gas sensors, which will be described later, are housed in the housing 12 of the control mechanism housing portion 3. An operation panel 13 is provided on the front surface of the housing 12 and connected to the signal line 14. An alarm 15 is provided, and a socket 16 for commercial power is provided. A ventilation slit similar to the slit 9 is formed on the rear surface of the housing 12.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of the gas filling device 1. In this embodiment, four gas cylinders 17a, 17b, 17c, and 17d (represented by reference numeral 17 in the following) are provided, and each gas cylinder 17 is a sub pipe. It is connected to the main pipe 19 via 18a, 18b, 18c, 18d (represented by reference numeral 18 in the following).
Each sub-pipe 18 includes cylinder main valves 20a, 20b, 20c, 20d (hereinafter represented by reference numeral 20) and cylinder switching valves 21a, 21b, 21c, 21d (hereinafter represented by reference numeral 21). Pressure gauges 23a, 23b, 23c, and 23d (represented by reference numeral 23 below) through pressure gauge main valves 22a, 22b, 22c, and 22d (represented by reference numeral 22 below) Is provided.

  Between the main pipes 19 to which the sub pipes 18 are connected, check valves 24a, 24b, and 24c (represented by reference numeral 24 in the following) are provided, and further, a pressure regulating valve 25, a flow meter 26, and a shut-off valve. 27, a flow rate adjusting valve 28 is interposed. A filling hose 5 is connected to the tip of the main pipe 19, and a filling coupler 7 is provided at the tip of the filling hose 5 via a filling valve 29.

  On the upstream side of the pressure adjustment valve 25, a pressure gauge 31 is provided via a pressure gauge base valve 30, and a safety valve 33 is provided via a safety valve base valve 32. A pressure gauge 35 is provided on the downstream side of the pressure adjustment valve 25 via a pressure gauge main valve 34, and a safety valve 37 is provided on the downstream side of the flow rate adjustment valve 25 via a safety valve original valve 36.

  The safety valves 33 and 37 are connected to the diffusion pipe 11 via a pressure reducing pipe 38, and a frame arrester 39 is provided at the tip of the pressure reducing pipe 38. The downstream side of the flow rate adjusting valve 28 provided in the main pipe 19 is connected to the pressure reducing pipe 38 via the pressure reducing valve 40, and the pressure reducing hose 41 connected to the filling valve 29 provided in the filling hose 5 is connected to the pressure reducing pipe 38. It is connected.

  The flow rate signal of the flow meter 26 is input to the control device 42, and the filling amount and the filling flow rate calculated by the control device 42 are displayed on the display 43.

A refill adapter 47 is connected to the rear end of the main pipe 19 via a refill source valve 44, a filter 45, and a check valve 46, and a downstream side of the check valve 46 is connected to a decompression pipe 38 via a purge valve 48. .
A signal from the gas sensor 49 provided in the housing 12 is input to the alarm device 15 through the signal line 14.

FIG. 3 shows an operation panel 13 provided on the front surface of the housing 12. The operation panel 13 includes an indicator 43 having a filling amount display part 43a and a filling flow rate display part 43b, and operation of cylinder switching valves 21a, 21b, 21c and 21d. , Pressure gauges 31 and 35, pressure regulating valve 25, flow rate regulating valve 28, shut-off valve 27, operating part of decompression valve 40, and static electricity removing sheet 49.
In the illustrated example, the filling amount display portion 43a is displayed with numerals, and the filling flow rate display portion 43b describes a flow rate per hour, that is, a scale 43c of Nm ³ / h. The scale 43c is, for example, 100 to 600 Nm ³ / h.

  FIG. 4 shows a portion of the slit 9 formed in the housings 4, 12. A U-shaped channel 51 having an opening 50 on the upper surface is attached to the inside of the slit 9, and an L-shaped channel is formed above the slit 9. A channel 52 is attached. With this structure, air can freely enter and exit the housings 4 and 12, and rainwater does not enter the housings 4 and 12.

  FIG. 5 is a cross-sectional view of a portion of the coupler hook 8 provided in the housing 4. The filling valve 29 is hooked on the coupler hook 8, and the coupler lid 53 is covered on the portion of the filling coupler 7. The coupler lid 53 is rotatably provided in the housing 4 and is held in an open state by a locking mechanism 54. In addition, a packing 55 is provided inside the coupler lid 53 so that the filling coupler 7 does not rattle during movement. When the coupler cover 53 is opened, the reset switch SW is operated to reset the display meter 43. The reset switch SW is constituted by a micro switch.

Next, the handling operation of the gas filling device 1 will be described.
At the gas filling station, the ground wire 6a is connected to a ground (not shown), the gas filling device 1 is grounded, the socket 16 of the power line is connected to a power outlet (not shown), and the control device 42 and the alarm 15 are energized.

  Then, the pressure gauge main valve 22 is opened and the gas pressure in the gas cylinder 17 is displayed on the pressure gauge 23, and the pressure gauge main valve 30 is opened and the gas pressure upstream of the pressure adjustment valve 25 is displayed on the pressure gauge 31. Then, the pressure gauge main valve 34 is opened, and the gas pressure on the downstream side of the pressure regulating valve 25 is displayed on the pressure gauge 35. Further, the safety valve base valves 32 and 36 are opened so that the abnormal gas pressure is released to the decompression pipe 38 through the safety valves 33 and 37 and is released from the diffusion pipe 11 into the atmosphere.

  In order to fill the vehicle with gas, the person who works works by touching the static electricity removing sheet 49 of the operation panel 13 to remove the static electricity that has caused the power failure. Next, the ground wire 6b is connected to the automobile to remove the static electricity of the automobile, and the filling coupler 7 removed from the coupler hook 8 is connected to the filling adapter of the gas cylinder of the automobile. Then, the pressure adjusting valve 25 is operated to adjust to a predetermined filling pressure, the flow rate adjusting valve 28 is operated to adjust to a predetermined filling flow rate, the shutoff valve 27 is opened, and the cylinder switching valve 21a is opened.

By opening the cylinder switching valve 21a, the gas in the gas cylinder 17a is filled with the cylinder original valve 20a, the cylinder switching valve 21a, the check valve 24, the pressure regulating valve 25, the flow meter 26, the shutoff valve 27, the flow regulating valve 28, and the filling. The gas is filled into the automobile gas cylinder through the valve 29 and the filling coupler 7.
The metering signal of the flow meter 26 is input to the control device 42, and the filling amount and the filling flow rate calculated by the control device 42 are displayed on the display 43. By looking at the filling flow rate displayed on the filling flow rate display unit 43b of the display unit 43, if it is not the desired filling flow rate, the flow adjustment valve 28 is adjusted to change the filling flow rate.

  When the display of the filling flow rate display section 43b of the display 43 becomes zero, the pressure in the gas cylinder 17a and the pressure in the gas cylinder of the automobile are balanced. Switch. Since the check valve 24a is provided, the gas in the gas cylinder 17b does not flow back to the gas cylinder 17a. Similarly, gas filling is performed by sequentially switching to gas cylinders 17c and 17d.

  When the desired amount of gas is filled, the shutoff valve 27 and the cylinder switching valve 21 are closed, the filling valve 29 is closed, the filling coupler 7 is removed and hooked on the coupler hook 8, and the ground wire 6b is removed. Then, the filling fee is settled based on the filling amount displayed on the filling amount display portion 43a of the display unit 43.

  When the filling valve 29 is closed, the residual pressure in the filling coupler 7 flows out to the decompression pipe 38 via the decompression hose 41 and is released into the atmosphere from the diffusion pipe 11, so that the filling coupler 7 is discharged from the filling adapter of the automobile. It can be easily removed. Since the opening of the diffusion pipe 11 is high, there is no danger even if the gas is released into the atmosphere.

  When the vehicle is moved after gas filling is completed, the depressurization valve 40 is opened, and the gas in the filling hose 5 is released from the diffusion pipe 11 through the depressurization pipe 38. Then, the socket 16 of the power line is removed, the ground wire 6a is removed, and the diffusion tube 11 is replaced with a short diffusion tube 11a.

  Then, as shown in FIG. 6, the gas filling device 1 is loaded on the loading platform 57 of the truck 56, the alarm 15 of the gas sensor 49 is placed in the cab 58, connected to the battery 59, and carried to the gas replenishment station.

  Since the alarm device 15 is placed in the cab 58 as described above, a gas leak during transportation of the gas filling device 1 can be detected, and can be easily dealt with. Moreover, since the gas in the filling hose 5 has been removed, there is little risk during transportation of the gas filling device 1. Furthermore, since it changed to the short diffusion pipe | tube 11a, there is no trouble of the height restriction | limiting during conveyance of the gas filling apparatus 1. FIG.

  At the gas replenishment station, a refill coupler of a gas refill device (not shown) is connected to the refill adapter 47 of the gas filling device 1, and the cylinder source valve 20, the cylinder switching valve 21, and the refill source valve 44 are opened. By opening the replenishment source valve 44, the gas from the gas replenishing device is replenished to the gas cylinder 17 via the check valve 46, the filter 45, the replenishment source valve 44, the cylinder switching valve 21, and the cylinder source valve 20.

  When the gas supply to the gas cylinder 17 is completed, the cylinder source valve 20, the cylinder switching valve 21 and the supply source valve 44 are closed, and the pressure release valve 48 is opened. By opening the decompression valve 48, the gas upstream of the replenishment source valve 44 is released from the diffusion pipe 11 via the decompression valve 48 and the decompression pipe 38. Then, the refill coupler of the gas refill device is removed from the refill adapter 47, and the gas filling device 1 is transported to the gas filling station by truck.

  In the above description, when the gas in the gas cylinder 17 is low, the gas filling device 1 is transported to the gas replenishment station to replenish the gas. However, the gas cylinder 17 is removed from the gas filling device 1, Only the gas cylinder 17 may be carried to the gas replenishment station to replenish the gas. Alternatively, the gas may be transported to a gas filling station by a gas lorry, and the gas may be replenished at the gas filling station.

  It should be noted that the illustrated embodiment is merely an example, and is not a description to limit the technical scope of the present invention.

The perspective view of the gas filling apparatus of this invention. The equipment block diagram of a gas filling apparatus. The front view of the operation panel of a gas filling apparatus. Sectional drawing of the slit part of a housing. Sectional drawing of the part of a filling coupler hook. The schematic diagram of the state which mounted the gas filling apparatus in the truck.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Gas filling apparatus 2 ... Cylinder storage part 3 ... Control mechanism storage part 4, 12 ... Housing 5 ... Filling hose 6a, 6b ... Ground wire 7 ... Filling coupler 8 ... Coupler hook 9 ... Slit 10 ... Caster 11 ... Diffusion tube 13 ... Control panel 14 ... Signal line 15 ... Indicator 16 ... Socket 17 ... Gas cylinder 18 ... Sub pipe 19 ... Main pipe 20 ... Cylinder original valve 21 ... Cylinder switching valves 22, 30, 34 ... Pressure gauge original valves 23, 31, 35 ... Pressure gauges 24, 46 .. Check valve 25 ... Pressure adjustment valve 26 ... Flow meter 27 ... Shut-off valve 28 ... Flow rate adjustment valve 29 ... Filling valves 32, 36 ... Safety valve source valves 33, 37 ..Safety valve 38 ... decompression pipe 39 ... frame arrester 40 ... decompression valve 41 ... decompression hose 4 ... Control device 43 ... Display 44 ... Replenishment source valve 45 ... Filter 47 ... Replenishment adapter 48 ... Purge valve 49 ... Gas sensor 50 ... Openings 51, 52 ... -Channel 53 ... Coupler lid 54 ... Locking mechanism 55 ... Packing 56 ... Truck 57 ... Loading platform 58 ... Driver's cab 59 ... Battery

Claims (6)

  A gas filling apparatus, wherein a cylinder and a filling mechanism connecting the cylinder and a filling means are provided in a housing.   A cylinder storage part and a control mechanism storage part are formed in the housing, and a plurality of gas cylinders are stored in the cylinder storage part, and each gas cylinder is connected to the main pipe via a sub pipe having a cylinder switching valve interposed therebetween. Is provided with a flow meter and a shut-off valve, a filling hose is connected to the tip, and a control device for inputting a flow rate signal of the flow meter to the control mechanism housing portion is provided, and an operation panel provided in the control mechanism housing portion The gas filling device is characterized in that a cylinder switching valve and a shut-off valve operating portion are provided.   The gas filling device according to claim 2, wherein the operation panel is further provided with a display for displaying a display signal received from the control device.   A check valve is interposed between the main pipes connected to the sub pipes, a pressure adjusting valve and a flow rate adjusting valve are provided in the main pipe, and a filling coupler is provided in the filling hose via the filling valve. The gas filling device according to any one of claims 1, 2, and 3.   The gas according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein the control device receives a flow rate signal from a flow meter and calculates a filling flow rate and a filling amount, and the indicator displays the filling flow rate and the filling amount received from the control device. Filling equipment.   The gas filling device according to claim 1, wherein the housing is provided with a plurality of slits.

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