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Abstract

An air discharge nozzle and method for vehicles having a grill which has a high degree of visual opacity to enhance design aesthetics, low impedance to air flow so that the face velocity remains high, and which does not significantly affect directionality of the air as imparted to the air stream by an upstream control mechanism. The grill is comprised of a monolayer of polygonal cells in an array of cells, each cell being bounded by planar walls having a depth 'L' interstitial thickness 'T' and a diameter or major dimension 'D', wherein the interstitial depth L is short enough such that the planar walls do not act as vanes to significantly affect directionality of the air, the interstitial thickness T has a value such that the impedance to air flow is low, and the length to diameter ratio L/D is no greater than about 0.7 and no less than about 0.3, such that the relative visual opacity of the grill when viewed from any angle is high. The open cell area Ao must be at least about 76% of the available (total) area to obtain an acceptable 1800 ft/min face velocity at a blower pressure of 0.24 inches H.sub.2 O. The upstream directionality control mechanism includes an open intruder frame having converging walls. The intruder frame has an axially projecting control shaft which carries a spherical member frictionally received in a spherical socket formed in the grill such that the control shaft can easily be manually manipulated.

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First Claim