| 摘要 |
A heated conduit for use in a respiratory humidification system. A heater wire within the conduit reduces the occurrence of condensation or "rain out". The heater wire is preferably spirally wound in a helix or double helix (with both ends of the wire available for termination at one end of the conduit). The construction of the conduit is preferably ribbed or corrugated and the conduit may be placed within an outer sheath in order to trap air between the corrugations, improving the heat retaining properties of the heated conduit. Alternatively, the conduit may have an inner sheath within the corrugated conduit (with the heater wire within the inner sheath) further improving the heat retaining properties of the heated conduit. The pitch of the spirally wound heater wire may be uniform along the wire or may be variable so that regions of the conduit in which condensation is more likely to occur (and therefore requiring greater heat) will be provided with more turns of heater wire per unit length along the conduit. The construction of the preferred heater wire is also disclosed along with preferred methods of producing the wound heater wire. <IMAGE> |
