Heat exchange – Heated and cooled food cabinets and/or trays
Patent
1998-03-06
1999-11-02
Lazarus, Ira S.
Heat exchange
Heated and cooled food cabinets and/or trays
165919, 165 481, 312236, 99483, 62434, 62 59, F25B 2900
Patent
active
059752025
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The subject of the present invention is a mobile trolley for distributing hot and cold meal trays having warming-up and refrigeration capacities with self-contained reserve and regeneration of negative kilocalories.
It is intended for the distribution of meal trays comprising a part with hot dishes and a part with cold dishes, which must be kept at a low temperature while waiting for the appropriate part of the tray to be warmed up for the consumption of the hot dishes.
There are known trolleys for distributing meal trays comprising an on-board compressor for keeping them cold. But these means require certain equipment, i.e., compressors, evaporators, condensers, etc., these elements being substantially fragile in the context in which they are used, and represent a weight surplus and a bulkiness that is difficult to transport in addition to the indispensable loaded weight of the trolley.
Moreover, this method of refrigeration does not allow movement and transportation between the preparation and packaging site and the distribution and consumption site of the meals, sites which are quite often remote and which require transfer by trucks that are not always refrigerated. Thus, in order to remedy these transportation drawbacks, some of them use dry ice, an expensive and volatile product which, moreover, runs the risk of freezing the food.
The device according to the invention eliminates these drawbacks and is completely appropriate for addressing current concerns about the freon gasses which damage the ozone layer. In the future, the storage of refrigerant gasses or CFCs in closed places such as kitchens or distribution offices will no longer be permitted, and it is currently essential to have different means for producing negative kilocalories.
Although the means for achieving the object of the invention also use a refrigeration generator, they have fewer consequences for the environment since they can be located and installed in the open air or in unoccupied spaces. Moreover, a single installation can cool a large number of trolleys at once.
The device that is the subject of the invention also allows the trolley to be self-contained while retaining the desired properties, namely that the trolley can be transported from one place to another and can wait for several hours before being warmed up, while retaining the negative kilocalories it contains.
It is embodied in the form of a mixed trolley for distributing meal trays wherein some foods, located on the warmed-up part of the tray, have been cooked then cooled and stored in order to be distributed later after a warming-up operation.
The trolley is constituted by an isothermal housing containing the meal trays and separated into two areas by a wall that is also isothermal, provided with as many horizontal slots for trays as the trolley can hold, and into which the trays are inserted, thus completely closing off and isolating the two areas, one of which is cold and the other hot or mixed.
These slots comprise rotary joints for closing off the empty space left by the trays when they are removed, in order to prevent the heat from the hot area from penetrating into the cold area.
This wall defines on the trays the part with the dishes that remain cold and the part containing the dishes to be warmed up.
The mixed area contains reheating as well as refrigeration elements. The two areas are kept cold during the waiting periods until the predefined moment when the mixed area performs its warming up function before the meal is distributed. The trays are accessible through two opposite doors on either side of the trolley.
The refrigeration is constituted by a double reserve for storing negative kilocalories. The first, which comprises a liquid having a high refrigeration capacity that reaches -50.degree., is used to cool the second reserve, which has a circulating liquid coolant. The very low temperature of the first liquid is necessary to maintain a sufficient reserve of negative kilocalories over time, but this type of temperature would freeze the products contained
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Lazarus Ira S.
McKinnon Terrell
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