Foods and beverages: apparatus – Cooking – Automatic control
Reexamination Certificate
2001-04-24
2002-05-14
Simone, Timothy F. (Department: 1761)
Foods and beverages: apparatus
Cooking
Automatic control
C099S352000, C099S359000, C099S360000, C099S367000, C099S417000, C099S44300R, C099S473000, C099S483000, C099S516000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06386091
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a continuous processing apparatus, and more particularly, it relates to a continuous processing apparatus that has a specific section provided with labyrinth seal to retain pressure controlled conditions, so that sterilizing procedure and hot cooking procedure are sequentially carried out under pressurized or pressure reduced condition.
PRIOR ART
Technologies where pressure control procedure requires pressurizing include alunitization (sealing) on aluminum products, resin curing on reinforced plastic, polymer impregnated reinforcement manufacturing (Japanese Examined Patent Publication SHO58-18532), synthetic foam resin manufacturing (Japanese Examined Patent Publication SHO 60-55283), sterilization of medical equipment and food ingredients, and so forth.
An apparatus that carries out the pressurizing in a manner of batch processing is designed so as to perform sequential processing procedures under atmospheric pressure, pressurized condition for the purpose of sterilizing, pressure reduced condition, and atmospheric pressure regained condition in a single pressurizing and processing apparatus, and, it is disclosed, for example, in an official gazette of Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication HEI 9-84567. Although the HEI 9-84567 discloses a pressure and heat sterilizing apparatus of a batch processing type, such an apparatus must be provided with a sterilizing room having a control mechanism to repeat procedures of pressurizing a processing chamber, processing raw/semi-processed materials, and reducing pressure in the processing chamber, and a tremendous cost of equipment investment is required to enhance throughput. There also arise problems that this requires larger-scale plant and equipment as well as more complicated control system. Moreover, even after solid food contained in retainers are sterilized, till the solid food is emptied out of the retainers into final product containers, the retainers are left standing by, and the sterilized solid food in those retainers may be contaminated with germs and viruses.
In such an apparatus that carries out pressurizing procedures continuously, a pressurizing apparatus must be led, in an upstream location therefrom, by a pressure regulation room to selectively adjust pressure from atmospheric pressure level up to pressurized level in order to carry materials to be processed in the tightly sealed pressurizing apparatus. Also, the pressurizing apparatus must be trailed, in a downstream location therefrom, by another pressure regulation room to selectively adjust pressure from pressurized level down to atmospheric pressure level in order to carry the processed materials out of the pressurizing apparatus. For instance, an official gazette of Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication HEI 7-67595 discloses an apparatus that continuously sterilizes food ingredients contained in retainers. Specifically, in the disclosed design, a food ingredient supply unit, a linear tubular heater, a linear tubular cooler, and a dispensing unit are arranged in this order while the linear tubular heater and cooler have their respective inlets and outlets provided with dual tight seal gates or valves to sequentially open and close the gates, so that the unprocessed and processed materials are supplied to and ejected from the linear tubular heater and cooler, respectively, with the pressure kept unchanged.
In such an apparatus, each time the unprocessed and processed materials are carried in and out of the linear tubular heater and cooler, the dual tight seal gates must be alternately opened and closed, and thus, there arise problems of complicated operability and degraded durability of the apparatus.
A continuous rice steaming apparatus is disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication SHO 52-64470, where pressurizing procedures are continuously carried out without providing tight seal gates. This apparatus has endless, continuous conveyer belt, and a plurality of continuous housings with partitioning panels located at constant intervals in a conveyer belt running direction and with side panels located along sides of the conveyer belt. Part of a running path of the conveyer belt passes through a steam heating chamber, and the steam heating chamber has an conveyer belt inlet and outlet where the partitioning panels serve as gates to define minute clearances.
The continuous rice steaming apparatus has its conveyer belt complicated in configuration to cause difficulty in washing it. The conveyer belt is required to be considerably long to result in the continuous rice steaming apparatus becoming larger in size, and additionally, the conveyer belt may be unavoidably flexed because of thermal expansion to cause difficulty in operation control and maintenance. Furthermore, a drive unit of the conveyer belt must be provided in the outside of the steam heating chamber, and thus, it is difficult to keep the continuous rice steaming apparatus sterilized. Moreover, since the housings are contiguous, materials, such as cooked rice, that have already been processed with pressure and heat in the housings are difficult to be emptied out of each of the housings into a final product container, and this results in applicable food materials being limited to some range.
On the other hand, technologies where pressure control procedure requires pressure-reducing include swelling chocolate manufacturing of a batch process type as disclosed in an official gazette of Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication HEI 6-191515, and a pressure-reducing fryer that enables continuous processing as disclosed in an official gazette of Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication HEI 6-7255. Such pressure reducing apparatus must also be provided with a sterilizing room having a control mechanism to repeat procedures of reducing pressure in a processing chamber, processing raw/semi-processed materials, and pressurizing in the processing chamber, and a tremendous cost of equipment investment is required to enhance throughput. There also arise problems that this requires larger-scale plant and equipment as well as more complicated control system.
In such an apparatus that carries out pressure-reducing procedures continuously, a pressure reducing apparatus must be led, in an upstream location therefrom, by a pressure regulation room to selectively adjust pressure from atmospheric pressure level down to pressure reduced level in order to carry raw/semi-processed materials in the pressure reducing apparatus. Also, the pressure reducing apparatus must be trailed, in a downstream location therefrom, by another pressure regulation room to selectively adjust pressure from pressure reduced level up to atmospheric pressure level in order to carry the processed materials out of the pressure reducing and processing apparatus. The above mentioned dual tight seal gates must also be alternately opened and closed, and this results in durability of the apparatus being degraded.
OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION
Accordingly, the present invention is directed to overcome the disadvantages as stated above in the prior art pressurizing apparatus and pressure reducing apparatus, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a continuous processing apparatus in which a tubular assembly creates labyrinth seal to define a pressure controlled processing unit and to define inlet and outlet to keep pressure controlled in the unit while raw/semi-processed materials are being carried in and out therethrough, so as to considerably simplify an arrangement of a pressure processing apparatus, facilitate to sterilize the apparatus, retain the sterilized conditions well, omit pressurizing and pressure reducing procedures in carrying raw/semi-processed materials in and out of the processing apparatus, and quickly activate a subsequent procedure on the processed materials.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a continuous processing apparatus in which a pressure processing unit has a very small volume of idle space so as to reduce loss of steam and thermal energy
Iwahata Katsuyuki
Iwata Hitoshi
Shimizu Takaaki
House Foods Corporation
Simone Timothy F.
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