Cooking appliance

Details Cooking appliance Cooking appliance

2000-05-23

2001-02-27

Paik, Sang (Department: 3742)

Electric heating

Heating devices

Combined with container, enclosure, or support for material...

C126S392100

Reexamination Certificate

active

06194690

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cooking appliance containing a substantially flat top plate and at least one cooking heat source.
2. Discussion of the Background
In the field of equipment items intended for home use, evolutions of appliances used in the kitchen have been constant and considerable during recent years, driven by esthetic technical demands.
The design of cooking appliances has undergone numerous modifications. Thus, enameled-sheet stoves using natural-gas or LPG burners as cooking heat sources have been known for many years. The advantages offered by such stoves, related directly to the nature of the aforesaid cooking heat sources, are very familiar: flexibility of use, low thermal inertia, immediate visibility of heating-power adjustments. The drawbacks of these stoves are also well known, such as the presence of a frame-shaped metal grid which must be cleaned frequently.
Moreover, the esthetic appeal of these stoves appears to be increasingly losing favor, even with the recent use of a molded glass plate on which the gas burners are placed.
Cooking tops commonly known as “electric plates” and using electric resistances disposed under circular metal plates as cooking heat sources have also been long known. These cooking tops have the basic advantage of no longer having metal grids, since the cooking utensils are placed directly on the aforesaid heating plates.
Concurrently with the introduction of the integrated kitchen concept, a major change has been made in cooking tops. This change has consisted in using plates of glass-ceramic
These plates, which are now widely used, enjoy two notable advantages among others, specifically the ease of cleaning (because of the fact that the surface of a glass-ceramic plate is basically flat) and a strikingly novel external appearance, giving them a more modern appeal.
In addition, these cooking plates of glass-ceramic material have been combined with new cooking heat sources such as halogen lamps and induction heat sources.
In parallel with the aforesaid changes made to cooking appliances, the design of cooking utensils has also undergone numerous modifications.
In particular, cooking vessels of the pan or casserole type, although they have retained their primary function of reheating and/or cooking the food contained therein, have undergone considerable evolution in their external appearance and structure.
Some of these modifications have been driven solely by forces of esthetic nature (color, decorative pattern).
Other modifications can be related to the fact that cooking heat sources have also evolved both in their dimensions (dimensions defining the active heating part) and in their nature (halogen-lamp heat sources, induction heat sources).
For example, casserole dishes or pans of ferromagnetic material, which can be adapted to induction heat sources, have been developed.
However, there now exists a need to improve the compatibility between, on the one hand, the parts of cooking appliances other than the cooking heat sources themselves (radiant or halogen-lamp heating element, gas burner, inductor) and, on the other hand, the cooking vessels.
In fact, imperfect compatibility can lead to various drawbacks during use.
In the particular case of cooking tops, the use of specific vessels, for example having large dimensions and/or a particular surface condition, can be difficult on glass-ceramic cooking plates.
For example, it may prove difficult precisely to center the vessels, especially of large dimensions, perpendicular to the cooking heat sources disposed underneath the plate, with the result that their bottom not necessarily being heated homogeneously over their entire surface.
Similarly, from the fact that the vessels are not necessarily limited in their displacement relative to the plate, or in other words they are not confined to a precise zone thereof, they may create surface scratches, which may be harmful to the mechanical resistance of the plate under certain circumstances. From a safety viewpoint, this can sometimes prove dangerous in that unaware persons, for example children, manipulating these same hot vessels may cause them without excessive effort to slide over the plate and finally cause them to fall from the cooking top in question.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The object of the invention is therefore to overcome the aforementioned drawbacks and to provide in particular a cooking appliance for home use which makes it possible to position all existing cooking vessels with sufficient precision while limiting their displacement by an unaware person.
Another object of the invention is to provide a cooking appliance for home use which makes it possible to obviate the use of a cooking vessel.
These objects are achieved according to the invention by a cooking appliance containing at least one basically flat top plate and at least one cooking heat source, characterized by the fact that the said plate contains at least one concavity under which the said cooking heat source is placed.
It is stipulated that the expression “cooking heat source” must be understood within the scope of the invention as any heating element such as, but not restricted to, a radiant element or a gas burner and/or any element associated with heating, such as an inductor associated with an induction heater.
According to one advantageous characteristic of the invention, the cooking heat source is a heating element. This heating element may be of the radiant or halogen-lamp type. The term “radiant” is to be understood as comprising an electric resistance, such as a metal conducting wire or a conductive layer of adequate resistivity such as that described in French Utility Certificate FR/U 2744116. Such conductive layer may be advantageous when it is preferable for the cooking appliance according to the invention to retain overall dimensions comparable to those of a prior art cooking appliance of the same type, or in other words a cooking appliance not containing a concavity according to the invention. This may be the case in particular in the configurations in which the concavity has nonnegligible depth.
The heating element according to the invention is preferably calibrated to a maximum temperature on the order of 450° C. This makes it possible to achieve direct cooking of all types of foods in the concavity according to the invention without risk of excessive overheating.
It is also possible to couple the heating element with two temperature limiters, which are configured to limit the maximum temperatures at about 400° C. and about 580° C. respectively. These temperatures being established at the concavity surface.
In this configuration, the user has the option of cooking foods directly on the concavity surface or by means of classical cooking utensils.
To regulate the heating power of the heating element, it is preferable to use a thermostat operated by measurement of the temperature between the plate and the cooking heat source under consideration. This makes it possible to avoid the use of an energy meter which imposes a ratio between the times of the on and off states.
According to a preferred embodiment, the heating element advantageously has an annular form and is placed in the peripheral portion under the concavity.
According to an advantageous characteristic of the invention, the plate can be of glass ceramic material.
According to another advantageous characteristic of the invention, the concavity itself is of glass-ceramic material.
Such a plate can then be of the glass-ceramic type whose appearance is in harmony with the kitchen furniture such as described in International Patent Application WO 98/01676.
Advantageously, the plate according to the invention may additionally contain at least one opening in which there is inserted a gas burner of atmospheric type and/or at least one flat heating zone under which there is placed another cooking heat source, such as a heating element or induction heat source. Under this configuration, the cooking appliance according to the invention

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