Refrigeration – With indicator or tester – Condition sensing
Patent
1997-05-09
2000-03-21
Tapolcai, William E.
Refrigeration
With indicator or tester
Condition sensing
G01K 1300
Patent
active
060388706
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates to a particularly simple device for checking the temperature within an enclosure, whenever the temperature has to be maintained in an allowed range between two extreme values. Such may be the case for monitoring the temperature in a refrigeration enclosure, more particularly a refrigerator. As strange as it may seem, most refrigerators are delivered to their customers without a simple device for checking the temperature within these enclosures. Most of these refrigeration enclosures are generally provided with means, especially control knobs, allowing adjustment of the temperature to values which can a priori be stepped over a certain range of values. But the choice of these values for most users is often completely empirical.
However, it is known that in order to preserve food satisfactorily, the temperature has to be maintained, for example within a domestic refrigerator, at a value lying between approximately 2.degree. C. and 60.degree. C.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The aim of the invention is to produce an extremely simple and inexpensive device enabling users, especially private individuals, to check, easily and immediately, the appropriate character of the temperature within their refrigerator. However, the need for this simple check also arises in other fields, for example in enclosures used for the transportation of food under appropriate refrigeration conditions.
It is without any doubt the extreme simplicity of the device proposed by the invention which constitutes the main advantage thereof. This is because the device for checking the temperature within an enclosure, whenever this temperature has to be maintained within an allowed range between two predetermined extreme values, is characterized in that it comprises, contained in a common container, two separate materials giving rise respectively to changes of state at the temperatures equal to these two extreme values, the check being based on detection of the respective states of these two materials, especially visually when the walls of the container are transparent.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 is a side view illustrating one embodiment of the device of the present invention; and
FIG. 2 is a side view illustrating another embodiment of the device of the present invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
In a first embodiment of the device 10 of the invention as shown in FIG. 1, the two materials 12, 14 have constant melting points, respectively equal to the two abovementioned extreme values, and the check is based on detection of the respective, solid or liquid, states of each of these two materials 12, 14.
When the two materials are mutually immiscible, they may be contained in one and the same compartment of the container 16 of the kind in question. On the other hand, when they are mutually miscible, as shown in FIG. 2 the container 18 comprises two separate compartments 20, 22, separated from each other, for example, by a partition wall 24 internal to the enclosure 18.
In a first embodiment, the two materials 12, 14 consist of two eutectics whose change-of-state temperatures are respectively equal to the two abovementioned extreme values. When, as in the preferred case of the invention, the device in question is intended for checking the temperature in a refrigeration enclosure, more particularly a domestic refrigerator, one of the two materials may also consist of water, the other then consisting of a eutectic whose melting temperature is advantageously 6.degree. C.
It goes without saying that any narrower (or wider) temperature range may be envisaged, it being understood that in each case materials, especially eutectics capable of changing state at the chosen extreme temperatures, will be used.
The invention may also be interpreted as consisting of a method of immediately checking the effective temperature within the enclosure, this method then comprising the use of the two abovementioned materials and the detection of the solid or liquid states of these two materials.
The invent
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Premark FEG L.L.C.
Tapolcai William E.
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