Refrigeration – Automatic control – Gas-liquid contact cooler – fluid flow
Reexamination Certificate
2003-04-09
2004-09-28
Tapolcai, William E. (Department: 3744)
Refrigeration
Automatic control
Gas-liquid contact cooler, fluid flow
C062S304000, C062S314000, C062S315000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06796136
ABSTRACT:
STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT
Not Applicable.
REFERENCE TO A MICROFICHE APPENDIX
Not Applicable.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention.
The present invention relates to a mobile cooling apparatus. In particular, the present invention relates to a mobile cooling apparatus that provides a large volume of previously cooled air containing a suspended mist for cooling objects and air in an unenclosed spaced. Known art may be found in U.S. Classes 62 and 261, subclasses 91, 239, 304, 309 and 29 as well as in other classes and subclasses.
2. Description of the Prior Art.
As is well known and appreciated by those skilled in the art, water has a high heat of vaporization. This knowledge has been used in the past to cool air using evaporative coolers. The practice has been especially attractive when there is a large quantity of heat involved since it is relatively inexpensive compared to heat exchanging systems such as air conditioning. For situations where ventilation of enclosures is required to maintain the desired air quality, the expense of heat exchangers is usually prohibitively high. This knowledge has also been used to cool objects directly by moistening the outside of the object and allowing evaporation to occur.
The cooling properties of a moving air stream to man and animals are also well known. It has been shown that this cooling property is a result of heat being transported away from the skin more rapidly, i.e. wind chill factor. This process is even faster if the skin is moistened with water that absorbs the heat of vaporization prior to being removed from the skin as a vapor in the moving air stream. For animals that do not perspire, a layer of water to achieve this evaporative cooling must be applied by means other than sweating.
Preventing heat stress in livestock during hot weather is of paramount importance. Animals that get too hot can expire in a very short period of time. In an animals day-to-day activities various precautions are routinely taken to prevent heat stress, i.e. plenty of drinking water, shade, and in confinement areas fans, fixed evaporative coolers, or the like.
In animal production, the animals eventually need to be transported from their growing environment to another locale such as a marketing or processing facility. The transportation step requires that the animals be captured and loaded onto a transport conveyance, often one having special structures for restraining the animals during shipment, and subsequently shipped to the destination. Most modern commercial transport conveyances consist of specially constructed trailers that usually have multiple layers with several individual pens on each layer. Such trailers are typically well ventilated and thus provide adequate cooling when moving at normal highway speeds.
The trip to the destination thus usually provides sufficient cooling from the blowing wind to cool the animals. This is especially true of animals that perspire. However, cooling from blowing wind alone may be inadequate for non-perspirers with thick insulating layers such as hair or feathers if such have gotten too hot during the loading process.
For example, a particularly undesirable condition may easily arise with poultry. Poultry do not perspire and are covered with insulating feathers. When overheated, poultry pant with their mouths open to rapidly exchange air from their lungs. Their natural cooling ability is very poor since they have insulating feathers. Poultry generate heat at about one BTU per hour per pound of body weight. They generate even more heat when they are active, which is the case when they are loaded onto a truck. Although poultry are usually caught and loaded at night since they are less active in lowlight or dark environments, this is also usually a period of very low wind speeds so little cooling to the poultry sitting in cages on the truck will occur from natural winds.
It is obvious that there is a critical time between when the poultry begin to be loaded and the loading is complete when little cooling is occurring. Poultry that are placed in multiple layers of cages on a trailer without adequate ventilation can generate sufficient heat to cause severe heat stress that can lead to death if not timely alleviated. Often times in the past during hot weather, if the loading operation would have to be stopped, the partially loaded truck would have to be driven around to reduce heat stress and prevent death of the poultry.
Culled birds due to heat stress and death (sick or dead animals will not pass USDA inspection) may be quite expensive. Expense is also incurred when the partially loaded or loaded truck has to be driven to cool the birds. Naturally such situations are to be avoided when possible.
Attempts have been made to address cooling problems. Windecker (U.S. Pat. No. 4,598,555) discloses a gas cooler. The gas cooler is used to cool freshly harvested vegetation in refrigeration containers by circulating 25,000 cubic feet of chilled air per minute through the container. In one embodiment, the invention uses a large trailer that may be parked in an abutting end-to-end fashion with a vegetation-containing trailer. Conduits formed by pallets on which boxes of the vegetation are stacked distribute the chilled air, which flows through the produce to the top of the refrigerated container. Air is withdrawn from the top of the container and cooled by flowing it past large chilled water film surface area produced by cascading 2200 gallons of water per minute through a cross-fluted PVC surface media block. A drift eliminator removes water droplets that might damage vegetation or cardboard boxes from the chilled air exiting the surface media block. A radial fan re-circulates the re-chilled air to the conduits below the pallets. A false door is movably mounted to fluidly connect the airflow at appropriate positions in the container. This device is principally adapted for end placement abutting van trailers. It is not adapted for use with flatbed trailers and it is of only marginal relevance to the present invention.
Hearne, Jr. (U.S. Pat. No. 6,202,434 B1) discloses a portable combination hydro cooling and forced refrigerated air-cooling unit. The invention includes a portable cooling trailer for cooling produce at the harvest site, where the produce may be cooled by either forced air refrigeration, where cooled air is drawn through the produce and recycled through a heat exchanger, or hydro cooling, where chilled water is sprayed onto the produce, recaptured and recycled through the heat exchanger. This invention primarily concerns a refrigerated trailer and it is of only marginal relevance to the present invention.
Ferdows (U.S. Pat. No. 4,835,982), Ferdows (U.S. Pat. No. 5,285,654), Anderson (U.S. Pat. No. 3,738,621), and Asbridge (U.S. Pat. No. 5,309,726) disclose various types of evaporative coolers. They are of marginal relevance to the present invention in that they deal with individual evaporative units and not a large mobile cooling system.
Van Huis (U.S. Pat. No. 3,965,691), Casey, Sr. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,692,386), Krevinghaus et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,492,082), Waldron (U.S. Pat. No. 5,778,687), and Shockley, Jr. (U.S. Pat. No. 3,900,006) disclose various types of cooling systems for poultry houses or the like. These references are of marginal relevance to the present invention in that they primarily relate to various types of fixed mounted systems for cooling poultry houses or the like.
Thus, a need exists for an improved mobile cooling apparatus such as a self-contained trailer or the like. Such a cooling trailer should be able to cool an area by blowing a cooling stream of misted air to control the local atmosphere surrounding the area. More particularly, such a trailer could be quickly deployed at a remote locale to cool an otherwise inaccessible area.
Conventional cooling devices known in the art furthermore fail to provide a cooling mechanism that is effective in open-air settings involving large areas and many people or animals. For example, large crowds
Hogue Gary Alan
Sullivan Marcus Ray
Ali Mohammad M.
Keisling Trent C.
Keisling Pieper & Scott PLC
Pieper David B
Tapolcai William E.
LandOfFree
Evaporative cooling apparatus does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Evaporative cooling apparatus, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Evaporative cooling apparatus will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-3260199