Supports: cabinet structure – Spaced insulated wall – Refrigerator cabinet
Patent
1997-11-07
1999-04-20
Cuomo, Peter M.
Supports: cabinet structure
Spaced insulated wall
Refrigerator cabinet
312407, 3124071, 312268, A47J 3900
Patent
active
058951040
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
Mobile device for the preservation and reheating with movable thermal barriers and constant level distribution of hot and cold meal trays.
It is intended to allow the constant level distribution of meal-trays whilst also allowing the reheating and preservation of hot and cold food items placed on the same meal tray while awaiting distribution.
2. Description of Background and Relevant Information
Numerous refrigerated devices are known that comprise meal trays having a cold zone and a hot or reheating zone where they wait for their final distribution. These two zones require a thermal barrier which is often fixed and non-detachable. The traditional fixed stacking of the trays requires that they be introduced or removed by placing them or picking them up one by one from their stacking ladder. This forces the person handling the device into the uncomfortable position of having to bend down and rise up in order to reach the trays that have been placed lower or higher, and these manoeuverings are difficult to implement, especially when the space for displacement or movement is limited. In addition, the door of the device housing must be opened, each time that a tray is retrieved, and this causes substantial dispersions of the cooling and heating calories contained therein.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The device that is the object of the instant invention eliminates all these disadvantages; it allows for an easy distribution of the meal-trays that always arrive at a constant level, thus avoiding painstaking maneuvers on the part of the person handling the device, without there being any requirement to bend, since the distribution is done via a small door at the top of one or both sides of the housing. Since the opening only distributes one tray at a time, it is relatively small, and by definition, since cold air is heavier, it descends and remains confined in the housing, like the refrigerated shelves for frozen products in supermarkets that are not enclosed from the top.
As such, this device facilitates the distribution of meal-trays while also guaranteeing the maximum preservation of the food items contained in the refrigerated zone, by conserving the cooling and heating calories of each of the two zones.
The mobile housing can either be equipped with a refrigeration kit having a compressor, froster and "Carbo" or "Co2 gas" regulator, or it can comprise a reserve tank of refrigerated fluid which is distributed by heat exchanging tubes or it can be attached to a feeding terminal or module that distribute, via ventilation sheaths, the cooling as well as heating calories required for the refrigeration and reheating of the trays. The latter can also be heated individually by a thermal resistance located beneath each tray. A thermal barrier separates the cold zone from the hot zone; it is mobile and articulated; it comprises lateral openings, between which each tray is introduced, hermetically sealing the hot and cold zones. Catches fixed on the thermal barrier are used to stabilize and balance the trays.
The lateral openings comprise joints made of flexible rubber or rubberized naps; these are compressed during the introduction and in the presence of the trays, and regain their initial shape by closing the gap when the tray is removed, thus preventing the temperatures of the two zones from getting mixed. These joints are fixed by clips or by a "dove tailed" slide so as to be detached and cleaned on a daily basis.
In order to ensure the constant level distribution of the meal-trays, the assembly--meal trays and thermal barriers--is driven upwardly, up to the distribution door, by a rotational system, fixed on the thermal barrier or integral with said barrier.
This system, articulated at the same level as the thermal barrier, consists of a roller chain, made of plastic or otherwise, driven on pulleys by a pedal crank gear mechanism equipped with an anti-return pawl and geared down so as to drive, by a simple pressure of the foot, the assembly forming the distri
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Allred David E.
Cuomo Peter M.
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