Drying and gas or vapor contact with solids – Apparatus – Houses – kilns – and containers
Patent
1989-07-26
1991-12-24
Bennet, Henry A.
Drying and gas or vapor contact with solids
Apparatus
Houses, kilns, and containers
99477, 454174, F26B 1900
Patent
active
050740580
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD AND BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates to a processing room for drying or ripening foodstuffs which give off humidity, particularly meat products, which are exposed to a stream of unsaturated air which enters through air inlets distributed over the bottom and is extracted through air outlet orifices at the top.
A processing room of this type is known, for instance, from CH-A-603060. This shows a tunnel-like processing room, the bottom of which is formed by a load bearing coarse grid under which extends the air supply duct. Over the whole arched roof area, the rising air is drawn into a waste air duct and is fed in again under the floor. The floor grid has rails for transporter trolleys on which the material to be processed is moved through the processing room.
Thus, the air is supplied through a plurality of inlet apertures in the floor, so preventing any large-volume eddy formation. Since the supplied air is intended to absorb the water given off by the material being processed, it is unsaturated and hence heavier than the more humid waste air, so that by reason of the differing density, a vertical upwards flow becomes established. The air consequently rises to the roof of the processing room, where it can emerge. The more regularly the supplied air leaves the inlet apertures and, without any dead corners, is able to follow a plurality of parallel flow paths, the higher will be quality of the dried or ripened products.
Different drying rates lead to losses of product quality. For example, in the case of smoked bacon, excessively fast drying leads to a hardening at the edges, while too little ventilation adversely affects the removal of moisture.
It has been found that very low flow speeds (between 0.01 and 0.5 m/sec) provide the best drying results. The flow speed ought thereby to be approximately high enough that the air can just absorb that amount of moisture which an undisturbed capillary movement of water in the material being processed sets free at the surface. The grid floor described in CH-A-603060 is too large-meshed to fulfil the requirement of fine dispersal. However, walking on them would make smaller-mesh grids dirty and clogged, so that the regularity of the air flow would not be guaranteed in this case either.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The invention is based on the problem of providing a processing room in which an extremely regular air dispersion and air flow can be achieved and be maintained even after the floor has been worked on many times.
According to the invention, this is achieved in that the air inlet apertures are formed by the peripheral orifices in a plurality of textile hoses which are suspended at intervals from one another and from the floor and which extend over its length or width.
It has been found that despite the fact that air does not emerge over the entire surface area of the floor, the desired extremely regular dispersion of air is achieved which permits of a minimal flow rate. For example, ultra-fine fabrics which permit of an hourly throughput of 250 cu.m of air per sq.m with a pressure drop of 120 Pa are ideal. For example, the hoses can have a diameter of 10 to 20 cm and be suspended at a distance apart of 30 to 60 cm and at a distance of 5 to 20 cm from the floor, so that in the intermediate spaces, the floor of the processing room can be walked on freely and without any risk of dirt clogging the air inlet apertures. According to the dimensions of the processing room and of the textile hoses, the floor clearance of the transporter trolleys may be too low so that one embodiment may provide for the tracks to have rails which are raised well above the hose suspension level. Thus, the hoses extend in any case underneath the incoming transporter trolleys and between each pair of tracks there is still an aisle left on the floor. The ultra-fine dispersion of the supplied air, in spite of the fact that the outlet directions are not parallel, results in a virtually turbulence-free flow of air at a very low speed, only the transporter trolleys causin
REFERENCES:
patent: 2841072 (1958-07-01), Knight
Handl Karl
Hollrigl Ortwin
Bennet Henry A.
Handl Karl
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