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(11) | EP 1 990 590 A2 |
| (12) | EUROPEAN PATENT APPLICATION |
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| (54) | Refrigeration apparatus with improved refrigeration unit |
| (57) Refrigeration apparatus with a refrigerating unit provided on top of the refrigerator
cabinet, and comprising a compressor, an evaporator, a condenser, a fan conveying
an air flow towards said compressor, wherein the condenser is in the shape of an inverted
U being spatially extended and having its open side substantially coinciding onto
the top wall of the refrigerator cabinet. The compressor and the fan are arranged
within the downward facing cavity of the condenser. Between an outer edge of the condenser
and the top wall of the cabinet extending thereunder there is provided a substantially
closed, i.e. sealed wall; the compressor is located under the opposite side of the
condenser, while the fan is located between said sealed wall and said compressor.
The invention enables the fan to be automatically guarded against accidental contacts
and, at the same time, the energy efficiency of the refrigerating unit to be improved.
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[0001] The present invention refers to a refrigeration apparatus, in particular intended for commercial foodservice and mass catering applications, provided with a considerably improved refrigerating unit.
[0002] Widely known in the art are refrigeration cabinets intended for storing food in commercial foodservice and similar mass catering operations, which, owing to the really huge amounts of food that they generally accommodate therewithin to storage purposes, are sized so as to feature rather considerable overall dimensions.
[0003] For the inner volume of such refrigeration cabinets to be able to be used in as efficient as possible a manner to actual food storage purposes, the refrigerating unit of these refrigeration cabinets is located on top of the cabinet, i.e. it is placed to rest upon the outer top surface thereof, which shall be simply referred to as the "top" hereinafter for reasons of greater convenience.
[0004] Such refrigerating unit conventionally includes a sealed compressor, a variously configured condenser, and - in view of cooling down both the compressor and the condenser in as efficient as possible a manner - also a fan of a usual kind that conveys a stream of ambient air towards said component parts of the refrigerating unit.
[0005] Such solution, although simple and easy to implement and manufacture, has however a number of drawbacks, i.e.:
1) - a first one of such drawbacks derives from the fact that - owing to it being open towards the outside ambient, i.e. freely accessible from outside above the cabinet - the fan can be easily damaged by external bodies that may incidentally or casually be placed over the top of the cabinet, which is usually not to be seen by an operator since it lies well above eyeshot, i.e. the level of the eyes; in view of doing away with such drawback, a kind of cage-like guard is usually provided to enclose said fan, but this can be readily appreciated to unavoidably involve additional production costs in general.
2) - A second drawback lies in the fact that, owing to said fan being provided in
a free-air arrangement, the flow being output by said fan and conveyed towards either
the condenser or the compressor, or both of them, is necessarily reduced by the fact
that a rather significant part of this flow is unavoidably wasted into the ambient
itself, while failing to hit, and properly affect, the two above-cited component parts.
This gives rise to a need for a fan to be used, which is definitely more powerful,
actually, than really needed if the entire air flow would be used to cooling purposes,
i.e. would be so directed as to hit the parts to be cooled in its entirety, and -ultimately
- such need has to be viewed as having disadvantageous effects in terms of both production
and operating costs due to the higher rating and energy usage of the fan, as well
as in terms of greater noise generation by the whole apparatus against a much desired
low-noise standard that should on the contrary be dominant in all work and residential
environments to also comply with the applicable regulations.
3) - Furthermore, the provision of a fan in a free-air arrangement, i.e. not enclosed within a proper muffling, i.e. sound-deadening case, and - moreover - in a raised position further aggravates the perception of the noise generated by the fan, since noise tends to propagate throughout and all over the room owing to a so-called " bell-tower effect" brought about by the raised position of the same fan.
4) - A further drawback derives from the fact that currently used condensers comprise a plurality of cooling fins, which - although quite effective initially, i.e. during the first periods of operation - tend to get soiled as the time goes by to thereby become a receptacle for dust and dirt settling thereupon and, as a result, suffer a significant deterioration in their efficiency and performance capabilities. This most obviously makes it necessary for regular cleaning to be included in the general maintenance plan. Now, such cleaning - owing also to the condenser being provided in a raised position over the refrigerator cabinet - turns out as being quite awkward and disagreeable a chore to be carried out and - for exactly this reason - it quite frequently tends to be simply "skipped" by the operators in charge of such task, thereby causing further performance losses and still higher energy usage levels.
[0006] It would therefore be desirable, and it is a main object of the present invention, actually, to provide an improved kind of refrigeration apparatus, as particularly intended for use in commercial foodservice and mass catering operations, which is free of the afore-noted drawbacks or is at least effective in reducing them to a significant extent.
[0007] According to the present invention, this and further aims, which will become apparent from the following disclosure, are reached in a kind of refrigeration apparatus, in particular of the type intended for use in commercial foodservice and mass-catering applications, incorporating the features as defined and recited in the appended claims.
[0008] Features and advantages of the present invention will anyway be more readily understood from the description that is given below by way of non-limiting example with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:
- Figures 1 and 4 are schematical, similar perspective views of the upper portion of a refrigeration apparatus according to the present invention, in two different embodiments thereof, respectively;
- Figures 2 and 3 are schematical, similar perspective views of the upper portion of a refrigeration apparatus according to the present invention in two different embodiments thereof, respectively, however represented in a condition in which the condenser is removed therefrom;
- Figure 5 is an enlarged view of a detail of the portion shown in Figure 1 or 4.
[0009] The present invention is essentially based on following considerations: since the main object is to provide a kind of refrigeration apparatus provided with a refrigerating unit that is particularly advantageous and efficient, however without any need arising for inherently more efficient component parts to be used, since this would of course clash with the concurrent cost reduction requirement, the selected solution is based on assembling the refrigeration unit using throughout traditional component parts, wherein these component parts are however so arranged and positioned relative to each other as to enable them to produce an overall effect of functional synergy and, as a result, an improvement in the overall final performance of the whole apparatus.
[0010] On the upper surface 1 of the refrigerator cabinet, which shall be more simply referred to as "top" or "top wall" hereinafter, there are conventionally arranged a compressor 2, an evaporator, a condenser 4 for condensing the refrigerant fluid, a fan 3 adapted to convey a stream of ambient air towards and against said condenser.
[0011] According to the present invention, and with particular reference to Figure 1, said condenser is comprised of at least a pipe repeatedly bent into a number of spirally shaped coils and so shaped as to form a three-dimensional surface in the shape of an inverted U, i.e. in the shape of a planar horizontal roof 5C with two preferably vertical and parallel side walls 5A and 58, for mounting over said top 1 of the refrigerator cabinet.
[0013] In practice, as this is shown in Figure 1, on the top 1 of the refrigerator cabinet there is positioned the fan 3, above which there is then installed said condenser 4 that - owing to the half-closed configuration thereof - covers the same fan on top of it. In other words, the fan is positioned in the space defined between the top wall and the condenser.
[0014] A first major advantage of the present invention is in this way readily appreciable: in fact, when conformed and positioned in this way over the fan 3, said condenser 4 automatically turns into a protective cover of the same fan, in the sense that it becomes practically impossible for the fan to be accidentally or casually acceded to, and this can most readily be appreciated to be effective in increasing safety against accidents and injuries in general. Moreover, it also becomes almost impossible for any item or object falling from above, or being placed on top of the refrigerator cabinet inattentively or casually, to come into contact with the vanes of the fan thanks to the guarding action provided by the condenser being shaped and placed in the above-described manner.
[0015] Briefly stated, the above described conformation of the condenser and the mutual arrangement of the condenser and the fan relative to each other are practically effective in automatically ensuring protection by positively preventing the hands of operators from being capable of coming accidentally in contact with the rotating vanes of the fan, and the same fan from being contacted and interfered with by external objects and items that may accidentally be placed close to and pushed towards the fan blades.
[0016] The inventive condenser has of course been described in the simplest and, therefore, preferred embodiment thereof, wherein it shall anyway be appreciated that various other, still advantageous embodiments are in all cases possible, which - this being by the way facilitated by the easy manner in which not only these other embodiments can be provided, but also, and above all, the condenser pipe can be bent and coiled - shall anyway be such as to take the form of a so-called ruled surface, i.e. a surface generated by the sole movement of a straight line in space, and shall furthermore be such as to be capable of extending over and - to a certain extent - also at the sides of the fan 3.
[0017] In fact, the advantage of any such ruled surface derives from the fact that it is fully capable of being perfectly extended all over a plane; as a result, this reciprocates into a condenser extended over a plane, which can not only be provided both easily and economically, but also enables the plane formed in this way to be then easily shaped into any desired kind of ruled surface, actually.
[0018] With reference to Figures 2 and 5, the proposed solution allows for an advantageous improvement; in fact, the space between the U-shaped condenser and the top wall can be vertically delimited by a substantially vertical closed (i.e. sealed) wall 6. Preferably, the closed wall is positioned at an edge of the condenser (i.e. at one of the two edges delimiting longitudinally the condenser), so as to close the aperture defined by that edge and the top wall 1 of the cabinet. In particular, said aperture is delimited upwards by the upper horizontal edge 7 of the top wall 5C of the condenser, at the sides by the two opposite vertical edges 8 and 9 of the two side walls 5A, 5B of the condenser, and downwards by a portion of said top 1.
[0019] This closed wall, in fact, is effective in preventing air from being drawn through said aperture delimited by said items 7, 8 and 9, so that the air being taken in by the fan is necessarily drawn through the meshes of the same condenser, this being of course instrumental in boosting efficiency.
[0020] It is furthermore considered appropriate and advantageous if the compressor 2 is positioned in the space between the U-shaped condenser and the top wall 1 of the cabinet, too, and is located towards the opposite aperture (i.e, towards the opposite edge) defined by the condenser with respect to the closed wall 6; it is also considered advantageous to have the fan located between the closed wall 6 and the compressor.
[0021] A most favourable configuration may after all be considered to be the one consisting in arranging the compressor, the fan and said closed wall 6 in a substantially aligned arrangement relative to each other.
[0022] In this way, in fact, the air taken in by the fan - further to cooling down the condenser - is ultimately blown against the compressor 2 itself, thereby cooling down also the latter and improving the efficiency thereof.
[0023] With reference to Figures 3 and 4, it appears quite appropriate and advantageous - from a construction point of view - if the compressor, the fan, the condenser and the closed wall are not installed directly on the top of the refrigerator cabinet, but rather on a common mounting plate 10 to form a subassembly for subsequent direct installation as such on the top of the refrigerator cabinet.
[0024] This solution is advantageous due to its enabling the whole set of component parts forming the afore-mentioned refrigerating unit to be in this way preassembled separately, thereby avoiding complicated a lot of complicated work on the main assembly line. In addition, this enables the top wall of the refrigerator cabinet to be prevented from undergoing an excessive amount of drilling that would weaken it structurally.
[0025] With particular reference to Figure 5, the condenser is furthermore provided with the use of a pipe 11 that is variously bent, i.e. Coiled into a plurality of parallel pipe sections, between which there are then attached - preferably by welding as this is largely known as such in the art - a number of cooling metal wires 12 oriented orthogonally relative to the prevailing orientation of said parallel pipe sections of said pipe 11.
[0026] The practical result is obtained in this way that maintenance work can be performed on the condenser, i.e. the condenser can be cleaned in a much more effective, simple manner, in the light of the fact that cleaning pipe-and-fin condensers, i.e. condensers provided with cooling fins, is generally known to be far more awkward and time-demanding a task.
[0027] In addition, the fan is provided and arranged so as to be able to take in air form above through said condenser, and blow it directly against the compressor.
[0028] As a result, by achieving in this way an overall improved energy efficiency of the refrigerating unit on its whole, the possibility arises for the power rating of the fan to be reduced to thereby gain the two-fold added advantage of a lower cost and a lower noise level of the fan and, hence, the entire refrigerating unit.
- a compressor (2),
- a condenser (4) for refrigerant medium to be condensed and cooled,
- a fan (3) adapted to convey an air flow towards said compressor, characterized in that said condenser (4) is in the shape of an inverted U being extended in depth and is positioned on the top wall (1) of the cabinet, and in that at least said fan is arranged in the space defined between said top wall (1) and said condenser (4).