Gas burner head with extra simmer, burner base assembly and combination thereof

Abstract

A gas burner head with extra simmer capabilities, a burner base assembly and combinations thereof are disclosed. A gas burner head having one or a multiple fuel / air mixture exit ports with a simmer flange located above the ports and extending beyond the port exit by a predetermined distance allows the flame / fuel-air mixture from a given port to be fully or partially covered from above at a desired flame height or fuel-air mixture setting. The burner head can be a single or multiple piece assembly and can be used as part of a complete system or as an added-on component to an existing burner system. A burner base assembly has a burner base plate, a venturi and an orifice enclosure that creates a means to supply the required gas for combustion and also enables the burner head to be fully sealed. The venturi can be built-in as part of the burner base plate or made as a separate component and assembled through the burner base plate to create a sealed path. The orifice enclosure houses the gas injector orifice and can be installed in a separate compartment partitioned from the burner base plate by a sheet of metal (or partition plate) or in an enclosed area or plenum. Both the burner base plate / venturi combination and the orifice enclose may be securely attached to each other to maintain a predetermined distance between the gas orifice and the venturi inlet to allow a predetermined amount of primary air and gas mixture to be injected through the venturi into the burner head to create proper combustion. The burner base plate may be installed in a slightly raised position relative to the partition plate and / or orifice enclosure to create an air gap and the path through which primary air flows. A secondary source of primary air may be supplied through openings located around the orifice enclosure. The burner base assembly can be a single or multiple piece assembly and can be used as part of a complete system or as an added-on component to an existing burner system. Because of the rules governing abstracts, this abstract should not be used to construe the claims.

Description

[0001] The present application claims priority from U.S. Application Ser. No. 60 / 592,354 filed Jul. 29, 2004 and entitled Gas Burner Head with Extra Simmer, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.BACKGROUND [0002] 1. Field of the Disclosure [0003] The present disclosure generally relates to gas burners and, more particularly, to a gas burner head with extra simmer capability, a burner base assembly and a combination thereof. [0004] 2. Brief Description of Related Art [0005] Gas burners are used in all types of applications including cooking appliances and especially in cook top systems. The less expensive burner systems are normally made of one or more metal stampings crimped or spot welded together and normally of low performance rating. In many cases, these less expensive burner systems are of annular design and fully open construction to allow primary and secondary air to flow through or around the burner. More expensive burner systems include multi piece const...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0012] One aspect of the present disclosure is to provide a gas burner that optimizes the performance at simmer (extra-simmer) setting without sacrificing the performance of the burner at the higher settings. The extra-simmer capability may be achieved without introducing extra components that may adversely affect maintenance and reliability of the system. The “extra-simmer” setting may be defined as the setting where it is possible to locate a sheet of paper over the cooking surface without the paper being burned (the paper may scorch, but not burn).

[0014] A further aspect of the disclosure is to simplify and minimize the number of components of the overall burner system and still provide an extra-simmer setting, to use a single outlet valve, to use a single supply line from the valve to the burner and to minimize the number of components of the burner head.

Problems solved by technology

The less expensive burner systems are normally made of one or more metal stampings crimped or spot welded together and normally of low performance rating.

In many cases, these more expensive burner systems are fully sealed, with the orifice located in a separate enclosure, so the primary air must be supplied within that separate enclosure through slight openings in the enclosure walls and / or through air gaps under the control knobs.

One major constrain for primary air supply occurs where there are not knobs available such as with glass tops with electronic touch controls, or when the enclosure plenum is required to be fully sealed so as not to allow air pressure changes and other disturbances within the plenum that will affect the flame quality.

A primary limitation of high input rate burners is that to obtain a good burner performance, flame quality, heat range capability and re-ignition in the whole range from HI to LOW settings, the burner output at the lower setting (simmer position) has to be proportional to the high output setting.

For example, the low (“LOW”) setting of a higher BTU (British Thermal Unit) burner is higher than the low (“LOW”) setting of a slightly lower BTU burner and in most cases, having a relatively high LOW setting is not an acceptable simmer performance, especially during cooking of delicate foods.

In all of these cases, the system becomes more complex, expensive and more difficult to maintain.

One disadvantage of this method is that, at simmer, the heat is concentrated only in the middle of the surface being heated and, therefore, creating a high heat density in the center of the pan (or other surface being heated) (not shown).

This method might not be as efficient at the higher settings, because the ports used for the higher setting might be physically located further away from the cooking surface to allow room for the simmer ports.

Another more complex design to achieve a good simmer is by implementing a complete system approach.

This system has a lower reliability because electronic and extra electromechanical components are required in series with the burner.

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