Freezing furniture and an insert therefor

Abstract

In a first aspect, the invention relates to a piece of freezing furniture comprising a storage space (3), intended for products to be frozen, and a primary air duct (4), which partly surrounds a suction duct (11), having an inlet (12) that mouths at one side of the opening (13) of the storage space (3), as well as a rising duct (14), having an outlet (15) that mouths at the opposite side of said opening (13), and a temperature-change unit (36), which is located in the primary air duct (4) and separates the suction duct (11) from the rising duct (14) and includes a fan (16), a heating element (17) and a cooling element (18), wherein, in normal operation, cooled air flows from the temperature-change unit (36) via the rising duct (14), over and past said opening (13), through the suction duct (11) and back to the temperature-change unit (36). In a second aspect, the invention also relates to an insert for such a piece of freezing furniture.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0001] In a first aspect, this invention relates to a piece of freezing furniture, which comprises a storage space, intended for products to be frozen, and a primary air duct, which partly surrounds said storage space and which comprises a suction duct, having an inlet that mouths at one side of the opening of the storage space, as well as a rising duct, having an outlet that mouths at the opposite side of said opening, and a temperature-change unit, which is located in the primary air duct and separates the suction duct from the rising duct and includes a fan, a heating element and a cooling element, wherein, in normal operation, cooled air flows from the temperature-change unit via the rising duct, over and past said opening, through the suction duct and back to the temperature-change unit. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] In the food-distribution business, pieces of freezing furniture, such-as freezing gondolas, freezing shelves, frozen food dis...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

"The present invention aims to improve freezing furniture by providing a piece of furniture that can defrost without damaging the goods stored inside and without affecting air flow. The furniture has a defrosting device in the form of an insert that can be installed in an existing piece of furniture. The insert has a secondary air duct with an inlet and an outlet, and a damper that can open and close the duct. The insert also has a guiding means to direct the air flow towards the temperature-change unit. The invention also includes an insert with few movable parts to minimize operational disturbances and malfunctions. Overall, the invention provides an improved piece of freezing furniture that saves energy, guarantees satisfactory function, and is easy to install and use."

Problems solved by technology

The moisture condenses in the air duct and is deposited above all on the cooling element in the form of hoarfrost or ice, and will accordingly disturb the cooling function thereof.

A great disadvantage is that the entire circulating air mass has to be warmed up to degrees above zero in order to get as efficient a defrosting as possible.

It has been shown that also a short, applied heat shock on the surfaces of a merchandise may be very harmful, as the same is propagated through the entire frozen merchandise even if cold again is supplied to the surfaces.

After initiated cooling production, this moisture will directly condense and become deposited on the coolest surfaces, which is the cooling element, in the form of hoarfrost or ice, and will accordingly disturb the cooling function thereof.

If ice is formed on the cooling element directly after a defrosting procedure, consequently the defrosting has, to a certain extent, been useless.

This entails the troublesome drawback that when the goods are selected by a customer and transported through the shop in a cart, the ice will melt and wet other goods in the cart.

Apart from the foods being exposed to harmful temperatures, it is also very energy demanding to warm up and cool the entire large circulating air mass, such as has been described above, and to cool the circulating air in normal operation if the cooling element is ice-covered.

If defrosting takes place during the shop's opening hours, the goods will be exposed to a temperature rise, such as in the above-described prior art.

Thus, the presented device provides a less efficient defrosting procedure as well as a clearly deteriorated circulation of cooled air in normal operation.

Thus, it is not very functional, as is shown in the mentioned publications, to locate a number of coarse dampers on these locations.

It may be that the dampers in the disclosed devices fulfil the functions thereof during defrosting to an acceptable degree, but risk to create large operational disturbances in normal operation.

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