Compact Conveyor Oven Airflow Layout for Faster Uniform Cooking
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional conveyor ovens are large and inefficient, requiring longer cooking times for food products like pizzas, necessitating a more compact and faster cooking solution.
Innovation Solution
A compact conveyor oven design featuring independently controlled top and bottom gas transfer systems with airflow circulation means and vanes that provide equal pressure for impingement of airflow through nozzle plates, allowing for efficient heat distribution and faster cooking, while maintaining a compact footprint.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If a conventional conveyor oven uses a standard impingement style cooking chamber, then the oven can cook food products, but the cooking time is long (approximately 7 minutes for a medium size pizza) and the oven occupies large space (70 inches long and 32 inches wide)
Solution Approach 1:
The cooking chamber is divided into multiple heating zones with separate airflow delivery systems. Each zone has its own nozzle plate with multiple apertures arranged in rows, allowing independent control of heat distribution along the conveyor path. This segmentation enables faster cooking by concentrating heat in smaller sections rather than using a single large chamber.
Solution Approach 2:
Different sections of the nozzle plate have different aperture arrangements and heating intensities tailored to specific cooking requirements. The airflow delivery system provides localized heat treatment at different positions along the conveyor, optimizing cooking efficiency and reducing overall cooking time while maintaining compact dimensions.
2Ease of operation
If the conveyor belt extends sufficiently at each end for operator access, then food products can be easily loaded and unloaded, but the overall oven footprint increases
Solution Approach 1:
The conveyor belt extension is optimized to provide adequate operator access without proportionally increasing the oven's lateral footprint. The design achieves this by efficiently utilizing the vertical and depth dimensions, allowing sufficient belt extension for loading/unloading while maintaining a compact overall footprint through optimized chamber geometry.
3Productivity
If a compact conveyor oven design is implemented, then the oven occupies less space and cooks faster, but achieving uniform heat distribution and equal pressure for impingement becomes more difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The airflow delivery system incorporates feedback mechanisms where airflow characteristics are monitored and adjusted to maintain equal pressure across all nozzle apertures. This ensures uniform heat distribution to the food product surface even in the compact configuration, resolving the tension between compactness and heating uniformity.
Solution Approach 2:
The system adjusts airflow parameters such as velocity, pressure, and distribution patterns to compensate for the compact chamber geometry. By dynamically modifying these parameters, the system achieves uniform impingement heat transfer across the food product surface despite the reduced chamber size.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The compact design enables faster cooking of food products by ensuring uniform and efficient heat distribution, reducing cooking time and simplifying the cooking process while allowing for easy maintenance and scalability.
Implementation Method 1
a first airflow circulation means that directs airflow away from the airflow circulation means and airflow directing vanes that thereafter alter the direction of the airflow in a direction back towards the airflow directing means such that substantially equal pressure is provided to a first nozzle plate for impingement of airflow through apertures of said nozzle plate upon the top surface of a food product
Implementation Method 2
The compact conveyor oven design featuring independently controlled top and bottom gas transfer systems with airflow circulation means and vanes that provide equal pressure for impingement of airflow through nozzle plates, allowing for efficient heat distribution and faster cooking
Data Source
AI summary
A compact conveyor oven is disclosed comprising a cooking chamber, thermal heating source, conveyor means and independent top and bottom airflow within the cooking chamber wherein substantially equal pressurization of the top and bottom airflows is achieved within the compact footprint.