Cooking apparatus, in particular a cooktop
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing cooking appliances face ergonomic issues in identifying display parameters for cooking zones, leading to potential control errors due to non-intuitive symbol-based identification and thermal or electromagnetic disturbances affecting display modules.
Innovation Solution
The cooking appliance features display modules mounted on peripheral walls, aligned with the center of symmetry of each cooking zone, ensuring they are far from heat and electromagnetic interference, allowing for intuitive identification and easy installation without additional modifications.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If display means are located close to cooking zones for easy identification, then ease of operation is improved, but reliability deteriorates due to thermal and electromagnetic disturbances
Solution Approach 1:
The display module is relocated from a position close to the cooking zone (horizontal proximity) to a position on the peripheral wall (vertical/dimensional separation). This spatial reconfiguration maintains visual associability through alignment while physically separating the display from thermal and electromagnetic interference zones, thus preserving reliability while maintaining ease of identification.
2Reliability
If display means are placed far from cooking zones to avoid thermal disturbance, then reliability is improved, but ease of operation deteriorates due to non-intuitive identification
Solution Approach 1:
The display module is positioned asymmetrically on the peripheral wall rather than symmetrically close to the cooking zone. This asymmetric placement allows the display to be physically distant from heat sources while maintaining visual alignment through careful positioning, breaking the conventional symmetric layout to resolve the contradiction between proximity for identification and distance for reliability.
Solution Approach 2:
The peripheral wall acts as an intermediary structure that carries the display module away from the cooking zone while maintaining visual association. This intermediary element enables the display to be both distant from thermal disturbance and visually connected to the cooking zone through alignment, mediating between the conflicting requirements of proximity and distance.
3Reliability
If display means are mounted on peripheral walls for thermal isolation, then reliability is improved, but device complexity increases due to additional mounting requirements
Solution Approach 1:
The peripheral wall structure serves multiple functions: it provides structural support for the hob, acts as a mounting surface for the display module, and creates thermal isolation between the display and cooking zones. By utilizing the existing peripheral wall for multiple purposes, the solution avoids adding separate mounting structures, thus improving reliability without significantly increasing device complexity.
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 2
AI summary
The apparatus i.e. circular or oval shaped cooking top (1), has a boiling plate (2) provided in a cooking surface, and peripheral walls (5a-5d) surrounding the surface. A display module (6) is mounted at a level of one of the peripheral walls, and is integrated in an opening (7) of the wall, where the opening is in form of rectangular notch. Symmetry centre (O1) of the boiling plate is aligned with symmetry centre (O2) of the display module arranged with respect to the boiling plate, where a straight line joining the centers of symmetry is parallel to one of the peripheral walls.