Apparatus for cooking food products
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing griddles that combine resistive heating and microwave radiation for cooking often have complex designs with many interstices, leading to microwave leakage, increased manufacturing costs, and difficulty in cleaning, while they fail to fully cook larger food products as they mainly brown the exterior without cooking the interior.
Innovation Solution
A cooking apparatus with resistive heating elements integrated into the heating plates to form a single piece using techniques like welding, soldering, or brazing, reducing the need for additional shielding and simplifying assembly, and incorporating a microwave generator to enhance cooking efficiency and uniformity.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Object-affected harmful factors
If microwave shielding members are installed to occlude interstices and slots, then microwave radiation leakage is prevented, but device complexity and manufacturing costs increase
Solution Approach 1:
The heating element and heating plate are merged into a single integrated component, eliminating the need for separate shielding members to occlude interstices between these parts. This integration directly reduces device complexity while maintaining microwave containment through the inherent design of the integrated structure.
Solution Approach 2:
The integrated heating element plate serves multiple functions: it provides resistive heating, acts as a structural component, and inherently contains microwaves through its continuous design. This multi-functionality eliminates the need for dedicated shielding members, reducing overall device complexity while preventing microwave leakage.
2Object-affected harmful factors
If multiple microwave shielding members are installed to occlude interstices, then microwave radiation leakage is prevented, but manufacturing costs increase
Solution Approach 1:
By combining the heating element and heating plate into one integrated component, the patent eliminates the need for multiple separate shielding members, directly reducing the number of parts that need to be manufactured, assembled, and quality-checked, thereby lowering manufacturing costs.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent extracts and eliminates the unnecessary shielding members from the design, keeping only the essential integrated heating element plate that inherently provides both heating and microwave containment functions, simplifying manufacturing processes.
3Ease of repair
If heating plates are separated from heating elements for easy cleaning, then ease of maintenance is improved, but microwave radiation leakage occurs through interstices
Solution Approach 1:
The heating element and heating plate are merged into a single washable component, allowing the entire assembly to be removed and cleaned together as one unit. This integration maintains microwave containment while preserving ease of cleaning, as the integrated plate can be fully immersed and washed without disassembly concerns.
Solution Approach 2:
The integrated heating element plate is designed with microwave-transparent or microwave-shielding material properties localized to the appropriate regions, allowing it to maintain microwave containment while being fully removable and washable as a single component.
4Device complexity
If resistive heating elements are used alone, then device simplicity is maintained, but food products are not cooked completely inside
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces microwave radiation as an additional heating parameter that penetrates deep into food products, complementing the surface heating effect of resistive elements. This parameter change enables complete cooking of large food items while maintaining overall device simplicity through the integrated heating element plate design.
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 solution simplifies the design, reduces microwave leakage, lowers manufacturing costs, and ensures thorough cooking of food products by integrating resistive heating elements into the plates, while minimizing interstices and improving thermal exchange, thus enhancing cooking efficiency and safety.
Implementation Method 1
resistive heating element associated with the first heating plate and adapted to provide heat to the food products during the cooking operation
Implementation Method 2
electromagnetic radiation in the microwave spectrum generated by a microwave generator element is adapted to provide heat by directly causing polarized molecules in the food to rotate and build up thermal energy
Data Source
Figure 1
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AI summary
1. An apparatus (1) for cooking food products (14) is provided. The apparatus (1) comprises: - a first heating plate (4) adapted to support the food products (14); - a second heating plate (10) adapted to face the food products (14) during a cooking operation; - a first resistive heating element (26) associated with the first heating plate (4) and adapted to provide heat to the food products (14) during the cooking operation; - a second resistive heating element (28) associated with the second heating plate (10) and adapted to provide heat to the food products (14) during the cooking operation, and - at least one microwave generator element (30) configured to selectively generate microwave radiation for heating the food products (14) during the cooking operation. At least a selected resistive heating element between the first resistive heating element (26) and the second resistive heating element (28) is joined to a first surface of the associated heating plate (4; 10) so that it forms a single piece with the associated heating plate (4; 10).