Patent Application
20220412570
Cooking appliances that include ovens, e.g., ranges, wall-mounted ovens, and the like, generally incorporate multiple cooking elements disposed at different locations in an oven cavity. One or more bake cooking elements are generally positioned on the bottom or underneath the bottom of the oven cavity, while one or more broiler cooking elements are generally positioned near the top of the oven cavity (for the purpose of simplification, this description will use the term “cooking element” to refer to any of the various heat sources that may be utilized to generate the heat required for cooking, which may include, but are not limited to, resistive electrical heating elements, gas burners, infrared heaters, quartz heaters, etc.) Some cooking appliances may also include multiple ovens, each having multiple cooking burners within, and as such, some cooking appliances may include a multitude of cooking elements disposed therein.
In a cooking appliance that relies on gas burners as oven cooking elements, the appliance is generally designed to incorporate a path for drawing in fresh air for combustion and for venting the products of that combustion. A natural flow generally develops over time, in part due to the injection of gas and sometimes additional primary air to the internal volume of the appliance, which displaces the air within the volume. Upon startup and during the warm-up phase of the appliance this gas movement is less controlled, slower, and may even run counter to the flow that is established after the warmup period. As the appliance gets warm, buoyant forces come into play, whereby a pressure gradient is established and the hot air and products of combustion rise. An exhaust vent is generally disposed near the top of the volume such that the hot air and combustion products flow out of the exhaust vent. This ultimately produces a stable, steady state flow pattern through the entire cooking appliance, whereby fresh air is drawn to the gas burner and a hot mix of excess air and combustion products flow up and out through the exhaust vent.
It has been found, however, that while the flow is being established during the warmup phase, combustion is less than optimal, as are the quality and stability of the flames established at the gas burner. This is partially due to an inefficient influx of fresh air available to the flames and an inefficient evacuation of combustion products from the burner box surrounding the gas burner. When a flame sense rod or other flame detector is used to detect the presence of a flame, the signal it receives during this warmup period may also be affected due to poor contact with a less than optimal flame or flames.
Therefore, a need continues to exist in the art for a manner of improving combustion of a gas oven burner, particularly during a warmup phase prior to establishment of a steady state flow pattern.
The herein-described embodiments address these and other problems associated with the art by providing a cooking appliance including a secondary venting arrangement within an oven cavity to supplement a primary venting arrangement with localized venting of combustion products adjacent a flame detector that detects a flame emitted by a gas burner disposed under the oven cavity. Doing so may assist with stabilizing the flame generated by the gas burner prior to establishment of steady state flow pattern within the oven cavity.
Therefore, consistent with one aspect of the invention, a cooking appliance may include a housing including an oven cavity, an exhaust vent disposed proximate a top of the oven cavity, a gas burner disposed under the oven cavity, a flame detector disposed adjacent to the gas burner and configured to detect a flame emitted by the gas burner, a primary venting arrangement disposed in a lower portion of the oven cavity, the primary venting arrangement configured to vent combustion products generated by the gas burner into the oven cavity and out the exhaust vent as a result of a steady state flow pattern established in the oven cavity after the oven cavity has been warmed by heat generated by the gas burner, and a secondary venting arrangement disposed in the lower portion of the oven cavity and adjacent to the flame detector, the secondary venting arrangement configured to stabilize the flame detected by the flame detector prior to establishment of the steady state flow pattern in the oven cavity through localized venting of combustion products generated by the gas burner into the oven cavity adjacent the flame detector.
Some embodiments may further include one or more fresh air inlets disposed underneath the oven cavity and configured to supply fresh air to the gas burner, and a flow divider disposed underneath the oven cavity and configured to separate the fresh air supplied by the one or more fresh air inlets from the combustion products vented through the primary venting arrangement, and the secondary venting arrangement may provide a shorter flow path around the flow divider than a flow path provided by the primary venting arrangement to reduce combustion product buildup in a volume adjacent the flame detector. Also, in some embodiments, the gas burner extends from a first end proximate a rear of the oven cavity towards a second end proximate a front of the oven cavity, and the flame detector is disposed proximate the first end of the gas burner.
In some embodiments, the gas burner is in fluid communication with a gas supply proximate the first end of the gas burner. In addition, in some embodiments, the one or more fresh air inlets includes first and second air inlets disposed underneath the oven cavity and respectively proximate first and second sides of the oven cavity, the primary venting arrangement includes first and second primary vents formed in a bottom panel of the oven cavity and respectively disposed proximate the first and second sides of the oven cavity, the flow divider extends along first and second sides of the gas burner, fresh air flows inwardly towards the gas burner from the first and second air inlets on an underside of the flow divider, at least a portion of the combustion products generated by the gas burner when the steady state flow pattern is established flow outwardly from the gas burner to the first and second primary vents on the topside of the flow divider, and the secondary venting arrangement is positioned relative to the gas burner and the flame detector such that at least a portion of the combustion products generated by the gas burner flow from the gas burner to the secondary venting arrangement without flowing over the topside of the flow divider.
Also, in some embodiments, the secondary venting arrangement includes one or more vents positioned rearwardly of a rear edge of the flow divider. In addition, some embodiments may further include a flame spreader positioned above the gas burner and extending towards the first and second sides of the oven cavity, and the secondary venting arrangement includes one or more vents positioned rearwardly of a rear edge of the flame spreader. Further, in some embodiments, the secondary venting arrangement includes one or more vents formed proximate a bottom of the oven cavity. Also, in some embodiments, the oven cavity includes a bottom panel, and the one or more vents are formed in the bottom panel. Further, in some embodiments, the bottom panel is removable from the oven cavity.
In some embodiments, the oven cavity includes a bottom panel supported on a flange circumscribing a bottom of the oven cavity, and the one or more vents are formed in part by one or more reliefs in the flange. Also, in some embodiments, the oven cavity includes a removable bottom panel supported by a fixed cavity portion, and the one or more vents are formed in the fixed cavity portion. In some embodiments, the one or more vents includes first and second vents respectively disposed proximate first and second sides of the gas burner. Further, in some embodiments, the one or more vents includes a first vent disposed directly above the flame detector. In some embodiments, the flame detector includes a flame sense rod.
These and other advantages and features, which characterize the invention, are set forth in the claims annexed hereto and forming a further part hereof. However, for a better understanding of the invention, and of the advantages and objectives attained through its use, reference should be made to the Drawings, and to the accompanying descriptive matter, in which there is described example embodiments of the invention. This summary is merely provided to introduce a selection of concepts that are further described below in the detailed description, and is not intended to identify key or essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to be used as an aid in limiting the scope of the claimed subject matter.
Turning now to the drawings, wherein like numbers denote like parts throughout the several views,
Cooking appliance 10 may also include various user interface devices, including, for example, control knobs 28 for controlling burners 16, a control panel 30 for controlling oven 18 and/or burners 16, and a display 32 for providing visual feedback as to the activation state of the cooking appliance. It will be appreciated that cooking appliance 10 may include various types of user controls in other embodiments, including various combinations of switches, buttons, knobs and/or sliders, typically disposed at the rear or front (or both) of the cooking appliance. Further, in some embodiments, one or more touch screens may be employed for interaction with a user. As such, in some embodiments, display 32 may be touch sensitive to receive user input in addition to displaying status information and/or otherwise interacting with a user. In still other embodiments, cooking appliance 10 may be controllable remotely, e.g., via a smartphone, tablet, personal digital assistant or other networked computing device, e.g., using a web interface or a dedicated app.
Display 32 may also vary in different embodiments, and may include individual indicators, segmented alphanumeric displays, and/or dot matrix displays, and may be based on various types of display technologies, including LEDs, vacuum fluorescent displays, incandescent lights, etc. Further, in some embodiments audio feedback may be provided to a user via one or more speakers, and in some embodiments, user input may be received via a spoken or gesture-based interface.
As noted above, cooking appliance 10 of
In turn, a cooking element may be considered to include practically any type of energy-producing element used in residential applications in connection with cooking food, e.g., employing various cooking technologies such as electric, gas, light, microwaves, induction, convection, radiation, etc. In the case of an oven, for example, one or more cooking elements therein may be gas, electric, light, or microwave cooking elements in some embodiments, while in the case of a stovetop, one or more cooking elements therein may be gas, electric, or inductive cooking elements in some embodiments. Further, it will be appreciated that any number of cooking elements may be provided in a cooking appliance (including multiple cooking elements for performing different types of cooking cycles such as baking or broiling, including multiple bake and/or multiple broiler cooking elements, as well as one or more convection cooking elements), and that multiple types of cooking elements may be combined in some embodiments, e.g., combinations of microwave and light cooking elements in some oven embodiments.
A cooking appliance consistent with the invention also generally includes one or more controllers configured to control the cooking elements and otherwise perform cooking operations at the direction of a user.
As shown in
Controller 42 may also be interfaced with various sensors 58 located to sense environmental conditions inside of and/or external to cooking appliance 40, e.g., one or more temperature sensors, humidity sensors, air quality sensors, smoke sensors, carbon monoxide sensors, odor sensors and/or electronic nose sensors, among others. Such sensors may be internal or external to cooking appliance 40, and may be coupled wirelessly to controller 42 in some embodiments. Sensors 58 may include, for example, one or more temperature sensors for sensing an air temperature within an oven cavity, including, for example, a temperature sensor for sensing temperature in a center of the oven cavity and/or one or more temperature sensors for sensing temperature in the top and/or bottom of the oven cavity, as well as one or more flame detectors, e.g., flame sense rods or other suitable types of flame detectors capable of sensing a flame emitted by a gas burner.
In some embodiments, controller 42 may also be coupled to one or more network interfaces 60, e.g., for interfacing with external devices via wired and/or wireless networks such as Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, cellular and other suitable networks, collectively represented in
In some embodiments, controller 42 may operate under the control of an operating system and may execute or otherwise rely upon various computer software applications, components, programs, objects, modules, data structures, etc. In addition, controller 42 may also incorporate hardware logic to implement some or all of the functionality disclosed herein. Further, in some embodiments, the sequences of operations performed by controller 42 to implement the embodiments disclosed herein may be implemented using program code including one or more instructions that are resident at various times in various memory and storage devices, and that, when read and executed by one or more hardware-based processors, perform the operations embodying desired functionality. Moreover, in some embodiments, such program code may be distributed as a program product in a variety of forms, and that the invention applies equally regardless of the particular type of computer readable media used to actually carry out the distribution, including, for example, non-transitory computer readable storage media. In addition, it will be appreciated that the various operations described herein may be combined, split, reordered, reversed, varied, omitted, parallelized and/or supplemented with other techniques known in the art, and therefore, the invention is not limited to the particular sequences of operations described herein.
Numerous variations and modifications to the cooking appliances illustrated in
As noted above, in a cooking appliance that relies on gas burners as oven cooking elements, the appliance is generally designed to incorporate a path for drawing in fresh air for combustion and for venting the products of that combustion.
Each gas oven burner 106, 108 includes an associated flame detector 114, 116, igniter 118, 120, and flame spreader 122, 124. In addition, burner box 110 may also include one or more flow dividers 126 (which may also be considered to include a flow divider formed up multiple pieces) to separate the flow of incoming air to bake gas oven burner 106 from the flow of combustion products and excess air away from bake gas oven burner 106. A primary venting arrangement, e.g., one or more vents, 128, may be provided in oven bottom 112 to vent the combustion products and excess air into oven cavity 104.
It will be appreciated that, when bake gas oven burner 106 is ignited and emitting a flame, a natural flow generally develops over time, in part due to the injection of gas and sometimes additional primary air to the internal volume of the appliance, which displaces the air within the volume. As the appliance gets warm, buoyant forces come into play, whereby a thermal gradient is established and the hot air and products of combustion rise. An exhaust vent 130 is generally disposed near the top of the volume such that the hot air and combustion products flow out of the exhaust vent. This ultimately produces a stable, steady state flow pattern, represented by the arrows in
As illustrated by the arrows in
Embodiments consistent with the invention, however, may incorporate a secondary venting arrangement that provides an alternate flow path to that of the primary venting arrangement that short-cuts the flow temporarily until the steady state flow paths are established, thereby providing stronger flames in the area of the flame detector with improved air supply and improved venting. The secondary venting arrangement in particular may be disposed in a lower portion of an oven cavity and adjacent to the flame detector, and may be configured to stabilize the flame detected by the flame detector prior to establishment of the steady state flow pattern in the oven cavity through localized venting of combustion products generated by the gas burner into the oven cavity adjacent the flame detector.
Localized venting, in this regard, refers to venting that is in the immediate vicinity of the flame detector, and in some embodiments, venting that is unobstructed by a flow divider or other intermediate structure, such that a direct flow path is created from the volume surrounding the flame detector and one or more vents comprising the secondary venting arrangement. Furthermore, to the extent that any flow divider is utilized in a burner box housing a gas burner, localized venting effectively bypasses that flow divider to reduce combustion product buildup in the volume adjacent to and surrounding the flame detector.
Each gas oven burner 146, 148 includes an associated flame detector positioned adjacent to the gas oven burner (e.g., flame detector 154 for bake gas oven burner 146, here implemented as a flame sense rod) and flame spreader (e.g., flame spreader 156 for bake gas oven burner 146). Further, in the illustrated embodiment, each gas oven burner 146, 148 includes an igniter (e.g., igniter 158 for bake gas oven burner 146) configured to ignite gas supplied to the gas oven burner and a gas valve configured to supply gas from a gas supply to the gas oven burner. While igniter 158 is illustrated as being on the opposite side of bake gas oven burner 146 as flame detector 154, it will be appreciated that in other embodiments, these components may be disposed at other locations, e.g., at opposite ends, at the same end and side, etc.
It will be appreciated that in this embodiment, bake gas oven burner 146 extends from a first end proximate a rear of the oven cavity 144 towards a second end proximate a front of oven cavity 144, and is in fluid communication with the gas supply through a gas valve (not shown in
Fresh air in cooking appliance 140 is generally supplied from the left and right sides of the appliance, e.g., through fresh air inlets formed in the sides of burner box 150. In other embodiments, fresh air may be supplied from fresh air inlets formed in the center, front and/or back of the burner box, so the invention is not limited to fresh air inlets disposed on the side of the burner box. Flow divider 162 (
A primary venting arrangement disposed in a lower portion of oven cavity 144, here including a pair of primary vents 166, 168, is configured to vent combustion products and excess air into oven cavity 144 and out an exhaust vent 170 as a result of a steady state flow pattern established in oven cavity 144 after oven cavity 144 has been warmed by heat generated by the bake gas oven burner 146. At least some of the combustion products and any excess air is thus carried across the topside of flow divider 162 and underneath flame spreader 156, through vents 166, 168 and into oven cavity 144, and then out of oven cavity 144 and through exhaust vent 170.
In this embodiment, a secondary venting arrangement 172, incorporating a plurality (e.g., four) vents 174, is disposed in the lower portion of oven cavity 144 and adjacent to the flame detector. Secondary venting arrangement 172 is configured to stabilize the flame detected by flame detector 154 prior to establishment of the steady state flow pattern in oven cavity 144 through localized venting of combustion products generated by bake gas oven burner 146 into oven cavity 144 adjacent flame detector 154. In addition, for at least one or more of vents 174, the secondary venting arrangement 172 effectively bypasses flow divider 162 for at least a portion of the combustion products and excess air to reduce the amount of combustion products building in the volume adjacent flame detector 154, whereby at least a portion of the combustion products generated by bake gas oven burner 146 flow from the bake gas oven burner to secondary venting arrangement 172 without flowing over the topside of flow divider 162 (and underneath flame spreader 156) to primary vents 166, 168. Further, as it may be seen from
Thus, during startup and prior to establishing a steady state flow pattern, at least a portion of the combustion products and excess air in the vicinity surrounding flame detector 154 will flow through vents 174 of secondary venting arrangement 172 rather than primary vents 166, 168, thereby establishing stronger flames in the area of the flame detector with improved air supply and improved venting. A portion of the combustion products and excess air may still be vented through primary vents 166, 168 during this time, and it will further be appreciated that once the thermal gradient and steady state flow pattern have been established, combustion products and excess air may still be vented through both the primary and secondary venting arrangements.
It will be appreciated that while four individual vents 174 are illustrated for secondary venting arrangement 172, and the primary venting arrangement is implemented using two primary vents 166, 168 running proximate the left and right sides of oven cavity 144 in
In addition, while vents 174 of secondary venting arrangement 172 are illustrated as being disposed in a removable bottom panel forming oven bottom 152 in
As another example,
Other vent locations, including combinations of vents disposed in the various locations illustrated in
It will be appreciated that various additional modifications may be made to the embodiments discussed herein, and that a number of the concepts disclosed herein may be used in combination with one another or may be used separately. Therefore, the invention lies in the claims hereinafter appended.
