KR20150134849A - Supercooling apparatus for liquid beverage - Google Patents

Abstract

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention [0001] The present invention relates to a liquid beverage / liquid cooling apparatus for supercooling a liquid beverage such as a beverage or a liquor in a liquid state to a freezing point or lower. According to one embodiment of the present invention, A door installed at one side of the body and opening and closing the cooling chamber; An evaporator installed at one side of the cooling chamber for subcooling air in the cooling chamber; And a blowing fan installed at one side of the evaporator and supplying the cool air, which is supercooled through the evaporator, to the cooling chamber.

Description

{SUPERCOOLING APPARATUS FOR LIQUID BEVERAGE}

The present invention relates to a cooling device, and more particularly, to a liquid beverage / cooling device for supercooling a liquid beverage such as a beverage or a liquor in a liquid state to a freezing point or lower.

Since the advent of the refrigerator, the desire of people to enjoy a cooler and tasty drink has come to be enjoyed in the form of ice-cream by freezing the beverage, and furthermore, as an intermediate form of beverage and ice cream, a mixture of ice granules and beverage, ) To enjoy it.

These slushes are made by crushing ice and mixing it with beverages. The resulting slush is not only inconvenient to eat because of its very large pellets of ice, but also has the problem that the original beverage is diluted and the taste is deteriorated over time. There are many things that are not enough to make.

Therefore, in order to satisfy the needs of such people, the beverage itself is subcooled below its freezing point so that there is no risk of dilution even though it is composed of uniform and fine ice crystal particles that are not burdensome to eat, A method of making a slush is known by adding ice to the beverage or by applying shock or vibration to freeze it.

However, when producing such a slush, it is necessary to supercool the beverage in a state where it is not frozen at a freezing point or lower, and to maintain such supercooled state continuously.

Generally, water undergoes a phase change to ice when the temperature is sub-zero below 1 atm, sometimes without phase change, but in the form of supercooled water. This supercooling state is relatively unstable because it has a higher free energy than in the ice state. Here, free energy refers to the energy that is effective when a chemical reaction continues. Since the second law of thermodynamics has the property of moving from the higher energy side to the lower energy side, The free energy is going to decrease.

In other words, it is said that the water is in a quasi-stable state in which the water is not frozen at a subzero temperature but is in a supercooled state. It is not unstable but is not a stable state, so that when disturbance is applied, , That is, frozen. For this reason, it is very difficult to maintain the supercooled state.

When the range of the supercooled state is defined as the supercooled degree without being frozen on the basis of the freezing point, in reality, the supercooling degree of beverages including water is very small, which is theoretical. That is, the temperature range in which the supercooled state of the beverage is maintained is very small, and it is empirically known that it freezes immediately at a relatively low temperature.

For this reason, it is very difficult to make a slush beverage by subcooling a beverage in a general refrigerator, because even if the supercooling degree differs according to each ingredient of each beverage and the degree of supercooling is obtained, Is so large that it is difficult to maintain the supercooled state of the beverage having a small supercooling degree.

JP 2002-022333 A (2002.1.23 open)

Disclosure of the Invention The present invention has been conceived in order to solve the problems as described above, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a liquid beverage and cooling device capable of realizing an optimal state of a space for storing beverages in order to stably implement and maintain a supercooled state of beverage The purpose is to provide.

The above-described object of the present invention can be achieved by a refrigerator comprising: a body having a cooling chamber formed therein; A door installed at one side of the body and opening / closing the cooling chamber; An evaporator installed at an upper portion of the cooling chamber for subcooling air in the cooling chamber; And a blowing fan installed on a rear wall of the cooling chamber and supplying a cool air, which is supercooled through the evaporator, to the cooling chamber.

According to a preferred aspect of the present invention, a duct frame is formed at the upper end of the cooling chamber so that at least one inlet port is formed through the bottom surface, the evaporator is installed above the duct frame, An evaporator fan motor may be installed in front of the evaporator.

According to another preferred aspect of the present invention, a spacing space is formed between the rear end of the duct frame and the rear wall of the cooling chamber, and the blowing fan may be installed below the spacing space.

According to another preferred aspect of the present invention, the blowing fan includes a fan frame coupled to the rear wall of the cooling chamber in the left-right direction, and a fan-shaped fan A blade fan, and a driving motor installed at one side of the fan frame and rotating the blade fan.

According to another preferred aspect of the present invention, the fan frame may include a guide plate that is gently bent so as to cover the upper side and the rear side of the blade fan.

According to another preferred aspect of the present invention, the blade fan may include a pair of discs and a plurality of blades spaced apart from each other in the circumferential direction between the pair of discs.

According to another preferred aspect of the present invention, the blowing fan further includes a louver that surrounds the outer periphery of the blade fan and has a tuyer at one side thereof, and a rotation motor installed at the other side of the fan frame to rotate the louver .

According to another preferred aspect of the present invention, the control unit may further include a controller for controlling the operation of the rotation motor to adjust the direction of the cool air.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a refrigerator comprising: a body having a cooling chamber formed therein; A door installed at one side of the body and opening / closing the cooling chamber; An evaporator installed at a lower portion of the cooling chamber for subcooling air in the cooling chamber; And a blowing fan installed on a rear wall of the cooling chamber and supplying a cool air, which is supercooled through the evaporator, to the cooling chamber.

According to the liquid beverage supercooling apparatus of the present invention, the beverage can be supercooled without freezing below the freezing point, and the supercooled state of the beverage can be stably maintained by uniformly supplying the supercooled cool air to the entire cooling chamber.

In addition, when necessary, the supercooled cool air is concentratedly supplied to a specific portion of the cooling chamber, so that it is possible to positively cope with a local temperature change of the cooling chamber.

1 is an exploded perspective view of a liquid beverage supercooling device according to an embodiment of the present invention;
2 is a front view of a liquid beverage supercooling apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention;
3 is a side view of a liquid beverage supercooling device according to one embodiment of the present invention.
4 is a perspective view of a blowing fan according to an embodiment of the present invention;
Figures 5 and 6 are cross-sectional views of a blade fan with louvers according to another embodiment of the present invention.
7 is a block diagram of a control unit according to an embodiment of the present invention;

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. It is to be understood, however, that the embodiments described below are only for explanation of the embodiments of the present invention so that those skilled in the art can easily carry out the invention, It does not mean anything. In describing various embodiments of the present invention, the same reference numerals are used for components having the same technical characteristics.

Example

2 is a front view of a liquid beverage supercooling apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 3 is a cross-sectional view of a liquid beverage supercooling apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. Lt; RTI ID = 0.0 > liquid < / RTI >

1 to 3, a liquid beverage supercooling apparatus 100 according to an embodiment of the present invention includes a body 200 having a cooling chamber 210 formed therein, A door 300 for opening and closing the cooling chamber 210, an evaporator 400 for supercooling the air in the cooling chamber 210, and cool air supercooled by the evaporator 400 to the cooling chamber 210 And a blowing fan 500 for blowing air.

The body 200 is formed in a hexahedron shape in which a space portion is formed, and dimensions and appearance such as width, length and height can be appropriately selected as needed. A heat insulating material 220 for preventing heat transfer is filled in a frame forming the body 200 and an input unit 230 for setting the temperature of the cooling chamber 210 is provided at an upper end of the body 200.

The space portion inside the body 200 is vertically separated by the separating plate 240. The space portion above the separating plate 240 is a cooling chamber for subcooling or supercooling a liquid beverage such as juice, (Not shown).

The space portion under the separator 240 constitutes a machine room 600 in which devices constituting the cooling system such as the compressor 620 and the condenser 630 are installed and a plurality of through holes 611 are formed in front of the machine room 600 The formed machine room cover 610 is engaged to close the machine room 600 from the outside. At this time, the air in the machine room 600 whose temperature has been raised by the condenser 630 is discharged to the outside through the through-hole 611 of the machine room cover 610 by the condenser fan motor 640 installed in the rear of the condenser 630 .

On both sides of the cooling chamber 210, support portions (not shown) for installing the plurality of shelves 211 in the height direction are formed, and both ends of the shelf 211 are cooled And is seated on the supporting portions of both side walls of the chamber 210. Accordingly, the plurality of shelves 211 are spaced apart from each other in the height direction, so that the cooling chamber 210 can be separated into upper and lower stages.

The liquid beverage is stored on the shelf 211 in a state that the liquid beverage is contained in the container and stored in the container 211. The shelf 211 is provided with a plurality of through- preferably in the form of a grill.

A door 300 for opening and closing the cooling chamber 210 is provided at one side of the cooling chamber 210, preferably in front of the cooling chamber 210. 1 to 3 show an example in which one side of the door 300 is hinged to one side of the body 200. However, the present invention is not limited thereto, and the door may be opened or closed by a door of a sliding movement type .

At the upper end of the cooling chamber 210, a duct plate 410 for installing the evaporator 400 is coupled. The duct plate 410 includes a bottom plate 411 and a pair of side plates 412 formed by upwardly bending both sides of the bottom plate 411. At least one inlet 413 is formed through one side of the bottom plate 411 of the duct plate 410 and the evaporator 400 is installed on the bottom plate 411 and positioned behind the inlet 413. In addition, an evaporator fan motor 420 is installed in front of the evaporator 400 so as to face the evaporator 400 with an inlet 413 therebetween.

When the evaporator fan motor 420 is operated, the air in the cooling chamber 210 flows into the duct plate 410 through the inlet 413 of the bottom plate 411, The evaporator 400 is deprived of heat and is supercooled.

The supercooled cool air moves to the rear of the evaporator 400 and is separated from the rear end of the bottom plate 411 of the duct plate 410 and the rear wall 212 of the cooling chamber 210 as shown in FIG. And then flows into the cooling chamber 210 through the space 213.

At this time, a blowing fan 500 is installed in the lower part of the spacing space 213. The blowing fan 500 pushes out the supercooled cool air flowing into the cooling chamber 210, It serves as a supplier. That is, according to the present invention, the cool air that is supercooled through the evaporator 400 is directly sprayed to the cooling chamber 210 through the blowing fan 500 without passing through another duct.

4 is a perspective view of a blowing fan according to an embodiment of the present invention.

4, the blowing fan 500 includes a fan frame 510 coupled to the rear wall 212 of the cooling chamber 210, a blade 510 rotatably coupled to the front of the fan frame 510, A fan 520, and a drive motor 530 that rotates the blade fan 520.

The fan frame 510 includes a base plate 511 that is coupled to the rear wall 212 of the cooling chamber 210 in the left and right direction and a pair of vertically coupled front and rear ends of the base plate 511 A support plate 512 and a guide plate 513 that is gently bent to cover the upper and rear sides of the blade fan 520. At this time, both sides of the guide plate 513 are fixedly coupled to the support plate 512.

The blade fan 520 may be configured to include at least one blade fan module 521. The blade fan module 521 includes a pair of discs 522 and a plurality of blades 523 that are spaced apart from each other in the circumferential direction between the pair of discs 522. At this time, the plurality of blade fan modules 521 may be combined in the longitudinal direction to form one blade fan 520.

The disk 522 at both ends of the blade fan 520 is rotatably coupled to the support plate 512 by a rotation shaft (not shown), and the blade fan 520 is rotated at one side of the support plate 512 A drive motor 530 is installed.

The plurality of blades 523 are coupled such that both ends thereof are raised obliquely along the rim of the disc 522. Accordingly, when the rotary shaft is rotated by the operation of the driving motor 530, And pushes it outwardly of the fan 520.

Since the upper and the rear of the blade fan 520 are blocked by the guide plate 513, the wind generated by the blade fan 520 is guided by the guide plate 513, Lt; / RTI > That is, the cool air, which is supercooled through the evaporator 400, is uniformly supplied to the entire area of the cooling chamber 210 by the blade fan 520 installed at the upper end of the rear wall of the cooling chamber 210.

The overall flow of cold air will be described with reference to FIG. The air in the cooling chamber 210 flows into the upper portion of the duct plate 410 through the inlet 413 of the bottom plate 411 of the duct plate 410 and the air introduced from the evaporator fan motor 420 flows into the evaporator 400, Direction.

In the process of passing through the evaporator 400, air deprived of heat from the evaporator 400 is supercooled, and the supercooled cool air flows into the cooling chamber 210 through the space 213 in the rear of the evaporator 400. At this time, the blowing fan 500 functions to uniformly supply the supercooled cool air to the entire area of the cooling chamber 210, and the blade fan 520 is rotated by the operation of the drive motor 530, (The interval between the front and the bottom).

Although not shown in the drawing, as another embodiment of the present invention, it is also possible that the evaporator 400 is installed below the cooling chamber 210. That is, a duct plate 410 having an inlet port 413 formed at the lower end of the cooling chamber 210 is coupled to the evaporator 400 at the bottom or below the duct plate 410. The cool air having passed through the evaporator 400 passes through the space 213 between the rear end of the duct plate 410 and the rear wall of the cooling chamber 210 by the evaporator fan motor 420 and flows into the cooling chamber 210 do.

In this case, it is preferable that the machine room 600 is formed in a separate space defined by one side of the installation space of the evaporator 400, for example, below the installation space of the evaporator 400. The blowing fan 500 is installed on the rear wall of the cooling chamber 210 so as to be spaced apart from the upper portion of the duct plate 410. The guide plate 513 is gently bent to cover the lower side and the rear side of the blade fan 520 So that the cold air is pushed to the section between the front and the upper side.

5 and 6 are cross-sectional views of a blade fan equipped with a louver according to another embodiment of the present invention, and the bold arrows indicate the flow direction of the cool air.

When the entire temperature of the cooling chamber 210 can not be maintained uniformly due to a rise in temperature of a part of the cooling chamber 210 compared to other areas due to opening of the door 300 or the like, It is necessary to lower the temperature.

To this end, the blowing fan 500 'according to another embodiment of the present invention includes a louver 540 that can adjust the direction of the cool air.

According to another embodiment of the present invention, a cylindrical louver 540 surrounding the outer periphery of the blade fan 520 is axially rotatably coupled between the pair of support plates 512. A rotation motor (not shown) for rotating the louver 540 is provided on the other side of the support plate 512 so as to face the drive motor 530 that rotates the blade fan 520.

The louver 540 is provided at one side of the louver 540 with a ventilation hole 541 for concentrating the chilled air in a desired direction and has an opening 542 are formed.

5 shows a state in which the opening 542 of the louver 540 is positioned between the front and lower sides of the blade fan 520. [ At this time, the blade fan 520 pushes the cool air through the opening 542 to a region between the front and the lower side of the blade fan 520 as in the above-described embodiment.

6 shows a state in which the louver 540 is rotated by the rotation motor operation so that the air outlet 541 is positioned at one point in the area between the front and the lower side of the blade fan 520. [

At this time, the blade fan 520 pushes the cold air in one direction toward the air outlet 541, and one side of the cooling chamber 210 is intensively cooled.

That is, according to another embodiment of the present invention, by rotating the louver 540 by a predetermined angle by means of the rotary motor, the cold air can be intensively transmitted in a desired direction. At this time, the forward rotation and the reverse rotation of the rotary motor are repeated for a predetermined time, so that the air outlet 541 reciprocates between the lower side and the front side of the blade fan 520. As a result, It goes without saying that it may be cooled.

7 is a block diagram of a control unit according to an embodiment of the present invention.

In order to uniformly and stably control the temperature inside the cooling chamber 210, at least one temperature sensor 710 is provided on one side of the cooling chamber 210. In addition, it is preferable that an opening / closing sensor 720 is provided on one side of the door 300 in order to control the temperature change due to the inflow of outside air or the outflow of the cold air when the door 300 is opened or closed.

The controller 700 controls the compressor 620, the evaporator fan motor 420, the condenser fan motor 640, and the driving motor (not shown) based on the values detected by various sensors such as the temperature sensor 710 and the opening / closing sensor 720 530, and the rotation motor 550, thereby maintaining the temperature inside the cooling chamber 210 uniformly and stably at a desired temperature.

The controller 700 controls the compressor 620, the evaporator fan motor 420, and the driving motor 530 so that the temperature of the cooling chamber 210 detected by the temperature sensor 710 becomes a predetermined temperature range, And so on. That is, when the temperature in the cooling chamber 210 becomes higher than the set temperature inputted by the input unit 230 or the like, the compressor 620 and the evaporator fan motor 420 are turned on and the temperature in the cooling chamber 210 The compressor 620 and the evaporator fan motor 420 are turned off so that the temperature in the cooling chamber 210 can be controlled within a predetermined temperature range.

As another example, when it is detected that the door 300 is opened by the opening / closing sensor 720, the controller 700 may turn off the compressor 620 and the evaporator fan motor 420 to prevent energy wastage have. When the door 300 is closed, the compressor 620 and the evaporator fan motor 420 are turned on while the rotary motor 550 is operated to rotate the louver 540, The area adjacent to the door 300 in the large cooling chamber 210 can be intensively cooled. At this time, when the door 300 is opened, the rotation motor 550 is operated to intensively cool the front region of the cooling chamber 210 to minimize the temperature change in the cooling chamber 210 to be.

While the present invention has been particularly shown and described with reference to exemplary embodiments thereof, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to the disclosed exemplary embodiments.

100: supercooling device 200: body
210: cooling chamber 211: shelf
300: Door 400: Evaporator
410: duct plate 413: inlet
420: evaporator fan motor 500,500 ': blowing fan
510: fan frame 520: blade fan
530: drive motor 540: louver
600: Machine room 700: Control part

Claims (9)

A body having a cooling chamber formed therein;
A door installed at one side of the body and opening / closing the cooling chamber;
An evaporator installed at an upper portion of the cooling chamber for subcooling air in the cooling chamber; And
And a blowing fan installed on a rear wall of the cooling chamber for supplying the cooling air, which is supercooled through the evaporator, to the cooling chamber. The method according to claim 1,
Wherein the duct frame is coupled to the upper end of the cooling chamber and the duct frame is formed at the upper end of the cooling chamber and the evaporator is installed on the upper side of the duct frame and the evaporator is disposed in front of the evaporator Wherein an evaporator fan motor is installed. The method of claim 2,
Wherein a spacing space is formed between a rear end of the duct frame and a rear wall of the cooling chamber, and the blowing fan is installed below the spacing space. The method of claim 3,
Wherein the fan frame includes a fan frame coupled to the rear wall of the cooling chamber in the left and right direction, a cylindrical blade fan coupled to the front of the fan frame so as to be axially rotatable in the vertical direction, And a drive motor installed to rotate the blade fan. The method of claim 4,
Wherein the fan frame includes a guide plate that is gently bent so as to cover an upper side and a rear side of the blade fan. The method of claim 4,
Wherein the blade fan includes a pair of discs and a plurality of blades spaced apart from each other along the circumferential direction between the pair of discs. The method of claim 4,
Wherein the blowing fan further comprises a louver that surrounds an outer periphery of the blade fan and has a tuyere formed at one side thereof, and a rotation motor installed at the other side of the fan frame to rotate the louver. The method of claim 7,
Further comprising a controller for controlling the operation of the rotary motor to adjust the wind direction of the cool air. A body having a cooling chamber formed therein;
A door installed at one side of the body and opening / closing the cooling chamber;
An evaporator installed at a lower portion of the cooling chamber for subcooling air in the cooling chamber; And
And a blowing fan installed on a rear wall of the cooling chamber for supplying the cooling air, which is supercooled through the evaporator, to the cooling chamber.

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