Convection oven

A convection oven includes an oven body having a heating chamber heated by a heat source, and a vibration unit mounted at one side of the oven body and vibrating heated air so as to be uniformly distributed within the heating chamber. As the vibration unit vibrates, air within the heating chamber can be fluctuated periodically to promote mixing between more heated air and less heated air to make temperature of air uniform. Accordingly, heat can be uniformly distributed to a cooking target or material, quality of cooking can be improved, and in addition, because cooking time can be shortened, the performance of the oven can be enhanced.

RELATED APPLICATION

The present disclosure relates to subject matter contained in priority Korean Application No. 10-2006-12243, filed on Feb. 8, 2006, which is herein expressly incorporated by reference in its entirety.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to a convection oven and, more particularly, to a convection oven capable of improving performance of cooking food items or heat treatment performance of materials and shortening a heating time by removing a phenomenon that an internal temperature of a heating chamber is not uniform.

2. Description of the Related Art

In general, an oven is a device for applying heat to a material placed in a closed heating chamber. In case of a home oven, the oven is commonly used as a cooking device for heating food items and in case of an industrial oven, the oven is used to heat or melt various materials or test samples at a certain temperature.

One of important criteria for evaluating performance of the oven is heat distribution capability over a heating target, namely, a food item or a material. This is because how successfully a food item is cooked or a material is thermally processed can be determined according to how uniformly heat is distributed. For example, if heat is inclined to a location within the oven while a food item is being cooked, the food item would be burned or less cooked and a cooking time would be lengthened as much.

Within the heating chamber, hot air can be mixed with naturally generated convection flow, but the degree is too small to obtain a sufficient effect. Thus, in order to increase a heat spreading speed and obtain uniform temperature distribution in the oven, various techniques have been developed.

One of the typical techniques is an installation of a fan within the oven to forcibly circulate internal air of the oven to cause convection. However, convection generated by the fan may contribute to distribute heat, but not enough and hot air flowing is still partially concentrated (not uniform), causing a phenomenon that temperatures at locations are high or low within the oven.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a convection oven capable of improving heating performance and shortening a heating time by making hot air uniform within a heating chamber.

To achieve these and other advantages and in accordance with the purpose of the present invention, as embodied and broadly described herein, there is provided a convection oven including: an oven body having a heating chamber heated by a heat source; and a vibration unit mounted at one side of the oven body and vibrating heated air so as to be uniformly distributed within the heating chamber.

Herein, a plurality of air holes may be formed at the side of the oven body to allow heated air within the heating chamber to flow in and out therethrough according to vibration of the vibration unit.

The vibration unit may include a vibration plate installed to face the heating chamber and generating waves of heated air and an actuator for driving the vibration plate.

A cover may be provided at the vibration unit to cover the periphery of the vibration plate so that when the vibration plate vibrates, an air flow that passes through the air holes disposed at the inner side of the vibration plate and an air flow that passes through the air holes disposed at the outer side of the vibration plate can be opposed to each other.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

A convection oven according to the present invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1is a side sectional view of a convection oven according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

As shown inFIG. 1, a convection oven10includes a heating chamber11aheated by a heat source14and an oven body11where a door12is installed.

The heat source14may be a gas burner as shown inFIG. 1but it can be also an electric heater.

A control switch13for controlling the convection oven10can be provided at an upper portion of the oven body11.

A fan20is can be installed at a rear surface of the oven body11in order to forcibly circulate air sent after being heated by the heat source14. Accordingly, air within the heating chamber11acan be mixed faster according to a rotation of the fan20than by the convection current that is naturally generated.

A plurality of air holes15A and15B are formed at the side of the oven body11, and a vibration unit30is installed at the opposite side of the air holes15A and15B in order to vibrate heated air so as to be evenly distributed through the air holes15A and15B.

FIG. 2is a sectional view taken along line I-I inFIG. 1. As shown inFIG. 2, the vibration unit30includes a vibration plate31installed toward the heating chamber11aand generating waves to the heated air, an actuator40for actuating the vibration plate31forward and backward, and a frame32for supporting the actuator40at the oven body11.

The actuator40includes a voice coil41fixed at a tail of the vibration plate31and a fixed magnet42installed to be separated from the voice coil41at a certain distance and applying magnetic force to the voice coil41. Herein, as the fixed magnet42, the electromagnetic magnetic as shown can be used, and a permanent magnet can be also adopted.

In addition, an eccentric motor can be used to achieve the same effect as that of the actuator40.

The air holes15A and15B refer to air holes15A formed at a first interval (A), a region which corresponds to the vibration plate31, and air holes15B formed at a second interval (B) coming between an outer circumference of the vibration plate31and a cover33.

Preferably, the vibration plate31has a corn shape and can be tightly attached to the oven body11to cover the air holes15A of the first interval (A). It is recommended that the vibration plate31is made of a material with appropriate heat resistance to have stable response characteristics in a high temperature usage environment and high frequency.

A damper50for absorbing an impact that may be transferred to the oven body11when the vibration plate31vibrates can be mounted at a rear end portion of the vibration plate31.

The cover33is provided around the vibration plate31so that when the vibration plate31vibrates, an air flow through the air holes15A formed at the first interval (A) belonging to the inner side of the vibration plate31and an air flow through the air holes15B formed at the second interval (B) belonging to the outer side of the vibration plate31can be opposed to each other.

Herein, air flows are being opposed to each other means, for example, when air passes from the heating chamber11aand is discharged through the air holes15A to the vibration plate31(At this time, the vibration plate31retreats toward the actuator30), air present between the cover33and the vibration plate31passes through the air holes15B of the second interval (B) and then introduced into the heating chamber11a(arrows indicated by a dotted line indicate such air flows). In addition, arrows indicated by a solid line indicate the air flows when the vibration plate31is moved in the opposite direction.

Accordingly, when the vibration plate31vibrates forward and backward, air passes through the air holes15A of the first interval (A) and the air holes (B) of the second interval (B) in the mutually opposite directions to generate air streams split minutely within the heating chamber11a, whereby air flows are mixed with each other to its maximum level within the heating chamber.

In other words, the hot air within the heating chamber11ais first forcibly mixed according to the rotation of the fan20, and in addition, as the vibration plate31vibrates, the flow of the hot air is uniformly distributed. Accordingly, deviation of temperature of the air at various locations within the heating chamber11acan be reduced.

This effect is shown inFIG. 3.FIG. 3is a graph showing that deviation of temperature within the heating chamber11ais reduced as the vibration unit30is operated.

It is noted that the deviation of temperatures of five locations within the heating chamber is remarkably reduced at the time interval (T1) during which the vibration unit30is operated.

Namely, the temperature deviation between a maximum value and a minimum value was observed to be about 18° C. before the vibration unit30was operated, which was reduced to about 10° C. after the vibration30was operated.

This means that because heat is evenly distributed to a material, a cooking time or heat treatment time is shortened.

As described above, the convection oven according to the present invention has many advantages.

That is, for example, because the vibration unit vibrates, air within the heating chamber can be fluctuated periodically to promote mixing between more heated air and less heated air to make temperature of air uniform. Accordingly, heat can be uniformly distributed to a cooking target or material, quality of cooking can be improved, and in addition, because cooking time can be shortened, the performance of the oven can be enhanced.

In addition, air within the heating chamber is flows into or out of the heating chamber through different air holes according to vibration of the vibration unit, the hot air can be more quickly mixed.

Moreover, because the cover is provided to cover the vibration unit, the air within the heating chamber can be fluctuated without an air loss.