EP2101617B1

EP2101617B1 - A furniture for displaying goods on sale

Info

Publication number: EP2101617B1
Application number: EP06829865.2A
Authority: EP
Inventors: Sascha Vinz
Original assignee: Carrier Corp
Current assignee: Carrier Corp
Priority date: 2006-12-22
Filing date: 2006-12-22
Publication date: 2018-04-11
Anticipated expiration: 2026-12-22
Also published as: EP2101617A1; WO2008077425A1

Description

The invention refers to a refrigeration storage rack for displaying goods including a cooling unit and a display portion for the goods on sale. Refrigeration furnitures for displaying goods on sale are widely used in retail, such as from FR 2 670 020 A . If goods are displayed, which require cooling to prevent decay, such furniture have built-in cooling devices. Different types of refrigeration furnitures are known, for example shelfs, chest freezers, top-open freezers and the like.
Such furniture need a support, on which the goods on sale are displayed. Often such a support is realized in form of a shelf board or shelf tray connected to that furniture. Such supports typically need to realize two functions. First good insulation performance is needed, because in case that below the display portion of the goods a different temperature is prevailing, a temperature flow shall be prevented. Second the supports need to have a good mechanical rigidity, because the support needs to carry the weight load of the goods placed thereon and transmit these forces to holding points, at which the support is fixed to a frame of the furniture.
Nowadays, such supports are typically formed by two metal sheets placed opposite to each other and having a insulation board in between and these metal sheets are connected by riveting. However such solution suffers several deficiencies. Next to the high cost of producing the single parts and doing the assembly, such supports are also rather heavy. Also in the slit between the metal sheets dirt and liquids might intrude, which makes the cleaning difficult. Further, the supports produced by metal need a coating with paint, because firstly the appearance of the bare metal is not appealing to the customers and secondly in order to prevent rusting.
It is an object of the present invention to eliminate the problems of the prior art and to provide a support, which is at low-cost to produce, light-weighted and therefore easy to handle, which also provides good thermal insulation and a good mechanical stability.
This object is solved by a refrigeration furniture for displaying goods on sale comprising at least one support for the goods which support has a sandwich design with a top and bottom plastic structural sheet an inner layer of foam.
The plastic structural sheets provide a structural function within the sandwich construction. Particularly, the plastic structural sheet may have a strength and thickness so as to contribute to the strength of the support. The support may be a panel.
The furniture is a storage rack being open to the front side and having several layers of shelf-boards arranged above each-others, to which the goods on sale are placed. Each of the shelf-boards is formed by one of the supports and is hold on corresponding supports.
In embodiments not covered by the claims, the furniture can be a top-open freezer or top-open cooler or the like. Such freezers or coolers have typically a cooling unit at the bottom, above which the cooled display portion for the goods is provided. This display portion is opened at the top for a customer to pick up the goods easily. At the base of the cooled display portion a support is provided, which provides insulation against the cooling unit.
The cooling unit is typically a vapour compression refrigerator, which uses a compressor. As the cooling unit with the compressor and condensing unit are heat emitting components, an insulation towards the cooled display portion is required. In this application, the support has a double function. First it provides insulation and the sandwich design provides a rigid board on which the goods are to be piled securely. An advantage is that the outer layers of the support are formed out of a plastic material. Plastic has the advantage over a metal material, that it is rather easy to process and low-weighted. Moreover, no surface treatment, like painting, etc., is required.
The sandwich structure of the support provides a low-weighted rigid structure with a good geometrical moment of inertia, for securely carrying the weight of goods. The rigidity of strength of the support is due to the fact that the outer layers of plastic sheet are carrying the occurring tension and pressure forces properly. The strength of the support is particularly high if the foam layer is fixedly attached to the top and bottom plastic sheets. This can be done by glueing the plastic sheets to the foam layer over a relatively large extension or relatively large area and preferably over the full contact faces. Instead of glueing any other adhesive bond can be used. For example the foam material itself can be adhesive and attach to the structural sheets while it is foamed there between. The structural sheets may comprise flat surfaces. It is also possible to provide sheets having corrugated or otherwise structured surfaces. Thus it is possible to provide ribs on one or both surfaces of the structural sheets. The ribs can be provided in order to increase the strength and/or attachment to the foam material. Thus the ribs or other structures may be provided at the internal surface, i.e. the surface facing the foam. Surface features may also be provided at the outer surface, for example in order to avoid slipping of products, etc. It is also possible to have protrusions on one or both structural sheets which contact the respective other structural sheet or protrusions thereof. The two structural sheets may be bonded with each other at such contact portions. Such a construction might increase the strength of the support.
The support may have the shape of a flat board. The support may have a rectangular shape. By such simple and flat design, the support can be easily applied to various furniture and therefore be like a standard component, which is not specific to a particular furniture. The refrigerated storage rack has a number of shelf levels, each level being formed by a support. Also by the simple design, it is easy to assembly or disassemble to the furniture.
It is possible to integrally form attachments features into the support so as to allow easy attachment thereof to the shelf, etc..
The first and second plastic sheets may contact each other and may be bonded to each other at their respective circumferences at portions only but preferably around the complete circumference so as to form a circumferential contact zone which defines a basically closed volume for the foam layer. The foam can be injected into this closed volume as a liquid and cure therein. A proper selection of the plastic sheet material and the foam material can provide an adhesive and intimate bond between the foam and the top and bottom plastic sheets.
The support comprises a basically flat first plastic sheet and a basically flat second plastic sheet which is spaced from the first plastic sheet. Further the first plastic sheet comprises a circumferential edge protruding laterally towards the second plastic sheet and the first plastic sheet and the second plastic sheet are circumferentially connected in a connection zone of their edges to define a basically closed volume for the foam layer. This connection can be done by a gluing process or alternatively by plastic welding. By this design the inner foam layer is covered to all sides with the first or second plastic sheets which thereby keep harming environmental conditions such as dirt, moisture or water away. The first and second plastic sheets have a smooth surface, which is easy to clean.
The described shape of the first plastic sheet is preferably formed by a process of deep drawing, at which the material is plastically deformed under high temperature.
The foam layer may be formed by a hard foam. It can be a polyurethane foam. As already described, it is advantageous that the support has good thermal insulation values combined with rigidity. The first is received by the low density of the foam. The rigidity is received by the combination of a hard structure of the foam with the sandwich design. A material for the foam structure with good such characteristics is i.e. polyurethane foam. The material of the first and second plastic sheets can be formed from a thermoplastic material, such as polypropylene or the like.
There are hardly any restrictions to the size of the support other than those imposed by handling requirements. The support may have a small size of 30cm x 30 cm and less or be as large as 2m x 1m and larger. The thickness can be between 1 cm up to 5 cm or even more.
The support may exclusively be formed from plastic materials. This is an advantage over the prior art concepts, where a composition of metal and plastic material for insulation is provided and which therefore causes high cost for environmental friendly recycling.
The first and second sheet have preferably a thickness of between 1 mm and 3 mm. In particular a thickness of approx. 2mm is preferable. If the thickness is too low the sheet has no good stability when loaded with the goods on sale and might deform or break. Further a minimum thickness is required, so that no harmful scratches or the like can occur by the goods on the support. On the other hand, an exceeding thickness will hardly have any supportive influence for the overall stability of the sandwich. The foam layer has preferably a thickness between 1 cm and 2,5 cm, which gives good insulation values combined with good stability.
In the following, the figures are described in detail. It is covered by the idea of the invention to combine different features freely and in particular features of different embodiments may be combined, as long as the combination falls within the scope of the claims. It is show in:

Fig.1: a top-view to the support;
Fig.2: a side view of the support of Fig.1;
Fig.3: a sectional drawing A-A as defined in Fig. 1;
Fig.4: the detail B of Fig.3;
Fig.5: a second embodiment of the support;
Fig.6: a sectional drawing A-A as defined in Fig. 5;
Fig.7: a sectional view of a refrigeration furniture for displaying goods with a storage rack; and
Fig.8: a sectional view of a top-open cooling furniture, not according to the invention.

Fig.1 shows in top-view the support 4, which as a rectangular shape and a length of approx. 1,2 m with a width of approx. 40 cm. In Fig.2 a corresponding side view is shown. Hereat, the height of the foam layer is 15mm and the first and second plastic sheet have a thickness of 2mm each. Fig. 3 shows the sectional view A-A as of Fig.1 and its detail B is shown in Fig. 4. Here the top plastic sheet is first plastic sheet 5 having its lateral edge protruding laterally towards the second plastic sheet 6, so that both sheets touch at the connection zone 8. Additionally, the respective end edges at the respective longitudinal ends of the support 4 may accordingly be constructed. At this connection zone both sheets are combined by a gluing or welding process. The first plastic sheet 5 has at the end of its portion, which is protruding to the second plastic sheet 6, a portion 8 which extends in parallel to the second plastic sheet 6 and which defines the contact area for the connection. Alternatively, a support can also be formed by two plastic sheets, which have basically the shape of the first plastic sheet. It is not necessary to manufacture the support from two separate first and second plastic sheets 5, 6, but first and second plastic sheets 5, 6 may also be of unitary construction. It is also to be noted that while the first plastic sheet 5, being shown in the figures as being the top plastic sheet, it may also be the bottom plastic sheet instead.
Fig. 5 shows an alternative embodiment of the support, which has a finger hole 9 in its main surface centrally arranged and close to the edge of one longitudinal end of the support. The section A-A of Fig.6 shows, that the finger hole 9 is a through hole, pervading the first and second plastic sheets 5 and 6 and the foam layer 7. The purpose of the finger hole 9 is that a person can lift the support 4 also when it is built-in under conditions, that the edges of the support are not easy to be reached. This can be the case in the embodiment as of Fig. 8.
Fig. 7 shows a refrigeration furniture 1 for displaying the goods on sale with three supports 4 which define three goods display portions 3 for the goods for sale. The upper two supports 4 are supported by triangular-like brackets and the lower support is supported by a lower casing of the furniture. In the lower casing of the furniture a cooling unit 2 is located. The cooling unit 2 is a-compression refrigeration system, which principally comprises a compressor, an evaporator and a condenser and a coolant flowing therethrough. The compressor and condenser emit a considerable amount of heat. Therefore, the goods display unit 3 needs to be insulated against the cooling unit. This is done by the lowest of the supports 4, which is located above the cooling unit 2. The evaporator of course is not insulated against the goods display portion 3. Instead, the evaporator is positioned in an air channel through which air is moved, for example by means of a blower (not shown). The air is passed by the evaporator and channelled into the display portion 3 for cooling goods therein, as it is conventional. The upper two supports 4 do not fulfil any purpose of insulation, because the temperature above and below them is principally the same. For the supports 4 however the mechanical stability provided by the sandwich structure is advantageous for bearing the weight of the goods on display. To reduce the number of different components of the refrigeration furniture 1 the three supports 3 are identical and freely exchangeable. This is advantageous for the logistics of production and service of the furniture.
Fig. 8 shows a refrigeration furniture 1 according to an embodiment not covered by the claims which is formed as a top-open freezer or cooler. It principally has the shape of a coffer with a open top, which also could be covered by i.e. a sliding window to keep the cold in. The purpose of the furniture can be for cooling in general (higher temperatures) or for deep-freezing (lower temperatures). This furniture comprises a goods display portion 3, which is located above the cooling unit 2, which is symbolized in Fig.8 by a rectangular box. From an evaporator (not shown) of the cooling unit 2, the cold air is directed into the goods display portion. At the base of the goods display portion 3 a support 4 is located to firstly carry the load of the goods and also to insulate the goods display portion 3 to the cooling unit 2. Such insulation is required for the reasons as explained under the embodiment of Fig. 7.

Claims

Refrigeration storage rack being open to the front side (1), for displaying goods on sale, including a cooling unit (2) and a goods display portion (3), the refrigeration storage rack comprising several layers of shelf boards arranged above each other for placing the goods on sale thereon, each of the shelf boards being formed by a respective support (4) having a sandwich design comprising two outer plastic structural sheets (5, 6) and an inner layer (7) of foam, said inner layer (7) of foam being fixedly attached to the two outer plastic structural sheets (5, 6);
wherein the cooling unit (2) comprises a compressor, a condenser, an evaporator and a coolant flowing therethrough; and
wherein the compressor and the condenser are located below the lowest support (4), and the lowest support (4) is configured to insulate the goods display portion (3) against the compressor and the condenser.
Refrigeration storage rack (1) according to claim 1, wherein the support (4) has the shape of a flat board.
Refrigeration storage rack (1) according to claim 2, wherein the support (4) has a rectangular shape.
Refrigeration storage rack (1) according to any of the previous claims, wherein the two plastic sheets (5,6) are formed to have a circumferential contact zone to define a basically closed volume for the foam layer (7).
Refrigeration storage rack (1) according to any of the preceding claims, wherein the foam layer (7) is formed by a hard foam.
Refrigeration storage rack (1) according to claim 5, wherein the foam layer (7) is formed by polyurethane foam.
Refrigeration storage rack (1) according to any of the preceding claims, wherein the first and second sheets (5,6) have a thickness of between 1 mm and 3 mm.
Refrigeration storage rack (1) according to any of the preceding claims, wherein the foam layer (7) has a thickness between 1 cm and 2,5 cm.