ES2225232T3 - CONTAINER COVER WITH THERMAL INSULATION. - Google Patents

Abstract

A thermally insulated lid assembly for an insulated container comprises a thermally insulated rotary lid (RL) capable of sealing an opening of an inner cavity of the container adapted to hold objects to be stored therein, the said rotary lid being provided with at least one eccentrically positioned retrieval port (P) and a thermally insulated plug (PL) for the said port.

Description

Container lid with thermal insulation.

Technical field

The present invention relates to a cover of container with port. More particularly, it refers to the design of an appropriate lid assembly to fit a container isolated, to keep the content below 10ºC, even in the cases in which the container is frequently opened to high ambient temperatures, while providing Easy loading of content and easy accessibility to it. It also refers to a container equipped with a lid of this kind.

Background and prior art

Many perishable food items are transported, stored and distributed to consumers to sub-environmental temperatures, to prevent them from spoiling as consequence of biological actions (as in the case of milk, fish, meat etc.) or to preserve its characteristics physical, olfactory or mouthfeel during consumption (soft drinks, frozen desserts, ice cream etc.). For such materials such as ice cream and frozen desserts, it is preferable to keep the temperature below -18ºC for maximum acceptability of consumer. Containers of different shapes and sizes are used for this purpose. They are thermally insulated for Reduce heat load on stored items. It can provide thermal insulation using materials low thermal conductivity, such as expanded polystyrene or polyurethane foams, which can be sandwiched between the walls inside and outside of a container, or they themselves can be molded with a container shape.

To keep the material stored at required temperature, several improvements in the container design and cooling systems, for example such as the use of cooling batteries, the use of dry ice, of Built-in cooling systems, full encapsulation or partial container with frozen eutectic mixtures, the vacuum super insulation, etc. However, frequent opening of the lid of the container during retail and other operations leads to an exchange between external air to ambient temperature and cold air inside the container, which results in an increase in the temperature of the content. The opening that leads to the storage cavity is designed from so that it is large enough to allow Easy and fast loading of the material. However, every time open the lid that covers the storage cavity to remove your content, the heat exchange is very high, which produces a increase in the temperature of the material, imposing, therefore, a greater load on the cooling system. The content at temperatures below those required by increasing the amount of refrigerant used to maintain the temperature required or going to cooling temperatures inordinately low, both being inexpensive solutions.

In the prior art, containers with covers that have a discharge opening, suitable for a easy dispensing of the contents. Document US 5743427 shows a lid for a container that has an opening of discharge in the lid to allow the consumption of a drink to through the lid, but the discharge opening area is designed only for fluid edibles.

Top covers have been previously used for ice cream display cabinets and ice cube bunkers that have of a door divided by the center with a hinge to allow Access from any side of the showcase. Although this design will restrict the opening to 50% of the cover area, will not protect significantly or economically the contents at temperatures Very low.

WO 9925622 provides a container for groceries, particularly food and items ready-made frozen, which has a discharge opening It can be closed again. This invention does not solve the problem. prolonged storage of material under conditions of repeated exposure to high temperatures, for example, during Food sale.

An objective of the present invention is to design a lid assembly for an insulated container, provided with economic quantities of the cooling system that allows a convenient loading and easy and frequent collection of contents, while maintaining the temperature of the contents below 10 ° C for sufficiently long periods of time.

Brief Description of the Invention

It is a first objective of the present invention provide a thermally insulated lid assembly for a insulated container, comprising an insulated rotating lid thermally, that can seal the opening of the inner cavity of the container adapted to keep the objects to be store inside, the aforementioned rotary lid is provided of at least one eccentrically located collection port and a thermally insulated plug for the mentioned port.

The rotating cover can rotate around an axis, or more than one. In a preferred embodiment, the rotating cover rotates around an axis. In this preferred embodiment, the lid assembly is seated in a circular opening of the container that leads to the inner storage cavity, and rotates thereon. Cap rotation is facilitated by providing advantageous features, such as smooth contact surfaces, lubrication, guided ball bearings in a channel, etc. In another preferred embodiment of the invention, the rotary cover is provided with a fixed or disconnectable cooling arrangement, for example as one or more eutectic pads, etc. The face of the rotating cover on the side of the inner cavity may be provided with a cooling means, such as eutectic / cooling pads and devices to hold them in place. This allows an additional cooling capacity inside the container, while in the prior art, in which when the lids are opened they show full opening of the container, it is not possible to have additional cooling means below the
top.

The withdrawal port is eccentrically located provided on the rotating lid to maximize the area swept by the port over the storage cavity and therefore for provide a better view of the contents and facilitate access to the specific item from the storage cavity. It opens the port plug to recover the contents during the sale. The port can be of any regular geometric shape, as per example, circular, oval, square, rectangular, triangular or Any other irregular shape.

Preferably, the area of the port with respect to the lid is less than 40%, preferably less than 25%, and even more preferably, less than 10%. The plug can be free, articulated, able to get up, or joined in any other way to the rotating lid or the outside of the container.

In a preferred embodiment, the lid is transparent. This allows visualizing the inside of the container and rotate the lid to place the port on top of the product that is It will extract.

It is a second objective of the invention provide a container equipped with such a lid.

The insulated storage container can be designed in any way appropriate, such as, for example, parallelepiped, cube, sphere, cylinder or other shape geometric attractive. The container can be used in the position horizontal, in which the largest dimension is parallel to the ground, or in the vertical position in which the largest dimension is perpendicular to the ground. The mouth and lid may be located in the top of the container or on any of its sides.

The container, the lid can be manufactured rotary and the cap for the port of any appropriate material That can withstand low temperatures. Material examples Appropriate construction are low carbon steel, stainless steel, galvanized iron, aluminum, materials Polymers such as high, medium or low density polyethylene, linear low density polyethylene, polyvinyl chloride, polycarbonate, polyester, thermally insulating foams such as polyurethane foam and expanded polystyrene foam, etc.

The container can be thermally insulated, the rotary cap and port plug using polyurethane foam expanded polystyrene foam, vacuum super insulation, wool glass, vacuum panels containing dust or foam open cell polyurethane or any other appropriate material known in the art.

The preferred mode of thermal insulation for Vessel is super-insulated by multi-layer vacuum. He void in the annular space between the outer envelope and the cavity interior is preferably of the order of 500 Pa, or less. At annular space materials such as foam can be provided Open cell polyurethane, special silica, layer sheets multiple low thermal emission alternating with materials low thermal conductivity separation, etc., to improve the structural integrity and / or minimize heat transfer radiant. Preferred materials are aluminum sheets of multiple layers separated, with thermal insulation or films mylar aluminate. The preferred thermal insulation for the lid External rotary and port plug is the use of foam of polyurethane or expanded or extruded polystyrene foam.

It is provided to the insulated container of a medium additional cooling, and preferably of a refrigerant that have a heat absorption capacity greater than 50 Joules / gram in the temperature range of 10ºC and -80ºC.

An appropriate refrigerant for the container, and also for the rotary lid, it can be dry ice particles. Alternatively, sealed pads can be used which contain different refrigerants, as specified above, which can be in the form of bags, blister arrangements, bottles, blocks, sachets, blister packs, etc., to serve as "cooling batteries" for this purpose. He refrigerant contained within the pads can be partially or completely frozen at a temperature what low enough The pads can be filled in a way loose or may be stacked along the inside surface of the container, using a retention device to improve Access to stored food items. The cooling pads can also be attached to the surface under the rotating lid. Optionally, you can provide the cooling surface in the form of pads or shirts attached to the inner cavity of the container and chilled / frozen in position using a liquid primary refrigeration such as R-12, CARE-30, which is circulated through the appropriate design ducts attached to pads / shirts refrigeration. The source of the primary refrigerant can be attached to the container or can be placed separately and attached to the container at the time and in the way that is necessary. Like another option, sealed pads / shirts that are attached to the Inner container can be refrigerated using brines secondary refrigerants, such as aqueous solutions of freezing point reducers or eutectic salt mixtures in water, which circulate through conduits of appropriate design. The source to circulate secondary refrigerant brines may be attached to the container or can be located outside and coupled to the container of the form and at the time that is required.

Alternatively, it can be refrigerated directly the inner cavity of the container using a liquid primary coolant such as R-12, CARE -30 etc., which runs through spirals / shirts / design ducts appropriate. The source of the primary refrigerant may be attached to the container or it can be located separately and coupled to the container of the form and in the moment that is necessary. Like another option, the inner cavity of the container can be refrigerated using secondary refrigerating brines, such as aqueous solutions of freezing point reducers or eutectic mixtures of salts in water, which circulate through the appropriate design ducts. The source of circulation of secondary refrigerating brines may be attached to the container or it may be located outside and attached to the container of the form and at the time that is required.

Shirts and pads can be manufactured and cooling ducts of an appropriate building material That can withstand low temperatures. Examples of such Materials have been described above. It can be in the form of single unit packages or as removable / detachable units in various ways, shapes and sizes. They can be in the form of discrete dispositions of blisters, capsules or blister packs that are preferably flexible, at the same time as they can stand up for themselves when they are in place. They can also be in the form of continuous packet plates interconnected blister, ampoules or capsules.

Detailed description of the invention

The following will describe in more detail the main and other objectives of this invention and its advantages, with reference to exemplary non-limiting embodiments of the invention described.

Example 1 Container construction

Figure 1: Describe the characteristics of Insulated container construction.

The vessel was made of double wall, with walls (w1 and w2). The inner container that forms the cavity internal (IC) and outer envelope (OE) were made of foil Aluminum alloy, 3 mm thick. Inner bowl It had a diameter of 460 mm and a height of 470 mm. The envelope exterior had a diameter of 540 mm and a height of 645 mm. He volume of the inner cavity is 75 liters and the empty weight It was 30.0 kg. The annular space (AS) between the inner vessel and the outer envelope was aspirated until a vacuum of 1,3 1.33 X 10-4 Pa. Additionally, sheets were provided multi-layered aluminum, alternating with paper to minimize Radiant heat transfer. Were also provided "zirconium" collectors to capture gases, in space cancel to prolong the operating life and minimize the heat input

The cooling medium was provided in the form of pads filled with a eutectic refrigerant at -23ºC in the Inner storage cavity. The temperature of freezing / melting of the eutectic refrigerant was \ sim -23 ° C, having a heat absorption capacity of sim230 Joules / gram.

The opening (O) had a cross section circular, was located above the container and was composed by a fiber reinforced plastic neck (N) and a ring (AR) Circular aluminum on top. Mouth diameter It was 450 mm.

Figure 2 shows a schematic view of the rotary cap and port plug assembly. The rotary cover (RL) which forms the lid was constructed of linear low polyethylene density and insulated with 40 kg density polyurethane foam (TI) per cubic meter. The top plate (TP) of the rotating cover is supports on the aluminum ring (AR in figure 1) and can be rotated to its position. The insulation thickness on the lid was 125 mm The lid was provided with a square (P) side port 180 mm The plug (PL) of the port was constructed of polyethylene Linear Low Density Insulated with Polyurethane Foam (TI) density 40 kg per cubic meter. The thickness of insulation in the plug was 125 mm. The flange of the cavity opening inside and lid were gently polished to minimize friction and allow easy rotation of the lid. They were provided two handles (H1 and H2) on the outer rotary cover and a handle (H3) on the port plug.

The weight of the port plug with the handle was 0.5 kg and the weight of the entire rotary lid assembly was 3.0 kg

Example 2 Performance evaluation of the container described in the Example 1, compared to the container without the port

The performance of the containers was evaluated Isolated listed below.

Container 1:

As in example 1 with 3 kg of refrigerant.

Container 2:

Like container 1, but the lid was not rotating and did not have a port. It was necessary to lift the entire lid to take the products

Container 3:

As container 1, but it had only 1.5 kg of refrigerant.

Precooling

The containers were previously refrigerated from the ambient temperature of 30 ° C to a temperature of sim -20 ° C, by loading 2.0 kg of pad pre-frozen containing eutectic refrigerant at -23 ° C, as described above.

Performance evaluation

After two hours, the cooling pads that had been introduced for the prior cooling of the containers. New ones were introduced cooling pads, previously frozen at -23 ° C, in the inside each of the vacuum insulated containers. After of introducing the pads, 15 liters of ice cream were introduced in each of the containers. The ice cream temperature was -20C. Then these containers were used to store ice cream over a period of time, ensuring that it frequently open the port cover on containers 1 and 3 and whole lid in container 2 (every 10 minutes, for 90 seconds). The temperature of an ice cream sample was measured at regular intervals The data is presented in Table 1.

TABLE 1

Temperature of ice cream (Cº) 0 hours 6 hours 12 hours 24 hours container one -twenty -19.8 -19.5 -18.6 container 2 -twenty -18.5 -16.5 -14.0 container 3 -twenty -19.8 -19.5 -14.0

This shows that the insulated container with a port can keep ice cream at the desired temperature for more time and saves 50% the amount of refrigerant used.

Example 3 Performance evaluation and convenience of use

The performance and convenience of use of insulated containers listed below.

Container 1:

As example 1.

Container 2:

Like container 1, but the lid was not rotating and did not have a port. It was necessary to lift the entire lid to take the products

Container 3:

Like container 1, but the lid was not rotating and had six ports.

Table 2 lists the design features. of the lids of the previous containers.

TABLE 2 Design and construction characteristics of the top

one

Table 3 summarizes the observations on The convenience of use.

TABLE 3

2

The temperature of an ice cream sample was noted at regular intervals. Table 4 shows the data. the performance evaluation and precooling is like the one described in Example 2.

TABLE 4

Temperature (Cº) of ice cream after from 0 hours 6 hours 12 hours 24 hours Container one -twenty -19.8 -19.5 -18.6 Container 2 -twenty -18.5 -16.5 -14 Container 3 -twenty -19.0 -17.5 -15.3

This shows that the insulated container with a lid Rotary and port is convenient to use, provides easy access and a clear visibility of the contents and can keep ice cream below the desired temperature for longer in comparison with the other containers.

The proposed cover assembly as described previously has several advantages over designs conventional. These are:

(to)

minimizes plug weight thermally insulated that has to be lifted every time contents have to be removed from the inner cavity of storage, compared to a large port or designs of multiple ports

(b)

provides greater visibility and access to the products in the storage cavity.

(C)

allows the placement of pads of cooling over a large surface area below the Rotating lid, without the risk of exposing the pads of cooling to ambient temperatures during each opening of the cap.

(d)

minimize the number of times it open the thick insulated cap to remove product, and

(and)

provides thermal protection superior to products in the storage cavity.

Claims (7)

1. A thermally insulated lid assembly for an insulated container, comprising an insulated rotating lid (RL) thermally, which can seal an opening of an inner cavity (IC) of the container adapted to hold objects to be store inside, the aforementioned rotary lid is provided (RL) of at least one eccentrically located withdrawal port and of a thermally insulated plug (PL) for said port. 2. A thermally insulated lid assembly of according to Claim 1, wherein the port area with with respect to the cover (RL) it is less than 40%, preferably smaller than 25% 3. A thermally insulated lid assembly of according to claim 1, wherein the lid (RL) is transparent. 4. A thermally insulated lid assembly, which comprises a thermally insulated rotary cap (RT), which can seal an opening of an inner cavity (IC) of the container adapted to keep objects to be stored in your inside, the aforementioned rotary cover (RL) being provided, at less, an eccentrically located withdrawal port and a plug (PL) thermally insulated for said port. 5. A thermally insulated lid assembly of according to Claim 4, wherein the port area with with respect to the cover (RL) it is less than 40%, preferably smaller than 25% 6. A thermally insulated lid assembly of according to claim 4, wherein the lid (RL) is transparent. 7. A thermally insulated lid assembly of according to claim 4, wherein the face of the lid Rotary (RL) on the side of the inner cavity is provided with cooling media