JPS6030240Y2 - beverage chiller - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] This invention relates to an improvement of a beverage cooling device used in a cup-type vending machine for cold beverages.

A beverage cooling device as shown in FIG. 1 is known.

In the figure, 1 is a beverage tank, 2 is a beverage supply line drawn out from the beverage tank toward the cup 3 of the bend stage,
4 is a carbon dioxide gas cylinder for pressure rising the beverage in the tank.

The beverage supplied to the cup 3 through the beverage supply line 2 is cooled by a beverage cooling device described below midway through the line to become a cold beverage.

That is, the beverage cooling device is constructed by immersing a beverage cooling coil 6 inserted in the middle of the beverage supply line 2, an evaporator 7 of a refrigerator, and an agitator 8 in a cooling water tank 5 filled with water.

Note that 9 is the refrigerator compressor, 10 is the condenser, and 1
1 is a capillary tube, and arrow A indicates the direction in which the refrigerant flows.

Such a cooling device operates a refrigerator to cool the water in the cooling water tank 5, and further cools the beverage flowing to the beverage cooling coil 6 using water as a medium.

By the way, in the cooling water tank 5, in order to increase the heat capacity, a considerable amount of ice is constantly frozen and stored around the evaporator 7 to create a so-called ice bank, and the amount of heat stored in the ice 13 of this ice bank is used to make beverages. A system that can handle the continuous supply of water is already in use.

In this case, the conventional evaporator 7 employs a coil-type evaporator in which a long refrigerant pipe is wound into a cylindrical coil shape at an even pitch.

In addition, in order to control the operation of the refrigerator so that a considerable amount of ice is always stored around the evaporator 7, an ice detection sensor 12 is installed facing the side of the evaporator 7 at a predetermined distance. When the ice grows to a predetermined thickness that reaches the sensor 12, the operation of the refrigerator is controlled to stop based on the output signal of the sensor 12 that detects this.

Note that the ice detection sensor 12 uses, for example, an electrode, and detects that ice has grown to a predetermined thickness by utilizing the fact that the electrical resistance values of water and ice are significantly different.

In such an ice bank type beverage cooling device, under the ambient temperature conditions under which cold beverages are most frequently consumed, for example, the outside temperature of 32'C is set as the standard ambient condition, and as shown in Fig. 2A, the temperature is almost uniform throughout the coil of the evaporator turf. The capacity of the refrigerator, the type of refrigerant, the amount enclosed, the length of the capillary tube, etc. are selected so that ice having a predetermined thickness D is generated.

However, as is well known, in an evaporator constructed with a long bare evaporation pipe, the refrigerant inlet side area near the capillary tube tends to have a larger refrigerating capacity than the refrigerant outlet side area, and this difference in refrigerating capacity is due to the conventional If the evaporator is used as it is, it is difficult to actually generate an ice bank with a uniform thickness over the entire evaporator coil, and in addition, the ambient temperature condition is lower than the standard, e.g. 10°C.
When this happens, the pressure inside the refrigerator's condenser drops excessively and the supply of liquid refrigerant to the evaporator becomes insufficient.
As shown in Figure 2, ice forms and grows only in the first half of the evaporator trough near the entrance.

For this reason, when the locally generated ice reaches a predetermined thickness, the detection sensor 12 outputs an output signal and the refrigerator stops.
The amount of ice stored in the ice bank is generally small, which causes a problem that results in the capacity of the ice bank type beverage cooling device being halved.

The present invention has been developed in view of the above points, and its purpose is to engineer the evaporator in such a way that ice can be formed almost uniformly around the entire area of the evaporator at all times, despite fluctuations in ambient temperature conditions. An object of the present invention is to provide a beverage cooling device having the following configuration.

The present invention will be described in detail below based on illustrated embodiments.

As shown in FIG. 3, according to the present invention, the coil pitch of the coil type evaporator 7 is P in the first half of the refrigerant inlet side area.
.

On the other hand, in the latter half of the refrigerant outlet side area, the coil pitch is P.

The winding structure is such that the windings are set at irregular pitches so as to have a smaller Pl.

By immersing the coil type evaporator 7 in the cooling water tank 5 shown in FIG. 1 to construct a beverage cooling device,
The small coil pitch P1 in the refrigerant outlet side area of the evaporator 7 compensates for the lack of refrigerating capacity, making it possible to generate ice with a substantially uniform thickness over the entire area of the coil as shown in Figure 4. can.

As for how to select the coil pitch, as in the illustrated embodiment, the pitch of the first half and the second half of the coil is P, respectively.

An appropriate method can be adopted, such as setting the pitch to P (po>p), or setting the pitch to be gradually shortened as the second half progresses.

As described above, the present invention sets the coil pitch of a coil type evaporator immersed in a cooling water tank to be irregularly spaced so that the coil pitch is smaller in the refrigerant outlet side area than in the refrigerant inlet side area. It is composed of

Therefore, the deficiencies in the refrigerating capacity of the refrigerant outlet side area of the evaporator can be skillfully compensated for, and ice can be stored by constantly freezing an ice bank with a substantially uniform thickness over the entire area of the evaporator coil, despite wide fluctuations in ambient temperature conditions. is completed,
It is possible to improve the beverage cooling capacity of the beverage cooling device.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Figure 1 is a schematic diagram of the entire beverage cooling system; Figure 2, Figure 2, is an explanatory diagram of the icing state in a conventional evaporator;
The figure is a side view showing the structure of the evaporator based on the embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 4 is a diagram showing the icing state during operation in FIG. 3. 2: Beverage supply line, 5: Cooling water tank, 6: Beverage cooling coil, 7: Coil type evaporator, 12: Ice detection sensor,
13: Ice frozen on the evaporator, Po, Pl: Coil pitch, A: Direction of flow of refrigerant.

Claims (1)

[Scope of utility model registration request] A beverage cooling coil inserted in the middle of a beverage supply line and a refrigerator evaporator made of a coiled refrigerant pipe are placed immersed in a cooling water tank filled with water, and an equivalent amount of ice is constantly placed around the evaporator. In a device that uses the amount of heat stored in the ice to cool the beverage flowing through the beverage supply line by freezing and storing the ice, the evaporator has a coil pitch in the refrigerant outlet side area that is smaller than the coil pitch in the refrigerant inlet side area. 1. A beverage cooling device characterized in that the device is wound so that the amount of water is small.