ebm-papst Fans, Blowers and Technology

How ventilation is changing within advanced home appliances

Posted on Wed, Nov 27, 2013
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by Tom Costello, Market Manager – Appliance & Heating Gas

As we sit down to dinner at night, most of us do not give any thought to what’s in our kitchen appliances or how they even work. We take for granted that our refrigerator keeps our food from spoiling, that our oven cooks the food to a perfect temperature, that our range hood removes all the odors and smoke from the room, and that the dishwasher cleans and dries our dishes at the end of the meal. We simply expect our appliances to work to free up our time for other interests!

To help meet that expectation, our R&D engineers are developing air moving solutions that allow your kitchen appliances to work better, longer, and safer. That's right, you may not be aware that each of the kitchen appliances listed above often includes a fan that improves the transfer of heat for cooling, heating, or simply air quality. For example, cooling insures the controls don't overheat in your oven or that the food remains cold enough to last for days or months in your refrigerator or freezer. Conversely, convective heating improves cooking performance in a range or wall oven and also improves the drying performance in your dishwasher.

Our fans are used in all types of kitchen appliances for cold, hot, and wet applications. In addition, now they are being designed to further improve the quality of your life by reducing the electrical energy consumption and, thereby, your "carbon foot print". A good example of this is a recent development program with one of our European appliance customers that manufactures one of the highest rated dishwasher products in the world market. The development was based on a strategic partnership between ebm-papst (supplier) and the appliance OEM (manufacturer) that resulted in both parties achieving their goals to grow sales with a progressive technology that also is environmentally friendly or "Green".

For many years, conventional drying technology would include a radial fan driven by an AC shaded pole motor in combination with a humidity valve and a custom scroll housing to remove the moist hot air from the dishwasher and then cool it to a safe temperature before venting into the kitchen.

describe the imageAlthough effective at accelerating the drying process, energy consumption and drying time was still too high; however, recent advancements in motor technology and materials now allows for a new improved drying cycle. ebm-papst is a leader in electronically commutated (EC) motor technology in many markets and now recent  design advances allows us to bring this technology to kitchen appliances. In addition, since we design the impeller and scroll housing too we can optimize airflow, size, and material selection to provide a robust assembly that meets the demand of the application and operates with very low energy consumption.

DishwasherTechnologyThis progress in air moving technology has now allowed the appliance OEM to introduce a new drying process that can further accelerate the drying time in an environmentally friendly manner. So in the end, advancements in technology applied in an eco-friendly manner result in lower energy consumption and reduced drying time!


Tags: EC Technology, Kitchen Appliances, Refrigeration, OEM, appliances, Dishwasher, Dishwasher Drying System

Commercial Food Equipment Engineers Look to GARC Technology for Improved Cooking Performance!

Posted on Mon, Jul 08, 2013
Tom Costello
by Tom Costello, Market Manager - Appliance & Heating

Commercial food equipment engineers are always on the look out for opportunities to improve the cooking performance of their gas fired appliances; therefore, recent industry design trends are taking a page from the comfort heating industry’s, condensing boiler technology. For more than 20 years the comfort heating industry has been perfecting the gas-air ratio control (GARC) system to modulate the combustion energy to the heat demand of the home, optimizing efficiency and reducing energy consumption. Now these same GARC assemblies are being applied to today’s gas fired commercial cooking applications for combi-ovens, conveyor ovens, and fryers.oven application

Combi-ovens offer chefs the opportunity to utilize in one appliance three cooking modes while precisely maintaining the cooking temperature for (a) convective cooking, (b) steam cooking, and a (c) combination steam and convective cooking.  This multi-operational design is applied to counter-top to floor standing combi appliances that satisfy the demands of a small restaurant to a large institutional kitchen. The GARC technology allows for all three of these modes to existing in a fast acting but controlled release of energy that more efficiently cooks the food products.

Gas fired fryers also utilize the modulating GARC technology to respond to changes in load demand while offering precise temperature control of the oil for cooking and warm-up profiles. The GARC assembly is made of three main components: a premix ready gas blower, air-fuel mixer (venturi), and zero governor gas valve. The combination of all three of these components allows for the precise control of gas and air to be delivered to the burner in a constant ratio that also allow for variable gas-air input by speed controlling the blower.

GARC appl

GARC

Premix ready gas blower, venturi, and zero governor gas valve

 

This gas-air ratio control provides a pneumatic coupling between the blower and the gas valve via the venturi allow for the gas and air to be modulated by sending a variable speed signal to the blower motor. The result of this modulating combustion technology applied to cooking appliances is the precise temperature control, rapid response to load changes, and energy conservation during off peak hours that benefit either the restaurant owner, chef, or customer.

To learn more about this technology, please don’t hesitate to contact ebm-papst sales or marketing.

Tags: ebm-papst, GARC, appliances