Cooking appliance with cycling of multiple gas burners to maintain temperature setpoint

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12429227-B2
Application number	US-202217891722-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 19, 2022
Priority date	Aug 19, 2022
Publication date	Sep 30, 2025
Grant date	Sep 30, 2025

Abstract

A temperature setpoint is reestablished and maintained in a gas oven using multiple gas burners. In some instances, the multiple gas burners may be cycled using predetermined activation durations for each gas burner when reestablishing the temperature setpoint, and in some instances, the gas burners may be cycled over multiple iterations in order to reestablish the temperature setpoint. Furthermore, in some instances, each gas burner may include a spark igniter that may be used to minimize the amount of time required to ignite the gas burner when reestablishing the temperature setpoint.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A cooking appliance, comprising:
a housing including an oven cavity;
a plurality of gas burners configured to generate heat within the oven cavity;
a plurality of gas valves, each gas valve in fluid communication with a respective gas burner among the plurality of gas burners;
a plurality of igniters, each igniter positioned proximate to a respective gas burner among the plurality of gas burners and configured to ignite gas supplied to the respective gas burner; and
a controller coupled to the plurality of dedicated gas valves and the plurality of igniters, the controller configured to control the plurality of gas valves and the plurality of igniters to maintain a temperature setpoint during a cooking cycle, the controller further configured to reestablish the temperature setpoint during the cooking cycle by controlling the plurality of gas valves and the plurality of igniters to activate each of first and second gas burners among the plurality of gas burners over multiple iterations, and to deactivate the first gas burner between first and second activations of the first gas burner over the multiple iterations.

2. The cooking appliance of claim 1 , wherein the first gas burner is a bake gas burner disposed proximate a bottom of the oven cavity and the second gas burner is a broil gas burner disposed proximate a top of the oven cavity.

3. The cooking appliance of claim 2 , wherein the plurality of gas burners further includes a convection cooking element, and wherein the controller is configured to, during a first iteration of the multiple iterations performed when reestablishing the temperature setpoint, activate each of the bake gas burner, the broil gas burner and the convection cooking element.

4. The cooking appliance of claim 1 , wherein each of the plurality of igniters is a spark igniter.

5. The cooking appliance of claim 1 , further comprising a plurality of ignition sensors, each ignition sensor positioned proximate to a respective gas burner among the plurality of gas burners and configured to detect ignition of the respective gas burner, wherein the controller is configured to confirm activation of each of the first and second gas burners in response to detecting ignition of each of the first and second gas burners with the respective ignition sensors for the first and second gas burners during activation of each of the first and second gas burners.

6. The cooking appliance of claim 1 , wherein each of the plurality of gas valves is a dedicated gas valve, the cooking appliance further comprises a shared gas valve in fluid communication with a gas supply and with each of the plurality of dedicated gas valves, and the controller is configured to activate the first gas burner by:
activating the shared gas valve and the respective dedicated gas valve for the first gas burner to supply gas from the gas supply to the first gas burner; and
concurrently activating all of the plurality of igniters while gas is supplied to the first gas burner.

7. The cooking appliance of claim 1 , wherein the controller is configured to, during a first iteration of the multiple iterations performed when reestablishing the temperature setpoint, sequentially activate the first and second gas burners.

8. The cooking appliance of claim 1 , wherein the controller is configured to, during a first iteration of the multiple iterations performed when reestablishing the temperature setpoint, activate the first gas burner for a first predetermined activation duration, and activate the second gas burner for a second predetermined activation duration.

9. The cooking appliance of claim 1 , wherein the controller is configured to, during a first iteration of the multiple iterations performed when reestablishing the temperature setpoint, activate the first gas burner until a temperature in the oven cavity reaches a predetermined temperature, and activate the second gas burner for a predetermined activation duration.

10. The cooking appliance of claim 1 , wherein the controller is configured to, during a first iteration of the multiple iterations performed when reestablishing the temperature setpoint, activate the first gas burner until a temperature in the oven cavity reaches a first predetermined temperature, and activate the second gas burner until the temperature in the oven cavity reaches a second predetermined temperature.

11. The cooking appliance of claim 1 , wherein the multiple iterations includes at least first and second iterations, and wherein the controller is configured to, during the second iteration, vary an activation sequence, an actuation overlap, a predetermined activation duration of the first gas burner, a predetermined activation duration of the second gas burner, a predetermined temperature at which to deactivate the first gas burner, or a predetermined temperature at which to deactivate the second gas burner relative to the first iteration.

12. The cooking appliance of claim 1 , further comprising at least one non-gas cooking element disposed in the oven cavity, wherein the controller is further configured to activate the non-gas cooking element when reestablishing the temperature setpoint.

13. The cooking appliance of claim 1 , wherein the controller is configured to, during a first iteration of the multiple iterations performed when reestablishing the temperature setpoint, overlap activation of the first and second gas burners during at least a portion of the first iteration.

14. The cooking appliance of claim 1 , wherein the cooking cycle is a bake cycle, a convection bake cycle, or a convection roast cycle.

15. A cooking appliance, comprising:
a housing including an oven cavity;
a plurality of gas burners configured to generate heat within the oven cavity;
a plurality of gas valves, each gas valve in fluid communication with a respective gas burner among the plurality of gas burners;
a plurality of igniters, each igniter positioned proximate to a respective gas burner among the plurality of gas burners and configured to ignite gas supplied to the respective gas burner; and
a controller coupled to the plurality of dedicated gas valves and the plurality of igniters, the controller configured to control the plurality of gas valves and the plurality of igniters to maintain a temperature setpoint during a cooking cycle, the controller further configured to reestablish the temperature setpoint during the cooking cycle by controlling the plurality of gas valves and the plurality of igniters to activate each of first and second gas burners among the plurality of gas burners for respective first and second predetermined activation durations.

16. The cooking appliance of claim 15 , wherein the first gas burner is a bake gas burner disposed proximate a bottom of the oven cavity and the second gas burner is a broil gas burner disposed proximate a top of the oven cavity.

17. The cooking appliance of claim 15 , wherein each of the plurality of igniters is a spark igniter.

18. The cooking appliance of claim 15 , wherein the controller is configured to activate each of first and second gas burners among the plurality of gas burners for the respective first and second predetermined activation durations during a first iteration among a plurality of iterations performed to reestablish the temperature setpoint during the cooking cycle, and wherein the controller is further configured to activate each of the first and second gas burners during a second iteration among the plurality of iterations performed to reestablish the temperature setpoint during the co

Assignees

• Midea Group Co Ltd

Inventors

• Neal Vern A

Classifications

• F24C3/087

  in baking ovens · CPC title

• F23N2227/02

  Starting or ignition cycles · CPC title

• F23Q3/00

  Igniters using electrically-produced sparks (sparking-plugs H01T13/00) · CPC title

• F23N2235/12

  Fuel valves · CPC title

• F23N1/002 Primary

  using electronic means (F23N1/04 - F23N1/10 take precedence) · CPC title