Convection oven

Abstract

A convection oven having an insulated oven chamber bounded by a front access door, a floor, a ceiling, two side walls, and a rear wall. An inlet air passageway, which includes a heating element, delivers heated air to the oven chamber, and an exhaust passageway exhausts air from the oven chamber. A baffle plate spaced from the rear wall divides the oven chamber into a blower compartment and a baking compartment, which are connected by a return air opening in the baffle plate and at least one peripheral opening outwards of the return air opening. A blower fan in the blower compartment draws heated air into the oven chamber, mixes the heated air with air already inside the even chamber, circulates the mixed air throughout the oven chamber, and expels air through the exhaust passageway. To alleviate problems caused by high and low pressure zones created in diagonally opposing corners of the blower compartment by rotation of the blower fan, two pairs of diverter plates are disposed around the blower fan. These diverter plates are configured so as to reduce the air pressure in the otherwise high pressure corners and to increase the air pressure in the otherwise low pressure corners. Additionally, the diverter plates create negative pressure to draw air from the combustion chamber into the oven chamber. Each pair of diverter plates is disposed along separate diametrical axes that are perpendicular to each other. In addition, one pair of diverter plates is disposed closer to the blower fan than the other. The diverter plates cooperate with one another in such as way as to mimic air pumps that divert air away from the high-pressure corners and into the low-pressure corners. Thus, the diverter plates tend to equalize the air pressure among the corners of the blower compartment. This helps equalize the air pressure throughout the oven chamber, which in turn ensures even cooking of food.