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Heat transfer apparatusRelated Patent Categories: Heat Exchange, Intermediate Fluent Heat Exchange Material Receiving And Discharging Heat, Liquid Fluent Heat Exchange Material, Utilizing Change Of StateHeat transfer apparatus description/claimsThe Patent Description & Claims data below is from USPTO Patent Application 20070181290, Heat transfer apparatus. Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims
RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] This application claims priority of U.S. provisional patent application Ser. No. 60/698,716 filed on Jul. 13, 2005 by Jonathan A. Lusk. TECHNICAL FIELD [0002] The present invention generally relates to an apparatus for accomplishing heat transfer by either removing or adding heat to adjacent mass. More particularly the present invention is a manually hand held self contained apparatus that contains a thermal fluid within a sealed enclosure, wherein the apparatus has heat added or removed via a remote source with the apparatus then manually placed adjacent to a selected mass, such as the liquid in a beverage, for cooling or heating the beverage or the apparatus can be placed adjacent a portion of human anatomy for therapeutic purposes, or any other selected mass that can benefit from the removal or adding of heat. BACKGROUND OF INVENTION [0003] Hot and cold drinks or beverages are consumed daily in mass quantities by individuals with a variety of preferences for the temperature at which they consume their beverage. As beverages are typically served in non insulated open containers they either quickly gain or lose heat from their ambient surroundings and tend toward approaching the ambient room temperature in a short amount of time. Especially troublesome is in the cooling of beverages wherein ice is used, which of necessity causes an undesirable water dilution of the beverage and considerably lessens the volume available in the beverage container for the selected beverage. Another problem with ice is that it can add undesirable taste to the beverage by way of high water mineral, chlorine, or other undesirable trace elements that are present in the water that the ice is made from. Of course one way around this issue of ice either diluting or adding undesirable taste to a beverage is to immerse the beverage container into a container of ice, wherein the ice does not come into contact with the beverage liquid itself, such as a picnic cooler. However, this is inefficient heat transfer as only one side out of six sided of a cube of ice is in contact with the beverage container, wherein the other five sides of the ice cube are just cooling the surrounding ambient air, being wasted cooling energy, this is in addition to cooling the beverage from the outside of the container only, wherein the cooling has to go through the beverage container and migrate through the beverage liquid to cool the liquid, meaning that there is a thermal diffusivity issue in the time its takes to cool the mass of beverage liquid. Thus, the one advantage of cooling with ice on the outside of the beverage container is to preclude dilution or contamination of the beverage liquid. Contrary to this if ice is not used, i.e. a beverage is just cooled in a refrigerator, that when the beverage is removed from the refrigerator to be consumed on a hot day, the beverage will warm up to room temperature fairly quickly, not even accounting for the heat added by the user's hand holding for instance the beverage can, wherein the can is unfortunately very efficient at transferring heat from the user's hand to the beverage further shortening the time at which the beverage will warm up. Thus, there has developed a need for portable heating and cooling devices for beverages, however, portable heating and cooling devices all suffer from some of the same problems related to the amount of energy required to effectuate all forms of heating of cooling, wherein the amount of energy required severely restricts portability i.e. an electrical power source is needed, or some other form of energy such as a pressurized reservoir of gas that would not be very portable and would eventually need a compressor to sustain the pressurized gas source. Another approach for portable heating or cooling is to use chemical reactions or the rapid movement of a fluid through a pressure change to cause heating or cooling to occur, wherein the problem is with these approaches is that they are one-shot deals, i.e. once the chemical reaction occurs or the pressure difference is exhausted the device no longer has any heating or cooling capabilities until it is recharged, either with gas pressure or new chemicals, which acts to severely reduce portability. [0004] This issue is well-recognized to the prior art wherein there are a number of portable self contained beverage cooling/heating devices. One prior example is in U.S. Pat. No. 4,735,063 to Brown, which discloses a self contained cooling device for cooling the contents of an open beverage container which upon activation of the device is cooled below the ambient room temperature wherein the device is configured somewhat like a stir stick. Brown uses a pressurized fluid within a reservoir having an insulated handle that is secured to the reservoir, with the cooling accomplished by manually opening a means to allow the escape and expansion of pressurized fluid within the reservoir to a cooling chamber, simulating a single cycle refrigeration system, there is also a protective guard to keep the user form coming into contact with the cooling portion of the device, however, the guard is perforated to allow the beverage liquid to circulate through the guard coming into contact with the cooling chamber. A major drawback to Brown is that it is a disposable device only being good for a single use when the user manually releases the high pressure fluid contained portion into the expansion cooling portion and once the fluid expands the device must be either disposed of or refilled requiring special equipment with a pressurized fluid and resealing the barrier between the pressurized portion and the cooling portion. Another prior art example is in U.S. Pat. No. 6,338,570 to Santacruz-Olivares that discloses a thermoelectric cooling stirrer that is formed of an enclosure that uses ambient air with a forced circulation system through which the air is circulated within the enclosure that is submerged in the hot beverage, wherein the stirrer is operational to remove heat from the beverage to the ambient air, however, not having the capability to cool the beverage to below ambient air temperature, having only the capacity to more quickly facilitate bringing the hot beverage down to the ambient air temperature. [0005] Further, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,331,817 to Anthony disclosed is a portable heating and cooling device for food and beverage containers that utilizes a vortex tube that utilizes high pressure air to be tangentially injected into a cylinder that creates a hot gas stream adjacent to the outer diameter of the vortex and a cold gas stream adjacent to the central rotational axis of the vortex due to differences in gas speed and pressure. Thus, Anthony uses these hot and cold gas streams for the purpose of heating and cooling beverages for instance, this system is simple and safe, however, a major drawback is the requirement for a pressurized gas source, i.e. a tank or a compressor being required, which lessens the self contained portability significantly. A further example is in U.S. Pat. No. 3,881,321 to Riley that discloses a self cooling disposable liquid container that utilizes a pressurized refrigerant fluid that is stored in a pressurized refrigerant chamber, the fluid is manually selectively released from the chamber and passes directly through the beverage liquid cooling the beverage liquid by virtue of the refrigerant fluid expanding to a low-pressure area, i.e. into the beverage liquid from the pressurized refrigerant chamber. Riley falls in the category of having a single use pressured source for cooling an once this pressurized source of refrigerant is exhausted being released to the beverage liquid, in essence the Riley device is disposed of. [0006] Further, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,201,193 to Sundhar et al., disclosed is a cooling device for beverages that is similar in concept to Riley, by having a beverage cooling device immersed into the beverage liquid, this beverage cooling device contains a pressurized liquefied gas that is sealed in a capsule wherein a pierce pin manually selectively ruptures the capsule to quickly release the liquefied gas that is under pressure in the capsule, wherein the liquefied gas will have the cooling effect directly into the beverage liquid. As in Riley, once the capsule is pierced and the pressurized liquefied gas is released for cooling Sundhar's et al., device is spent and used, wherein the high-pressure liquefied gas capsule must be replaced for reuse of the Sundhar et al., device. Looking at another concept in the prior art, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,843,836 to Childers, disclosed is a metallic cylinder that is immersed in the liquid within a beverage container, wherein the metallic cylinder is smaller then the beverage container such that the metallic cylinder is filled with ice for the purpose of cooling the beverage. Thus, Childers's overcomes the ice dilution issue of the beverage and also the problem of the ice adding an undesirable taste to the beverage issue. However, in Childers there remains the poor heat transfer efficiency problem as previously described for the picnic cooler case, in that any given ice cube only has one out of its six sides exposed to the inner wall of the metallic cylinder which is transferring heat out the beverage liquid, thus a majority of the ice cooling is going towards cooling the ambient air that exists within the metallic cylinder that is open to the atmosphere. Continuing, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,288,019 to Gorochow, disclosed is a beverage cooling sipper that is constructed of a straw that is encased with a thermal mass that is cooled below the temperature of the beverage liquid such that when a user sucks the hot liquid up though the straw the cooled thermal mass that is encased around the straw brings the temperature down of the hot beverage liquid. In Gorochow the thermal mass is cooled by refrigerating the thermal mass and straw combination prior to use. However, a problem with Gorochow is that because the device used as straw for sanitary reasons it must of necessity be disposable, therefore not being reusable. [0007] There remains a need for a portable self contained manually operated heating/cooling apparatus that is easy to use and not requiring any special equipment to operate and that most importantly is re-usable to reduce the cost to the user and to be more environmentally friendly. Another important aspect of the portable self contained manually operated heating/cooling apparatus is that is has a high surface area to volume ratio, specifically meaning that the surface area is the surface area of the reservoir, wherein the volume is the volume of the thermal fluid. What this results in is that the heat transferred is maximized when the surface area is high in relation to the volume, thus the heat transfer apparatus is desirably in the shape of a long thin cylinder, wherein the apparatus will absorb or lose heat quickly meaning it will transfer heat efficiently from a resource environment (where the apparatus is either heated or cooled) and subsequently transfer heat quickly to a selected mass, that could be a beverage liquid, or a portion of human anatomy, or any other beneficial use. The benefit to this type of heat transfer apparatus is that the heating or cooling is in contact directly with what is desirably cooled or heated, or in the case of a beverage the heat transfer apparatus is directly immersed into the liquid, as opposed to cooling from the outside of the container with either ice or in a refrigerator to preclude dilution or contamination of the beverage liquid. Another desirable issue related to the heat transfer apparatus will include the ease of cleaning for re-use and protection against toxic contamination of the beverage liquid or when the heat transfer apparatus comes into contact with a portion of human anatomy that there is no risk of harm to a human. SUMMARY OF INVENTION [0008] Broadly, the present invention of a self contained manually operated heat transfer apparatus includes a substantially sealed reservoir, an insulated handle that is adjacent to the reservoir, and a thermal fluid disposed within a portion of the reservoir. Wherein the heat transfer apparatus is operational to absorb or lose heat in a resource environment and then be manually transferred via the handle to be adjacent to a selected mass for the purpose of transferring heat to or from the mass. [0009] These and other objects of the present invention will become more readily appreciated and understood from a consideration of the following detailed description of the exemplary embodiments of the present invention when taken together with the accompanying drawings, in which; BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS [0010] FIG. 1 shows a perspective view of a self contained heat transfer apparatus; [0011] FIG. 2 shows cross sectional view 2-2 from FIG. 1 showing a reservoir partially filled with a void, a finger, and a handle; [0012] FIG. 3 shows an expanded cross sectional view 3 from FIG. 2 showing the reservoir and finger; [0013] FIG. 4 shows a cross sectional view 4-4 from FIG. 3 showing the staggering of two finger in relation to the reservoir; [0014] FIG. 5 shows a perspective view of the self contained heat transfer apparatus placed within a resource environment; [0015] FIG. 6 shows a perspective view of the use of the self contained heat transfer apparatus reservoir placed into a beverage liquid with rapid stirring for agitating the liquid and agitating a thermal fluid; [0016] FIG. 7 shows a perspective view of the use of the self contained heat transfer apparatus reservoir placed into a beverage liquid utilizing an attachment element to removably engage the reservoir to an interior of the beverage container; and [0017] FIG. 8 shows a perspective view of the use of the self contained heat transfer apparatus being adjacent to a portion of human anatomy. REFERENCE NUMBERS IN DRAWINGS [0018] 30 Self contained heat transfer apparatus [0019] 32 Reservoir [0020] 34 Insulated handle [0021] 36 Thermal fluid [0022] 37 Reservoir void [0023] 38 Resource environment [0024] 40 Selected mass [0025] 41 Human anatomy portion [0026] 42 Cylinder [0027] 43 Radius for cylinder [0028] 44 Attachment element [0029] 45 Length for cylinder 42 [0030] 46 Beverage container [0031] 47 Removable engagement of the attachment element 44 [0032] 48 Interior of beverage container 46 [0033] 50 Liquid of beverage [0034] 52 Finger [0035] 54 Rapid stirring movement [0036] 56 Agitating beverage liquid 50 [0037] 58 Agitating thermal fluid 36 [0038] 60 User [0039] 62 Oscillating motion to create stirring movement 54 Continue reading about Heat transfer apparatus... 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