U.S. patent application number 11/330775 was filed with the patent office on 2006-08-10 for front flange of a household-type clothes washing machine.
This patent application is currently assigned to Electrolux Home Products Corporation N.V.. Invention is credited to Silvano Cimetta, Luca Gruppo.
Application Number | 20060174663 11/330775 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 34938697 |
Filed Date | 2006-08-10 |
United States Patent
Application |
20060174663 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Cimetta; Silvano ; et
al. |
August 10, 2006 |
Front flange of a household-type clothes washing machine
Abstract
Front-loading clothes washing machine comprising: a perforated
rotating drum holding the clothes to be washed, an access opening
into said drum, a stationary tub containing said drum, an access
opening into said tub provided so as to lie in alignment with said
access opening of said drum, an outer casing containing said tub
therewithin, a front aperture in said outer casing adapted to
ensure access to the access opening of the tub, a loading door
provided to close said front aperture in the outer casing, an
annular bellows-like gasket adapted to provide an elastic,
water-tight junction between the access opening of the tub and the
front aperture in the outer casing, in which the portion of said
drum that defines the respective access opening has an elongated
cylindrical configuration on its front side, which extends
coaxially with the access opening of the tub, the latter being
preferably provided with a corresponding elongated cylindrical
configuration adapted to enclose said elongated cylindrical
configuration of the drum opening from the outside.
Inventors: |
Cimetta; Silvano; (Treviso,
IT) ; Gruppo; Luca; (Porcia (PN), IT) |
Correspondence
Address: |
PEARNE & GORDON LLP
1801 EAST 9TH STREET
SUITE 1200
CLEVELAND
OH
44114-3108
US
|
Assignee: |
Electrolux Home Products
Corporation N.V.
Zaventem
BE
|
Family ID: |
34938697 |
Appl. No.: |
11/330775 |
Filed: |
January 12, 2006 |
Current U.S.
Class: |
68/3R |
Current CPC
Class: |
D06F 37/266
20130101 |
Class at
Publication: |
068/003.00R |
International
Class: |
D06F 37/00 20060101
D06F037/00 |
Foreign Application Data
Date |
Code |
Application Number |
Feb 10, 2005 |
EP |
05 100 969.4 |
Claims
1. Front-loading clothes washing machine, preferably of the
household type, comprising: a perforated rotating drum (5) holding
the clothes to be washed, an access opening (6) into said drum, a
stationary tub (3) containing said drum (5) rotatably mounted
therewithin, an access opening (4) into said tub (3), provided so
as to lie in alignment with said access opening (6) of said drum,
an outer casing (1) adapted to contain said tub therewithin, a
front aperture (2) in said outer casing, adapted to ensure access
to said access opening (4) of said tub, an annular bellows-like
gasket (7) adapted to provide an elastic, water-tight junction of
said access opening (4) of said tub to said front aperture (2) of
said outer casing, characterized in that the portion of said drum
that defines the respective access opening (6) has an elongated
cylindrical configuration (12) on its front side, which extends
coaxially with said access opening (4) of said tub.
2. Clothes washing machine according to claim 1, characterized in
that the plane (a) containing the front edge (11) of said access
opening (6) of the drum lies closer to the plane of said front
aperture (2) of the outer casing than the plane (b) centered on
said access opening (4) of said tub (3) actually is.
3. Clothes washing machine according to claim 1, characterized in
that the portion of said tub that defines the respective access
opening (4) has on its front side a corresponding cylindrically
shaped portion (14) that substantially encloses said elongated
cylindrical configuration (12) of said access opening of the drum
from the outside.
4. Clothes washing machine according to claim 2, characterized in
that said annular bellows-like gasket (7) has an annular lip (13)
provided to lie in a substantially regular manner in front of said
circular front edge (11) of said access opening (6) of said
drum.
5. Clothes washing machine according to claim 2, characterized in
that said elongated cylindrical configuration (12) projecting from
the flange (9) of the drum is at least 12 mm in size lengthwise (as
measured on the respective generatrix).
Description
[0001] The present invention refers to an improved kind of
front-loading clothes washing machine, which is adapted to
eliminate, or at least decisively reduce, one of the factors
causing the clothes to suffer damages during washing.
[0002] It is widely known that the way in which the clothes are
handled in a front-loading clothes washing machine ultimately
depends to a substantial extent on the actual architecture of the
same machine. In these machines, in fact, the tub containing the
rotating drum is provided with a front opening of its own, which
faces the front wall of the machine; the rotating drum contained
therein is in turn provided with an access opening of its own,
which of course is in a corresponding, i.e. mating relationship
with the opening in the tub.
[0003] Finally, also the outer casing, or cabinet, of the machine
is provided with a corresponding aperture, which is usually closed
by an appropriate door, which is generally referred to as loading
door.
[0004] Since the tub is suspended, but is filled with washing
liquor, the need arises for a water-tight seal to be provided
between the tub opening and the aperture in the outer casing (due
to reasons that are well known in the art, the rotating drum itself
is not closed). Such water-tight seal is usually provided in the
form of an annular gasket, generally referred to as bellows in the
art, which is arranged between the circular rim of the opening of
the tub and the corresponding aperture in the outer casing.
[0005] Owing to the fact that the tub must be capable of
oscillating freely, albeit within definite limits, within the outer
casing of the machine, said annular gasket must also be flexible,
so as to allow for the relative movements and displacements that
can take place between outer casing and tub.
[0006] For the clothes being washed to be prevented from being able
to come out of the drum and get pinched - during the rotation
thereof--between said flexible gasket and the tub, thereby
incurring damages that can be also of quite a serious nature, the
gasket itself is shaped so as to feature a circular lip, or
appendix, that is adapted to arrange itself in a stable manner in
front of the front edge of the access opening of the drum, quite
close thereto, so that the resulting narrow gap therebetween is
such as to practically prevent the washload items that may possibly
stick out of the access opening of the drum from slipping in
between the same drum and the tub.
[0007] Briefly stated, the above-mentioned gasket works in the same
way as a sealed chamber that prevents washload items from slipping
in from the drum into the tub, or between the respective openings,
but not washing liquor from passing therethrough.
[0008] However, prior-art solutions are generally characterized in
that, even if provided with such gasket made and arranged in an
optimum manner in front of the access opening of the drum, the fact
that this access opening is substantially aligned almost on the
same plane as the front vertical wall of the drum, as best shown in
the cross-sectional view of FIG. 1 and the illustration in FIG. 2,
gives rise to the circumstance that the washload items that are
lifted within the drum during the rotation thereof tend to
substantially arrange themselves, i.e. distribute over the entire
the cylindrical side wall thereof, as well as onto the front
portion thereof, so that, when falling down again, they can easily
fall also onto the rim of the access door of the drum, especially
when the latter is fully loaded.
[0009] In this case, owing to said gap between the access opening
of the drum and said lip of the annular gasket being immediately
contiguous thereto, it may well occur that said washload items so
falling back onto the rim of the drum opening, slip in or get
pinched in said gap.
[0010] While the quite limited width of said gap is actually such
as to prevent washload items from entering the space between the
drum and the tub, it in fact does not in all cases prevent small
portions of said items from slipping in and being caught in said
gap, thereby suffering damages due to fretting between the drum
rotating within the tub and said gasket, which on the contrary
stands still.
[0011] It would therefore be desirable, and it is actually a main
object of the present invention, to provide a front-loading clothes
washing machine, in which the possibility for washload items, or
portions thereof, to slip in and get pinched between the front edge
of the access opening of the drum and said bellows-like gasket is
substantially eliminated or minimized to a fully negligible
extent.
[0012] According to the present invention, this aim is reached in a
particular type of clothes washing machine provided with a drum, a
tub and a respective bellows-like gasket as described in greater
detail below by way of non-limiting example with reference to the
accompanying drawings, in which:
[0013] FIG. 3 is a median elevational cross-sectional view, through
the same part as shown in FIG. 1, of a clothes washing machine
according to a first embodiment of the present invention;
[0014] FIG. 4 is similar median elevational cross-sectional view of
a clothes washing machine according to a second embodiment of the
present invention;
[0015] FIG. 5 is a same cross-sectional view as the one appearing
in FIG. 3, but represented as a perspective view from the front
side of the machine.
[0016] A clothes washing machine according to the prior art
comprises an outer casing 1 provided with a front aperture 2
enabling the washload to be introduced in the machine, a washing
tub 3 provided with an access opening 4, a perforated drum 5
rotatably mounted within said drum and provided in turn with an
access opening of its own, and a bellows-like gasket 7 arranged in
a water-tight manner between the access opening 4 of the tub and
the loading aperture 2 in the outer casing, wherein said aperture
is adapted to be closed by an appropriate loading door 8.
[0017] By convention, said aperture 2, said access opening 4 of the
tub and said access opening 6 of the drum are arranged almost
coaxially with each other and have the same size, so as to
facilitate introducing and removing the washload.
[0018] With reference to FIG. 3, according to the present invention
said access opening 6 of the drum 5 terminates frontally with a rim
11 that is separated, relative to the front flange 9 of the same
drum, by an elongated cylindrical configuration 12, and not--as
usual in the prior art (see FIG. 2--with a circular edge 10 of a
minimum thickness that joins directly with the front flange 9 of
the drum.
[0019] Said elongated configuration 12 then projects from said
front flange 9 towards the aperture 2 of the outer casing as a
cylinder having an axis that substantially coincides with the axis
(not shown) of the same drum.
[0020] In practice, said cylindrical flange projects out of said
front flange 9 of the drum and, as a result, the cylindrical mantle
thereof keeps the circular edge 10 of the access opening of the
drum spaced apart from the flange 9.
[0021] In this connection, it should be noticed that--for reasons
of greater simplicity--the same reference numeral 9 is used in this
specification to indicate the front flange of the drum when
describing both the prior art and the present invention.
[0022] Since said circular edge 10 is therefore so spaced axially
apart from the respective flange, it will be readily realized that
the washload items tumbling and falling back from the interior of
the drum, and moving along the front flange thereof, will only
hardly be able to reach the rim 11 when falling down, and, for the
same reason, they will still more hardly be able to slip into said
gap between the lip 13 of the bellows 7 and said rim 11.
[0023] Referring again to FIG. 3, it can be noticed that a
preferred embodiment is easily obtained if the plane "a" extending
parallel to the front wall of the outer casing and orthogonal to
the axis of the drum, and passing through the access opening 6 of
the drum, is closer to the front wall of the outer casing than the
plane "b" generally centered on said access opening 4 of the tub 3
actually is.
[0024] Such solution enables substantially the same advantages to
be obtained as the ones offered by the afore-described embodiment,
while however avoiding the need for rather costly modifications to
be introduced in the construction of the tub.
[0025] A further embodiment of the present invention, which is
illustrated in FIG. 4, is based on a solution in which also the
access opening 4 of the tub 3 is provided with a cylindrically
shaped portion 14 so as to enclose said elongated cylindrical
configuration 12 from the outside, in such a manner that said
portion 14 and said elongated configuration 12 come to arrange
themselves as two coaxial cylinders, one inside the other.
[0026] In all these embodiments, said annular lip 13 of the bellows
7 is of course so shaped and arranged as to ensure that it comes in
all cases to lie in front of the edge 11 of the access opening of
the drum, as this is the case in the prior art.
[0027] It has been further found experimentally that, for a clothes
washing machine of the household type, the ideal size of said
elongated cylindrical configuration 12 representing the best
possible compromise between functional considerations, calling for
it to be as large as possible, and moulding considerations, calling
for it to be as narrow as possible, is at least 12 mm, as measured
on the generatrix of the cylinder.
* * * * *