U.S. patent application number 12/310414 was filed with the patent office on 2009-12-31 for refrigerating device comprising a pressure compensation opening.
This patent application is currently assigned to BSH Bosch und Siemens Hausgerate GmbH. Invention is credited to Thomas Bischofberger, Martin Buchstab, Alexander Gorz, Hans Ihle, Wolfgang Kentner, Karl-Friedrich Laible.
Application Number | 20090320515 12/310414 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 37388308 |
Filed Date | 2009-12-31 |
United States Patent
Application |
20090320515 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Bischofberger; Thomas ; et
al. |
December 31, 2009 |
REFRIGERATING DEVICE COMPRISING A PRESSURE COMPENSATION OPENING
Abstract
A refrigerating device having a body and a door that enclose a
refrigerated interior, have frame surfaces oriented toward each
other and delimit a gap filled by a seal, the refrigerating device
including at least one wall in at least one frame surface being
forming with a passage therein, said passage being configured to
bridge the seal, thereby allowing the interior to communicate with
the environment.
Inventors: |
Bischofberger; Thomas;
(Kisslegg, DE) ; Buchstab; Martin; (Bopfingen,
DE) ; Gorz; Alexander; (Aalen, DE) ; Ihle;
Hans; (Giengen, DE) ; Kentner; Wolfgang;
(Rofingen, DE) ; Laible; Karl-Friedrich;
(Langenau, DE) |
Correspondence
Address: |
BSH HOME APPLIANCES CORPORATION;INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY DEPARTMENT
100 BOSCH BOULEVARD
NEW BERN
NC
28562
US
|
Assignee: |
BSH Bosch und Siemens Hausgerate
GmbH
Munich
DE
|
Family ID: |
37388308 |
Appl. No.: |
12/310414 |
Filed: |
September 1, 2006 |
PCT Filed: |
September 1, 2006 |
PCT NO: |
PCT/EP2006/065934 |
371 Date: |
February 24, 2009 |
Current U.S.
Class: |
62/449 |
Current CPC
Class: |
F25D 17/047 20130101;
F25D 23/087 20130101 |
Class at
Publication: |
62/449 |
International
Class: |
F25D 23/02 20060101
F25D023/02 |
Foreign Application Data
Date |
Code |
Application Number |
Aug 29, 2006 |
DE |
20 2006 013 229.5 |
Claims
1-11. (canceled)
12. A refrigerating device having a body and a door that enclose a
refrigerated interior, have frame surfaces oriented toward each
other and delimit a gap filled by a seal, the refrigerating device
comprising at least one wall in at least one frame surface being
forming with a passage therein, said passage being configured to
bridge the seal, thereby allowing the interior to communicate with
the environment.
13. The refrigerating device according to claim 12 wherein the
passage extends through the frame surface in a non-linear path.
14. The refrigerating device according to claim 12 wherein the
passage includes at least one section extending in the longitudinal
direction of the seal.
15. The refrigerating device according to claim 12 and further
comprising a heater mounted at a front of the body wherein the
passage extends through an area of the housing heated by the
heater.
16. The refrigerating device according to claim 12 wherein the seal
is fixed in a groove formed in a first one of two frame surfaces
and the passage is formed on the second one of two frame
surface.
17. The refrigerating device according to claim 12 wherein the seal
is fixed in a groove of one of the two frame surfaces and the
passage is formed on the same frame surface as the groove to extend
between the walls of the groove and an anchoring section of the
sealing profile engaged in the groove.
18. The refrigerating device according to claim 17 wherein the
groove is transversely divided by a rib which engages in a
longitudinal channel of the seal, and wherein the rib has a cutout
through which the passage extends.
19. The refrigerating device according to claim 12 wherein at least
one end of the passage is disposed at a corner of a frame
surface.
20. The refrigerating device according to claim 12 and further
comprising a frame heater disposed on a frame surface of the
body.
21. The refrigerating device according to claim 20 wherein the
frame heater is formed using a refrigerant pipe extending annularly
in a discontinuous manner on the frame surface of the body thereby
defining an interruption of the refrigerant pipe, wherein the
passage is formed on the frame surface of the body generally at the
level of the interruption.
22. The refrigerating device according to claim 20 and further
comprising a pressure compensation valve extending through a wall
of at least one of the body and the door thereby proving an inflow
of air from the environment into the interior and to thereby block
an outflow of air from the interior into the environment.
Description
[0001] The present invention relates to a refrigerating device,
such as, say, a refrigerator or freezer, having a pressure
compensation opening which serves to prevent a negative pressure
being generated in the interior of the refrigerating device.
[0002] Every time the door of a refrigerating device is opened,
warm air enters its interior, cools down therein after the door is
closed and generates a negative pressure by means of which the door
is sucked against the front of the body. The effect of this
negative pressure is that after being closed the door is very
difficult to open again until the pressure between the interior and
the environment is equalized once more. Although a pressure
equalization is in fact always reestablished after a relatively
long time on account of the fact that the seal conventionally
fitted between the door and the front of the body of the
refrigerating device does not close so as to be completely
airtight, efforts are generally nonetheless directed at keeping the
leakage rate of said seal to a minimum, since air that is exchanged
by way of leakages in the seal between the interior and the
environment also always leads to an undesirable introduction of
heat and humidity into the interior. The higher the precision with
which the refrigerating device has been manufactured and
consequently the smaller the leakage rate, the longer the negative
pressure persists after the door is closed.
[0003] This problem makes itself particularly clearly felt in the
case of refrigerating devices in which the frame surfaces of body
and door that are disposed opposite one another and typically
sealing off one another by means of a magnetic seal are embodied as
a single piece and as a result form a contact surface that is
practically free of irregularities for the magnetic seal and allows
a very tight closure.
[0004] DE 102 33 216 A1 discloses a refrigerating device having an
air passage which allows ambient air to enter the interior when the
door is closed. The air passage of said known refrigerating device
is provided in order to prevent refrigerated items stored therein,
such as, say, the corks of wine bottles, from drying out. A
secondary effect which is not considered in DE 102 33 216 A1 is
that the passage prevents a negative pressure from being generated
in the interior after the door is closed. The air passage of said
known refrigerating device is implemented as a bored hole which
extends through a wall of the body or of the door. A passage of
said kind necessitates considerable manufacturing overhead, since
its walls must tightly adjoin an inner and outer skin of the body
or door in order to prevent insulating material that is being used
to fill out the walls from escaping via the passage. The
possibility of accommodating the passage in the magnetic sealing
strip is cited as an alternative. However, conventional magnetic
sealing strips are not suitable per se for enabling an opening to
be formed therein.
[0005] An object of the present invention is to provide a
refrigerating device having a pressure compensation opening which,
with minimal manufacturing overhead, effectively prevents a
negative pressure from being generated after the door is
closed.
[0006] The object is achieved in that in the case of refrigerating
device comprising a body and a door which enclose a refrigerated
interior and have frame surfaces that are oriented toward each
other and delimit a gap that is filled with a seal, a passage
bridging the seal is recessed into at least one of the frame
surfaces, thereby allowing the interior to communicate with the
environment. Thus, instead of creating a passage in the body, in
the door or in the seal in the conventional way, by means of the
passage according to the invention a connection is created which
extends in each case between the seal and the body or between the
seal and the door. Since no passage hole is formed, the sealing
problem does not arise. The passage can be formed without
additional overhead at the same time as the frame surfaces of door
or body are molded, in particular by means of a deep-drawing
process. The passage can have the shape of a trench, a channel or a
plurality of interconnected trench or channel sections.
[0007] In order to prevent as far as possible an exchange of air
through the passage which goes beyond the unavoidable amount due to
the temperature fluctuations of the interior, it is furthermore
preferred that the passage bridges the seal by a non-straight
path.
[0008] A non-straight path of said kind can furthermore be
considerably longer than the width of the bridged seal, such that
there is available in the passage a large surface on which the
moisture from the aspirated air can condense. This reduces the
probability that condensed moisture will fill the cross-section of
the passage and obstruct the flow of air in the passage.
[0009] In order to achieve a passage of great length it can be
provided in particular that the passage includes at least one
section running in the longitudinal direction of the seal.
[0010] If the seal is fixed in a groove in one of the two frame
surfaces, it is particularly easy to form the passage on the other
frame surface.
[0011] The passage can be formed on the same frame surface as the
groove in a particularly inconspicuous manner; in this case the
groove extends diagonally across the passage, and at most the two
ends of the passage are visible on different sides of the seal.
[0012] If a rib is formed in the base of the groove so as to engage
in a longitudinal channel of the seal, said rib is preferably
interrupted locally in order to form the passage.
[0013] In addition, at least one end of the passage is preferably
disposed at a corner of the frame surface, since the corners are
generally the warmest areas of the refrigerating device housing and
therefore the tendency to form condensate in the passage is
relatively low at these points.
[0014] In order to prevent frost from forming in the passage and
blocking it in the course of the operation of the refrigerating
device, the passage is preferably heatable. Heating can be effected
without additional costs by means of a frame heater which is
provided in many refrigerating devices in order to prevent dew from
forming on outer surfaces of the body or door that are adjacent to
the seal.
[0015] If the frame heater is formed by means of a refrigerant pipe
extending annularly in a discontinuous manner on the frame surface
of the body, the passage is advantageously formed on the frame
surface of the body at the level of the interruption.
[0016] In addition to the passage, a pressure compensation valve
extending through a wall of the body or door can also be provided
on a refrigerating device of the above-described type, which valve
allows an inflow of air from the environment into the interior, but
blocks an outflow of air from the interior. Since a valve of said
type prevents an uncontrolled exchange of air between interior and
environment and consequently an undesirable introduction of heat
into the housing, it can have a substantially greater free
cross-section than the passage without appreciably increasing the
inflow of heat to the interior and consequently allow a faster
pressure compensation than said passage after the door is closed.
It has been demonstrated that pressure compensation valves of said
kind tend to freeze up in continuous operation, and that the
presence of the passage removes this tendency to freeze up.
[0017] Further features and advantages of the invention may be
derived from the following description of exemplary embodiments
with reference to the accompanying figures, in which:
[0018] FIG. 1 shows a schematic perspective view of a refrigerating
device according to a first embodiment of the invention;
[0019] FIG. 2 shows a partial section through a wall of the body of
the refrigerating device along the plane designated by II in FIG.
1;
[0020] FIG. 2a shows a detail view of a corner of the body of the
refrigerating device according to a variant of the first
embodiment.
[0021] FIG. 3 shows a section through a pressure compensation
valve;
[0022] FIG. 4 shows a bottom corner of the internal wall of a
refrigerating device door according to a second embodiment of the
invention;
[0023] FIG. 5 shows a section through the internal wall and the
sealing profile fixed therein along the plane designated by V in
FIG. 4;
[0024] FIG. 6 shows a section along the plane designated by VI in
FIG. 4;
[0025] FIG. 7 shows a perspective view of a corner of the internal
wall of a refrigerating device door and a sealing profile
accommodated therein according to a third embodiment of the
invention; and
[0026] FIG. 8 shows a section along the plane designated by VIII in
FIG. 7.
[0027] FIG. 1 is a schematic perspective view of a refrigerating
device having a body 1 and a door 2 attached thereto which enclose
a refrigerated interior 3. The walls of the body and the door each
have, in a manner known per se, a solid outer skin and a solid
inner skin which delimit an intermediate space filled with
insulating foam material. The inner skin of the walls and a frame
surface 5 surrounding the front opening of the body 1 are formed in
one piece from a plastic sheet in a deep-drawing process. A
magnetic seal 4 is fixed in a manner known per se in a front frame
of the door 2 that is located opposite the front frame 5 when the
door 2 is in the closed position. A passage in the form of a trench
8 is recessed into the front frame 5 in such a way that when the
door 2 is closed, one end of the trench 8 comes to lie on the
outside and the other on the inside of the seal 4.
[0028] FIG. 2 shows a section along the plane designated by II in
FIG. 1 through the trench 8 and its environment. In the sectional
view shown in FIG. 2, two sections 15, 15' of a pipe which acts as
a frame heater can be seen. The section 15 conducts warm,
compressed refrigerant from a compressor (not shown) housed in a
rear region of the body 1 and bends adjacent to the trench 8 in
order to extend along a bottom horizontal section of the frame
surface 5. The pipe runs along the entire frame surface 5 and
finally arrives from above, as section 15', at the trench 8 once
again, where it bends in the depth direction of the body 1 and runs
onward to a condenser mounted externally on the rear wall of the
body 1. The frame heater thus extends annularly along the entire
frame surface 5, with the exception of a gap between the two
segments 15, 15' into which the trench 8 engages. Thus, the trench
8 does not obstruct a routing of the frame heater in direct contact
with the frame surface 5.
[0029] The trench 8 shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 bridges the magnetic
seal 4 in a straight line and at right angles. In order on the one
hand to realize a low conductance value of the passage formed
through the trench 8 and on the other hand to be able to make the
cross-section of the trench 8 large enough so that not just a drop
of condensed water will suffice to close the trench 8, it is
desirable to increase the length of the trench 8, e.g. by its
bridging the seal 4 at an acute angle, or, as shown in the detail
view of FIG. 2a, by its comprising a section parallel to the seal 4
which runs inside an area of the frame surface 5 which is covered
by the seal 4 when the door 2 is closed and is delimited by dashed
lines in FIG. 2b.
[0030] The trench 8 can form the only passage between the interior
3 and the environment of the refrigerating device which supports a
pressure compensation between the interior 3 and the environment
after the door 2 is closed. According to a developed embodiment, a
pressure compensation valve is provided in addition for that
purpose, for example in an opening 6 formed in the lower area of
the door. An example of a possible structure of the pressure
compensation valve is shown in FIG. 3, which shows a perspective
longitudinal section through the pressure compensation valve 7.
[0031] A sleeve 11 secured in a foam-tight manner on the internal
wall 10 by means of a bayonet joint extends between an exterior
panel 9 of the door 2 and an internal wall 10 deep-drawn from
plastic. A membrane 12 held under flexural stress in the interior
of the sleeve 11 has edges tightly adjoining the walls of the
sleeve 11 and is held in position by means of an intermediate wall
13 extending transversely through the interior of the sleeve 11 and
a cap part 14. In the event of a negative pressure in the interior
3, air flows through between the edges of the membrane 12 and the
sleeve 11 in order to compensate for the negative pressure; a
positive pressure in the interior 3, on the other hand, would press
the membrane 12 against the sleeve 11, thus increasing the sealing
effect of the valve 7; the pressure is therefore equalized by way
of the trench 8.
[0032] If the valve 7 were provided as the only pressure
compensation means between the interior 3 and the environment, air
from outside would slowly flow through the valve 7 when the
interior 3 cools down in an operating phase of the compressor. In
this case there is a risk that the air will cool down sharply
already when passing through the opening 6 and moisture contained
therein will condense out at the valve 7 and so lead to the
freezing of the valve 7. However, since the trench 8 is provided
according to the invention and contains no membrane obstructing the
air flow, in such a case the air will flow into the interior 3
exclusively by way of the trench 8. Consequently the valve 7 cannot
freeze up, and the trench 8 is protected against freezing up by
virtue of its close proximity to the frame heater 41.
[0033] FIG. 4 is a perspective view of a bottom corner of the
internal wall 10 of the door 2 as well as of the magnetic seal 4
secured to the internal wall 10 according to a second embodiment of
the invention. In this second embodiment, the trench 8 on the frame
surface 5 of the body 1 is replaced by a corresponding trench 8'
formed on the frame surface of the internal wall 10, two ends of
which can be seen in FIG. 4.
[0034] On a rear face of the magnetic seal 4 facing away from a
chamber containing a magnetic strip 16 there are formed two
projections 17, 18, of which one, 17, is populated by barbed hooks.
The projections 17, 18 engage in a groove 19 of the internal wall
10 which is subdivided into an inner and an outer section 21, 22 by
means of a rib 20 running in the longitudinal direction of the
groove 19. The barbed hooks of the projection 17 are locked in
place on undercuts of the inner section 21. A transverse wall 23
extending in the width direction of the magnetic seal 4 and bulging
forward into the section 22 is held by means of the locking
mechanism in a flexurally loaded position in which it holds the
projection 18 pressed into the outer section 22 of the groove 19. A
thin, flexible wall section 24 of the magnetic seal 4 is bent
inward by an edge of the outer section 22, such that the wall
section 24 rests essentially tightly against this edge. Formed on
an opposing edge of the transverse wall 23 is a lip 25 which is
pressed tightly against a shoulder 26 of the internal wall 10
adjoining the inner section 21 by means of the locking mechanism of
the projection 17. The wall section 24, the lip 25 and the barbed
hooks of the projection 17 form a plurality of sealing lines
between the internal wall 10 and the magnetic seal 4.
[0035] However, said sealing lines do not extend over the entire
length of the magnetic seal 4, but are interrupted by the trench 8'
at the corner of the door 2 shown. The trench 8' is formed by an
indentation in the internal wall 10 being drawn at the point where
a horizontal and a vertical section of the groove 19 meet. An outer
contour 28 of said indentation can be seen in FIG. 5, which shows a
section through the internal wall 10 and the magnetic seal 4 along
the plane designated by V in FIG. 4.
[0036] FIG. 6 shows a section along the sectional plane inclined at
45.degree. to the horizontal and designated by VI in FIG. 4. The
sectional plane runs along the trench 8', and it can be seen that
neither the wall section 24 nor the barbed hooks or the lip 25
touch the internal wall 10 along said sectional plane. A passage
extending between the magnetic seal 4 and the door 2 is created by
means of said trench 8'.
[0037] The trench 8' allows a pressure compensation between
interior and exterior while bypassing the pressure compensation
valve 7, although the course of the trench 8' frequently changing
its direction in the manner of a labyrinth seal limits the exchange
of air between interior and exterior to the degree necessary for
the pressure compensation. Since on the one hand the trench 8' is
heated by means of the front 5 and on the other hand air which has
passed the trench 8' must still pass a temperature-compensating gap
29 between the internal wall 10 and the frame surface 5 before
reaching the interior 3, there is no risk of the trench 8' becoming
blocked due to excessive condensation.
[0038] A third embodiment of the invention is described with
reference to FIGS. 7 and 8. Like FIG. 4, FIG. 7 is a perspective
view of a corner of the internal wall 10, wherein the groove 19 of
the internal wall 10 is shown fitted with the magnetic seal 4 only
on one part of its length in order to be able to show a cutout 30
formed in the rib 20 separating the sections 21, 22 of the groove
19 from each other. The cross-sections of the groove 19 and the
magnetic seal 4 are the same as shown in FIG. 5. As can be seen
with reference to the section of FIG. 8 analogous to FIG. 6, the
passage 8' is interrupted by the rib 20 in the sectional plane of
said figure. As can be seen with reference to FIG. 5, however, in
both sections 21, 22 of the groove 19 there are in each case
longitudinal channels 31, 32 delimited by the walls of the groove
19 on the one hand and by the magnetic seal 4 itself on the other
hand, of which one channel 31 communicates with the environment at
the level of the corner shown in FIG. 7 via an external section 33
of the passage 8' (see FIG. 8) and the other channel 32
communicates with the interior 3 via an internal section 34 of the
passage 8'. The two longitudinal channels 31, 32 are connected to
each other via the cutout 30. Since the cutout 30 is disposed at a
great distance from the corner in which the two sections 33, 34 are
disposed, the length of the entire passage 8' can easily be made
greater than the edge length of the door 2. In an extreme case the
cutout 30 could even be formed at the corner of the door 2
diametrically opposite the corner shown in FIG. 7. In spite of a
possibly large cross-section of the individual sections of the
passage, the great length of the passage 8' results in a low
conductance value by means of which an exchange of air between the
interior 3 and the environment which goes beyond the amount caused
by temperature fluctuations of the interior 3 is reliably
suppressed.
* * * * *