U.S. patent application number 12/681006 was filed with the patent office on 2010-08-19 for anti-frosting refrigerator.
This patent application is currently assigned to BSH BOSCH UND SIEMENS HAUSGERATE GMBH. Invention is credited to Jochen Harlen.
Application Number | 20100205998 12/681006 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 40435318 |
Filed Date | 2010-08-19 |
United States Patent
Application |
20100205998 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Harlen; Jochen |
August 19, 2010 |
ANTI-FROSTING REFRIGERATOR
Abstract
A refrigerator with a storage chamber, an evaporation chamber,
and a fan for driving an air circulation from the evaporation
chamber to the storage chamber. In an exemplary embodiment, the
refrigerator may include a grid disposed to cross an elongated
inlet opening of the storage chamber.
Inventors: |
Harlen; Jochen;
(Konigsbronn, 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: |
40435318 |
Appl. No.: |
12/681006 |
Filed: |
September 22, 2008 |
PCT Filed: |
September 22, 2008 |
PCT NO: |
PCT/EP08/62630 |
371 Date: |
March 31, 2010 |
Current U.S.
Class: |
62/419 ;
62/440 |
Current CPC
Class: |
F25D 17/08 20130101;
F25D 17/065 20130101; F25D 2317/0672 20130101; F25D 2317/067
20130101 |
Class at
Publication: |
62/419 ;
62/440 |
International
Class: |
F25D 17/06 20060101
F25D017/06; F25D 13/00 20060101 F25D013/00 |
Foreign Application Data
Date |
Code |
Application Number |
Oct 10, 2007 |
DE |
10 2007 048 572.9 |
Claims
1-10. (canceled)
11. A refrigerator, comprising: at least one storage chamber; an
evaporation chamber; a fan structured to drive air circulation from
the evaporation chamber to the storage chamber; and one or more
grids disposed to cross an elongated inlet opening of the storage
chamber.
12. The refrigerator as claimed in claim 11, wherein two or more
grids are arranged in series at the elongated inlet opening.
13. The refrigerator as claimed in claim 12, wherein openings of
the two or more grids are offset from one another in relation to a
surface normal of the one or more grids.
14. The refrigerator as claimed in claim 11, wherein a surface of
the one or more grids is 30%-60% open.
15. The refrigerator as claimed claim 11, wherein the elongated
inlet opening of the storage chamber extends over an entire width
of the storage chamber.
16. The refrigerator as claimed claim 11, wherein the elongated
inlet opening of the storage chamber is a downstream end of a
distributor passage, of which a length is smaller than a largest
dimension of the elongated inlet opening, and wherein a largest
cross-sectional dimension at an upstream end of the distributor
passage is at most half as large as the largest dimension of the
elongated inlet opening.
17. The refrigerator as claimed in claim 16, wherein the length of
the distributor passage is smaller than two thirds of the largest
dimension of the elongated inlet opening.
18. The refrigerator as claimed in claim 16, wherein in a largest
cross-sectional dimension at a downstream end of the distributor
passage is at most a third of the largest dimension of the
elongated inlet opening.
19. The refrigerator as claimed in claim 11, further comprising a
distributor passage, and wherein the storage chamber and the
distributor passage are delimited by a same inner container and are
separated from each other by a partition wall installed in the
inner container.
20. The refrigerator as claimed in claim 11, wherein the elongated
inlet opening is oriented horizontally.
Description
[0001] The present invention relates to a refrigerator with a
storage chamber, an evaporation chamber separate from the storage
chamber and a fan for driving an air circulation between the
evaporation chamber and the storage chamber. Refrigerators of this
type are referred to as no-frost refrigerators.
[0002] A problem in the construction of these types of
refrigerators is the danger of uneven cooling. Refrigerated items
placed directly in front of an inlet opening of the cold air coming
from the evaporation chamber into the storage chamber will be
cooled very efficiently and can screen other refrigerated items
from the stream of cold air so that the danger arises of the latter
items being cooled insufficiently. If a temperature sensor in the
storage chamber is also screened the result can be an incorrect
regulation of the temperature; the cooled items directly in the
path of the cold air are cooled down too far and may possibly be
damaged.
[0003] In order to avoid such dangers efforts are generally made to
achieve a good spatial distribution of cold air and to feed it at a
lower flow speed into the storage chamber by providing a number of
inlet openings spaced widely apart or one inlet opening with a
large spread in at least one direction for the cold air. In order
to distribute the highly concentrated airflow in the area of the
fan evenly to the available opening cross-section a known approach
is to provide a distribution passage with air guide ribs diverging
from each other between the fan and the inlet opening (or the inlet
openings) of the air into the storage chamber.
[0004] The air guide ribs are only effective however if they do not
diverge too far; with guide ribs diverging greatly from one another
and correspondingly sharply curved there is the danger of the flow
detaching from the surface so that an even distribution of the air
cannot be achieved. Also, even if it is possible with the aid of
the guide ribs to achieve a satisfactory distribution of the cold
air over the entire cross-section of the inlet opening, finding a
suitable shape for the guide ribs is a tedious and expensive
optimization task.
[0005] The object of the present invention is to specify a
refrigerator with a storage chamber, an evaporation chamber and a
fan for driving an air circulation from the evaporation chamber to
the storage chamber, in which an even distribution of the cold air
over the cross-section of an inlet opening is able to be achieved
in a simple manner and with little optimization effort.
[0006] The object is achieved by a grid crossing an elongated inlet
opening of the storage chamber. The effect of the grid is two-fold.
On the one hand a slight drop in pressure occurs at the grid, which
effects an even distribution of the air pressure in front of the
grid and thereby an even distribution of the airflow over the
entire surface of the grid. On the other hand many individual
streams are formed directly downstream from the grid behind its
openings which are separated from one another in each case by areas
screened by the closed surfaces of the grid. The fact that the many
streams each of small cross-section pull air with them from the
shielded areas means that they slow down and there is a slow flow
obtained over a significantly larger cross-sectional surface than
corresponds to the open surface of the grid.
[0007] To intensify this carrying-along effect a number of grids
can be arranged at the inlet opening in series in air flow terms.
In such cases the openings of the grid are preferably offset
relative to each other in relation to a surface normal of the
grid.
[0008] In order on the one hand not to let the drop in pressure at
a grid become too great, but on the other hand to have sufficient
screened areas between the individual streams, the surface of the
grid is preferably between 30 and 60% open.
[0009] Because of the use of the grid it is possible to greatly
widen out the flow cross section over the short distance between
the ventilator and the inlet opening. Thus the distributor passage,
the downstream end of which is the inlet opening of the storage
chamber, and the greatest cross-sectional dimension of which at its
upstream end must be at most half as large as the largest dimension
of the inlet opening, must not itself be longer than the largest
dimension of the inlet opening itself. This means that even with a
very compact form of the refrigerator housing a good distribution
of the cold air is achievable.
[0010] The length of the distributor passage can even be reduced to
two thirds or less of the largest dimension of the inlet opening.
Even if the largest cross-sectional dimension at the upstream end
of the distributor passage is only a third of the largest dimension
of the inlet opening, an even distribution can still be
realized.
[0011] The refrigerator is easy to assemble if the storage chamber
and the distributor passage are delimited by a same inner container
and are separated from one another by a partition wall installed in
the inner container.
[0012] Further features and advantages of the invention emerge from
the description given below of exemplary embodiments which refer to
the enclosed figures. The figures show:
[0013] FIG. 1 a part front view of a carcass of a refrigerator in
accordance with the present invention;
[0014] FIG. 2 a section through the refrigerator in the depth
direction of its housing;
[0015] FIG. 3 a section along the plane III-III from FIG. 2;
and
[0016] FIG. 4 a perspective view of a part of a partition wall
between storage chamber and distributor passage of the
refrigerator.
[0017] FIG. 1 shows a part front view of the carcass of an
inventive refrigerator. The carcass 1 has an only partly shown
upper and a lower storage chamber 2 or 3 respectively which are
separated from one another by a horizontal insulating wall 4. The
storage chambers 2, 3 are formed in a manner known per se by deep
drawing of a plastic plate into an inner container with a single
recess and insertion of the wall 4 into the recess.
[0018] Below the wall 4 is located an evaporation chamber 5. It is
divided by a housing 7 with a front side suction opening 6 from the
lower storage chamber 3.
[0019] Behind an opening in the rear wall of the evaporation
chamber 5 is located a fan 8 which sucks in air from the
evaporation chamber 5. As can be seen in FIG. 3, a cutout 12 is
formed in a rear wall insulation layer 11 of the carcass 1, which
houses an impeller wheel of the fan 8 and together with the rear
wall of the evaporation chamber 5 forms an outflow duct for the air
sucked in by the fan 8. A branch 13 of the outflow duct turns into
a passage 9 running behind the rear wall of the upper storage
chamber 2 and finally emerging into this chamber; another branch
emerges in a distributor passage 10 which extends over the entire
width of the lower storage chamber 3. The distributor passage is a
hollow space of a small depth which is separated from the lower
storage chamber 3 by a partition wall 15 injection molded from
plastic. The cold air enters into the distributor passage 10 at its
upper edge on a cross-sectional surface of 5 to 10 cm wide and a
few cm deep; a rear wall of the inner container forming a gap 16
between the lower edge of the partition wall 15 and the rear side
of the distributor passage 10 extends over the entire width of the
storage chamber 3 of typically appr. 50 cm and has a depth of the
order of magnitude of 1 cm.
[0020] Two grids 17, which are shown more precisely in the
perspective view of FIG. 4, extend over the entire cross-sectional
surface of the gap 16. FIG. 4 shows a perspective view of a part of
the partition wall 15. The partition wall 15 comprises a wall plate
18 of approximately 50 cm in width, corresponding to the width of
the storage chamber 3, and a height of approximately 20 to 30 cm,
two webs 19 formed on the vertical edges of the wall plate 18 of
which only one is shown in FIG. 4, spacers 20 with an aerodynamic
cross-section which are used for anchoring, with the aid of screws
for example, the partition wall 15 in the inner container, as well
as, distributed along the lower edge of the wall plate 18, a
plurality of short ribs which are each divided up by slots 22 into
a number of sections. The strip-shaped grids 17 are inserted into
the slots 22 in each case. The grids can themselves the rigid
elements made of metal or plastic or they can also involve, as
shown in the figure, flexible bands made of plastic or fabric,
which example are wound at their ends around keder rails to prevent
them slipping out of the slots 22.
[0021] Openings not shown in the figure each make up around 60% of
the surface of the grids 17. The air flows through these openings
in parallel to the surface normal of the grid 17. The openings of
the grids are offset from each other so that an air stream formed
at an opening of the grid 17 lying upstream in each case hits close
to the surface of the downstream grid 17 and is broken up by
this.
[0022] In the diagram shown in FIG. 4 the ribs 21 each have two
slots so that two grids 17 can be installed. Naturally the number
of slots can also be greater or smaller, with not every slot having
to be occupied by a grid. In order not to unnecessarily increase
the flow resistance of the distributor passage, in practice only as
many grids 17 are installed as are necessary in order to obtain a
slow airflow distributed evenly over the entire width of the
storage chamber 3 at the output of the distributor passage 10.
[0023] As can be seen in the section depicted in FIG. 2, the gap
runs horizontally and the air exiting from it is diverted at a
horizontal floor surface 24 of the storage chamber 3. Naturally the
air could also arrive in the storage chamber via a vertical opening
in the wall plate 18. The arrangement shown in FIG. 2 is however
preferred since it protects the grid 17 against damage and the
diversion of the air streams formed at the openings of the lowest
grid 17 contributes to breaking these up and obtaining a slow,
homogeneous flow over a large cross-sectional area in the storage
chamber 3.
* * * * *