Refrigeration – Gas controller or director – Cooled gas directed relative to cooled enclosure
Patent
1995-11-11
1997-09-09
Sollecito, John M.
Refrigeration
Gas controller or director
Cooled gas directed relative to cooled enclosure
62441, F25D 1704
Patent
active
056644370
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
RELATED INVENTION
This invention is related to an invention disclosed in U.S. Ser. No. 08/537,789, filed Oct. 23, 1995.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to a cool-air duct for refrigerators which can efficiently direct cool air into a plurality of cool-air discharge openings which communicate with a refrigerating compartment.
As shown in FIG. 1, a conventional refrigerator is constructed by mounting a freezing compartment door 6 and a refrigerating compartment door 7 on a refrigerator body 4 of a thermally insulated structure consisting of a freezing compartment 2 and a refrigerating compartment 3 which are partitioned from each other by an intermediate partition wall 1 therebetween.
A compressor 11 is installed in the machine compartment 11M that is positioned under the refrigerating compartment 3. A condenser and capillary tube (not shown) are mounted in the interior of the body 4 or placed in the machine compartment 11M, while an evaporator 12 is mounted on the rear wall of the freezing compartment 2. These components are connected to each other by refrigerant tubes (not shown) to perform the refrigeration cycle.
A fan 13, for forcing cool air from the evaporator 12 into the freezing compartment 2 and the refrigerating compartment 3, is disposed above the evaporator 12. In order to guide the flow of the cool air, a grill 14 is placed in front of the fan 13 and a cool-air duct 15A is disposed on the rear wall of the refrigerating compartment 3. Here, the numeral 19 indicates a damper for controlling the quantity of cool air introduced into the refrigerating compartment 3, and the numeral 8 indicates shelves for receiving food items.
As a method for supplying cool air to the refrigerating compartment 3, a conventional refrigerator generally adopts a shelf-by-shelf cool-air discharging method. In this method, as shown in FIG. 2, a plurality of cool-air discharge openings 16A, B,C are provided for several areas partitioned by the shelves 8, and are arranged in a vertically spaced direction on the front of the cool-air duct 15A, in order that cool air can be discharged towards the front of each area formed by the plurality of the shelves 8.
However, in the above shelf-by-shelf cool-air discharging method only a small portion of the cool air from the evaporator 12 passes through the upper cool-air discharge opening 16A. Most of the cool air flows down along the cool-air duct 15A and finally discharges into the refrigerating compartment 3 through the lowest cool-air discharge opening 16C. This problem arises because the cool-air discharge openings 16A,B,C are formed perpendicularly to the flow direction of the cool air passing through the cool-air duct 15A. Accordingly, the upper and lower portions of the refrigerating compartment 3 constitute different temperature zones, respectively, so uniform cooling in the refrigerating compartment 3 can not be achieved. As a result, the food items on the upper shelves of the refrigerating compartment 3 can not maintain a proper refrigerating temperature, whereas the food items on the lower shelves are overcooled.
Furthermore, such a conventional refrigerator has demerit in that cool-air circulation in the refrigerating compartment 3 does not go smoothly, so not only does the cool air not reach the corners of the refrigerating compartment 3, but the temperature distribution in every direction of the space is not kept constant. Cool air is discharged only towards the front of the refrigerating compartment 3 due to the poor configuration of the cool-air duct aforementioned.
Even in the case where bulky food items may be near any of the cool-air discharge openings, blocking the cool-air flow, the cool-air circulation still does not improve significantly.
As a consequence, the food items in the refrigerating compartment 3 can not be stored in the most suitable condition.
As an attempt to distribute cool air more evenly throughout the compartment, a three-dimensional cool-air discharging method has recently been developed. As shown in FIG. 3, a refrigerat
REFERENCES:
patent: 4058989 (1977-11-01), Horvay et al.
patent: 5551252 (1996-09-01), Lee
Kim Yong Myoung
Park Seak Haeng
Samsung Electronics Co,. Ltd.
Sollecito John M.
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