Supports: cabinet structure – With movable components – With wiper or seal
Reexamination Certificate
1999-02-08
2001-05-08
Knight, Anthony (Department: 3626)
Supports: cabinet structure
With movable components
With wiper or seal
C277S630000, C277S637000, C277S645000, C049S478100, C049S489100
Reexamination Certificate
active
06227634
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
In the industrial branch of refrigerator profiles equipped with a magnetic sealing gasket, sealing systems of a type such as described in the U.S. Pat. No. 4,167,759 and in the European patent 319.087 by the same Applicant are known.
These systems have the common characteristic of assembling, manually or in an automated manner, a rigid profile fitted with a soft gasket co-extruded with the same, an inner door shell on one side and an outer door on the other, and of producing, after the assembly, a foamed material in the hollow space formed between the inner and outer door in order to achieve the thermal insulation of the same.
One of the drawbacks arising in such sealing systems is that in order to produce the foaming material inside an appropriate mold the soft part of the gasket is subjected to a squashing action, which may, in the event of an anomalous positioning inside the foaming mold, even produce a permanent deformation of the mentioned gasket.
On the other hand, different sealing systems have recently been developed, where the need of having a rigid profile of a rather complex geometric shape to allow supporting the soft sealing element on one side and to achieve the coupling of the inner and outer door as well as to fit an alternative gasket on the opposite side has been eliminated.
This has become possible by configuring the same outer door with a groove, generally arranged along the perimeter and capable of functioning as a seat to receive a soft gasket.
The system radically differs from the one discussed above in reference to the patents by the same Applicant, due to the fact that it is in this case possible to arrange for an inner/outer door assembly by executing the thermally insulating foaming step inside the hollow space formed between them prior to installing the gasket.
In other words, this system first produces a complete door, meaning a fully assembled and foamed-out door leading to the additional effect of holding the inner and outer doors permanently coupled to each other, and subsequently provides for mounting the soft gasket by a fastener element, for instance an anchor or leg capable of penetrating and latching by interference into the perimeter hollow with which the outer door has been molded.
A gasket installed according to a technology of this kind is shown in
FIG. 1
of the drawings attached to this description.
With reference to this
FIG. 1
, a gasket of the known art is indicated by G and operatively assumes the configuration shown by a full line.
In this operating condition, the gasket G is installed across an anchoring leg E inside a groove
10
provided along the perimeter of an outer door
30
. The latter is assembled with the plate of an inner door
30
, where the inner door
30
and the outer door
30
are held together by a thermally insulating roamed material used to fill the hollow space formed between them.
This gasket is produced from a single type of soft plastic material and fitted at its upper end with a seat for a magnetic material M.
As can be seen, in the lower part a fastening element E projects from a base D produced with a thickness greater than that of the remainder of the gasket, so as to attain an adequate stability against the stresses induced by the door's opening and closing motions, and therefore by the traction of the magnet on the part of the refrigerator chest.
These stresses basically result into two forces, as shown in
FIG. 1
by the vectors A and B which are basically acting vertically to each other.
The effect of a continuous application of such forces A and B on the gasket G is to generate some deformations, as shown in a simplified manner by a dashed line in FIG.
1
.
As can be seen, these deformations are substantially due to a lifting action of the base D in the outer lateral area of the system, accompanied by a corresponding lifting action of the sealing strip C, which should in an operating position fit against the outer door (
30
) so as to achieve a lateral seal.
The deformation caused by the gasket's stretching under the effect of the magnetic traction is considerable. In order to attempt reducing this deformation, the only possible solution is to try to increase the thickness of the base D, which adversely affects the production costs.
Moreover, such a solution is incapable of preventing the deformations generated in this manner. The magnetic attraction also results in a constant lifting action of the anchoring leg E inside the outer door's groove
10
. This entails the need to size this fastening leg E with a considerable thickness, which again affects the costs and at any rate fails to prevent the constant shifting action of the leg inside the groove
10
, and consequently even runs the risk that such an anchoring leg may sooner or later jump off its seat.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
These problems are solved by a gasket according to this invention, which consists of a gasket
1
made of a plastic material for refrigerator chests and the like, equipped with an outer door
30
and an inner door (
31
) rigidly connected to each other by injecting a foamed material into the hollow space formed between them for thermal insulating purposes, of a kind in which said outer door
30
is profiled along one or more sides with a groove
10
in the area next to its extremity
13
overlaying said inner door
31
, where said groove
10
functions as a seat to receive an appropriate fastener
11
of said gasket, where the latter presents a bellows-type portion (
20
) made of a soft plastic material capable of producing a sealing gasket between the door and the refrigerator chest
32
, and a base
12
from which said fastener
11
extends, characterized in that said gasket base
12
is made of a rigid plastic material produced by co-extrusion with the said soft plastic material of the bellows-type portion
20
, and presents a substantially horizontal, flat or slightly curved configuration in the portion
14
in which said base overlays the extremity
13
of said outer door, while presenting a substantially oblique or vertical, flat or slightly curved configuration in the portion of the extremity
15
, where said portion
15
of said base is externally overlaid, on the same side as the outer door
30
, by a layer
16
of soft material co-extruded with the rigid material of said base, from which a sealing element
17
is extended so as to operatively rest against said outer door
30
, while the mentioned soft layer
16
belongs to the lateral wall of said bellows-type portion
20
.
REFERENCES:
patent: 3137900 (1964-06-01), Carbury
patent: 5916076 (1999-06-01), Cittandini et al.
patent: 6058657 (2000-05-01), Merla
Cittadini Paolo
Ferrante Pier Paolo
Industrie Ilpea S.p.A.
Knight Anthony
Oblon & Spivak, McClelland, Maier & Neustadt P.C.
Schwing Karlena D.
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