CN111964341A

CN111964341A - Refrigerator with a door

Info

Publication number: CN111964341A
Application number: CN201910420204.3A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 刘磊; 李秋芳; 李忠强
Original assignee: Qingdao Haier Co Ltd; Qingdao Haier Refrigerator Co Ltd
Current assignee: Qingdao Haier Co Ltd; Qingdao Haier Refrigerator Co Ltd
Priority date: 2019-05-20
Filing date: 2019-05-20
Publication date: 2020-11-20

Abstract

The present invention provides a refrigerator, comprising: a box body; the first door body and the second door body are arranged on the front side of the box body in a left-right split manner; the sealing beam vertically extends and can be arranged on the first door body in a reciprocating translation mode along the transverse direction of the first door body; the refrigerator is configured to: after the first door body and the second door body are both closed, the sealing beam is made to translate from a retracted state to a second door body to an extended state for sealing a gap between the first door body and the second door body; and before the first door body and/or the second door body are opened, the sealing beam is translated from the extending state to the retracting state. The refrigerator has the advantages that the sealing performance between the two oppositely-opened door bodies is better, and the noise of opening and closing the doors is lower.

Description

Refrigerator with a door

Technical Field

The invention relates to a refrigerating and freezing device, in particular to a refrigerator.

Background

Some large-capacity refrigerators have a left-right side-by-side door structure, i.e., a storage compartment is closed by two left and right door bodies. The split door structure has high requirement on the sealing performance of the gap between the two door bodies.

A common prior art method is to mount a vertical beam for sealing on a door body. When the door body is opened, the vertical beam is in a state of being approximately vertical to the door body. In the closing process of the door body, the vertical beam is guided by the box body to rotate along a vertical axis to a state approximately parallel to the door body so as to seal a gap between the door body and the other door body and reduce the leakage of the cold energy of the storage chamber through the gap.

However, the above-described method is of a purely mechanical structure. In the process of opening and closing the door, the vertical beam is difficult to rotate, jamming is easy to occur, and the vertical beam is easy to collide with the box body to generate noise. More importantly, due to the structure, the vertical beam is difficult to be in close contact with the two door bodies, and the sealing performance is not good.

Disclosure of Invention

An object of the present invention is to overcome at least one of the drawbacks of the prior art and to provide a refrigerator having better sealing performance between side-by-side combination doors and less noise in opening and closing the doors.

Another purpose of the invention is to realize automatic translation of the sealing beam, so that the door opening and closing process of a user is more labor-saving and the user experience is enhanced.

In particular, the present invention provides a refrigerator, comprising:

a box body;

the first door body and the second door body are arranged on the front side of the box body in a left-right split manner; and

the sealing beam vertically extends and can be arranged on the first door body in a reciprocating translation mode along the transverse direction of the first door body; the refrigerator is configured to:

after the first door body and the second door body are both closed, the sealing beam is made to translate from a retracted state to a second door body to an extended state for sealing a gap between the first door body and the second door body; and is

Before the first door body and/or the second door body are opened, the sealing beam is translated from the extending state to the retracting state.

Optionally, the refrigerator further comprises: and the driving mechanism is arranged on the first door body and used for driving the sealing beam to move horizontally.

Optionally, each drive mechanism comprises: the motor is arranged on the first door body; the first end of the crank is fixed on a rotating shaft of the motor; and the first end of the connecting rod is hinged to the second end of the crank, and the second end of the connecting rod is hinged to the sealing beam so as to form a crank-slider mechanism together with the crank and the sealing beam, so that the motor can drive the sealing beam to move horizontally through the crank and the connecting rod.

Optionally, each driving mechanism is configured to cause the motor to always drive the crank to rotate in the same direction during the driving of the seal beam to reciprocate in translation.

Optionally, the first door body has at least one guide groove extending horizontally in a transverse direction thereof; and the sealing beam has at least one guide post, each guide post being movably inserted into one of the guide slots to define a direction of translation of the sealing beam.

Optionally, the second end of the link of each drive mechanism is hinged to the guide post.

Optionally, the number of the at least one guide groove is two, and the two guide grooves are arranged up and down; and the number of the at least one driving mechanism is two.

Optionally, the inner surface of the second door body is provided with a vertically extending fixed beam; and the sealing beam is arranged on the inner surface of the first door body and is in sealing contact with the fixed beam when in an extending state so as to seal a gap between the first door body and the second door body.

Optionally, the side of the sealing beam facing the second door body has a vertically extending projection; and the fixed beam is provided with a groove so as to accommodate the bulge when the sealing beam is in an extending state, thereby enhancing the sealing performance between the fixed beam and the sealing beam.

Optionally, the refrigerator further comprises: the door opening sensing device is used for generating a door opening sensing signal when sensing the action of opening the first door body or the second door body by a user; the door closing sensing device senses that the first door body and the second door body are both closed and then generates a door closing sensing signal; and the controller is configured to control the driving mechanism to drive the sealing beam to make corresponding translation according to the received door opening sensing signal and door closing sensing signal.

The refrigerator adopts the sealing beam to replace the traditional rotating vertical beam to seal the gap between the two oppositely-opened door bodies, and has novel and ingenious structure. In the invention, the motion mode of the sealing beam is translational reciprocating motion, and compared with the traditional rotating vertical beam, the sealing beam is easy to cling to the second door body with larger pressure, so that the sealing performance is better. Moreover, the rotating vertical beam can impact the box body or the door body under the action of elasticity after the door is opened and closed, so that great impact noise is generated. The translational motion of the sealing beam can avoid the defect.

Furthermore, the refrigerator disclosed by the invention drives the sealing beam by using the driving mechanism, and automatically controls the translation of the sealing beam by sensing the door opening action and the door closing action, so that the movement precision of the sealing beam is higher, and a user saves more labor. Meanwhile, the automation level of the refrigerator and the grade of the refrigerator are improved, and the user experience is enhanced.

Furthermore, in the refrigerator, the driving mechanism adopts a motor and a crank-slider mechanism, the crank-slider mechanism can just convert the rotation of the motor into the reciprocating translation of the sealing beam, the selection of the movement mechanism is ingenious, the structure is simple, the design and processing cost is low, and the reliability is high.

Furthermore, the refrigerator of the invention arranges the sealing beam on the inner surface of the first door body, and the sealing beam is in sealing fit with the fixed beam arranged on the inner surface of the second door body, so that the sealing beam can be directly pressed on the fixed beam with larger pressure under the action of the driving mechanism, and the sealing performance is better undoubtedly.

The above and other objects, advantages and features of the present invention will become more apparent to those skilled in the art from the following detailed description of specific embodiments thereof, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

Drawings

Some specific embodiments of the invention will be described in detail hereinafter, by way of illustration and not limitation, with reference to the accompanying drawings. The same reference numbers in the drawings identify the same or similar elements or components. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the drawings are not necessarily drawn to scale. In the drawings:

FIG. 1 is a schematic view of a refrigerator according to an embodiment of the present invention when two door bodies are closed;

FIG. 2 is a schematic view of the refrigerator shown in FIG. 1 with both door bodies open;

FIG. 3 is a schematic top view of a refrigerator according to an embodiment of the present invention when two door bodies are closed and the sealing beam is in a retracted state;

FIG. 4 is an enlarged view of the structure shown in FIG. 3 at A;

FIG. 5 is a schematic view illustrating an inner structure of a first door body in the refrigerator of FIG. 3;

FIG. 6 is a schematic top view of the refrigerator of FIG. 3 with the seal beam translated to an extended condition;

fig. 7 is a schematic view of an inner structure of a first door body in the refrigerator of fig. 6;

fig. 8 is a schematic block diagram of a refrigerator according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Detailed Description

The refrigerator according to the embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to fig. 1 to 8, and the orientations or positional relationships indicated by "front", "rear", "upper", "lower", "top", "bottom", "inner", "outer", "lateral", etc. in the description of the embodiment of the present invention are based on the orientations or positional relationships shown in the drawings, and are only for convenience of describing the present invention and simplifying the description, but do not indicate or imply that the referred device or element must have a specific orientation, be configured and operated in a specific orientation, and thus, cannot be construed as limiting the present invention.

FIG. 1 is a schematic view of a refrigerator according to an embodiment of the present invention when two door bodies are closed; fig. 2 is a schematic view of the refrigerator shown in fig. 1 when both door bodies are opened.

As shown in fig. 1 and 2, a refrigerator according to an embodiment of the present invention may generally include a cabinet 10 and two door bodies. The two door bodies are respectively a first door body 20 and a second door body 30. The cabinet 10 defines a storage compartment 11. The first door 20 and the second door 30 are attached to the front side of the cabinet 10 so as to be left-right-side-opened. Taking the illustrated structure as an example, the pivoting end (the right end in the state of fig. 1) of the first door body 20 is rotatably mounted to the right end of the front side of the cabinet 10 about a vertical axis, and the pivoting end (the left end in the state of fig. 1) of the second door body 30 is rotatably mounted to the left end of the front side of the cabinet 10 about a vertical axis. When the two doors close the storage compartment 11, a gap is formed between the open end (left end in the state of fig. 1) of the first door 20 and the open end (right end in the state of fig. 1) of the second door 30, as shown in fig. 1.

In order to seal the gap between the two door bodies, the refrigerator further includes a sealing beam 50. The sealing beam 50 extends in the vertical direction and is mounted to the first door body 20 in a reciprocating translational manner along the lateral direction of the first door body 20. The lateral direction of the first door body 20 refers to a direction parallel to the x-axis.

After the first door body 20 and the second door body 30 are both closed, the seal beam 50 is translated from a retracted state toward the second door body 30, and finally to an extended state sealing a gap between the first door body 20 and the second door body 30, as shown in fig. 1. At this time, the left and right sides of the sealing beam 50 respectively seal the open ends of the second door body 30 and the first door body 20, and the top and bottom ends respectively seal the top wall and the bottom wall of the cabinet 10, so that the gap between the first door body 20 and the second door body 30 is completely sealed.

To enhance the seal, the seal beam 50 will cling, grip or even lock to the second door body 30. Therefore, before the first door body 20 and/or the second door body 30 are opened, the seal beam 50 is translated from the extending state to the retracting state, so that the constraint of the seal beam 50 on the second door body 30 is relieved, and the opening of one door body is not influenced by the other door body.

The refrigerator adopts the sealing beam 50 to replace the traditional rotating vertical beam to seal the gap between the oppositely-opened door bodies, and has simple and novel structure. The movement form of the seal beam 50 is translational reciprocating movement, and compared with the rotating vertical beam, the seal beam is more easily attached to the second door body 30 with larger pressure, so that the sealing performance is better. And the rotating vertical beam can return under the action of elasticity after the door is opened and closed, and the box body or the door body can be impacted under the action of the elasticity to generate impact noise. The translationally moving seal beam 50 avoids this disadvantage.

In some embodiments, as shown in fig. 2, a fixing beam 40 may protrude backward from an inner surface (a surface facing the inside of the storage compartment 11 when closed) of the second door 30, and the fixing beam 40 may extend in a long strip shape in a vertical direction. The seal beam 50 is mounted to the inner surface of the first door body 20. The sealing beam 50 is in a protruding state, and is in sealing contact with the fixed beam 40 to seal a gap between the first door body 20 and the second door body 30. The sealing between the fixing beam 40 and the sealing beam 50, rather than the direct sealing between the inner surface of the second door body 30 and the sealing beam 50, is performed to allow the sealing beam 50 to be directly pressed against the fixing beam 40 with a greater pressure, which certainly improves the sealing performance.

Further, the side of the sealing beam 50 facing the second door 30 may have a protrusion 51 protruding outward, and the protrusion 51 may extend in a long strip shape in the vertical direction. The fixing beam 40 is opened with a groove 41 matching the position and shape of the projection 51 for receiving the projection 51. The projection 51 is inserted into the groove 41 when the seal beam 50 is in the extended state. The structure has at least two advantages, firstly, the locking between two door bodies can be realized, the door bodies are not easy to shake after being closed, and the sealing performance is better. And compared with two plane contact seals, the plug-in structure has better sealing performance obviously.

Fig. 3 is a schematic plan view of the refrigerator according to one embodiment of the present invention, when two door bodies are closed and the sealing beam 50 is in a retracted state; FIG. 4 is an enlarged view of the structure shown in FIG. 3 at A; fig. 5 is a schematic view of the inner structure of the first door body 20 in the refrigerator of fig. 3; FIG. 6 is a schematic top view of the refrigerator of FIG. 3 with the seal beam 50 translated to an extended condition; fig. 7 is a schematic view of an internal structure of the first door body 20 in the refrigerator shown in fig. 6.

In some embodiments, the refrigerator further includes at least one driving mechanism, which is mounted to the first door body 20 and is configured to drive the sealing beam 50 to translate. An alternative drive mechanism is described below with reference to figures 3 to 7.

As shown in fig. 3 to 5, each drive mechanism 60 includes a motor 61, a crank 62, and a connecting rod 63. The motor 61 is mounted to the first door body 20. A first end of the crank 62 is fixed to a rotating shaft 612 of the motor 61 (refer to fig. 4). A first end of the connecting rod 63 is hinged to a second end of the crank 62 and a second end of the connecting rod 63 is hinged to the sealing beam 50. The connecting rod 63, together with the crank 62 and the sealing beam 50, forms a crank-slider mechanism, so that the motor 61 drives the sealing beam 50 to translate via the crank 62 and the connecting rod 63. Comparing fig. 5 and 7, in the state of fig. 5, the seal beam 50 is in a retracted state. At this time, the motor 61 is turned on, so that the motor 61 drives the crank 62 to rotate counterclockwise, and the connecting rod 63 pushes the seal beam 50 in the forward direction parallel to the x-axis, and finally the extended state shown in fig. 7 is achieved.

Preferably, the driving mechanism 60 is configured to make the motor 61 always drive the crank 62 to rotate in the same direction during the reciprocating translation of the sealing beam 50. That is, in the extended condition shown in FIG. 7, continued counterclockwise rotation of the crank 62 causes the connecting rod 63 to pull the seal beam 50 in a direction parallel to the negative x-axis, and ultimately to the retracted condition shown in FIG. 5. The motor 61 is enabled to rotate in the same direction all the time, so that the control of the motor 61 is simpler and the cost is lower.

As shown in fig. 5 and 7, the first door body 20 may be provided with at least one guide groove 22 horizontally extending in a lateral direction thereof. The sealing beam 50 has at least one guide post 23, each guide post 23 being movably inserted into one of the guide slots 22 to define a direction of translation of the sealing beam 50. I.e. so that the sealing beam 50 can only translate in the horizontal transverse direction.

The second end of the link 63 of each drive mechanism may be hinged to the guide post 23. The number of the at least one guide groove 22 is preferably two, and the two are arranged up and down. The number of the at least one driving mechanism 60 is two, and the two driving mechanisms 60 respectively drive the upper half part and the lower half part of the sealing beam 50, so that the translation of the sealing beam 50 is more stable and accurate.

The above embodiment describes the case where the refrigerator has only two door bodies. However, the refrigerator may have other door bodies than the two door bodies. In the above embodiment, the door body located on the right side in the drawing is the first door body 20, and the seal beam 50 is provided thereon. It is understood that the first door body 20 may be disposed on the left side and the second door body 30 may be disposed on the right side.

Fig. 8 is a schematic block diagram of a refrigerator according to an embodiment of the present invention. As shown in fig. 8, in some embodiments, the refrigerator further includes a door opening sensing device 90, a door closing sensing device 70, and a controller 80.

The door opening sensing device 90 is used for sensing the user's action of opening the first door body 20 and the second door body 30. When the door opening sensing device 90 senses an action of opening the first door body 20 or the second door body 30 by a user, a door opening sensing signal is generated. The door opening sensing device may specifically include infrared sensors disposed on the handle portion 21 of the first door body 20 and the handle portion 31 of the second door body 30. When a human hand enters the

handle parts

21 and 31 to open the door, the infrared sensor senses the approach of the human hand and generates the door opening sensing signal.

The door closing sensing device 70 is used for sensing whether both the first door body 20 and the second door body 30 are closed. When the door closing sensing device 70 senses that both the first door body 20 and the second door body 30 are closed, a door closing sensing signal is generated. The door closing sensing device 70 may be, for example, an infrared distance sensor disposed on the front surface of the cabinet 10 or on the inner surfaces of the two doors, and when the infrared distance sensor detects that the distances between the inner surfaces of the two doors and the front surface of the cabinet 10 are both smaller than a preset threshold, it is determined that the two doors are both closed.

The controller 80 is electrically connected to the door opening sensing device 90 and the door closing sensing device 70, and is configured to control the driving mechanism 60 to drive the sealing beam 50 to make corresponding translation according to the door opening sensing signal and the door closing sensing signal received. Specifically, after the controller 80 receives the door opening sensing signal, the driving mechanism 60 is controlled to drive the sealing beam 50 to translate to the retracted state. After the controller 80 receives the door closing sensing signal, it controls the driving mechanism 60 to drive the sealing beam 50 to move horizontally to the extended state.

In some embodiments, the controller 80 may control the seal beam 50 to translate to the extended state after receiving the door closing sensing signal for a predetermined time (e.g., 0.5s, 1s, 2s, or 3 s). Therefore, the two door bodies can be ensured to be normally closed for a long time, and the accident that the user opens the door bodies immediately after closing the door bodies temporarily is eliminated.

The refrigerator of the present invention can drive the sealing beam 50 by using the driving mechanism 60, and automatically control the translation of the sealing beam 50 by sensing the door opening and closing actions, so that not only the movement precision of the sealing beam 50 is higher, but also the user is more labor-saving. Meanwhile, the automation level of the refrigerator and the grade of the refrigerator are improved, and the user experience is enhanced.

Further, in the refrigerator of the present invention, the driving mechanism 60 is in the form of the motor 61 and the slider-crank mechanism, and the slider-crank mechanism can just convert the rotation of the motor 61 into the reciprocating translation of the seal beam 50, and the mechanism is very smart in selection, simple in structure, low in design and processing cost, but high in reliability.

Thus, it should be appreciated by those skilled in the art that while a number of exemplary embodiments of the invention have been illustrated and described in detail herein, many other variations or modifications consistent with the principles of the invention may be directly determined or derived from the disclosure of the present invention without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. Accordingly, the scope of the invention should be understood and interpreted to cover all such other variations or modifications.

Claims

1. A refrigerator characterized by comprising:

a box body;

the sealing beam extends vertically and can be mounted on the first door body in a reciprocating translation mode along the transverse direction of the first door body; the refrigerator is configured to:

after the first door body and the second door body are both closed, the sealing beam is made to translate from a retracted state to the second door body to an extended state for sealing a gap between the first door body and the second door body;

before the first door body and/or the second door body are opened, the sealing beam is enabled to translate from the extending state to the retracting state.

2. The refrigerator according to claim 1, characterized by further comprising:

and the driving mechanism is arranged on the first door body and used for driving the sealing beam to move horizontally.

3. The refrigerator as claimed in claim 2, wherein each of the driving mechanisms comprises:

the motor is arranged on the first door body;

the first end of the crank is fixed on the rotating shaft of the motor; and

and the first end of the connecting rod is hinged to the second end of the crank, and the second end of the connecting rod is hinged to the sealing beam, so that the connecting rod, the crank and the sealing beam jointly form a crank-slider mechanism, and the motor drives the sealing beam to translate through the crank and the connecting rod.

4. The refrigerator according to claim 3,

each driving mechanism is configured to enable the motor to drive the crank to rotate in the same direction all the time in the process of driving the sealing beam to perform reciprocating translation.

5. The refrigerator according to claim 3,

the first door body is provided with at least one guide groove which horizontally extends along the transverse direction of the first door body; and is

The seal beam has at least one guide post, each of which is movably inserted into one of the guide slots to define a direction of translation of the seal beam.

6. The refrigerator according to claim 5,

the second end of the connecting rod of each driving mechanism is hinged to the guide column.

7. The refrigerator according to claim 6,

the number of the at least one guide groove is two, and the two guide grooves are arranged up and down; and is

The number of the at least one driving mechanism is two.

8. The refrigerator according to claim 1,

the inner surface of the second door body is provided with a vertically extending fixed beam; and is

The sealing beam is arranged on the inner surface of the first door body and is in sealing contact with the fixed beam when in the extending state so as to seal a gap between the first door body and the second door body.

9. The refrigerator according to claim 8,

the side surface of the sealing beam facing the second door body is provided with a vertically extending bulge; and is

The fixed beam is provided with a groove to accommodate the bulge when the sealing beam is in the extended state, so that the sealing performance between the fixed beam and the sealing beam is enhanced.

10. The refrigerator according to claim 2, characterized by further comprising:

the door opening sensing device is used for generating a door opening sensing signal when sensing the action of opening the first door body or the second door body by a user;

the door closing sensing device senses that the first door body and the second door body are both closed and then generates a door closing sensing signal; and

and the controller is configured to control the driving mechanism to drive the sealing beam to make corresponding translation according to the received door opening sensing signal and the door closing sensing signal.