GB2309292A

GB2309292A - Refrigerator shelf assembly

Info

Publication number: GB2309292A
Application number: GB9700580A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Coletta Mario Della
Original assignee: Electrolux Zanussi Elettrodomestici SpA
Current assignee: Electrolux Zanussi Elettrodomestici SpA
Priority date: 1996-01-22
Filing date: 1997-01-13
Publication date: 1997-07-23
Anticipated expiration: 2017-01-13
Also published as: ES1035931Y; ITPN960003U1; GB9700580D0; DE29700357U1; FR2743873A1; FR2743873B3; ES1035931U; GB2309292B; IT241539Y1; ITPN960003V0

Description

1 2309292 REFRIGERATOR APPARATUS PROVIDED WITH IMPROVED SHELVES AND

DRAWERS is The invention relates to a refrigerator apparatus, in particular of domestic type, provided with at least one space for preserving foods, provided with a plurality of shelves for supporting thereon the foods to be preserved, in which the shelves can be easily and economically removed.

Even if herein after the present description refers to a space at a temperature slightly higher than CC, it will still be appreciated that the present patent applies to any type of space in a refrigerator apparatus for preserving foods, including spaces which are maintained at or below freezing temperature.

Refrigerator apparatuses are known, which are provided with a plurality of compartments disposed vertically relative to each other, which are separated and defined by a corresponding plurality of removable shelves.

Such shelves cannot normally be pulled out of the spaces which are maintained at a temperature of higher than OOC, in the sense that they cannot be pulled out like drawers, as on the contrary it is usual to do from the shelves contained in the freezing spaces, while on the other hand they can be easily removed for the purposes of cleaning, changing them in position in respect of height and so forth.

In addition in said freezing spaces which accommodate drawers which can be pulled out by a sliding movement in order more easily to gain access to the foodstuffs deposited therein, the sliding movement of said drawers is permitted either by virtue of friction when the edges of the drawers are caused to slide along suitable supports or cannels disposed on the inside walls of the space, or by virtue of rolling movement when the drawers are provided with extendable guides accompanied by small wheels which permit the drawer to be pulled out.

In the first case however the movement for pulling out the drawer is strongly resisted by the above-mentioned friction due in particular to the fact that the weight of 2 the foods on the drawer causes a substantial increase in the amount of friction to the point of making that construction an impracticable one; in the second case the assembly of the extendable guides and associated assembly and rolling members gives rise to a considerable amount of cost which is not in proportion to the simplicity of the function performed.

The foregoing considerations are well known to the man skilled in the art and have been set forth only for better understanding of the motivations of the present invention.

It would thus be desirable, and this is the aim of the invention, to improve the construction of such refrigerators by providing them with shelves andlor drawers which can easily be pulled out horizontally without particular force even if loaded with foodstuffs, which are provided with safety means to prevent them from tipping over forwardly and which can be produced easily and at a cost level which is markedly lower than the current constructions.

According to the present invention there is provided a refrigerator apparatus, comprising of at least one space for preserving foods in a cooled or frozen condition, and at least one compartment delimited by a removable shelf for supporting the foods and supported by suitable channels or fixed supports provided on the lateral walls of said space, wherein the or each shelf is slidably extractable outwardly until virtually completely the depth thereof and is provided with blocking means which prevents it from coming completely out of said channels or fixed supports.

The invention will be more fully appreciated from the following description given solely by way of nonlimiting example and with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:

Figure 1 is a diagrammatic side view in vertical section of a refrigerator according to the invention; Figure 2 shows a details form Figure 1 on an enlarged scale; 3 Figure 3 is a diagrammatic front view of the space of a refrigerator according to the invention; Figure 4 is a vertical front section of a detail of an improvement of the invention; Figure 5 is a front vertical section of a second detail of an improvement of the invention; Figures 6, 7 and 8 respectively show two disassembled components of the detail of Figure 2 and the related assembled components; Figure 9 shows a front view of the detail from Figure 5; and Figures 10,11 and 12 respectively show two disassembled components of the details from Figure 5 and the related assembled components.

Referring to the Figures the invention is based on the consideration that the space 1 which is suitable just for refrigeration is provided with a plurality of shelves 2 which have the characteristic that they can be pulled out like drawers, and provided with side walls 2a,2b a front wall 6 and a rear wall 7, similarly to the normal structure for the drawers of freezer spaces.

In order to ensure that such a drawer cannot be inadvertently excessively pulled out and thus fall, a plurality of support means 12 is fitted to the inside lateral walls of the space, at a position close to the outside edge of the opening of the space, as shown in Figures 1 and 2.

The front supports 12 are capable of slidably engaging with the upper lateral edges 15,16 of the side walls 2a,2b of respective drawer-type shelves and supporting said edges, so that the entire drawer is supported in its front region; the drawer is prevented from falling forwardly by the provision of a blocking means in the form of a lowered portion or curved portion or some other suitable discontinuity element 19 which are disposed in the rear region and preferably towards the bottom on said upper side edges 15,16 in such a way that the discontinuity elements 19 interfere with the front support means 12 of the shelves to prevent further forward movement thereof.

4 The side walls of the space 1 are provided with a plurality of horizontal, naturally parallel channels 9 which are preferably produced integrally by suitable working of the respective side wall, and provided with an upper portion 10 and a lower portion 11.

The position of the horizontal channels 9 is approximately at the height of the respective support means 12 referred to above while the shelves 9 are also provided, at positions corresponding to the rear edges 13 of the side walls, with respective support means 14 capable of slidably engaging into the above-described horizontal channels 9.

At that point the man skilled in the art will have appreciated the way in which the invention operates.

When the drawer-type shelf is completely inserted into the space it is supported both by two support points in the rear region and by two other support points in the front region; the two rear support points are afforded by the engagement between the support means 14, one for each side wall of each drawer, and the respective horizontal channel 9 disposed on the respective side wall of the space, and precisely against the lower portion, bearing in mind that the drawer is completely pushed in and thus it can be presumed that and in practice it is always true that its centre of gravity is at a position intermediate the front support means 12 and the rear means 14.

The drawer is pulled out easily and without difficulty since the rear support means 14 slide freely within the respective horizontal channel 9 and similarly the upper edges 15,16 of the lateral walls of the shelves slide freely on the front support means 12 on which they are supported.

When the outward movement of the shelf is continued its centre of gravity is displaced to the exterior of the front support means 12 but that fact has no consequences in terms of the position of the shelf itself since the rear means 14, instead of bearing against the lower portion 11 of the respective channel 9, change the direction of support, by going to engage against the is respective upper portion 10 of the same channel, pressing against it from below.

In that situation the shelf functions like a restrained lever where the point of application of the force is afforded by the force acting on the centre of gravity which is outside the front support means 12 and the rotational pivot is afforded by the same means 12.

When the shelf continues to be pulled out it reaches its position of maximum extension as clearly indicated by the second shelf in Figure 1, as considered from the top, from which is will be seen that the downwardly curved portion 19, by coming into interfering relationship with the front support means 12, blocks the forward movement of the associated shelf, automatically preventing a downward overturning movement which would otherwise be possible.

An advantageous improvement of the invention involves making the front and rear support means as easily slidable as possible in order to permit the best forward and rearward sliding movement of the respective shelf.

That is possible by designing the supports in such a way that the contact element is a rotatable wheel, as shown in Figures 9, 10, 11 and 12 in the case of the front support 12, where it can be seen that the rotatable wheel 30 is engaged on the respective pin 31 (in section in Figures 10 and 12) which is fixed with respect to a connecting element 32 which is fitted using means known in the art at the required position on the inside lateral wall 4,5 of the space in the refrigerator.

In a similar manner (see Figures 6, 7 and 8), in the case of the rear supports 14 which are fitted to the vertical walls of the shelves, the wheel 34 which is shown in section in Figure 7 is associated with a related support 35 shown in section in Figure 6 and that assembly as shown in section in Figure 8 is finally fitted to the inside lateral wall 4,5 of the space in the refrigerator.

A further improvement and structural simplification of the invention is achieved by designing the shelf, the vertical walls and the upper edges of such walls using the technology of a grid of metal wires which 6 intersect each other and which are fixed at the points of intersection, in such a way that the upper edges 15,16 of the vertical lateral walls are constructed from a suitably bent continuous wire.

That procedure and structural configuration, besides simplifying the overall construction of the shelf, also makes it possible in an extremely simple and economic fashion to provide the lower curved portion 19 which is used as a stop with respect to the front support means 12, by simply producing in the metal wire which constitutes that upper edge 15, 16 a downward curve and a subsequent upward oppositely directed curve in such a way as to restore the rectilinear and horizontal configuration of the upper edge (see Figure 2).

Although the invention has been described with reference to the example of the preferred embodiments and using known technology, it is not deemed to be limited thereby since the man skilled in the art can make many variations therein.

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Claims

CLAINS

1. A refrigerator apparatus, comprising of at least one space for preserving foods in a cooled or frozen condition, and at least one compartment delimited by a removable shelf for supporting the foods and supported by suitable channels or fixed supports provided on the lateral walls of said space, wherein the or each shelf is slidably extractable outwardly until virtually completely the depth thereof and is provided with blocking means which prevents it from coming completely out of said channels or fixed supports.

2. A refrigerator apparatus according to claim 1 wherein the or each shelf is formed like a drawer and is respectively provided with two lateral walls, a front wall and a rear wall, which are oriented, including inclinedly, upwardly, and which rise from the sides of the base perimeter of said shelf.

3. wherein, the lateral wall which are directed inwardly of said space are provided with a plurality of horizontal channels comprising respective upper and lower portions; said lateral walls of said space are also provided with support means the or each shelf disposed forwardly of said respective channels; and the or each drawer-like shelf is provided, at positions corresponding to the rear edges of the lateral walls, with respective support means capable of slidably engaging into respective ones of said horizontal channels.

A refrigerator apparatus according to claim 2,

4. A refrigerator apparatus according to claim 3, wherein, said support means disposed forwardly of said respective channels are capable of engaging slidably with and supporting the upper lateral edges corresponding to the lateral walls of the or each drawer-like shelf.

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5. A refrigerator apparatus according to claim 3 or claim 4, wherein, said channels, said shelves, said respective lateral walls, said rear edges, said slidable support means engaging in said horizontal channels and said support means disposed forwardly of said channels are arranged and dimensioned in such a way that the or each drawer-like shelf can be disposed in at least two positions, wherein in the first position the shelf is completely fitted into the space and is supported at the rear by the supporting action of said support means fitted at positions corresponding to the edges of the vertical lateral walls of the respective shelves, on said lower portions of said channels and in the second position the shelf is almost completely extracted from the space and is constrained to maintain a horizontal position by the upper portion of said channels bearing against said same support means.

6. A refrigerator apparatus according to any one of the preceding claims wherein, said respective support means which are capable of slidably engaging in respective horizontal channels andlor said support means which are disposed on the lateral walls of said space forwardly of said respective channels comprise respective circular rotary elements.

7. A refrigerator apparatus according to any one of the preceding claims wherein, said blocking means are provided by means of a downwardly curved portion of the upper edges of the vertical laterals walls of said shelves, which upper edges engage against said support means disposed forwardly of said respective channels in the position of maximum extraction of the associated shelf.

8. A refrigerator apparatus according to claim 7 wherein, said shelves comprising said lateral walls are produced by means of a grid of metal wires which mutually intersect and which are fixed at the points of intersection, and that said upper edges of said vertical lateral walls of 9 said shelves are produced with a suitably bent continuous wire.

9. A refrigerator according to any one of the preceding claims wherein the blocking means are arranged so as to prevent the complete withdrawal of the associated shelf when the shelf is slid outwardly of the compartment in a horizontal direction and to permit the complete withdrawal of the associated shelf by the user by tilting of the shelf upwardly once horizontally slid to a position in which the blocking means blocks further horizontal withdrawal of the shelf.

10. A refrigerator constructed and arranged to operate is substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to and as illustrated in the accompanying drawings