GB2380538A

GB2380538A - Refrigerator appliance

Info

Publication number: GB2380538A
Application number: GB0220883A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Piero Durazzani
Original assignee: Electrolux Home Products Corp NV
Current assignee: Electrolux Home Products Corp NV
Priority date: 2001-09-12
Filing date: 2002-09-09
Publication date: 2003-04-09
Also published as: ES1052813U; GB0220883D0; ES1052813Y; DE20213655U1; FR2831951A1; FR2831951B3; ITPN20010033U1

Abstract

A refrigerator appliance comprising at least one volume for storing food and at least one evaporator; it has one or more drawers (3) that pull out to the front and are open on at least one side and contain parallel supports (4) orientated in the front-to-back direction, each provided with a longitudinal recess (5) for holding drinks containers; the said supports are inclined with respect to the horizontal plane. The volume of the pull-out drawer may be subdivided by a number of separators that define a number of separate compartments with different temperatures. The said compartments are cooled by at least one forced-circulation duct leading from the region of the evaporator to the said compartments, the said duct having separate openings supplying the various compartments.

Description

REFRIGERATOR APPLIANCE WITH PULL-OUT DRAWER FOR STORING DRINKS The present invention relates to an improved type of refrigerator appliance provided with a special pull-out drawer for storing bottles, cans, drinks containers in general etc. , in a chilled environment.

The prior art includes refrigerator appliances, particularly of domestic type, having devices and accessories capable of housing and/or containing, inside the storage volume, a plurality of bottles or drinks containers of various types.

The most familiar types are those in which the said bottles are inserted in suitable shelves with a front barrier formed in the inner door. These have very good accessibility and also the temperature at which the bottles are kept is usually suitable for most stored drinks.

However, with the growing popularity of drinks of an increasingly wide range of types and properties, and also due to the steady reduction in dwelling space which limits or eliminates the possibility of"cellar"type spaces or all-purpose store rooms, the need and the demand to be able to keep bottled drinks and those most frequently used, in some cases consumed several times each day, directly in the domestic refrigerator appliances with which all kitchens are equipped, is becoming more pressing.

Unfortunately this practice is coming increasingly into conflict with the simple fact that the amount of space available inside domestic refrigerators and especially in the inner door is necessarily limited and moreover is used inefficiently because of the fact that containers lined up on one shelf are usually of different heights, but the shelves above must necessarily be set at a height such as to allow room for the tallest bottle on the shelf beneath. This means that the space available between a lower container in the shelf below and the shelf above is unavoidably unused.

In addition, the stored drinks may sometimes require very different storage temperatures. For example, fortified red wines should ideally be kept at a temperature of

less than 16OC, while dry white wines should be kept at a temperature of no more than 12 C and sparkling wines at a temperature of6-8 C.

As far as non alcoholic drinks or soft drinks are concerned, it is preferable to keep these at the lowest temperature possible, always of course above the freezing point.

Since however the temperature in the refrigerated volume is roughly constant, it is obvious that all these drinks with their differing characteristics cannot be kept in the best conditions, and to this problem is added that cited above of the inefficient utilization of the available space.

It would therefore be desirable, and it is an object of the present invention, to provide a refrigerator appliance, preferably domestic and having at least one containment volume for the food and an internal evaporator, and which also has an extra volume in which containers of different sizes and different drinks can be kept so as to utilize the space as efficiently as possible, and so that the drinks can be stored at different selected temperatures.

This appliance must also be easy to produce using existing technologies and must be competitive in both its instruction and use, and in particular must be able to use as its heat-extracting means the same refrigerating circuit as that used to preserve the food.

According to the present invention there is provided a refrigerator or freezer appliance comprising at least one volume for storing food and at least one cooling evaporator and which is provided with one or more drawers which pull out to the front of the appliance and are open on at least one side and contain means capable of supporting drinks containers.

The invention will be further described by way of non-limitative example with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which :- Fig. 1 is a perspective view of a refrigerator appliance equipped with a drawer that can be pulled out but is currently closed, in a preferred embodiment of the present invention; Fig. 2 shows the same appliance as in Fig. I but with the drawer open; Fig. 3 is a half-front view of the appliance seen in Fig. 2, with the doors of the refrigerating volumes removed; Fig. 4 is a see-through view showing the fundamental components of an appliance according to the present invention; and Fig. 5 and Fig. 6 are an additional perspective external view of a different embodiment of an appliance according to the present invention, with the doors closed and open, respectively.

Referring to the figures, a refrigerator according to the present invention comprises an external cabinet 1 with at least one front door 2 and at least one pull-out front

drawer 3. Inside the latter are a plurality of parallel inclined supports 4 orientated in the front-to-back direction, having the same width as the drawer and having a longitudinal recess 5 all the way along their length, so that the cylindrical receptacles which are placed therein cannot spontaneously fall out sideways.

Naturally, the said inclined supports 4 may also be set horizontally.

However, for best storage of certain drinks, bottled wines etc. , an inclined position of rest is preferred.

Furthermore, having the said supports at an appropriate inclination gives the advantageous benefit that in the lower front comer 20 of the drawer it provides a lowtemperature space useful for placing small containers such as cans, small bottles and jars, thus making the best possible use of the available space.

Clearly, when the drawer is pushed in it fits between two vertical lateral walls internal to the refrigerator in such a way that the drawer and its contents are completely isolated from the rest of the appliance.

For best access to the drinks it is essential that when the said drawers are pulled out, they are open on at least one side for convenience of use, though it is of course preferable for both sides to be completely accessible, as shown in the figures.

If it is wished to define compartments having differentiated temperatures within the said drawer, a number of separators 6,7 are provided, similar in configuration to the inclined supports and parallel to these, but broader so that when the drawer is pushed in the said separators define, in conjunction with the said lateral walls, and the front and upper walls, a number of different compartments in which substantial if not absolute intercommunicability is prevented.

A plurality of non-communicating volumes thus being defined, it now becomes necessary to cool them in a differentiated manner. For this purpose a duct 8 is preferably provided between the region surrounding the evaporator 9 and the said compartments separated by the said separators.

The said duct 8 has a plurality of openings 10,11 and 12, one in each of the said temperature-differentiated compartments, and at the other end has an inlet 13 projecting into the said region surrounding the evaporator 9.

To circulate the cold air produced by the evaporator, a suitable fan means (not shown) is provided between the evaporator and the inlet 13.

The circulation returning the cold air back from the three separate compartments is obtained by three separate return ducts 14,15 and 16, each of which is provided at one end with an air intake opening 17,18 and 19, respectively, and at the other end with corresponding openings 17A, 18A and 19A which feed into the said region surrounding the evaporator 9.

The operation of the appliance will now be clear: the air cooled by the evaporator is blown along the duct 8 into the said separate compartments, where it circulates freely and so cools and preserves the drinks contained therein, and finally returns to the evaporator along the respective return ducts 14,15 and 16.

To provide differing temperatures between the said compartments, a variety of means are possible to regulate the capacity of the said duct 8 at the various outlets: e. g. it is possible appropriately to regulate the cross section of the said duct at the various sections, or adapt the size of the said openings 10, 11 and 12 or even the length of the sections of duct, so as to modify the fluid-flow resistance of the cold air, or a combination of the said solutions, while it is also possible to adopt different solutions perfectly accessible to those skilled in the art.

With reference to Figures 4 and 5, these show a variant of the present invention in which there are two pull-out drawers arranged side by side and parallel with each other, although this is not essential.

Those skilled in the art will have no difficulty in adapting and adding to the various cold-air fan circuits in the various compartments produced by this means.

Claims

CLAIMS 1. Refrigerator or freezer appliance comprising at least one volume for storing food and at least one cooling evaporator and which is provided with one or more drawers which pull out to the front of the appliance and are open on at least one side and contain means capable of supporting drinks containers.
2. An appliance according to Claim 1, wherein said means comprise a plurality of parallel supports orientated in the front-to-back direction and each provided with a longitudinal recess.
3. An appliance according to Claim 2, wherein the supports are inclined with respect to the horizontal plane.
4. An appliance according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the volume defined by each pull-out drawer is subdivided by a totality of separators for defining in the said volume a plurality of separate compartments with differentiated temperatures.
5. An appliance according to Claim 4, wherein three such separate compartments are defined.
6. An appliance according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein a space is formed in the lower front comer of the drawer to take small containers.
7. An appliance according to Claim 6, wherein the space is defined by means allowing the small containers to be arranged in a transverse position relative to the pull-out direction of the drawer.
8. An appliance according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein devices are provided for transferring a flow of forced air from the said evaporator to the said compartments, and returning it to the said evaporator.

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9. An appliance according to Claim 8, wherein the said devices comprise: at least one delivery duct leading from the region surrounding the evaporator to the said compartments, and a plurality of openings formed in the said delivery duct in the said respective separate compartments.
10. An appliance according to Claim 9, wherein there are arranged between the said separate compartments and the said region surrounding the evaporator, respective return ducts, each having respective openings in the said compartments and respective openings at the end near the said evaporator.
11. An appliance constructed and arranged to operate substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to and as illustrated in the accompanying drawings.