JP3197591B2 - refrigerator - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention has a refrigerator room, an ice room, a bottle room, a vegetable room, and the like. The temperature of each room is controlled by air cooled by a cooler (hereinafter referred to as cold air). Large, multi-door refrigerator.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, large-sized refrigerators with multiple doors, which are equipped with an ice room, a vegetable room, a bottle room, and the like in addition to a refrigerator room, are becoming popular.

[0003] As a general refrigerator of this kind, a cold air distribution duct is arranged at the center back of a refrigerator, and a plurality of cool air outlets are provided at predetermined positions of each duct to further cope with the temperature of the refrigerator. Means for adjusting the amount of cold air to the same room and the sub-refrigeration room (bottle room and vegetable room) (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 3-122479), or an ice-hot room (low-temperature room) and a main refrigeration room (first room). And a duct for guiding cold air to each of the refrigerator compartments (first to third refrigerator compartments) and the ice compartment, in a partition wall separating the ice compartment and the main compartment. Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 3-48687 has proposed a method in which each chamber is individually controlled to its set temperature.

[0004]

However, conventional multi-door large refrigerators including sub-refrigeration rooms such as bottle rooms and vegetable rooms, including the refrigerators described in the above publications,
Since each of them individually controls the temperature of each chamber to the set temperature, a cool air distribution duct for individually supplying cool air is required, and there is a problem that its structure is complicated.

[0005] In addition, since all large refrigerators individually control the temperature of each room to the set temperature, the operating temperature range of each room is limited, and for example, vegetables cannot be stored in the bottle room. There is a problem. On the other hand, by providing a cool air introduction hole for introducing cool air into the vegetable room and a lid for opening and closing the cool air introduction hole at the rear of the middle partition plate immediately below the cool air outlet of the refrigerator room, the vegetable room can be used for general food. Although it has been proposed that the refrigerator compartment can be used as a refrigerator compartment (Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 61-4203), the publication described in this publication has only a refrigerator compartment and a vegetable compartment above and below.
In addition, there is a problem that the technology cannot be applied to a large-sized refrigerator with a large number of doors further including a bottle room.

Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to solve the above-mentioned problems of the prior art, and to simplify the duct structure in a large-sized refrigerator with a multi-door having a bottle room in addition to a vegetable room. It is another object of the present invention to provide a refrigerator that is easy to use by enabling the bottle room to be used as a vegetable room.

[0007]

In order to achieve the above object, a refrigerator according to the present invention comprises a bottle room and a cooler.
Well, the air cooled by this cooler
In refrigerators that control temperature, the air cooled by the cooler
In addition to providing a bottle room duct that guides air to the bottle room,
This bottle room duct is provided with a branch cap and this branch
Connect the cap to the bottle compartment duct to
Main cool air passage that directly guides cool air into the vessel, and bottle room duct
Cooling formed outside the container in the bottle chamber by communicating with the
A sub-cooling air passage that guides cool air into
And a shutter capable of selecting one of the air passages .

[0008]

[0009]

According to the present invention constructed as described above, the bottle chamber is controlled to the original set temperature of the bottle chamber by direct cooling in which the air cooled by the cooler is directly blown into the container of the bottle chamber. By cooling the bottle chamber by indirect cooling in which cool air is blown out to an indirect cooling passage formed outside the container, the bottle chamber can be controlled to a temperature higher than the set temperature of the vegetable room. .

[0010]

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

In FIG. 5, reference numeral 1 denotes a refrigerator main body. The inside of the refrigerator main body 1 is divided into a freezer compartment 3 and a main refrigerator compartment 4 by a partition wall 2 at an upper portion, and a main refrigerator compartment by a lower portion by a partition wall 5. The compartment 4 is divided into a sub-refrigerator compartment, and the lower sub-refrigerator compartment is partitioned into a bottle compartment 7 and a vegetable compartment 8 by a partition wall 6. Above the main refrigeration room 4, a capsule-shaped ice temperature room (chilled room) 9 is provided. Furthermore, the freezer compartment 3 is provided with freezer compartment doors 3a and 3b that can be opened and closed.
Similarly, the main refrigerator compartment 4 is provided with main refrigerator compartment doors 4a and 4b, the bottle compartment 7 has a bottle compartment door 7a, and the vegetable compartment 8
Is provided with a vegetable room door 8a.

At the back of the freezer compartment 3, as shown in FIG.
A cooler room 11 partitioned from the freezing room by a partition plate is provided, and a cooler 10 for constituting a refrigeration cycle is housed inside the cooler room 11. The cool air cooled by the cooler 10 is forcibly circulated by the fan 12, and a part of the cool air is guided to the freezing room 3, the rest is guided to the main refrigerator room 4, and the bottle room 7 is cooled. , And the vegetable room 8. The following configuration is provided to circulate cool air.

That is, a main duct 15 is arranged at the outlet of the cooler 10, and the outlet of the main duct 15 is located behind the partition wall 2 and in the back of the ice greenhouse 9. Temperature damper 13 whose opening and closing are controlled based on the temperature of the ice
And a refrigeration damper 14 whose opening and closing are controlled based on the temperature of the main refrigeration compartment 4.

The main duct 15 is provided with the ice temperature damper 13.
An ice greenhouse duct 17 communicating with the ice greenhouse 9 through
The lower end of one of the main refrigerator compartments 4 (the left side in FIG. 4) communicates with a bottle compartment duct 18 which communicates with the bottle compartment 7 at its lower end. The main refrigerator compartment 4 extends downward along both left and right corners via the damper 14, and opens at predetermined intervals along the height direction of the main refrigerator compartment 4, that is, the shelves 20, 20 (FIG. 5). Main refrigerator compartment duct 19 having a cool air discharge port 19a opening between
Is in communication with The lower end of one (right side in FIG. 4) of the main refrigerator compartment duct 19 extends to the vegetable compartment 8 and communicates there.

According to this, the cool air circulated through the fan 12 is branched right and left through the main duct 15 and the ice temperature damper 13, and one of them (the right side in FIG. 4) is the ice greenhouse duct 17. Is cooled to the inside of the ice room 9 to cool the inside thereof, while the other (the left side in FIG. 4) is guided to the bottle room duct 18 and is discharged to the container side of the bottle room 7 so that the bottles and the like stored therein are so-called. Cool directly.

The cold air branched right and left through the refrigeration damper 14 flows into main refrigerator compartment ducts 19 provided on the left and right corners at the inner corner of the main refrigerator compartment 4, and is provided for each shelf of the main refrigerator compartment 4. Is discharged into the main refrigerator compartment 4 through the cooled cold air discharge port 19a,
It is cooled from the left and right inner corners in two directions, and further led to the vegetable compartment 8 from the lower end of the main refrigerator compartment duct 19 (right side in FIG. 4) and to the outside of the container in the vegetable compartment 8. The vegetable room 8 is discharged to the formed indirect cooling passage, so-called indirect cooling.

Further, in the refrigerator according to the present embodiment, two ducts 18 and 1 are provided at the back corner of one of the main refrigerator compartments 4 (left side in FIG. 4).
9 and one duct 19 in the other (right side) back corner.
Is configured to pass through. That is, as shown in FIG. 6, the other duct 19 (right side in FIG. 6) is constituted by a styrene foam duct heat insulating material 22 arranged in the inner corner of the main refrigerator compartment 4, and one (left side in FIG. 6). Two ducts 18, 1
Reference numeral 9 designates a partition part 2 which is arranged at the back corner of the main refrigerator compartment 4 and is provided on the way.
It is constituted by a duct heat insulating material 23 provided with 3a. In the figure, reference numeral 21 denotes a damper cover.

Thus, according to this embodiment, the above-mentioned 2
Since the ducts 18 and 19 are collectively provided inside the single duct heat insulating material 23, it is possible to integrate the ducts and reduce the space for arranging the ducts. Further, by controlling the two dampers 13 and 14, the temperatures of the main refrigerator compartment 4, the bottle compartment 7, the vegetable compartment 8 and the ice compartment 9 having four temperature zones can be maintained in the optimal state.

That is, the temperature in the main refrigerator compartment 4 is controlled by the refrigerator damper 1.
The refrigeration damper 14 is opened and closed by a signal from a sensor (not shown) installed in the main refrigeration compartment 4, and its temperature is controlled to, for example, about 3 ° C. The temperature of the ice temperature chamber 9 is controlled by opening and closing of an ice temperature damper 13. The ice temperature damper 13 is opened and closed by a signal from a sensor (not shown) installed in the ice temperature chamber 9, and its temperature is, for example, It is controlled at about -1 ° C.
That is, the main refrigeration room 4 and the ice green room 9 are each provided with a damper 13,
There are 14 main control rooms.

The subordinate chambers are balanced so as to have a certain temperature difference with respect to the main chamber by a distribution amount of cold air, and a predetermined temperature is secured. For example, the target temperature of the vegetable room 8 is 6 to 7 ° C., and there is a temperature difference between the vegetable room 8 and the main refrigerator compartment 4. In contrast, bottle room 7
The target temperature is generally lower than that of the vegetable room 8, for example, 4 to 5 ° C., so that there is not much difference between the temperature of the main refrigerator room 4.

If the bottle room 7 is made dependent on the temperature of the main refrigerator compartment 4 to which the temperature zone approaches, for example, when the outside air temperature is high and a large amount of food load is stored in the main refrigerator compartment 4 Once the refrigeration damper 14 is closed, the main refrigeration room 4
Since there is a large amount of stored foods, the heat permeability is high, and this increases the time until the opening temperature of the damper 14, so that it is difficult for the bottle room 7 to circulate cool air, and it is difficult to secure the temperature of the bottle room 7.

For this reason, it is not preferable to make the bottle compartment 7 dependent on the temperature of the main refrigerator compartment 4 where the temperature zone is extremely close. In this embodiment, the bottle compartment 7 is controlled via the ice temperature damper 13. The temperature of the ice greenhouse 9 is dependent. When the temperature of the ice chamber 9 is dependent on the temperature of the ice chamber 9, the temperature of the ice chamber 9 is lower than that of the main refrigerator compartment 4. The temperature can be easily secured.

FIG. 2 shows a view of the duct heat insulating material 23 for forming the two ducts 18 and 19 as viewed from the back side. In the figure, reference numeral 24 denotes a duct cover.

That is, according to this embodiment, a branch cap 25 made of polystyrene foam is provided at the downstream end of the duct heat insulating material 23. Inside the branch cap 25, a main cool air passage 25a which can communicate with the bottle room duct 18 via a shutter described later and guides cool air directly into the container of the bottle room 7 and a bottle room duct 18 likewise. A sub-cooling air passage 25b for communicating cool air to an indirect cooling space formed outside the container of the bottle chamber 7 is provided, and the lower opening of the refrigerator compartment duct 19 is always closed by the branch cap 25. Have been.

As shown in FIG. 1, inside the branch cap 25, a shutter 26 capable of selecting either the main cool air passage 25a or the sub cool air passage 25b is provided.
As shown in FIG. 3, the shutter 26 is slidably supported by the duct cover 24, and a knob 26a (FIG. 1) of the shutter 26 is provided below the refrigerator compartment 4 (not shown in FIG. 4). (Lower left corner). In FIG. 3, reference numeral 24b denotes an opening which communicates with the cool air discharge port 19a to discharge cool air into the refrigerator compartment 4.

In this embodiment, the shutter 26 is normally located at the position shown in FIG. 1. In this case, the sub-cool air passage 25b is closed and the main cool air passage 25a is opened, so that the bottle room duct is opened. 18 passes through the main cool air passage 25a of the branch cap 25 and passes through the duct heat insulating material 2.
3 and the opening 24a provided in the duct cover 24 are directly guided into the container of the bottle chamber 7.

Therefore, the inside of the bottle chamber 7 is directly cooled. However, in this case, as shown in FIG. 1, the sub-cool air passage 25b is not completely closed, and
c is open, and the cool air passing through this part 25c is configured to be guided to an indirect cooling space formed outside the container of the bottle chamber 7.

In addition, the user puts his hand in the refrigerator compartment 4 and holds the knob 2
When the shutter 26 is operated to slide the shutter 26 as shown by the arrow in FIG. 1, the shutter 26 closes the main cool air passage 25a, whereby the cool air passing through the bottle chamber duct 18 is turned into the sub cool air passage. From 25b, it is led to the space for indirect cooling formed outside the container of the bottle chamber 7. Therefore, the inside of the bottle chamber 7 is so-called indirectly cooled.

That is, according to this, when it is desired to control the temperature in the bottle chamber 7 to the original set temperature, this is achieved by directly blowing cold air into the container in the bottle chamber 7. When it is desired to control the temperature in the bottle chamber 7 to be within the set temperature of the vegetable room 8 higher than the set temperature, the cool air is blown out to the indirect cooling space formed outside the container. Since this can be achieved, the bottle room 7 can be used as the vegetable room 8 according to the use situation, and effects such as improvement of so-called convenience can be obtained.

[0030]

Since the present invention has the above configuration,
By blowing the air cooled by the cooler directly into the container in the bottle room, the bottle room is controlled to the original set temperature, and the cool air is blown out to the indirect cooling space formed outside the container. Since the bottle chamber can be controlled to the set temperature of the vegetable room higher than the set temperature, the convenience as a refrigerator can be improved.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is an enlarged sectional view of a mounting portion of a shutter showing one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view of the same, viewed from the back surface of the duct heat insulating material.

FIG. 3 is a perspective view of the duct cover viewed from the back surface.

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram showing a state of a flow of cold air in the refrigerator.

FIG. 5 is an overall perspective view of the refrigerator.

6 is a sectional view taken along the line VI-VI of FIG. 4;

[Explanation of symbols]

 4 Refrigerator Room 7 Bottle Room 8 Vegetable Room 9 Ice Room 10 Cooler 13 Ice Temperature Damper 14 Refrigerator Damper 17 Ice Green Room Duct 18 Bottle Room Duct 19 Cold Room Duct 19a Cold Air Outlet 22, 23 Duct Insulation Material 24 Duct cover 25 Branch cap 25a Main cool air passage 25b Secondary cool air passage 26 Shutter 26a Knob

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] 1. A refrigerator comprising a bottle chamber and a cooler.
The temperature inside the bottle room by the air cooled in
In the refrigerator, the air cooled by the cooler is
A bottle room duct leading to the
Set a branch cap on the duct for the
To the bottle compartment duct and into the bottle compartment container.
Communicates with the main cool air passage that directly guides cool air and the duct for the bottle room
Space for indirect cooling formed outside the bottle compartment container
A sub-cool air passage for guiding cool air to the main cold air passage or a sub-cool air passage
And a shutter capable of selecting any one of the following .