CN111765695A

CN111765695A - Refrigerator with a door

Info

Publication number: CN111765695A
Application number: CN202010622459.0A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 赵振雷; 杨春; 刘铁伟
Original assignee: Hisense Shandong Refrigerator Co Ltd
Current assignee: Hisense Shandong Refrigerator Co Ltd
Priority date: 2020-07-01
Filing date: 2020-07-01
Publication date: 2020-10-13

Abstract

The invention provides a refrigerator, which is provided with a refrigerator body, a refrigerator door, a door hinge assembly and a low-pressure storage unit, wherein the door hinge assembly is arranged at the top of the refrigerator body and comprises a door hinge box provided with a vacuum pump, and the vacuum pump is provided with an exhaust pipe and an exhaust pipe communicated with the atmospheric environment outside the refrigerator body; the low-pressure storage unit is communicated with the air exhaust pipe through a first pipeline; the arrangement of the invention can avoid that the gas pumped out from the low-pressure storage unit is directly discharged into the refrigerator to cause the food in other areas in the refrigerating chamber to be tainted with each other and influence the fresh-keeping effect of the food; on the other hand, the vacuum pump is arranged in a hinge box arranged at the top of the box body, so that the current space can be fully utilized.

Description

Refrigerator with a door

Technical Field

The invention belongs to the technical field of refrigerators, and particularly relates to a refrigerator.

Background

Refrigerators occupy an important share of the market as indispensable electric appliances in home life. With the increasing requirements of consumers on the quality of fresh food, the requirements on refrigerators are also increasing, and refrigerators are required to have higher configuration and stronger functions, and especially, it is desirable that the stored fresh food can have a longer storage period, so that the freshness of food materials is ensured, and the loss of nutritional ingredients is prevented.

In order to better store the food, it has been developed to provide a vacuum chamber in the refrigerator, and the vacuum chamber is vacuumized by a vacuuming device. The main function of the vacuum is to remove oxygen from the vacuum chamber to prevent food from deteriorating. This is because food spoilage is mainly caused by the action of microorganisms, the majority of which require oxygen for their survival. Because oxygen does not exist in the vacuum chamber, the microorganisms lose the living environment, and the food fresh-keeping effect is achieved. The preservation time of the food can be prolonged to 20-30 days by the vacuum technology, and the preservation time of the food can be greatly prolonged compared with that of the traditional refrigerator cold storage chamber. However, the gas pumped out by vacuum pumping is directly discharged into the refrigerator at present, which causes the airflow in the refrigerator to flow, and easily causes the food in other areas in the same space with the vacuum chamber in the refrigerator to be tainted with each other.

The invention is provided in view of the above.

Disclosure of Invention

The invention provides a refrigerator aiming at the technical problems.

In order to achieve the purpose, the invention adopts the technical scheme that:

a refrigerator, comprising:

a cabinet defining an insulated low temperature storage compartment;

the door hinge assembly is arranged at the top of the box body and comprises a door hinge plate and a door hinge box covered outside the door hinge plate; the door hinge box and the top of the box body jointly define an accommodating space;

a door rotatably coupled to the door hinge to open or close the low-temperature storage compartment;

the low-pressure storage unit is arranged in the low-temperature storage room, and air can be pumped into the low-pressure storage unit to form air pressure lower than the external atmospheric pressure of the refrigerator so as to be beneficial to keeping food fresh;

the vacuum pump is arranged in the accommodating space; the air exhaust pipe is provided with an air exhaust pipe and an air exhaust pipe communicated with the atmospheric environment outside the box body;

one end of the first pipeline is communicated with the low-pressure storage unit, and the other end of the first pipeline is communicated with the air exhaust pipe;

when the vacuum pump works, air in the low-pressure storage unit is discharged out of the box body after sequentially passing through the first pipeline, the air exhaust pipe, the vacuum pump and the exhaust pipe.

Preferably, a foaming layer is arranged in the box body, and the first pipeline is arranged in the foaming layer in the box body.

Preferably, the top of the box body is provided with a through hole, and the first pipeline penetrates out of the box body through the through hole.

Preferably, the through hole is located in a region where the door hinge box overlaps with the top of the box body.

Preferably, the door hinge box comprises a box bottom and a box side plate surrounding the box bottom, and a containing part for mounting the vacuum pump is arranged on the box bottom.

Preferably, a concave portion is formed at the top of the box body, and the concave portion corresponds to the accommodating portion to accommodate at least part of the vacuum pump.

Preferably, a communication hole is formed in the door hinge box, and the exhaust pipe is communicated with the communication hole.

Preferably, the vacuum pump outside cover is equipped with the rubber sleeve, the rubber sleeve with the vacuum pump is laminated mutually.

Preferably, the rubber sleeve includes:

the main body part is provided with a mounting cavity for accommodating the vacuum pump;

the bulge is arranged around the periphery of the main body part and is abutted against the accommodating part.

Preferably, the plurality of protrusions are arranged in parallel along a central axis of the main body and surround the main body.

Compared with the prior art, the invention has the advantages and positive effects that:

Drawings

FIG. 1 is a schematic structural view illustrating a door of a refrigerator according to the present invention in an opened state;

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of the relative positions of a door hinge assembly and a door of the refrigerator according to the present invention;

FIG. 3 is an exploded view of a door hinge assembly of the refrigerator according to the present invention;

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of the relative positions of the refrigerator body, the door hinge assembly and the vacuum pump assembly;

FIG. 5 is an exploded view of the vacuum pump assembly of the refrigerator according to the present invention;

FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram of the relative position between the first pipeline and the refrigerator body according to the present invention;

FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram of the relative positions of the first pipeline, the inner container and the door hinge assembly of the refrigerator according to the present invention;

FIG. 8 is a schematic diagram showing the relative positions of the first pipeline, the inner container and the door hinge assembly at another view angle.

In the above figures:

a refrigerator 1; a box body 2; a housing 2 a; an inner container 2 b; a door 13; a top plate 14; the sleeve 15 is rotated; a refrigerating chamber 10; a low-pressure storage unit 12; a housing 4; a door body 5; a door hinge assembly 6; a door hinge plate 7; a fixed seat plate 71; a connection seat plate 72; a connecting sleeve 73; a fastening position 74; the first connection hole group 75; a door hinge box 8; a box bottom 81; a housing portion 81 a; a box side plate 82; a first hook 83; a second set of connecting holes 84; a vacuum pump 3; an exhaust tube 38; an exhaust pipe 39; a first conduit 16; a rubber sleeve 9; the perforations 13 a; a main body portion 91; a mounting cavity 92; a projection 93; a communication hole 85; and a recessed portion 14 a.

Detailed Description

The present invention is further described below in conjunction with specific examples to enable those skilled in the art to better understand the present invention and to practice it, but the scope of the present invention as claimed is not limited to the scope described in the specific embodiments. It should be noted that the embodiments and features of the embodiments in the present application may be arbitrarily combined with each other without conflict.

It should be noted that all directional indicators (such as up, down, left, right, front, and back) in the embodiments of the present invention are only used to explain the relative position relationship between the components, the motion situation, and the like in a specific posture (as shown in the drawings), and if the specific posture is changed, the directional indicator is changed accordingly.

In addition, the descriptions related to "first", "second", etc. in the present invention are for descriptive purposes only and are not to be construed as indicating or implying relative importance or implicitly indicating the number of technical features indicated. Thus, a feature defined as "first" or "second" may explicitly or implicitly include at least one such feature.

In addition, technical solutions between various embodiments may be combined with each other, but must be realized by a person skilled in the art, and when the technical solutions are contradictory or cannot be realized, such a combination should not be considered to exist, and is not within the protection scope of the present invention.

Referring to fig. 1-8, a refrigerator 1, the refrigerator 1 includes a heat-insulating box 2, the box 2 includes a casing 2a, an inner container 2b and a heat-insulating layer (not shown) therebetween. The cabinet 2 defines a plurality of insulated low-temperature storage compartments to store food and the like. In the present embodiment, these low-temperature storage compartments are a refrigerating compartment 10 located at the upper portion and a freezing compartment located at the bottom portion, respectively. The low-temperature storage compartments may be closed by respective corresponding door. The refrigerating chamber 10 is provided with a refrigerating side-by-side door, and the freezing chamber is provided with a freezing side-by-side door.

It should be understood that the invention should not be limited to a particular distribution of the storage compartments of the refrigerator 1, but that the invention may also be applied to other forms of refrigerator 1, such as a refrigerator 1 with a drawer door, etc.

The refrigerator 1 has an evaporative refrigeration system forming a closed loop. The refrigeration system includes at least a compressor (not shown), a condenser (not shown), a throttle device (not shown), and an evaporator (not shown). Since such a refrigeration system is well known in the art, further description thereof is omitted. Of course, other types of refrigeration systems (e.g., absorption refrigeration systems, thermoelectric refrigeration systems) may be used with the refrigerator 1.

The refrigerator 1 is provided with a low pressure storage unit 12 which can be maintained in a low pressure state and a vacuum pump assembly for pumping gas from the inside of the low pressure storage unit 12. The vacuum pump assembly may include a vacuum pump 3 and a pipe connected between the vacuum pump 3 and the low pressure storage unit 12.

In the present embodiment, the low pressure storage unit 12 is provided inside the refrigerating compartment 10. It should be understood that in other embodiments, the low pressure storage unit 12 may be disposed in other low temperature storage compartments, such as a temperature-changing compartment having a temperature range that is switchable between a refrigerated temperature zone and a frozen temperature zone.

The low pressure storage unit 12 is located at the bottom of the refrigerating compartment 10 and supported on the bottom wall of the refrigerating compartment 10. A fresh-keeping container (not shown) having a high humidity and suitable for keeping food such as vegetables may be disposed adjacent to the low-pressure storage unit 12; the low pressure storage unit 12 is provided at the bottom of the refrigerating compartment 10 in parallel with the fresh food container.

The low pressure storage unit 12 may be assembled in the cabinet 2 after being constructed independently of the cabinet 2. Referring to fig. 1, in the present embodiment, the low pressure storage unit 12 has a substantially flat rectangular parallelepiped shape, and the sum of the width of the low pressure storage unit 12 and the width of the fresh food container is slightly smaller than the width of the refrigerating compartment 10, so that the bottom space of the refrigerating compartment 10 is effectively allocated, and both the fresh food container and the low pressure storage unit 12 can be inserted into the refrigerating compartment 10 or pulled out of the refrigerating compartment 10.

The low pressure storage unit 12 includes a case 4 fixed in the refrigerating chamber 10 and a door 5 connected to the case 4 and movable into and out of the refrigerating chamber 10.

Referring to fig. 1, the housing 4 has a box-shaped structure defining a flat low-pressure storage compartment having a food access opening. In this embodiment, the access opening is located at the front end of the housing 4 facing the user. The latticed reinforcing ribs are arranged on the outer side of the box wall of the shell 4 to increase the strength of the box wall of the shell 4 and avoid deformation of the shell 4 caused by the difference between the internal pressure and the external pressure after vacuumizing.

Door 5 may be provided with an annular sealing member to form an airtight joint between housing 4 and door 5 when door 5 is in the closed position, preventing gas from entering the low-pressure storage chamber from the joint between housing 4 and door 5. The sealing element may also be arranged at the front end of the housing 4.

When the low pressure storage chamber is closed by the door 5 and the vacuum pump assembly is started, the gas in the low pressure storage chamber is extracted and the low pressure storage chamber is in a low pressure state. According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, at the end of the evacuation process, the pressure within the low pressure storage chamber is between one standard atmosphere and absolute vacuum. Since the pressure in the low-pressure storage chamber is lower than the standard atmospheric pressure, the person skilled in the art is also commonly referred to as "vacuum storage" and this state in which the pressure is lower than the standard atmospheric pressure is referred to as "vacuum state".

The door body 5 is a drawer type door, and the door body 5 may be pushed toward the case 4 to close the access port of the low pressure storage chamber or pulled out to open the low pressure storage chamber. The rear side of the door body 5 is connected with a tray-shaped article container for placing articles. The user obtains items located in the low pressure storage unit 12 or stores items in the low pressure storage unit 12 by pushing or pulling the storage container into or out of the low pressure storage compartment. The door 5 and the storage container together constitute a drawer unit that can be pushed into and pulled out of the housing 4.

It should be noted that the low-pressure storage unit is not limited to the form of the drawer unit described above, and may be provided in the form of a box (fixed or detachable form, and connected to a vacuum pump for vacuum pumping when vacuum pumping is required), or may be provided in the form of a plastic packaging bag (sealed after vacuum pumping), and the specific form of the low-pressure storage unit is determined according to a specific scheme.

As shown in fig. 1-4, a door hinge assembly 6 is arranged on a top plate 14 of the box body 2, and the door hinge assembly 6 comprises a door hinge plate 7 and a door hinge box 8; a first connecting piece is arranged on the door hinge plate 7, and a second connecting piece which is rotationally connected with the first connecting piece is arranged on the door 13; and at least one of the first connecting piece and the second connecting piece is provided with a pipeline channel. In this embodiment, the first connecting member includes a connecting sleeve 73, and the second connecting member includes a rotating sleeve 15 sleeved inside or outside the connecting sleeve 73; the inner bore of the rotating sleeve 15 or the connecting sleeve 73 located in the inner ring forms a line channel.

Specifically, the door hinge plate 7 includes a fixing seat plate 71 and a connecting seat plate 72. The fixed seat plate 71 is attached to the outer surface of the top plate 14 of the box body 2; the fixed seat plate 71 is provided with a first connection hole group 75, and screws are installed in the first connection hole group 75 to fix the fixed seat plate 71 with the top plate 14 of the cabinet 2. The connection seat plate 72 is extended from the front side of the case 2 and provided with a connection sleeve 73. The top of the box door 13 is provided with a rotating sleeve 15, and the rotating sleeve 15 is sleeved outside or inside the connecting sleeve 73 so as to cooperate with each other to enable the box door 13 to rotate around the central axis of the connecting sleeve 73. Wherein the edge of the door hinge plate 7 is provided with a plurality of fastening positions 74 protruding upwards.

The door hinge box 8 includes a box bottom 81 and a box side plate 82 surrounding the box bottom 81. The box side plate 82 is provided with a plurality of first hooks 83 corresponding to the fastening positions 74 on the door hinge plate 7, and the first hooks 83 are fastened with the fastening positions 74 on the door hinge plate 7 so as to fixedly connect the door hinge plate 7 with the door hinge box 8. Wherein the door hinge plate 7 is completely mounted in the door hinge box 8. A second set of connecting holes 84 is provided in the box bottom 81 of the door hinge box 8, and screws are installed in the second set of connecting holes 84 to fix the door hinge box 8 to the top plate 14 of the box body 2.

As shown in fig. 3-8, the door hinge box 8 and the top of the box body 2 together define a containing space for installing a vacuum pump assembly; the cassette bottom 81 of the door hinge cassette 8 is provided with a receiving portion 81a for mounting a vacuum pump unit. The vacuum pump assembly comprises a vacuum pump 3 and a rubber sleeve 9 sleeved outside the vacuum pump 3. The vacuum pump 3 is installed in the accommodating portion 81a, and the rubber sleeve 9 is disposed between the accommodating portion 81a and the vacuum pump 3 to effectively absorb the vibration and reduce the noise. In addition, the top of the housing 2a is provided with a recess 14a, and the recess 14a corresponds to the receiving portion 81a to receive a part of the vacuum pump assembly, thereby reducing the thickness of the door hinge box 8 perpendicular to the top of the housing 2a, i.e., reducing the size of the door hinge box 8. The accommodating part 81a in this embodiment is provided in the form of an installation groove corresponding to the recess 14a at the top of the casing 2a to form an accommodating space to accommodate the vacuum pump assembly. The specific form of the accommodating portion 81a is provided according to the application requirements, and the specific arrangement form thereof is not limited to the specific examples described above.

The vacuum pump 3 is provided with an exhaust pipe 39 and an exhaust pipe 38. In this embodiment, the exhaust pipe 39 is disposed in parallel with the exhaust pipe 38, and is located at the same end of the vacuum pump 3. In this embodiment, the exhaust pipe 39 and the exhaust pipe 38 are both located at one end of the vacuum pump 3 away from the box door 13. The first pipeline 16 is connected to the air suction pipe 38, and the other end of the first pipeline 16 is communicated with the low pressure storage unit 12.

In this embodiment, a foaming layer is disposed between the outer casing 2a and the inner container 2b, a top plate 14 of the outer casing 2a is provided with a through hole 13a, and the through hole 13a is located in a region where the door hinge box 8 overlaps the top of the box body 2; i.e. the through hole 13a is covered by the door hinge box 8. Wherein, the first pipeline 16 extends from the exhaust tube 38 of the vacuum pump 3 to the through hole 13a, the first pipeline 16 passes through the through hole 13a to enter the foaming layer between the outer shell 2a and the inner container 2b, and in the foaming layer between the outer shell 2a and the inner container 2b, the first pipeline 16 extends to the rear side of the refrigerator 1 and passes through the rear wall of the inner container 2b to be connected with the rear end part of the low pressure storage unit 12, so as to complete the communication between the low pressure storage unit 12 and the exhaust tube 38 of the vacuum pump 3. In this embodiment, the first pipeline 16 is disposed in the foaming layer, so that the temperature of the gas passing through the first pipeline 16 can be raised to some extent by using the heat insulating property of the foaming layer, and the condensation at the gas outlet can be avoided when the gas is discharged.

In this embodiment, the exhaust pipe 39 communicates with the atmosphere outside the refrigerator 1 outside the door hinge box 8; specifically, the exhaust pipe 39 is connected to a second pipeline, and the second pipeline is communicated with the atmosphere outside the refrigerator 1. Namely, the exhaust pipe 39 is communicated with the atmosphere outside the refrigerator 1 through the pipeline arrangement, so that the gas extracted from the low-pressure storage unit 12 is directly exhausted out of the refrigerator 1, thereby avoiding the food in other areas in the refrigerating chamber 10 from tainting with each other and affecting the fresh-keeping effect of the food. As another practical mode, the door hinge box 8 is provided with a communication hole 85 for communicating the accommodating space with the atmosphere outside the refrigerator, and the exhaust pipe 39 communicates with the accommodating space to exhaust the gas drawn from the inside of the low pressure storage unit 12.

When the door 13 is closed and the vacuum pump 3 is operated, the air in the low pressure storage unit 12 passes through the first pipeline 16, the air suction pipe 38, the vacuum pump 3, the exhaust pipe 39, the second pipeline in sequence, and is finally exhausted out of the box body 2 from the other end of the second pipeline. So as to avoid the air pumped out from the low-pressure storage unit 12 directly discharging into the refrigerator 1 to make the foods in other areas in the refrigerating chamber 10 taint with each other and affect the fresh-keeping effect of the foods.

The rubber sleeve 9 is in contact with the accommodating portion 81a, the rubber sleeve 9 has a main body 91 to which the vacuum pump 3 is attached, and the main body 91 is provided with an attachment cavity 92 conforming to the shape of the vacuum pump 3; the radial dimension of the mounting cavity 92 of the main body 91 is not larger than the radial dimension of the corresponding position of the vacuum pump 3, so that the rubber sleeve 9 is tightly attached to the vacuum pump 3 and the vibration on the vacuum pump 3 is absorbed.

The periphery of the main body 91 is provided with a plurality of protrusions 93 which are arranged in parallel along the central axis of the main body 91 and surround the main body 91, so as to improve the deformability of the rubber sleeve 9 and improve the vibration damping effect. In this embodiment, the shore hardness of the rubber sleeve 9 is 35 to 40.

In this embodiment, the outer diameter of the rubber sleeve 9 (the protrusion 93) is not smaller than the corresponding position of the accommodating portion 81a, so that when the rubber sleeve 9 is installed inside the accommodating portion 81a, the rubber sleeve 9 contacts the inner wall of the accommodating portion 81a and can interact with the inner wall of the accommodating portion 81a to generate a friction force, thereby ensuring firm installation.

In the present invention, when the door 13 is closed and the vacuum pump 3 is operated, the air in the low pressure storage unit 12 passes through the first pipeline 16, the air suction pipe 38, the vacuum pump 3, the exhaust pipe 39, the second pipeline in sequence, and is finally exhausted out of the box body 2 through the second pipeline. So as to avoid the gas pumped out from the low-pressure storage unit 12 directly discharging into the refrigerator 1 to make the foods in other areas in the refrigerating chamber 10 taint with each other and affect the fresh-keeping effect of the foods; on the other hand, the vacuum pump is arranged on the refrigerator door, so that the vibration can be effectively avoided from being transmitted to the refrigerator body, the noise is reduced, the overall performance of the refrigerator is optimized, and the user experience is improved.

The above description is only a preferred embodiment of the present invention, and not intended to limit the present invention in other forms, and any person skilled in the art may apply the above modifications or changes to the equivalent embodiments with equivalent changes, without departing from the technical spirit of the present invention, and any simple modification, equivalent change and change made to the above embodiments according to the technical spirit of the present invention still belong to the protection scope of the technical spirit of the present invention.

Claims

1. The refrigerator is characterized in that: it includes:

a cabinet defining an insulated low temperature storage compartment;

2. The refrigerator according to claim 1, wherein: a foaming layer is arranged in the box body, and the first pipeline is arranged in the foaming layer in the box body.

3. The refrigerator according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that: the top of the box body is provided with a through hole, and the first pipeline penetrates out of the box body through the through hole.

4. The refrigerator according to claim 3, wherein: the through hole is positioned in the area where the door hinge box is overlapped with the top of the box body.

5. The refrigerator according to claim 1, wherein: the door hinge box comprises a box bottom and a box side plate surrounding the box bottom, and a containing part used for installing the vacuum pump is arranged on the box bottom.

6. The refrigerator according to claim 5, wherein: the top of box is equipped with the depressed part, the depressed part with the holding portion corresponds to hold at least part vacuum pump.

7. The refrigerator according to claim 6, wherein: the door hinge box is provided with a communication hole, and the exhaust pipe is communicated with the communication hole.

8. The refrigerator according to claim 5, wherein: the vacuum pump outside cover is equipped with the rubber sleeve, the rubber sleeve with the vacuum pump is laminated mutually.

9. The refrigerator according to claim 8, wherein: the rubber sleeve includes:

10. The refrigerator according to claim 9, wherein: the plurality of protrusions are arranged in parallel along a central axis of the main body portion and surround the main body portion.