Refrigerator

Abstract

A refrigerator comprising a housing, a pair of doors, link devices, and damping devices. Each of the damping devices includes a casing defining the appearance of the damping device, a cam member, a piston, a sealing member fitted around the piston, a spring, a guide rod, and a cap member connected to the guide rod so as to be positioned inside the casing. Since the damping device of the present invention is reducible in size, and is vertically mountable by virtue of its reduced operating space, it can be installed inside a refrigerator door or refrigerator housing, rather than the bottom surface of the refrigerator. Especially, the damping device can be mounted inside the lower end portion of a front panel of the refrigerator door, resulting in ease in exchange and repair thereof.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION [0001] This application claims the benefit of Korean Patent Application No. 2004-36260, filed on May 21, 2004 in the Korean Intellectual Property Office, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] 1. Field of the Invention [0003] The present invention relates to a refrigerator, and, more particularly, to a damping device of a refrigerator which reduces an operating space thereof, and a simplified link device to realize the damping device. [0004] 2. Description of the Related Art [0005] Generally, in order to protect a refrigerator as well as various foods stored therein, the refrigerator is provided with damping devices, which serve to absorb shock generated upon a closing of refrigerator doors so as to secure a smooth closing operation of the doors. As such, a damping device has conventionally been a device using oil. This kind of damping device, however, has a problem in that a sealing memb...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0009] Therefore, an aspect of the present invention provides a refrigerator comprising a damping device of a refrigerator door, which is mountable even in a narrow space by virtue of a reduced operating space of the damping device, and a simplified link device, which enables the damping device to be mounted to the refrigerator door without interference of other members.

[0010] Another aspect of the invention is to provide a refrigerator comprising a damping device, which is designed to be mounted in a separate space defined in a refrigerator door, resulting in simplicity in repair and exchange thereof.

Problems solved by technology

This kind of damping device, however, has a problem in that a sealing member thereof is often worn due to rectilinear reciprocation of a rod provided in a link device of the damper.

To achieve the rectilinear reciprocation of the rod, the link device must have disadvantageously long links.

Another problem of the conventional damping device is that the damping device requires a separate structure to be used in the protection of an oil damper as well as the links of the link device.

In most cases, furthermore, since the conventional damping device is provided at the bottom of a refrigerator housing so that the conventional damping device connects the refrigerator housing to a refrigerator door by cooperating with the link device, to repair of the damping device, the refrigerator housing has to be laid down on the ground after all foods therein are taken out, resulting in extreme trouble in repair and exchange thereof.

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