French Door Rotating Bar Guide for Gap Sealing and Access
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Solution Overview
Problem
In French Door Refrigerators, the gap between the pair of doors is not effectively sealed by a gasket, leading to cold air leakage, and existing rotating bar solutions fail to rotate when the other door is opened, restricting storage container size uniformity.
Innovation Solution
A rotating bar system is integrated with a guide device that allows the rotating bar to rotate and seal the gap between the doors regardless of which door is opened or closed, ensuring the same size storage containers can be used on both sides by adjusting the rotation via the guide device's operation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a rotating bar is installed on one door to seal the gap between doors, then the gap sealing is improved, but storage container removal is restricted when the other door is opened
Solution Approach 1:
The rotating bar is designed to dynamically change its position based on which door is opened. When the right door is opened, the guide device enables the rotating bar to rotate from a horizontal sealing position to a vertical non-interfering position, allowing storage container removal while maintaining gap sealing when the left door is closed
2Reliability
If the rotating bar remains in sealing position when one door is closed and the other is opened, then gap sealing is maintained, but storage container access is blocked
Solution Approach 1:
The system adapts the rotating bar position dynamically based on door operation state. The guide device detects when the right door is opened and automatically rotates the rotating bar to a vertical position, enabling uniform storage containers to be used on both sides without access restrictions
Data Source
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AI summary
A refrigerator in which a rotating bar installed to one of a pair of doors is rotated when the other door is opened or closed. The refrigerator includes a rotating bar to seal a gap between doors, and a guide device to guide rotation of the rotating bar. The guide device includes a base having a receptacle, a rotating unit mounted in the receptacle and rotated by a rotating shaft, a ramp structure fixed in the receptacle and having a ramp, a linkage unit linearly movably secured to the rotating unit and connected to the rotating bar so as to be linearly moved on the ramp and rotated along with the rotating unit about the rotating shaft, and an elastic unit supported by the rotating unit and adapted to transmit elastic force to the linkage unit to allow the linkage unit to move on the ramp.