Dual-Layer Ice-Making Tray for Transparent Ice at High Cooling Speed
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional ice-making trays in refrigerators generate ice that is turbid due to excessive cooling speed, leading to reduced transparency, and existing solutions do not effectively balance cooling efficiency with ice transparency.
Innovation Solution
An integrated ice-making tray design featuring a first tray with high thermal conductivity, such as aluminum, in contact with the refrigerant pipe, and a second tray with lower thermal conductivity, such as plastic, overlapping the first tray to slow down cooling energy transfer, along with heat-transfer-area-reducing holes and heat exchanging ribs to manage cooling speed and maintain chamber cooling efficiency.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Speed
If a direct cooling method with a refrigerant pipe is used to cool ice-making water quickly, then the cooling speed is fast, but the ice generated becomes turbid and not transparent
Solution Approach 1:
The ice-making tray is divided into a first tray (high thermal conductivity material) and a second tray (low thermal conductivity material) stacked together. This segmentation allows different parts of the tray to have different thermal properties, enabling fast cooling while preventing excessive cooling speed that causes turbidity
Solution Approach 2:
Different regions of the ice-making system are assigned different thermal conductivities. The first tray in contact with the refrigerant pipe has high thermal conductivity for efficient heat transfer, while the second tray has low thermal conductivity to moderate the cooling speed and ensure ice transparency
2Manufacturing precision
If the thermal conductivity of the ice-making tray is reduced to improve ice transparency, then ice becomes more transparent, but the cooling efficiency of the ice-making chamber decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The tray is segmented into two layers with different thermal conductivities, allowing the first tray to maintain high cooling efficiency while the second tray ensures ice transparency by moderating the cooling speed
Solution Approach 2:
The ice-making tray uses a composite structure combining materials with different thermal conductivities (high conductivity first tray and low conductivity second tray) to achieve both efficient cooling and transparent ice generation
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The solution generates ice with improved transparency while maintaining faster cooling speeds than indirect cooling methods and ensuring the ice-making chamber's cooling performance remains comparable to conventional trays.
Implementation Method 1
the ice-making tray receives cooling energy from the refrigerant pipe by thermal conduction
Implementation Method 2
formed of a material having a lower thermal conductivity than the first tray
Data Source
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AI summary
An ice-making tray according to the concept of the present invention is capable of making ice at high speed and improving the transparency of ice by providing a second tray having ice cells for storing ice-making water to be coupled, in an overlapping manner, to the upper surface of a first tray which is in contact with a refrigerant pipe. The first tray may be formed of an aluminum material, the second tray may be formed of a plastic material, and the first tray formed of an aluminum material can efficiently function as a heat exchanger of an ice-making space due to having high thermal-conductivity. In the second tray, a fixing part for fixing the ice-making tray inside the ice-making space, a shaft accommodating part for accommodating the rotation shaft of an ejector, a temperature sensor accommodating part for accommodating a temperature sensor, and an air insulating part for insulating the ice-making tray and an ice separating motor may be formed integrally.