Dual-Material Ice-Making Tray for Clear Ice and Fast Freezing
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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 often require complex assembly with multiple parts.
Innovation Solution
An integrated ice-making tray design featuring a first tray with high thermal conductivity, such as aluminum, and a second tray with lower thermal conductivity, such as plastic, where the second tray overlaps the first tray to receive cooling energy, and includes heat-transfer-area-reducing holes to slow down the cooling speed, while maintaining efficient cooling performance.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If the cooling speed of ice-making water is increased to improve ice generation efficiency, then the productivity is improved, but the transparency of the generated ice deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The ice-making tray is divided into a first tray with high thermal conductivity material and a second tray with low thermal conductivity material. The first tray receives cooling energy from the refrigerant pipe and transmits it to the second tray, which contains the ice-making water. This segmentation allows different parts of the system to have different thermal conductivity characteristics, enabling efficient cooling while controlling the cooling speed to maintain ice transparency.
Solution Approach 2:
Different regions of the ice-making tray are assigned different thermal conductivity properties. The first tray (bottom layer) uses high thermal conductivity material to efficiently receive and transmit cooling energy from the refrigerant pipe, while the second tray (top layer) uses low thermal conductivity material to slow down the cooling speed of the ice-making water. This local quality differentiation resolves the contradiction between cooling efficiency and ice transparency.
2Use of energy by moving object
If a direct cooling method with high thermal conductivity material is used to improve cooling efficiency, then the use of energy is improved, but the ice transparency deteriorates due to excessive cooling speed
Solution Approach 1:
The cooling system is segmented into two functional layers: the first tray made of high thermal conductivity material for efficient energy reception and transmission, and the second tray made of low thermal conductivity material for controlled cooling of ice-making water. This segmentation allows the system to maintain high cooling efficiency while preventing excessive cooling speed that would harm ice transparency.
Solution Approach 2:
The ice-making tray uses a composite structure combining materials with different thermal conductivity properties. The first tray uses high thermal conductivity material (e.g., aluminum) and the second tray uses low thermal conductivity material (e.g., plastic). This composite material approach enables the system to achieve both efficient energy transfer and controlled cooling speed for transparent ice production.
3Manufacturing precision
If multiple separate parts are used in the ice-making tray to achieve precise temperature control, then the manufacturing precision is improved, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The first tray and second tray are integrated into a single ice-making tray assembly, where the two trays are coupled together to form one functional unit. This merging reduces the number of separate components and simplifies assembly while maintaining the precise temperature control achieved through the dual-material structure. The integrated design eliminates the need for additional complex mechanisms to achieve the desired thermal control.
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 design improves ice transparency by slowing down the cooling speed and simplifies assembly by integrating related parts, maintaining the cooling performance of conventional trays while reducing the number of components.
Implementation Method 1
the ice-making tray receives cooling energy from the refrigerant pipe by thermal conduction
Implementation Method 2
a second tray having at least one ice-making cell which stores the ice-making water, coupled to overlap a top surface of the first tray to receive the cooling energy from the first tray
Data Source
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.