refrigerator
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing refrigerators lack an efficient mechanism for automatically opening and guiding the position of the door, ensuring a gradual speed decrease during opening, maintaining a constant angle of opening, and stabilizing the door in the fully open position.
Innovation Solution
A refrigerator design featuring a door with a guide rail and a hinge bracket that includes a guide shaft. The guide rail has a specific configuration with a free area and a limited area, allowing the guide shaft to guide the door's rotation, ensuring smooth opening and closing, and maintaining the door's position when fully open.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If a door opening and closing structure is provided to easily open or close the door, then ease of operation is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The door opening and closing structure operates automatically without requiring manual intervention. The guide shaft and guide rail work together to enable the door to open and close on its own, eliminating the need for users to manually pull or push the door, thus improving ease of operation while maintaining relatively simple structure
Solution Approach 2:
The guide shaft acts as an intermediary element between the hinge bracket and the guide rail on the door. This intermediary component facilitates smooth door opening and closing by guiding the rotational movement, enabling easy operation without requiring complex mechanical structures
2Manufacturing precision
If a guide shaft and guide rail structure is implemented to guide door position, then manufacturing precision is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The guide structure is segmented into distinct components: the guide rail attached to the door, the guide shaft in the hinge bracket, and their interaction zones. This segmentation allows for precise control of door position at different stages (opening, closing, fully open) while keeping each individual component relatively simple in design
Solution Approach 2:
The guide shaft and guide rail structure provides dynamic guidance throughout the door's rotational movement. The structure adapts to different door positions, providing appropriate guidance forces during opening, closing, and when fully open, enabling precise position control without requiring overly complex static mechanisms
3Speed
If the guide rail includes free area and limited area to control door speed, then speed control precision is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The guide rail is designed with different local characteristics: a free area that allows greater movement freedom and a limited area that constrains movement. This local differentiation enables speed control during door opening without requiring the entire structure to be complex, as only specific zones have specialized features
Data Source
AI summary
A refrigerator may include a main body forming a storage compartment; a door configured to open and close the storage compartment and including a guide rail; and a hinge bracket connecting the main body and the door so the door is rotatable between being opened and a closed to respectively open and close the compartment. The hinge bracket may include a guide shaft inserted into the guide rail to guide rotation of the door. The guide rail may include: a first end and a second end where the guide shaft is respectively located when the door is closed and opened, a free area between the first and second end and having a first width, and a limited area between the second end and free area and having a second width less than the first width.