Refrigerator
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Solution Overview
Problem
Refrigerators with home bar doors experience reduced thermal insulation and increased power consumption due to excessive cool air leakage, especially when the sizes of the home bar door and storage are increased.
Innovation Solution
A door locking mechanism that allows for convenient storage product insertion/exit through a side storage product entrance/exit portion, which is designed to open at an acute angle between 10 to 30 degrees, minimizing cool air leakage by locking the door at this angle to prevent excessive opening and maintaining the door-close state effectively.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Volume of stationary object
If the home bar door and home bar storage sizes are increased to improve storage capacity, then storage convenience is improved, but thermal insulation performance deteriorates and power consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The door storage is divided into multiple compartments (first door storage and second door storage) separated by a partition wall. This segmentation allows the storage space to be larger while maintaining better thermal insulation by creating smaller, more manageable zones that reduce overall cool air leakage when accessed.
2Volume of stationary object
If the home bar door size is increased to improve storage capacity, then storage convenience is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The door storage is divided into multiple compartments (first door storage and second door storage) separated by a partition wall. This segmentation allows the storage space to be larger while maintaining better thermal insulation by creating smaller, more manageable zones that reduce overall cool air leakage when accessed.
Solution Approach 2:
A side storage product entrance/exit portion is provided at the side of the door storage, allowing access from the lateral direction rather than only from the front. This dimensional change enables storage access without requiring the door to open widely, thus maintaining simpler door structure while improving storage convenience.
3Loss of energy
If the door is locked at an acute opening angle to minimize cool air leakage, then thermal insulation is improved, but ease of operation deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The door locking mechanism is designed to automatically lock the door at a predetermined acute opening angle when the door is opened. This preliminary action ensures that the door naturally settles at the optimal angle for minimizing cool air leakage without requiring user intervention to adjust or maintain the angle, thus preserving ease of operation while improving thermal insulation.
Solution Approach 2:
The door locking mechanism automatically maintains the door at the acute opening angle through self-locking functionality. The mechanism serves itself by automatically engaging at the correct angle and maintaining it without user assistance, reducing the operational burden on the user while achieving energy conservation goals.
Data Source
Figure 1
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Figure 3
AI summary
A refrigerator includes a main body (4) having a storage room (2) formed therein; a cooling device (6) cooling the storage room (2); a door (20) rotatably connected to the main body (4) so as to open/close the storage room (2); a door storage (30) mounted to the door (20) and having a side storage product entrance/exit portion (32) formed therein; and a door locking mechanism (50) locking the door (20) or releasing the locking of the door (20) when the door (20) is rotated to an acute opening angle at which the side storage product entrance/exit portion (32) is exposed between the main body (4) and the door (20). Accordingly, storage products can be inserted/extracted into/from the door storage (30) in the state in which the position of the door (20) is fixed to the acute opening angle at which the side storage product entrance/exit portion (32) is exposed, and it is possible to keep a large quantity of storage products in the door storage (30) while minimizing the leakage of cooling air in the storage room (2).