Refrigerator Front Frame Light Guide to Reduce Thermal Insulation Loss
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing refrigerators and freezers with light guides integrated into the inner container can compromise thermal insulation, leading to increased heat input and reduced efficiency, especially when the light source is located inside the cooled interior.
Innovation Solution
The light guide is arranged within a front frame on the exterior of the appliance body, eliminating the need for passages through the thermal insulation and utilizing an external light source, which can include LEDs or other light-emitting components, to minimize heat input and enhance insulation properties.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Illumination intensity
If the light guide is integrated into the inner container or passes through the body, then the refrigerated interior can be illuminated, but the thermal insulation of the appliance body is impaired and heat input increases
Solution Approach 1:
The light guide is extracted from the interior space and relocated to the front frame on the exterior of the appliance body. This allows the light guide to be positioned without creating passages through the thermal insulation layers, thus maintaining the integrity of the insulation structure while still enabling illumination of the refrigerated interior through the front opening.
Solution Approach 2:
The front frame serves as an intermediary structure that houses the light guide and positions it to illuminate the refrigerated interior without compromising the thermal insulation. The front frame acts as a mediator between the lighting function and the insulation requirement, allowing both to coexist without conflict.
2Ease of operation
If the light source is arranged inside the cooled interior, then lighting can be provided directly, but heat input from the light source increases the cooling requirement
Solution Approach 1:
The light source function is extracted from the cooled interior and relocated to the front frame on the exterior. This eliminates the heat-generating light source from the temperature-controlled environment, thereby reducing the cooling load while maintaining the lighting function through the light guide.
Solution Approach 2:
The direct lighting approach (placing light source inside) is replaced with an optical transmission system where the light source is externally positioned and light is guided into the interior through the front frame, avoiding the introduction of heat-generating components into the cooled space.
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
This configuration reduces heat input into the cooled interior, allowing for more efficient operation with lower cooling requirements, particularly in devices using vacuum insulation, and provides flexible lighting options such as accent or ambient lighting.
Implementation Method 1
a light guide that is arranged in this way is that it illuminates the refrigerated interior and with a light source which feeds light into the light guide
Implementation Method 2
there is vacuum thermal insulation in the body and/or in the closure element, which has one or more vacuum elements
Implementation Method 3
The light source can be any light-emitting component, such as an LED, OLED, laser
Data Source
Figure 1~2
Figure 3
AI summary
A refrigerator and/or freezer with a body that defines a cooled interior of the appliance, wherein the body has an end face surrounding an opening which can be closed by a closing element, and with a light guide arranged to illuminate the cooled interior and with a light source which feeds light into the light guide and which is arranged outside the cooled interior, wherein a front frame is provided which is arranged on the end face of the body and which has the light guide at least partially or is formed by it.