The present invention refers to a system to provide the selective control of the airflows that are forced to circulate in the interior of determined regions of the refrigerating and freezing compartments defined in a refrigerating cabinet. The invention is applied to refrigerators and freezers with the cabinet presenting a single compartment, or multiple compartments, each frontally closed by a door.
In the refrigerators and freezers with forced ventilation, which are combined or not, a cool airflow is supplied to the different compartments by air passages provided in a front wall of an air distributing plenum usually located in the rear region of each respective compartment and which receives a forced cool airflow coming from an air cooling compartment, in which an evaporator and a fan are lodged.
The construction exemplified in
The air passages 25 provided in the air distributing plenum 23, or in the air distributing duct of the refrigerating compartment, are arranged and dimensioned to allow the respective compartment to have its load homogenously refrigerated or frozen. However, the physical distribution and the dimensioning of said air passages 25 cannot be altered, consisting in a passive system which will always produce the same refrigerating or freezing effect, independently of the operative specifications desired by the user operating said compartment.
These prior art solutions do not allow the user to adjust the refrigerating intensity of different regions selected in one or another compartment, according to the characteristics of the load to be refrigerated or frozen in said region. When the user desires to modify the conditions in a region of one of the compartments, this modification generally involves changing the operational ranges of the refrigerating system, proportionally influencing the temperatures in the other regions of one or more compartments.
By reason of the limitations related to the operational versatilities imposed by the cool air distributing systems of refrigerators and freezers, it is a generic object of the present invention to provide a system which allows controlling or adjusting the forced cool airflow in predetermined different regions of a refrigerating compartment, defined by a freezing or a refrigerating compartment in a refrigerating cabinet, without said selective control affecting the characteristics of a forced cool air supplied to the other regions of the refrigerating compartments provided with said control system.
In order to allow a refrigerator or a freezer of the type considered herein to operate according to the above-mentioned object, the present control system has at least part of the air passages provided in the front wall of the air distributing plenum operatively associated with respective closing means, which are selectively displaced to different operative positions, in which they maintain said air passages with a free area that is dimensioned as a function of the intensity of the forced airflow to be supplied to the refrigerating compartment.
The invention will be described below, with reference to the enclosed drawings, given by way of example only and in which:
As illustrated in the drawings and commented in the introduction of the present specification, the invention is related to refrigerating appliances, such as refrigerators or freezers, combined or not and which are provided with forced ventilation.
As previously mentioned, the invention aims at providing a refrigerating compartment 10, which can take the form of a freezing compartment or a refrigerating compartment, with a system which allows for the selective control of the refrigerating intensity produced in predetermined different regions of said refrigerating compartment which are served by respective air passages 25 provided in the front wall 24 of the air distributing plenum 23, positioned in the rear region of the refrigerating compartment 10 and which is supplied with a forced cool airflow coming from an air cooling compartment 20, disposed immediately behind the air distributing plenum 23 or spaced from the latter, said air cooling compartment 20 lodging an evaporator 21 and a fan 22, which is responsible for supplying an airflow refrigerated by the evaporator 21 to the inside of the air distributing plenum 23.
According to the present invention, at least some of the air passages 25 are operatively associated with respective closing means 40, preferably interconnected to each other and which are selectively displaced between different operative positions, in which they produce different closing conditions of said air passages 25. In a first operative position, as illustrated in
In a second operative position, as illustrated in
The closing means 40 can be further selectively displaced to at least one third position, in which they promote the reduction of the free area of the respective air passages 25. Thus, the airflow is reduced or eliminated in the respective regions of the refrigerating compartment 10, causing an increase in its operational temperature. This function can be used to preserve ice creams, which for consumption require a higher temperature than those temperatures obtained inside a freezing compartment in the refrigerating appliances of the no-frost type.
In the condition of
By having its temperature thus controlled, the refrigerating compartment 10 can be closed, i.e., separated from the remainder of the compartment of the refrigerating appliance, or opened to the interior of said compartment. By providing a refrigerating compartment 10 which is closed in relation to the rest of the compartment, the efficiency of the refrigerating appliance is increased.
The closing means 40 can be constructed in different manners, so as to be manually or automatically driven by means of a function selector 50 which is operatively associated with the usual control module (not illustrated) provided in the refrigerating appliances considered herein.
In a possible construction, the closing means 40 can take the form of plate portions formed as a single assembly, simultaneously operating against the air passages 25 and being driven by a driving means 60, which can take the form of a solenoid or an electric motor, which is automatically driven as a function of the operational characteristics adjusted by the user in the function selector 50 to which the driving means is operatively associated.
In the illustrated construction, the closing means 40 takes the form of a plate which is internally and parallely displaced to the front wall 24 of the distributing plenum 23, superiorly and inferiorly seated on rails 27 provided on an internal face of said front wall 24. It should be understood that other closing forms are perfectly possible, whose operation need not be performed by linear displacement. The closing means is/are able to be configured in such a way as to present an angular displacement around the axis which is orthogonal or parallel to the front wall 24 of the air distributing plenum 23.
The present control system can be further used to provide the full closing of the air passages 25 during the defrost operation of the refrigerating appliance, as illustrated in
It should be further understood that the front wall 24 of the air distributing plenum 23 can be provided with air passages 25 presenting the same cross section area, but whose free area will be defined by the operative position of the respective closing means 40. In another constructive form, corresponding to that shown in the drawings, the front wall 24 of the air distributing plenum 23 is provided with air passages with different cross section areas.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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PI 0301596-3 | Jun 2003 | BR | national |
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
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PCT/BR04/00083 | 5/31/2004 | WO | 5/22/2006 |