Refrigerator or freezer cabinet

This application claims the benefit of International Application Number PCT/SE01/01695, which was published in English on Feb. 14, 2002.

The invention refers to a refrigerator or freezer cabinet with a space for goods, which space is confined by a rear wall, two side walls, a top wall, a bottom wall and a door, an element for refrigerating air circulated through the element by an impeller of a fan, which air is circulated further on through the space in order to thereby refrigerate the goods.

The object of the invention is to, at such a cabinet, bring about an even distribution of the air flowing through the space for refrigerating the goods simultaneously as the means for achieving the circulation of air take a minimum of space.

This object is reached by the cabinet according to the invention thereby that the element extends along the rear wall and confines in sidewards direction a chamber, which is furthermore confined by the rear wall and an intermediate wall arranged in front of the rear wall, an opening being arranged in the intermediate wall and the impeller sucking in air from the space through the opening, from where the impeller blows the air out into the chamber, the cross sectional area of which decreasing in vertical direction so that the air is evenly distributed along the element before it in sidewards direction passes through the element out into the space along the rear wall, from where the air circulates further on through the space between shelves located therein back to the opening.

Embodiments of a refrigerator or freezer cabinet according to the invention are described below in connexion with the enclosed drawing, in which

FIG. 1 shows a front view of a cabinet with the door removed and with shelves and an intermediate wall, which covers an evaporator,

FIG. 2 shows a sectional view according to the marking II—II in FIG. 1 ,

FIG. 3 shows a sectional view according to the marking III—III in FIG. 1 ,

FIG. 4 shows the same view as FIG. 1 but with the shelves and the intermediate wall removed, and

FIG. 5 shows a variant of the embodiment according to FIGS. 1-4 , the evaporator having V-shape.

With reference to FIGS. 1-4 numeral 10 designates a refrigerator or freezer cabinet constituted by an outer shell 12 of iron plate or plastic and an inner shell 14 of plastic, a heat insulation 16 being in customary way arranged between the shells. The inner shell 14 has a rear wall 18 , two side walls 20 and 22 , respectively, a top wall 24 and a bottom wall 26 , behind which a room 28 is arranged for housing a refrigerating apparatus (not shown). Said walls enclose a space 29 with a plurality of shelves 30 for storing goods.

The rear wall 18 has a plane part 32 and a depressed part with a plane, rectangular bottom 34 , which merges in the part 32 by means of a vaulted part 36 . A straight and long and narrow evaporator 38 constituted by a tube 40 bent to U-shape and with flanges 42 is arranged diagonally on the bottom 34 . The evaporator 38 and the bottom 34 is covered by a rectangular intermediate wall 44 , which is parallel with the bottom 34 and along three of its edges rests in a band-shaped depression 46 of the part 32 . Between the evaporator 38 , the bottom 34 , the intermediate wall 44 and a vertical 48 and horizontal 50 part of the wall 18 thus a wedge-shaped chamber 52 is formed, the cross sectional area of which decreasing in downwards direction. The intermediate wall 44 extends about 60% of the distance between the side walls 22 and 20 , respectively.

The top part of the intermediate wall 44 has an opening 54 , in which an electrically driven impeller 56 of a fan is arranged to suck in air from the space 29 and blow the air out into the chamber 52 , in which the air by the wedge-shape of the chamber in a way known per se in flow contexts will distribute evenly along the evaporator and after that flow in sidewards direction through the evaporator with a flow which is evenly distributed along the whole length of the evaporator and is directed out between the shelves 30 in the space 29 by the vaulted surface 36 . The air then flows towards the front edge of the respective shelf, here it turns off upwards and flows along a door 58 of the cabinet back to the opening 54 .

The opening 54 can be located on different levels in the intermediate wall 44 . At the embodiment according to FIG. 5 the opening 54 A is located at about half the height of the intermediate wall, the even distribution of the air being brought about by the evaporator 38 A having been given the shape of a V, the point of which being located on level with the opening 54 A.

The flow path of the air is in the figures shown with broken arrows.