Design and CAE Analysis of Refrigerator Door Opening Assist Mechanism

Abstract

To provide more comfort and ease to its customers, there is a need to introduce new ideas for door opening assist mechanism in home appliance industry. In present work, two different mechanisms are designed and analyzed. One a manually operated mechanized handle and other a geared motor actuated automated door push plunger. Initially, the different dimensional parameters were optimized for given a position and size constraint available for the assembly. Multi-body dynamics system approach is used for kinematic and dynamic simulation. The movement of individual part is kinematically and dynamically analyzed for input and output force and displacement of parts. Designed manually mechanized door handle effectively reduces the force required to detach the magnet gasket seal from the steel wall of refrigerator cabinet by certain distance during door opening. Secondly, geared motor actuated automated push plunger is designed in a unique way to obtain the back and forth motion of push plunger without changing the direction of rotation of motor. A worm and worm wheel and three stage gear train spur is designed optimally to fit within the given constraints.