Refrigerator with a slide-out pan assembly   

Abstract: A refrigeration appliance, such as a refrigerator, includes a food compartment liner having a bottom surface. A pull-out pan is operably disposed within the liner proximate the bottom surface. A slide mechanism is configured between the pull-out pan and the bottom surface of the compartment liner, wherein the pull-out pan is fully supported on and slidable relative to the bottom surface of the compartment liner.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present subject matter relates generally to refrigeration appliances, and more particularly to a slide-out pan or tray configured in a refrigerator.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Refrigerators typically include one or more pans, trays, or drawers (referred to generically as “pans” herein) that slide into and out of the fresh food or freezer compartments. These devices are intended for particular food products and are designed for efficient use of the compartment space, as well as ease of operation for the consumer. For example, GE Appliances offers a line of residential refrigerators (the GE Profile™ series) that includes a full width pull-out meat pan in the fresh food compartment that utilizes slides configured between the liner sidewalls and the pan.

The conventional slide mechanism configuration utilized for the various pull-out pans results in the pans being suspended from the compartment liner walls via the slides. Thus, the slides must be robust enough to hold the weight of the fully loaded pan, which adds to the complexity and overall cost of the appliance. Also, the side-mounted slides take up space and prevent the pan from extending to the liner sidewalls, thereby decreasing the effective volume of the pan and resulting in less than optimal efficient use of the compartment.

Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a pull-out pan assembly that does not suffer from the disadvantages of conventional side-mounted slide mechanism.

Aspects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in part in the following description, or may be obvious from the description, or may be learned through practice of the invention.

In an exemplary embodiment, a refrigeration appliance has a food compartment defined by a liner having a bottom surface. A pull-out pan is operably disposed within the liner above the bottom surface. A slide mechanism is configured between the pull-out pan and the bottom surface of the liner such that the pull-out pan is fully supported on and slidable relative to the bottom surface of the liner.

The slide mechanism, in a particular embodiment, includes at least one track configured on either of an underside of the pan or the bottom surface of the liner, and a complementary engaging rail configured on the other of the bottom surface of the liner or the underside of the pan. A plurality of the rail and track pairs may be configured between the pan and the compartment liner. The rail and track have complimentary cross-sectional profiles such that the rail engages within and slides along the track.

In a particular embodiment, the rails are mounted to the pan underside and the tracks are mounted to or formed in the bottom surface of the compartment liner.

The tracks and rails may have interlocking complimentary cross-sectional profiles such that the pan is not vertically displaceable relative to the bottom surface of the liner without disengaging the rails from the tracks.

In order to ensure adequate air circulation below the pan, elongated, raised beds may be formed in the bottom surface of the compartment liner, with the tracks or rails mounted on the raised beds.

In certain embodiments, it may be desired to include a stop mechanism configured between the pan and the bottom surface of the compartment liner to prevent inadvertent complete withdrawal of the pan from the compartment. The stop mechanism may be variously configured. For example, a protrusion may be configured from an underside of the pan at a location such that the protrusion engages against a ridge or shoulder formed in the bottom surface of the compartment liner at a fully extended position of the pan.

The invention is not limited to any particular type of pull-out pan or refrigeration appliance. In certain embodiments, the appliance is a residential refrigerator with the liner defining a fresh food compartment, for example a full-width fresh food compartment above a freezer compartment. The pan may be configured as a bottom-most component of the fresh food compartment, and may be intended as a meat pan.

These and other features, aspects and advantages of the present invention will become better understood with reference to the following description and appended claims. The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate embodiments of the invention and, together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the invention.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

A full and enabling disclosure of the present invention, including the best mode thereof, directed to one of ordinary skill in the art, is set forth in the specification, which makes reference to the appended figures, in which:

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a refrigeration appliance, in particular a refrigerator, incorporating one or more pull-out pans in accordance with aspects of the invention;

FIG. 2 is a perspective and partial cut-away view of a pull-out pan in accordance with aspects of the invention;

FIG. 3 is front cut-away view illustrating an embodiment of a slide mechanism for the pull-out pan;

FIG. 4 is a front cut-away view of another embodiment of a slide mechanism;

FIG. 5 is a bottom view of the pull-out pan;

FIG. 6 is a partial view of the bottom surface of a food compartment liner with components of the slide mechanism; and

FIG. 7 is a side cut-away view taken along the lines indicated in FIG. 2.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Reference now will be made in detail to embodiments of the invention, one or more examples of which are illustrated in the drawings. Each example is provided by way of explanation of the invention, not limitation of the invention. In fact, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications and variations can be made in the present invention without departing from the scope or spirit of the invention. For instance, features illustrated or described as part of one embodiment can be used with another embodiment to yield a still further embodiment. Thus, it is intended that the present invention covers such modifications and variations as come within the scope of the appended claims and their equivalents.

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of an exemplary refrigeration appliance 10 depicted as a refrigerator in which a pull-out pan assembly 30 in accordance with aspects of the present invention may be utilized. It should be appreciated that the refrigeration appliance of FIG. 1 is for illustrative purposes only. The present invention is not limited to any particular type, style, or configuration of refrigeration appliance, and such appliance may include any manner of refrigerator, freezer, refrigerator/freezer combination, and so forth.

Referring to FIG. 1, the refrigerator 10 includes a fresh food storage compartment 20 arranged above a freezer storage compartment 28. The compartments 20, 28 are defined by respective liners within an outer case 13. The fresh food liner 12 is visible in FIG. 1 and is generally molded from a suitable plastic material. The outer case 13 is normally formed by folding a sheet of a suitable material, such as pre-painted steel, into an inverted U-shape to form top and side walls of the outer case 13. A bottom wall of the outer case 13 normally is formed separately and attached to the case side walls and to a bottom frame that provides support for refrigerator 10.

A freezer door 29 and fresh food doors 22 close access openings to freezer storage compartment 28 and fresh food storage compartment 20, respectively.

In the fresh food compartment 20, one or more shelves 24 and storage bins 26 may be provided for the food items stored therein, as well as one or more pull-out pans 25. A bottom-most pull-out pan 30 is also provided, which may be designated as a “meat pan” for storage of meats in the fresh food compartment 20. This pull-out pan assembly 30 is in accordance with aspects of the present invention and described in greater detail below.

FIG. 2 illustrates the pull-out pan 30 in greater detail. The pan 30 may be a molded component having a bottom 35 and side walls 33 that define an open-top pan for receipt of any manner of items to be stored therein. The pan 30 is moved into and out of the food compartment (for example, fresh food compartment 20) by way of a handle 31 formed on the front of the pan 30.

Still referring to FIG. 2, the pan 30 is disposed immediately above a bottom surface 14 of the food compartment liner 12. As depicted in FIG. 1, the pan 30 may span between the side walls 16 of the food compartment 20, and may have a depth so as to extend to the back wall 18 of the food compartment liner 12.

A slide mechanism 32 is configured between the pull-out pan 30 and the bottom surface 14 of the compartment liner 12. The slide mechanism 32 is configured such that the pull-out pan 30 is fully supported on and slidable relative to the bottom surface 14. In the particular embodiment illustrated in the figures, the slide mechanism 32 comprises one or more tracks 34 that cooperate with complimentary rails 38. One of the tracks 34 or rails 38 are configured on an underside 36 (FIG. 5) of the pan 30 and the other of the rails 38 or tracks 34 is configured on the bottom surface 14 of the liner 12. The tracks 34 and rails 38 have a complimentary cross-sectional profile such that the rails 38 are engaged and received within a channel formed by the tracks 34, as described in greater detail below with respect to FIGS. 3 and 4.

In the illustrated embodiments, the rails 38 are mounted to or formed on the underside 36 of the pan 30, and the tracks 34 are mounted to or formed on the bottom surface 14 of the food compartment liner 12. Depending on the width of the pan 30, any number of the pairs of rails 38 and tracks 34 may span across the width of the food compartment. The rails 38 are a generally rigid member and may be separately formed and attached to the bottom surface 36 of the pan 30. For example, the rails 30 may be extruded metal members that are attached by any suitable means to the pan 30. The tracks 34 are, in certain embodiments, formed from a friction-reducing material, such as Acetal, Teflon, and the like, and are mounted by any suitable means to the bottom surface 14 of the food compartment liner 12.

Various embodiments of interlocking cross-sectional profiles may be used for the rails 38 and tracks 34. For example, in the embodiment of FIG. 3, the rails 38 have an “L” cross-sectional profile with the short leg attached to the underside 36 of the pan bottom 35. The complimentary tracks 34 define a channel within which the longer leg of the rails 38 is received. The rails 38 slide longitudinally within the track channels when a consumer pulls the pan 30 into and out of the food compartment 20.

FIG. 4 depicts another interlocking cross-sectional profile between the track 34 and the rails 38. In this embodiment, the rails 38 are generally cylindrical members attached to the bottom surface 36 of the pan bottom 35, and the tracks 34 are correspondingly shaped tubular members having an open top into which the rails 38 are pressed. It should be appreciated that the invention is not limited to any particular interlocking or engaging profiles between the tracks 34 and rails 38. It may be desired, however, that the interlocking cross-sectional profiles are configured such that the pan 30 is not vertically displaceable relative to the bottom surface 14 of the food compartment liner 20 without purposefully pulling or tilting the pan 30 upwards in order to disengage the rails 38 from the track 34.

Referring particularly to FIGS. 2 through 4, elongated raised beds 40 are defined on the bottom surface 14 of the food compartment liner 12. These beds 40 may be molded into the liner 12, or separately formed and attached to the liner. The raised beds 40 provide a platform for supporting the tracks 34 above the planar surface of the bottom 14, and ensure adequate air circulation beneath the pull-out pan 30.

It may also be desired to provide a suitable stop mechanism 42 (FIG. 7) configured between the pan 30 and the food compartment liner 12 to prevent inadvertent pulling of the pan 30 completely out of the compartment. Any manner of engaging members between the pan 30 and the liner 12 may serve this purpose. In the illustrated embodiment, one or more protrusions 44 are formed or mounted on the bottom surface 36 of the pan 30 and extend down below the rails 38 towards the bottom surface 14. Referring to FIG. 7, these protrusions 44 engage against a raised ridge 46 disposed towards the front of the bottom surface 14 when the pull-out pan 30 is pulled towards the left in FIG. 7. At a certain point, the protrusions 44 contact the ridge 46 and prevent further pulling of the pan 30 unless the pan is pulled upwards and disengaged from the tracks 34.

This written description uses examples to disclose the invention, including the best mode, and also to enable any person skilled in the art to practice the invention, including making and using any devices or systems and performing any incorporated methods. The patentable scope of the invention is defined by the claims, and may include other examples that occur to those skilled in the art. Such other examples are intended to be within the scope of the claims if they include structural elements that do not differ from the literal language of the claims, or if they include equivalent structural elements with insubstantial differences from the literal languages of the claims.