Investigation of the Frictional Impulse Induced Abnormal Noise in a Refrigerator

A large refrigerator has complicated inner structures such as many shelves and racks to hold products. Therefore, when the door of a refrigerator is opened and closed, there is a variation of the temperature inside the refrigerator. Therefore, an abnormal noise in the form of a ticking sound is generated by the relative distortion and slip between the inner structures. In this work, we tried to define the generation mechanism of this abnormal noise inside of a refrigerator clearly using experimental and numerical approaches while also studying how to reduce it. To do this, we conducted an experimental setup for measuring noise, temperatures, and the inner pressure and conducted a finite element analysis on the main factors of noise based on the experimental results. This study suggests a way to reduce this type of noise which can be utilized in the essential design stage.