1. Field
Embodiments of the present disclosure relate to an ice bucket locking structure of a refrigerator having an ice-making compartment and an ice bucket.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, a refrigerator is an apparatus, including a refrigerating compartment and a freezing compartment to store food and a cool air supply device to generate cool air using evaporation heat of a refrigerant and to supply the cool air to the refrigerating compartment and the freezing compartment, to keep food fresh.
The refrigerator may be provided with an ice-making compartment to make ice. Particularly, for a bottom mounted freezer (BMF) type refrigerator or a French door refrigerator (FDR) type refrigerator, the ice-making compartment is generally provided at one side of the refrigerating compartment such that the ice-making compartment is partitioned from the refrigerating compartment.
Additional cool air different from the cool air supplied to the refrigerating compartment and the freezing compartment is supplied to the ice-making compartment. The ice-making compartment includes an ice-maker to make ice and an ice bucket to store the ice made by the ice-maker. The ice bucket is inserted into or withdrawn from the ice-making compartment through an opening formed at the front of the ice-making compartment. The ice bucket has a cover to tightly cover the opening, when inserted into the ice-making compartment, to prevent leakage of cool air from the ice-making compartment.
Meanwhile, the refrigerator may be further provided with a locking device to fix the ice bucket such that the ice bucket introduced into the ice-making compartment may stably tightly cover the opening. Locking devices using a latch mechanism have been proposed. An example of such locking devices is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,870,754.
The latch mechanism restricts movement of the ice bucket inserted into ice-making compartment using interference between a latch and a catch. However, the latch mechanism merely restricts movement of the ice bucket and forces the cover of the ice bucket to tightly contact the ice-making compartment.
As a result, a gap may be generated between the cover of the ice bucket and a front wall of the ice-making compartment due to a manufacturing error, an assembly error, or long-term use.