The refrigerator is a typical home appliance that is in constant operation. Quiet operation is a requisite for enhancing its commercial value. The common developmental process for a quiet machine consists of repetitive design, trial run, and evaluation until the target noise level is achieved. This process consumes much time and expense in R&D. The authors have developed a low-noise design method by finding the natural vibration mode at the main sources of vibration and noise from the machine compartment tubes, using the finite element method and then measuring the noise field distribution created around the tubes by means of TAFIS I, 2(acoustic field simulation by superposed sound source). This allowed the establishment of tube shape with reduced vibration and low noise; tests on actual refrigerators proved a reduction of approximately 2.0 dB (in-house data) over conventional refrigerators. The developmental period was also reduced, along with the necessary number of prototypical models.

Units: SI