Durability
The Eco Door™ has been tested for durability using a mechanical door-opening device (Figure 7) opening and slamming the door at 8 cycles per minute and run to 500,000 cycles. Unlike conventional fridge and freezer doors, no door sag was encountered and no deformity of the frame and glass occurred. Only minor hinge wear occurred with details of the durability trial in Table 1.
| DOOR CYCLES AT 8 PER MINUTE |
FRAME DISTORTION ON DIAGONALS |
DOOR SAG | HINGE POINT WEAR |
COMMENTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10,000 | NIL | NIL | NIL | HINGE LUBRICATED WITH SILICON SPRAY |
| 25,000 | NIL | NIL | NIL | |
| 50,000 | NIL | 0.2mm | 0.05mm | DOOR SAG DUE TO HINGE WEAR ONLY |
| 100,000 | NIL | 0.3mm | 0.08mm | |
| 150,000 | NIL | 0.4mm | 0.1mm | GASKET SCUFFING |
| 250,000 | NIL | 0.4mm | 0.1mm | |
| 500,000 | NIL | 0.6mm | 0.15mm |
Table 1: Durability Test results
The 500,000 cycle durability test is equivalent to a commercial fridge/freezer door in operation for several decades and proves its enhanced performance over conventional varieties which exhibit door sag requiring maintenance after only a few thousand cycles. The mirror-welded corners prevent door-sag, common in the conventional units.
Figure 7: Mechanical opening and slamming device - The Eco Door™ exhibited no deformity or door sag during the 500,000 cycle durability trial.