Adjustable Sealing Actuator for On-Demand Sow Feeding
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional animal feeding systems face challenges in reducing waste, minimizing contamination, and accommodating variable feeding needs, particularly for lactating and young animals, as they often result in spoiled or wasted feed and require mechanisms that can handle aggressive animals.
Innovation Solution
An on-demand animal feed apparatus with a receiving chamber and base tube system, featuring an actuator that raises and lowers in response to animal movement, allowing controlled dispensing of feed through a sealing mechanism that adjusts to prevent waste and contamination, using durable plastic components and adjustable sealing components to manage feed flow.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of substance
If a conventional feeding system is used, then feed can be provided to animals, but feed waste and contamination occur
Solution Approach 1:
The actuator is designed to be automatically actuated by the animal's own movement, eliminating the need for external control mechanisms. The animal triggers feed dispensing through its natural actions (e.g., approaching, lying down), making the system self-regulating and preventing overfeeding while ensuring adequate nutrition.
Solution Approach 2:
The sealing portion's dimensions are made adjustable, allowing modification of the feed dispensing rate and quantity. This enables optimization of feed delivery parameters to match specific animal needs, reducing waste while maintaining operational simplicity through a single adjustable parameter rather than complex control systems.
2Reliability
If feed is provided continuously, then animals receive adequate nutrition, but feed contamination and spoilage increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system provides feed periodically rather than continuously, with dispensing events triggered by specific animal actions. This periodic delivery pattern ensures feed is available when needed while minimizing the time feed remains exposed to contamination, thereby maintaining quality and reducing spoilage.
Solution Approach 2:
The feed dispensing mechanism extracts feed from the reservoir only when required, rather than allowing continuous access. The sealed reservoir with controlled dispensing openings prevents feed from being continuously exposed to the environment, reducing contamination and spoilage while ensuring adequate nutrition through controlled release.
3Adaptability or versatility
If a fixed sealing mechanism is used, then the structure is simple, but it cannot accommodate variable feeding needs
Solution Approach 1:
The sealing portion is designed with adjustable dimensions that can be modified to accommodate different animal sizes, feeding rates, and requirements. This dynamic adaptability allows the same basic mechanism to serve multiple purposes across different animal types and feeding scenarios without requiring a completely different design for each application.
Solution Approach 2:
The adjustable sealing mechanism provides universal applicability across different animal types and feeding requirements. A single device with adjustable parameters can accommodate various scenarios (different animal sizes, feeding rates, nutritional needs) without requiring multiple specialized mechanisms, thereby achieving versatility with minimal added complexity.
4Measurement precision
If the actuator is highly sensitive, then feed dispensing is precise, but it may be easily triggered by minor movements
Solution Approach 1:
The actuator's sensitivity parameters can be adjusted to optimize the balance between precise feed dispensing and reliable triggering. By modifying parameters such as the threshold for activation or the mechanical sensitivity, the system can be tuned to respond to meaningful animal movements while ignoring minor disturbances, ensuring both precision and reliability.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The apparatus effectively reduces feed waste, minimizes contamination, and provides a variable supply of feed, ensuring that only the required amount is dispensed, thus reducing costs and maintaining feed quality.
Implementation Method 1
A spring biases the first and second components away from each other while permitting the first and second components to be compressible relative to each other in response to movement of the actuator by the animal
Implementation Method 2
An actuator is disposed at least partially within the base tube and configured to raise and lower in an axial direction in response to movement by an animal
Data Source
AI summary
An on-demand feed actuator includes a sealing portion disposed within a feed reservoir and connected to a downwardly extending stem portion protruding a distance past a discharge opening. The sealing portion includes a first component and a second component that are adjustable relative to each other in order to define an overall static dimension of the sealing portion. A spring biases the first and second components away from each other while permitting the first and second components to be compressible relative to each other in response to movement of the actuator by the animal to provide the first and second components with a corresponding combined overall dynamic dimension that is less than the combined overall static dimension.