Airless Pump Bag Inflation Using Lubricant and Staged Air Jets
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing methods for inflating a deformable bag within a rigid container are laborious, costly, and prone to bag rupture due to adhesion to the container walls, leading to non-uniform bag thickness and increased risk of tearing during inflation and use.
Innovation Solution
A method involving three successive air jets with pauses to inflate the bag, ensuring the bag separates from the container walls by maintaining a uniform interspace and preventing adhesion, along with the use of a lubricant to facilitate sliding and easy extraction, results in a bag with uniform thickness and reduced risk of rupture.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If a deformable bag is inflated within a rigid container using conventional methods, then the bag occupies the container volume, but the bag adheres to the container walls causing non-uniform thickness and rupture risk
Solution Approach 1:
A lubricant is introduced as an intermediary substance between the bag and container walls during inflation. The lubricant prevents direct adhesion between the bag material and container surface, allowing the bag to inflate with uniform thickness distribution and eliminating the concentration of stresses that would lead to rupture.
Solution Approach 2:
The inflation process is divided into multiple sequential air jet applications with pauses between them. This periodic action allows the bag to inflate in controlled stages, preventing sudden adhesion to container walls and ensuring uniform thickness distribution throughout the inflation process.
2Stability of the object's composition
If the bag is filled with fluid substance before insertion into the container, then the bag maintains its shape, but the insertion operation is delicate and prone to bag tearing
Solution Approach 1:
The bag is inflated with air to the desired shape and volume before the fluid substance is introduced. This preliminary inflation action stabilizes the bag's composition and shape, making the subsequent filling operation simpler and less prone to tearing during insertion.
Solution Approach 2:
The process is segmented into distinct stages: first inflating the bag with air to establish stable shape, then separately introducing the fluid substance. This segmentation allows each operation to be optimized independently, avoiding the complexity of simultaneously managing both shape stabilization and fluid insertion.
3Manufacturing precision
If three successive air jets with pauses are used to inflate the bag, then the bag separates from container walls and achieves uniform thickness, but the inflation process time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The three air jet applications are performed in quick succession with minimal pause time between them, maintaining continuous useful action throughout the inflation process. This approach achieves uniform bag thickness through multiple staged inflation while minimizing the total time lost to pauses, balancing precision requirements with production efficiency.
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 method allows the bag to perfectly occupy the container volume with reduced risk of rupture and non-uniform thickness, ensuring efficient and safe dispensing of fluid substances without contamination, while maintaining sterility.
Implementation Method 1
three successive jets of compressed air are fed into the preform to inflate it
Implementation Method 2
a lubricant fluid is disposed between the outer surface of the preform and the walls defining said cavity, to facilitate sliding of the bag wall along the walls defining the cavity during the inflation step
Data Source
AI summary
A container comprising a rigid body (5) having a neck (6) defining an aperture providing access to the container cavity and a bag (9) positioned in the interior of the body (5), the bag being formed of thermoplastic material and having a neck (2) from which there radially extends a flange (3) which rests on a free edge of the neck (6) of the body (5) and defines a hole for providing access to the cavity of the bag (9) and for sealedly housing the body of a hermetic pump (P) operable manually to withdraw the fluid substance (F) from the bag and feed it to the outside through its dispensing stem (S), the bag being formed by hot blow molding of a preform placed directly within the container, a lubricant fluid being disposed between said container and said bag.