Albarran Traction Unit Extraction for Cleaning
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Solution Overview
Problem
Albarrans used in surgical instruments face challenges in easy and thorough cleaning and reprocessing due to aging sealing elements which can lead to leaks during ultrasonic baths, machine cleaning, and sterilization in autoclaves.
Innovation Solution
The albarran design features a traction unit located outside the main body, allowing for easy cleaning, with a carriage and adjustment mechanism that is openly accessible and sealed to prevent fluid leakage, enabling the traction means to be moved parallel to the shaft for efficient operation and maintenance.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If sealing elements (grease, adhesive, gaskets) are used to seal the gear compartment, then the gear is protected from contact with patient or user, but the sealing elements age under reprocessing processes leading to leaks
Solution Approach 1:
The invention extracts the problematic sealing elements from the system by opening the gear compartment and relocating it outside the sealed shaft. The gear compartment is now accessible from the proximal end without requiring seals, eliminating the aging and leakage issues of grease, adhesive, and gasket seals while maintaining protection through the existing shaft seal at the distal end.
2Reliability
If the gear compartment is sealed with grease, adhesive, or gaskets, then the gear is protected from contact with patient or user, but the area becomes difficult to clean and reprocess
Solution Approach 1:
The gear compartment is extracted from the sealed internal volume and positioned in the proximal area outside the shaft. This extraction converts the previously enclosed, difficult-to-clean space into an externally accessible area that can be easily cleaned and reprocessed without disassembly, while the shaft seal continues to provide necessary fluid containment.
3Ease of manufacture
If the gear compartment is opened and relocated outside the main body, then cleaning and reprocessing become easy and thorough, but the structural complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The invention merges the gear compartment with the proximal end structure of the albarran, integrating the previously separate sealed compartment into the existing external housing. This integration eliminates the need for additional sealing mechanisms while maintaining the beneficial open-access design for cleaning, thereby reducing structural complexity rather than increasing it.
Data Source
Figure 1~2
Figure 3
AI summary
The invention provides an albarran that is particularly easy as well as thoroughly cleanable or reprocessable. This is achieved by connecting a proximal end (17) of a traction means outside a main body (11) of the albarran (10) to a traction unit (18). Through this traction unit (18), the traction means is translationally movable parallel to a shaft (12). The fact that the traction means is connected to the traction unit (18) outside the main body (11) means that this area, which was previously difficult to reach, can be cleaned very easily and thoroughly.