Beverage Container Lid with Integrated Flow Path to Prevent Spillage
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current container and lid designs fail to prevent accidental spillage and splashing of liquids during transport or consumption, particularly for hot beverages, due to inadequate sip-hole designs, lack of consideration for human anatomy, and environmental and cost issues with existing solutions like plugs and straws.
Innovation Solution
A container and lid system featuring a partially concave sip-hole, integrated tube, and removable plug that allows bi-directional fluid and gas control, along with features like nose-depression, lip-groove, and angled flow-paths to minimize spillage and enhance consumption safety and comfort.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a plug is used to prevent spillage, then spillage prevention is improved, but ease of operation deteriorates (requires two hands to operate)
Solution Approach 1:
The invention extracts the spillage prevention function from a separate plug component and integrates it into the lid structure itself through the flow path design. The lid inherently prevents spillage through its geometric features (angled flow path, lip, and pool) without requiring an additional removable plug, thus maintaining spillage prevention while improving ease of operation.
2Reliability
If a straw is used to slow spillage, then spillage prevention is improved, but harmful factors increase (toxin leaching from plastic)
Solution Approach 1:
The invention removes the straw component entirely and extracts the spillage prevention function into the lid structure. This eliminates the harmful factor of toxin leaching from plastic straws while maintaining spillage prevention through the integrated flow path design with angled geometry, lip, and pool features.
3Ease of operation
If the head is tilted backward to access liquid, then consumption is improved, but line of sight is blocked
Solution Approach 1:
The invention changes the dimensional approach to liquid access by creating an extended flow path that allows the user to tilt the container forward instead of backward. The liquid flows along the angled path from the bottom to the lip at the front, enabling consumption while maintaining forward line of sight, thus solving the contradiction through a different spatial dimension.
4Ease of manufacture
If a flat lid is used, then manufacturing is simplified, but consumption comfort deteriorates (nose hits the lid)
Solution Approach 1:
The invention applies local quality by modifying only specific regions of the lid while maintaining overall simplicity. The lid includes a pool at the bottom, an angled flow path in the middle, and a lip at the front - these localized geometric features improve consumption comfort by preventing nose contact and controlling liquid flow, while the rest of the lid remains simple and easy to manufacture.
Data Source
AI summary
A device and system that can perform bi-directional gas and fluid communication, thereby preventing the accidental spill and splash of sloshing liquids through the sip-hole orifice of a liquid container and/or the sip-hole orifice of its lid, but that still allows liquid to flow through the sip-hole. This is achieved by cutting into the sip-hole, extending the sip-hole and creating a tubular flow-path or labyrinth flow-path that can channel and direct the flow of liquid into a controlled and desired flow and rate via an inlet configured to do so, and by adding a removable plug. These elements help to buffer and deflect sloshing liquid thereby minimizing or preventing the accidental release of liquid, and in many cases improving the purposeful flow of liquid back into the container.