Bottom-Fill Vehicle Mug With Hollow Dome Nozzle Coupling
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing beverage dispensing systems in motor vehicles require visual attentiveness for placing a drinking vessel, posing a safety risk, and often involve complex and costly mechanisms for filling from the bottom side, especially when using disposable vessels.
Innovation Solution
A beverage dispensing system featuring a cylindrical or frustoconical drinking vessel with a hollow dome on its bottom side that can be easily connected to an upwardly directed nozzle tube, allowing filling without visual attention and eliminating the need for complex closure mechanisms, with the nozzle tube inserting into the dome for stable and leak-proof filling.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a drinking vessel is placed on a standing surface beneath the outlet of a beverage dispenser, then the beverage can be dispensed into the vessel, but the driver requires visual attentiveness which creates a safety risk
Solution Approach 1:
The beverage dispensing system inverts the conventional filling direction by dispensing beverage from the bottom of the nozzle tube upward into the drinking vessel. This inversion allows the vessel to be automatically guided onto the nozzle tube without requiring the driver to visually align and place it, thereby eliminating the safety risk while maintaining ease of operation
2Ease of operation
If a magnetic closure assembly is used to automatically close the drinking vessel after removal from the dispenser, then the vessel can be filled from the bottom side, but the mechanism becomes mechanically complicated and costly
Solution Approach 1:
The invention extracts and eliminates the complex magnetic closure assembly from the system. Instead of using a complicated mechanical-cum-magnetic closing mechanism, the beverage is dispensed directly into the vessel through the hollow dome structure, and the vessel is automatically closed by simple geometric engagement between the dome and nozzle tube outlet, thereby achieving automatic closing functionality with minimal mechanical complexity
Solution Approach 2:
The invention is particularly suited for disposable drinking vessels, eliminating the need for expensive reusable components like magnetic closure assemblies. The simple hollow dome structure allows even single-use vessels to be filled from the bottom and automatically closed without requiring durable, complex mechanisms
Data Source
AI summary
A beverage dispensing system for a vehicle includes a beverage dispenser and a drinking vessel. The beverage dispenser includes a nozzle having an upwardly directed nozzle tube for dispensing a beverage liquid. The drinking vessel is connectable to the nozzle tube and is fillable with the beverage liquid from a bottom side of the drinking vessel. The drinking vessel has a hollow dome which is opened on its bottom and top sides and is formed by a central section of the bottom side of the drinking vessel extending into the drinking vessel interior. The hollow dome is pushed onto the nozzle tube for the drinking vessel to be filled with the beverage liquid from its bottom side. The drinking vessel may be a cylindrical or truncated conical mug in which the central section of its bottom side is curved into the drinking vessel interior to form the hollow dome.