Self-centering Clip Jaw Groove Alignment
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing endoscopic surgical clip appliers face challenges in maintaining proper alignment of clip legs during formation on body tissue, leading to potential misalignment and inefficiencies in clip application.
Innovation Solution
The design incorporates a jaw assembly with recesses and grooves that have complementary profiles to the clip legs, ensuring proper alignment and secure clamping by preventing rotational, vertical, and transverse movement of the clip legs, using a handle and trigger mechanism to form and apply surgical clips.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If conventional clip appliers are used without complementary profile features, then the device complexity is reduced, but the manufacturing precision and alignment of clip legs deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The jaw assembly incorporates recesses with grooves that have specific complementary profiles matching the clip leg geometries. These localized structural features provide precise alignment and guidance for the clip legs during formation, ensuring proper positioning without requiring complex overall device architecture.
Solution Approach 2:
The recesses and grooves in the jaw assembly serve as intermediary structures that mediate between the clip applier mechanism and the clip legs. These features guide and constrain the clip legs during the formation process, ensuring proper alignment while simplifying the control requirements of the overall system.
2Reliability
If the jaw assembly includes recesses and grooves for clip alignment, then the reliability of clip application is improved, but the ease of manufacture of the jaw assembly deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The recesses and grooves are pre-formed into the jaw assembly structure before clinical use. This preliminary structuring ensures that proper alignment features are already in place, reducing the risk of misalignment during actual clip application and improving overall reliability of the procedure.
3Manufacturing precision
If the clip legs are constrained within grooves during formation, then the alignment precision is improved, but the flexibility of the clip design deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The complementary profile features (grooves in jaws, raised profiles on clips) are implemented as localized geometric characteristics rather than comprehensive design constraints. This allows the clips to maintain flexibility in material composition, size variations, and application contexts while ensuring proper alignment during the critical formation phase through the groove-profile interaction.
Data Source
AI summary
An apparatus for applying surgical clips to tissue includes a handle assembly having a trigger and a shaft extending therefrom. The shaft includes at least one surgical clip therein. Each clip includes a pair of legs connected by a crossbar. Each of the pair of legs has an inwardly and an outwardly facing surface, the outwardly facing surface having a raised profile protruding therefrom and extending longitudinally therealong. A jaw assembly is disposed at a distal end of the shaft and includes first and second opposed jaws moveable between a spaced apart and an approximated position. Each jaw defines a recess extending longitudinally along opposing inner surfaces thereof. Each recess defines a longitudinally extending groove having a profile substantially complementary to the raised profile of the legs of the clips. The legs of each clip are positionable at least partially within respective grooves of the recesses of the jaws.