Coffee Pad Rigid Shell and Dual-Filter Design for Shape Retention
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing coffee machine pads face issues with maintaining shape under mechanical or hydraulic forces, leading to potential bypass effects and inconsistent beverage preparation, limiting the variety of coffee types that can be made and requiring precise placement to avoid dilution.
Innovation Solution
A coffee machine pad with a flexible first sheet and a rigid shell connected around their perimeter edges, featuring a fluid collecting structure and a second sheet positioned on the bottom to cover the channels, ensuring a static and dynamic seal for consistent fluid flow and flow restriction, allowing for precise control of beverage properties and preparation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Device complexity
If a flexible pad made of filtering paper is used, then the pad is easy to manufacture and simple in structure, but the pad cannot retain its shape under mechanical or hydraulic forces leading to bypass effects
Solution Approach 1:
The pad combines a flexible outer layer made of filtering material with an inner form-retaining body made of foam material. This composite structure allows the pad to maintain its shape under pressure while remaining flexible enough for manual placement and effective filtration. The foam core provides structural support preventing collapse, while the filtering outer layer performs the separation function.
Solution Approach 2:
The pad uses a flexible filtering material as the outer shell that can conform to the holder shape during placement, then relies on the internal foam structure to maintain the desired form during operation. The flexible filtering layer adapts to the holder geometry while the rigid foam core prevents deformation under hydraulic pressure.
2Ease of operation
If the pad is manually adapted to the holder shape, then the pad can be placed in the holder, but the coffee bed may become crumpled or folded causing bypass effects and dilution
Solution Approach 1:
The pad is pre-formed with a rigid foam structure that maintains the coffee bed in a homogeneous, flat distribution before placement. This preliminary shaping ensures that when the user manually places the pad in the holder, the coffee bed remains evenly distributed without crumpling or folding that would create bypass channels.
Solution Approach 2:
The foam form-retaining body acts as a cushioning structure that protects the coffee bed from deformation during handling and placement. The foam absorbs mechanical stresses and prevents the coffee particles from becoming displaced or compacted unevenly, ensuring consistent brewing performance.
3Reliability
If a rigid shell is used to maintain pad shape, then the pad retains its shape consistently, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The pad uses a composite structure combining a simple foam form-retainer with a flexible filtering outer layer. This avoids the complexity of a fully rigid shell while providing sufficient shape retention. The foam material is simple to manufacture and provides adequate structural support without requiring complex molding or assembly processes.
Solution Approach 2:
The pad structure utilizes the compressible nature of foam material to transition from a compact storage state to an expanded operational state. The foam's ability to deform elastically under pressure allows the pad to adapt to the holder during placement while maintaining its shape during brewing, providing reliability without complex mechanisms.
4Productivity
If the outlet opening is enlarged to increase flow rate, then more beverage can be produced, but the dry matter content and intensity of the beverage decrease
Solution Approach 1:
The pad structure controls the brewing parameters by maintaining consistent pressure distribution across the coffee bed through its rigid form-retaining structure. This ensures optimal extraction efficiency, allowing the system to produce beverages with high dry matter content at moderate flow rates. The foam structure prevents channeling and ensures uniform water distribution through the coffee, maximizing extraction 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 pad maintains its shape and ensures consistent beverage preparation, enabling the production of a wider range of coffee varieties with higher dry matter content and intensity, while preventing bypass effects and dilution, allowing for precise control of beverage properties.
Implementation Method 1
wherein the flexible first sheet and the second sheet each form a filter permeable to a fluid such as water and beverage which can pass and that forms a barrier for the beverage preparation product
Implementation Method 2
wherein preferably on the interior space of the pad in a bottom of the shell there is provided a fluid collecting structure, such as channels that are in fluid connection with the at least one outlet
Implementation Method 3
wherein the at least one outlet opening forms a flow restriction for the beverage which flow restriction has a largest through-flow area in a direction, in use, perpendicular to a beverage flow through the flow restriction within a range from 0.26 to 0.32 mm2
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
AI summary
Pad (1) for use in coffee machine for preparing at least one part of a single beverage serving. In use, in the coffee machine an aqueous fluid such as water is supplied under pressure to the pad so that the fluid is forced through the pad for obtaining a beverage that then exits the pad. The pad includes a covering with an interior space that is filled with a beverage preparation product for preparing the beverage, which beverage preparation product is a product such as ground coffee extractable with a fluid, such as water. The covering is formed by flexible first sheet (8) and a rigid shell (10), wherein the first sheet and the shell around their adjacent perimeter edges are connected to each other. The shell is equipped with at least one outlet (12), wherein on the interior space of the pad in a bottom of shell a fluid collecting structure (18, 20) is provided, advantageously embodied as channels (18) in fluid connected with the at least one outlet. The pad is equipped with a second sheet (22) that is positioned on the bottom (16) of the shell and covering the fluid collecting structure or the channels. The second sheet is located between the beverage preparation product (6) and the shell, wherein the first sheet and the second sheet each form a filter permeable to a fluid such as water and beverage, which can pass and that forms a barrier for the beverage preparation product so that, when in use, a fluid fed under pressure at the first sheet of the pad flows through the first sheet to the beverage preparation product so that the beverage is formed which then flows through the second sheet and via the fluid collecting structure, such as the channels, and leaves the pad through the at least one outlet opening.