Animal Crate Wire Door Latch Mechanism
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional animal crates face issues with secure latching mechanisms, allowing animals to escape and making it difficult to access the interior, especially when multiple animals are present, and the wire gauge used often lacks robustness, leading to potential damage or injury.
Innovation Solution
The animal crate assembly features a door frame and door made of interconnected horizontal and vertical wires with a pivotable design, a hook member for enhanced security, and elongate hooks to secure the top and door frame, along with side clips for added stability, ensuring secure containment and easy access.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a conventional door design is used in the crate assembly, then the structure is simple, but the door cannot be securely latched and animals can escape
Solution Approach 1:
The door is divided into multiple wire segments forming a grid pattern with horizontal and vertical wires. This segmentation allows the door to maintain structural integrity while enabling the latch mechanism to engage with specific wire intersections, resolving the contradiction between security and simplicity.
Solution Approach 2:
The latch mechanism acts as an intermediary component that connects the door to the door frame through engagement with the wire grid. This intermediary element provides secure latching without requiring complex integrated door structures, allowing the door itself to remain relatively simple.
2Ease of operation
If a large door covering the entire height and width is used, then access to the interior is provided, but it is difficult to reach inside to retrieve animals when multiple animals are enclosed
Solution Approach 1:
The door is segmented into a grid of horizontal and vertical wires, creating multiple access points and allowing the latch to engage at different locations. This segmentation enables partial access or selective latching, improving ease of operation while maintaining a relatively simple overall door structure.
Solution Approach 2:
The wire grid structure adds a dimensional element to the door design, creating a two-dimensional pattern of wires that provides multiple engagement points for the latch mechanism. This dimensional approach allows for improved accessibility without significantly increasing structural complexity.
3Strength
If thin wire gauge is used to manufacture the cage, then the weight is reduced, but the wire lacks robustness and animals can push panels away or damage the cage
Solution Approach 1:
Multiple thin wire segments are merged into a grid pattern where horizontal and vertical wires work together to provide structural support. This merging allows the use of thinner individual wires while maintaining overall strength through the distributed wire grid structure, reducing weight while preserving robustness.
Solution Approach 2:
The door and panels are constructed as composite structures using multiple wire materials arranged in a grid pattern. This composite approach allows the thin wires to work together collectively, providing enhanced strength and rigidity that compensates for the reduced individual wire thickness, thereby maintaining strength while reducing weight.
Data Source
AI summary
A crate assembly includes a plurality of members defining an interior of the crate assembly, where the plurality of members includes a front, a back, a top, a bottom, a first side and a second side. A frame is formed in one of the plurality of members, the frame having a plurality of interconnected horizontal and vertical wires that define a door opening. A door is pivotally coupled to the frame about a pivot wire of the frame to move between an open position and a closed position. A latch assembly is pivotally coupled to a horizontal wire of the frame. The latch assembly includes a wire having a first end, a second end and a transverse portion, the wire forming a first portion defined between the first end and the transverse portion and a second portion defined between the second end and the transverse portion.