Dental Attachment Cap with Concave Recess for Rotation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing dental anchoring assemblies face challenges in properly locating the male part within the female socket, leading to potential damage and reduced retention ability, and they lack sufficient adjustability.
Innovation Solution
A dental attachment assembly featuring an abutment member, a retention member with a skirt for snap engagement, and a cap with a rounded, concave inner surface and a concave recess on its interior top surface, allowing for releasable swivel engagement and increased rotational flexibility.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a male part is engaged in a recess in a dental appliance with snap engagement formations, then the dental appliance can be releasably secured to the base structure, but the male part may hit the periphery of the socket during location, causing damage and reduced retention ability
Solution Approach 1:
A cap component is introduced as an intermediary element between the male part and the female socket. The cap includes a cavity with a rounded, concave inner surface that receives the male part, and an outer locating surface that engages with the female socket. This intermediary structure guides the male part into proper alignment within the socket, preventing direct impact between the male part and socket periphery while maintaining secure retention through the cap's engagement mechanisms.
2Reliability
If the male part has a skirt for snap engagement over an outer locating surface, then retention force is increased and proper location is easier, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The cap component merges multiple functions into a single integrated structure: it provides the outer locating surface that engages with the female socket, creates a cavity to receive the male part, and incorporates the rounded, concave inner surface that guides the male part. This consolidation reduces the number of separate components needed while maintaining the skirt engagement feature for increased retention force, thereby reducing overall device complexity.
3Adaptability or versatility
If the cap has a rounded, concave inner surface with a concave recess, then rotational flexibility is increased and angle correction is improved, but the manufacturing precision requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The cap's inner surface is designed with a rounded, concave configuration rather than a flat or angular surface. The concave recess is formed with smooth, continuous curvature that allows the male part to rotate freely within the cavity while maintaining proper alignment. This curved geometry provides rotational flexibility and angle correction capability, and the rounded features can be manufactured using standard molding or machining processes without requiring extremely tight dimensional tolerances.
Data Source
AI summary
A dental attachment assembly and method anchors a dental appliance with an implant and has an abutment member attached to the implant, a retention member in releasable snap engagement with the abutment member, and a cap secured in a recess of the dental appliance and in releasable swivel engagement with the retention member to position and secure the dental appliance onto the implant. The cap includes a cavity with a rounded, concave inner surface which engages with the retention member, an interior top surface of the cavity with a concave recess extending radially along an outer periphery of the interior top surface of the cavity to allow for rotation of the retention member within the cap. A central portion of the interior top surface of the cavity surrounded by the concave recess therefore protrudes vertically into the cavity to minimize vertical displacement of the retention member as it rotates.