Device for preparing a beverage by infusion pod with a pivoting cradle
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing devices for preparing beverages from powder pods with porous or microperforated flexible materials, such as paper filters, face challenges in maintaining coaxial alignment and ensuring proper ejection due to flange flexibility and weight limitations, leading to issues like jamming and flange sticking, especially when the flange is not rigid enough to support clamping and sealing.
Innovation Solution
A device with a cradle mechanism that pivots to maintain the pod's coaxiality by supporting the convex periphery of the pod's pastille-shaped portion, allowing the flange to fold and be inserted without stress, and using a frusto-conical surface for easy ejection, eliminating the need for additional mechanical means for pod ejection.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a rigid flange is used to support clamping and sealing, then sealing reliability is improved, but device complexity and manufacturing cost increase due to requiring rigidified flange structures
Solution Approach 1:
The invention changes the geometric parameters of the extraction chamber, specifically designing frusto-conical surfaces that slope inward toward the extraction chamber axis. This geometric modification allows the chamber to naturally guide and support the pod during insertion and extraction, eliminating the need for rigid flange structures while maintaining reliable sealing through the conical guidance surfaces.
2Ease of manufacture
If a flexible paper flange is used, then manufacturing cost and simplicity are improved, but coaxial alignment and ejection reliability deteriorate due to flange flexibility and weight limitations
Solution Approach 1:
The frusto-conical surfaces of the extraction chamber act as an intermediary mechanism between the pod and the chamber. These conical surfaces provide mechanical guidance and support during pod insertion and extraction, ensuring coaxial alignment without requiring the pod's flange to be rigid. The conical geometry mediates the interaction, allowing flexible paper flanges to function reliably.
3Reliability
If additional mechanical means are added for pod ejection, then ejection reliability is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The extraction chamber's frusto-conical surfaces enable the pod to be ejected automatically by gravity without additional mechanical ejection means. The conical geometry creates a self-service system where the pod, after being inserted and extracted, naturally aligns and ejects itself through the sloped surfaces, eliminating the need for complex ejection mechanisms while maintaining reliability.
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 solution enables efficient extraction and ejection of pods with flexible flanges, ensuring proper sealing and preventing jamming, while allowing the use of non-reinforced paper filters, enhancing the device's simplicity and cost-effectiveness.
Implementation Method 1
A device with a cradle mechanism that pivots to maintain the pod's coaxiality by supporting the convex periphery of the pod's pastille-shaped portion
Implementation Method 2
a pod comprising a cover, preferably in a porous or microperforated flexible material, preferably of the paper filter type
Data Source
AI summary
The present invention relates to a device for preparing an aromatized beverage capable of extracting aromas from a powder pod containing them, said device having:a first part (1-1), anda second part (1-2) of a same longitudinal axis (XX′), andfirst means for coaxial horizontal relative translation and/or rotation displacement (XX′) of said first male part and second female part, anda third part (4) delimiting an initial insertion compartment (6) and a discharge compartment (7) between said first and second parts in an open position with maximum separation, said third part having an orifice (4b), able to be crossed by at least one of both first and second parts, said third part being able to pivot in a synchronized way with a said relative translation and/or rotation of both first and second parts.