Drainage Cover With Integrated Spring Sections
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing covers for hollow bodies, such as drainage channels, face challenges in securing the cover during dynamic loads and are complex to manufacture, leading to high production and assembly costs.
Innovation Solution
The cover design incorporates side walls with wave-shaped spring sections that form the spring elements, eliminating the need for additional spring elements, enhancing stability and stackability while reducing material thickness for increased spring effect and simplified production.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If spring-loaded locking elements are connected elaborately to the side walls and designed to press against inner surfaces or snap into recesses, then functional safety and contact force are improved, but manufacturing complexity increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the locking element and the spring element into a single integrated component. The locking element includes an integrated spring section that provides the necessary elastic deformation capability, eliminating the need for separate spring elements and complex connections to the side walls. This integration maintains functional safety while significantly simplifying manufacturing.
Solution Approach 2:
The locking element is designed to be self-contained with its own spring section, making it self-service capable. The integrated spring section automatically provides the necessary elastic behavior without requiring external spring elements or complex mounting arrangements, thereby reducing manufacturing complexity while maintaining reliability.
2Force
If additional spring elements are added to make locking elements resilient, then contact force and security are improved, but manufacturing complexity and costs increase
Solution Approach 1:
The spring element function is merged into the locking element itself through the integrated spring section. This single component provides both the locking function and the elastic resilient behavior, generating the necessary contact force without requiring additional separate spring elements, thus maintaining manufacturing simplicity.
3Reliability
If locking elements protrude from the side walls, then locking functionality is improved, but stackability and safety against injuries are worsened
Solution Approach 1:
The locking element is designed with dynamic characteristics through its integrated spring section, allowing it to deform elastically during installation and operation. The nose portion can protrude for effective locking engagement, while the spring section absorbs the protrusion, enabling the overall element to retract and allowing covers to stack safely without injury risks.
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
This design achieves long-term functional safety with reduced production effort, improved stability, and lower costs by utilizing the side walls as spring sections, ensuring secure contact pressure and enhanced safety against injury.
Implementation Method 1
side walls with spring sections such that the locking elements can be pressed against inner surfaces of the hollow body in a spring-elastic manner
Data Source
Figure 1~2
Figure 3~4
AI summary
Known covers for drainage channels have lateral faces (20, 20'), on which locking elements (30) are attached and protrude in such a way that said locking elements (30) can be pressed in an elastic manner against inner surfaces of the drainage channels. According to the invention, in order to guarantee the required elasticity whilst simplifying the construction, the lateral faces (20) lying adjacent to the locking elements (30) are designed with spring sections (21, 22) such that the locking sections (30) can be moved towards one another more easily than the lateral faces (20).