Overpack Salvage Drum Lid Castellations for Stacking Stability
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing overpack salvage drums face challenges in sealing, stacking, and manufacturing, particularly in meeting regulatory standards for containment and storage of hazardous materials, with issues related to leakage, tipping, and space efficiency.
Innovation Solution
The design incorporates a drum body and lid with multiple-start threads for enhanced sealing, castellations for interlocking and vertical space reduction, and lugs and lug recesses for horizontal stability, allowing for efficient stacking and secure containment of packages while minimizing vertical space requirements.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If conventional single-walled drum design is used, then manufacturing is simpler, but sealing reliability is insufficient for hazardous material containment
Solution Approach 1:
The drum body is divided into multiple walls (single-walled, double-walled, or multi-walled configurations) with interconnected structures. This segmentation provides multiple containment barriers, improving sealing reliability and leak detection capability while maintaining manufacturing feasibility through modular construction approaches.
Solution Approach 2:
The drum design incorporates nested structures where inner walls are positioned within outer walls, creating concentric containment zones. This nesting approach enhances sealing reliability by providing redundant containment barriers while managing structural complexity through systematic layering of components.
2Stability of the object's composition
If drums are stacked without interlocking features, then device complexity is reduced, but stacking stability is insufficient preventing tipping and rotational movement
Solution Approach 1:
Castellations are designed with asymmetric profiles featuring protrusions and recesses that mate between stacked drums. This asymmetry prevents rotational movement and tipping by ensuring only proper orientation allows interlocking, thereby enhancing stacking stability while maintaining relatively simple interlocking geometry.
Solution Approach 2:
The castellations incorporate curved or rounded features rather than sharp angles, allowing for tolerance compensation and smoother interlocking between drums. This curvature approach enhances stacking stability by facilitating self-alignment while keeping the interlocking mechanism manufacturable and not overly complex.
3Stability of the object's composition
If conventional stacking without interlocking is used, then device complexity is lower, but horizontal movement between stacked drums cannot be prevented
Solution Approach 1:
The interlocking geometry employs asymmetric castellations with complementary protrusions and recesses that engage between stacked drums. This asymmetric design prevents horizontal movement by ensuring lateral forces are resisted by the interlocked features, while the geometry remains relatively simple for manufacturing and assembly.
Data Source
AI summary
An overpack salvage drum including a drum body and a lid. A bottom wall and side wall of the drum body cooperate to define an interior of the drum body. The lid is configured to close an open top of the drum body. The lid includes at least two independent lid threads to engage with corresponding independent drum threads provided on the drum body. The lid includes a plurality of alternating castellations having a flat inner facing side and castellations having an arcuate inner facing side, which can be interdigitated with castellations on another lid when two lids are stacked together, or can be used to lock with a drum body to rotationally secure a drum body relative to the lid when in a stacked arrangement. The lids include lugs and recesses, or rings that allow for secure stacking of the lids.