Dynamic Weight Plate Retention Collar with Piston Shock Absorption
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing weight plate retention collars fail to effectively absorb vibration and impact, leading to loosening and potential injury or damage during weightlifting exercises with heavy loads.
Innovation Solution
A dynamic weight plate retention collar with adjustable contact patches and a piston disk mechanism that absorbs shock and vibration, featuring removable and replaceable contact patches and energizers to securely hold weight plates on a barbell.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional weight plate retention collars are used, then the structure is simple and easy to manufacture, but the collar fails to absorb vibration and impact, leading to loosening and potential failure during repeated use
Solution Approach 1:
The collar incorporates a dynamic piston disk mechanism that moves forward and backward to absorb vibration and impact, transforming the static collar into a dynamic system that adapts to repeated loading conditions. This dynamic mechanism prevents loosening during multiple repetitions while maintaining secure retention.
Solution Approach 2:
The collar is divided into separate functional components: a body collar, a piston disk, contact patches, and energizers. This segmentation allows each component to perform its specific function while enabling independent replacement and maintenance of wear-prone parts like contact patches.
2Object-affected harmful factors
If the collar includes dynamic vibration absorption mechanisms, then vibration and impact are mitigated, but the device becomes more complex and harder to manufacture
Solution Approach 1:
The contact patches are designed as removable and replaceable components that wear during use. This allows the expensive piston disk and energizer mechanisms to remain intact while replacing only the wear-prone contact patches, maintaining manufacturing simplicity for the bulk of the structure while providing dynamic vibration absorption.
Solution Approach 2:
By segmenting the collar into a body collar, piston disk, contact patches, and energizers, the manufacturing process can focus on producing standardized components that can be assembled together. This segmentation simplifies manufacturing compared to creating a monolithic dynamic absorption structure.
3Ease of repair
If the contact patches are made removable and replaceable, then serviceability and longevity are improved, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The collar is segmented with contact patches that can be independently removed and replaced. This segmentation enables serviceability without requiring disassembly of the entire collar, allowing users to replace only the wear-prone contact patches while retaining the piston disk and energizer mechanisms.
Solution Approach 2:
The contact patches are extracted as separate, removable components from the main collar structure. This extraction allows them to be replaced independently, improving serviceability while the remaining collar components maintain their structural integrity and function.
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 provides secure retention of weight plates during high-load exercises, preventing injury and damage by effectively absorbing shock and vibration, while allowing for serviceability and extended longevity through replaceable parts.
Implementation Method 1
a dynamic ability to absorb weight plate and barbell vibration and impact and shock
Implementation Method 2
The piston disk is movable in a forward and backward direction and is also rotatable when assembled in the barbell collar
Implementation Method 3
one or more adjustable contact patches... configured to cause the one or more adjustable contact patches to advance forward to bite down onto a barbell
Data Source
AI summary
A barbell collar is described having a moveable piston disk, one or more energizers, and a body collar. Further, the barbell collar includes one or more dynamic, removable contact patches. In one embodiment, two of the contact patches are dynamic and can move in and out towards a barbell. The contact patches are configured to move inward towards a barbell or away from a barbell responsive to an action applied to adjustable fastener elements that can be hand tightened and adjusted from the outside of the barbell collar. The barbell collar is configured to prevent movement of weight plates from falling off of the ends of the barbell, and the barbell collar includes energizers (e.g., springs) that can absorb movement from the weight plates while loaded on the barbell.