Eccentric Bottle Neck Guide Recess Design
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Solution Overview
Problem
Bottles with non-perfect circular necks often misalign during capping, leading to improper cap installation, damage, or assembly line disruptions due to existing guide systems' inability to accommodate eccentricities.
Innovation Solution
A bottle handling apparatus with guides featuring a central concave region and outward regions of varying curvature, providing multiple circumferentially-spaced contact locations to accommodate different neck eccentricities, ensuring precise positioning and alignment.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If traditional guide wheels with semicircular recesses are used, then bottles with perfect circular necks can be positioned, but bottles with eccentric necks misalign during capping
Solution Approach 1:
The guide recess is designed with non-uniform curvature along its arc, creating different local contact characteristics. The curvature radius varies from 90° to 270° to accommodate bottles with up to 16% neck eccentricity while maintaining precise positioning at each local contact point
Solution Approach 2:
The guide system transitions from a fixed rigid geometry to a dynamic adaptation mechanism where the varying curvature allows the contact point to shift along the recess arc depending on the bottle's neck eccentricity, enabling the system to self-adjust to different bottle variations
2Device complexity
If guide recesses are designed for perfect circular bottles, then positioning is simple, but cap installation fails on eccentric bottles causing damage
Solution Approach 1:
The guide recess curvature parameter is intentionally varied along the arc rather than kept constant. This parameter change allows the same simple guide structure to accommodate a range of neck eccentricities (up to 16%) without requiring multiple different guide designs
Solution Approach 2:
A single guide recess design with varying curvature serves multiple functions: it positions perfect circular bottles, accommodates bottles with up to 16% eccentricity, and prevents capping failures across all bottle types, replacing what would traditionally require multiple specialized guides
3Productivity
If bottles are not precisely registered, then the handling process is faster, but cap installation fails and damages bottles
Solution Approach 1:
The guide recess with varying curvature is designed to pre-position and register bottles before they reach the capping station. This preliminary alignment action ensures that even bottles with 16% eccentricity are properly oriented, preventing capping failures and damage while maintaining continuous high-speed handling
Data Source
AI summary
A bottle handling apparatus handles bottles (50) of a nominal neck (70) radius. The apparatus has a carrier (140) and a plurality of bottle guides (100; 180; 200) mounted to the carrier and each comprising a bottle-engaging recess (110). The bottle-engaging recess accommodates necks of different eccentricities.