Elastomeric Drinking Valve for Animal Waterers
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing automatic water feeding systems for animals lack a drinking valve that can easily open when an animal desires a drink and automatically close tightly when the animal is finished, preventing water leakage and ensuring cleanliness.
Innovation Solution
A drinking valve with a resiliently deformable valve seat and valve stem that opens and closes in response to licking or nudging, using elastomeric seals to control water flow and maintain a tight seal when not in use, ensuring reliable and efficient water delivery.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If a simple valve design is used, then manufacturing cost is reduced, but the valve may not close tightly and may leak water
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs an elastomeric valve seat that is resiliently deformable, allowing it to conform to the valve stem and create a tight seal. This flexible membrane approach enables reliable sealing without complex mechanical structures, resolving the contradiction between simple manufacturing and effective sealing by using material flexibility rather than structural complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The valve seat's resilience and deformability are key parameters that enable it to transition between open and closed states. By changing the physical state of the valve seat from relaxed to compressed, the system achieves tight sealing without requiring complex mechanisms, thus maintaining simplicity while improving reliability.
2Ease of operation
If the valve opens easily in response to animal licking, then ease of operation is improved, but water may leak when the animal is not drinking
Solution Approach 1:
The valve stem is directly accessible to animals, allowing them to activate the valve through natural licking or nudging actions. The valve stem's positioning and the elastomeric seal's design enable the animal's own actions to operate the valve without human intervention, while the resilient seal ensures automatic closure when not activated, preventing leakage.
Solution Approach 2:
The elastomeric valve seat provides dynamic sealing that adapts to the valve stem's position. When the valve stem moves in response to animal interaction, the seal dynamically adjusts to maintain closure, preventing leakage while allowing easy activation. This dynamic sealing mechanism resolves the contradiction between ease of operation and leakage prevention.
3Reliability
If a resiliently deformable valve seat is used, then sealing reliability is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The elastomeric valve seat is a simple flexible component that replaces complex mechanical sealing structures. This single resilient element provides reliable sealing through its deformability and ability to conform to the valve stem, achieving high sealing reliability without increasing overall device complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention extracts the sealing function into a dedicated elastomeric valve seat component, separating it from the rigid valve body. This extraction allows the sealing mechanism to be simple and flexible while the overall valve structure remains straightforward, resolving the contradiction between sealing reliability and structural complexity.
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 valve provides on-demand water access while minimizing leakage, ensuring the water remains clean and available when needed, with a simple and cost-effective design that maintains functionality over a long life.
Implementation Method 1
a resiliently deformable valve seat and valve stem that opens and closes in response to licking or nudging, using elastomeric seals to control water flow and maintain a tight seal when not in use
Implementation Method 2
A drinking valve with a resiliently deformable valve seat and valve stem that opens and closes in response to licking or nudging
Data Source
AI summary
A drinking valve for automatic water feeding systems for animals includes a valve stem that is responsive to licking at the outlet of the valve by an animal, to open and close a valve seat and thereby control flow of drinking water to the outlet of the valve. The valve seat is constructed with low-cost reliable arrangement including stationary but compressible elastomeric seal configuration.