Mechanical Feed Barrier With L-Shaped Frames to Prevent Neck Injury
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing feed barriers for animals, particularly in cattle farming, restrict natural movements and pose a risk of injury by allowing the neck to get wedged between structural elements, leading to potential strangulation or injury.
Innovation Solution
A feed barrier system with vertical planar frames and movable flaps, utilizing exclusively mechanical blocking means to pivot and lock the flaps, allowing animals to move naturally while preventing backward movement, ensuring safety and stability.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a balancing element is used to limit animal movements, then the animal is immobilized effectively, but the animal's natural movements are restricted and injury risk increases
Solution Approach 1:
The frame is divided into multiple vertical planar portal frames arranged side-by-side, each creating an independent L-shaped internal space. This segmentation allows the animal to move naturally within each safe zone while still being effectively contained, eliminating the need for a single restrictive balancing element that could cause injury.
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of using a balancing element that moves away from the frame column to immobilize the animal, the invention uses fixed vertical uprights with crosspieces that create defined safe spaces. The animal is contained by the structure of the frames themselves rather than by a dynamic element that could create pinch points.
2Reliability
If a balancing element is used to limit animal movements, then the animal is immobilized effectively, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The complex function of a single balancing element is replaced by multiple simpler vertical portal frames. Each frame is a straightforward structure of uprights and crosspieces, eliminating the need for complex pivoting mechanisms, control linkages, and balancing elements while achieving the same containment effect.
Solution Approach 2:
Rather than using a dynamic balancing element that requires complex mechanical linkages to pivot and balance, the invention uses static vertical frames with fixed geometry. The containment is achieved through the arrangement of simple vertical and horizontal elements rather than through complex mechanical balancing.
3Object-affected harmful factors
If the neck space is reduced to prevent injury, then safety is improved, but the animal cannot engage its head properly to eat
Solution Approach 1:
The frame structure provides different spatial characteristics at different locations. The L-shaped internal spaces created by the vertical portal frames provide adequate head engagement space for feeding at the front, while the rear structure prevents the animal from moving backward. This local differentiation of space quality allows both safe feeding and injury prevention.
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of reducing the neck space to prevent injury, the invention creates defined L-shaped internal spaces that guide the animal's head into a safe feeding position. The vertical uprights and crosspieces are arranged to provide adequate head room at the front for natural feeding movements while preventing the animal from moving its neck into dangerous positions at the rear.
Data Source
AI summary
A feed barrier includes a plurality of vertical flat gantries arranged in a row next to each other along a trough of a stable, each gantry determining, with the ground and said adjacent gantry or end post, an internal L-shaped space. A trap door associated with each portal and movable with respect to the latter in order to close or not close at least the lower side portion of said space, and an exclusively mechanical lock for switching the feed barrier from an access position to a locked position, and vice versa.