Flareless Pipe Joint Sealing With Tooth-Grip Stop Ring
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing pipe joints require flaring at the connection site, leading to poor working efficiency, quality non-uniformity, and potential cracking, with issues of hermeticity and nut loosening, and existing solutions face challenges with slip between tapered parts and require preliminary working to ensure sealing.
Innovation Solution
A pipe joint design featuring a flare joint body, cap nut, and stop ring with integrated back and front teeth that tightly contact the pipe's outer surface, providing extraction resistance and sealing without flaring, using a cap nut with a tapered section and a stop ring with a plastically-deformable cylindrical thin part and tooth parts to ensure secure connection.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a flared part is provided at the end portion of the pipe using a dedicated tool at a worksite, then the pipe can be connected using mutual pressure contact between metallic surfaces, but working efficiency deteriorates and quality non-uniformity occurs
Solution Approach 1:
The flared part is pre-formed at the factory using a dedicated tool before shipment, rather than forming it at the worksite during installation. This preliminary action eliminates the need for on-site flaring operations, improving working efficiency while ensuring consistent quality through controlled factory conditions
Solution Approach 2:
The pipe connection system is divided into two independent components: the pipe with pre-formed flared part and the flare joint body. This segmentation allows the flared part to be manufactured separately under controlled conditions and then assembled with the joint body at the worksite without requiring additional forming operations
2Reliability
If a flared part is provided at the end portion of the pipe using a dedicated tool at a worksite, then the pipe can be connected using mutual pressure contact between metallic surfaces, but manufacturing precision deteriorates due to quality non-uniformity
Solution Approach 1:
The flared part is pre-formed at the factory using a dedicated tool before shipment, rather than forming it at the worksite during installation. This preliminary action eliminates the need for on-site flaring operations, improving working efficiency while ensuring consistent quality through controlled factory conditions
Solution Approach 2:
The flared part is manufactured as a precise copy or extension of the pipe body with a predetermined geometry that matches the flare joint body's tapered part, ensuring consistent contact surfaces for hermetic sealing without requiring on-site adjustment
3Reliability
If preliminary working is performed by causing the pawl to bite into the pipe surface in advance using a specific jig, then sealing is ensured, but working efficiency deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The preliminary working step and the sealing function are extracted from the installation process. The sealing concave groove with O-ring is pre-formed on the stop ring during manufacturing, eliminating the need for on-site preliminary working while maintaining reliable sealing performance
Solution Approach 2:
The sealing groove and O-ring are pre-installed on the stop ring at the factory before shipment, rather than requiring installation at the worksite. This preliminary action ensures sealing performance is built into the component during manufacturing under controlled conditions, eliminating the need for additional preliminary working steps during installation
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 design enhances working efficiency by eliminating preliminary working, improves hermeticity, and prevents pipe extraction, maintaining sealing performance even under external forces, reducing the need for additional sealing members.
Implementation Method 1
a cap nut (2) including a female screw part (12) threadedly attached to the male screw part (9)
Implementation Method 2
metallic pressure-contacting sealing therebetween
Implementation Method 3
the pawl 61 is configured to bite into the outer peripheral surface of the pipe P
Implementation Method 4
the flared part f is caused to abut on a tapered part a of a flare joint body h, is tightened with a cap nut n, and is caught under pressure between a tapered surface t of the cap nut n and the tapered part a of the flare joint body h
Implementation Method 5
ensuring hermeticity using mutual pressure contact between the metallic surfaces
Implementation Method 6
The stop ring 56 includes a sealing concave groove 57 in which an O-ring 58 is fitted. The O-ring 58 is to exert hermetic action with a pipe P to be inserted
Data Source
AI summary
A pipe joint allowing reliable connection to a pipe P without flaring. The pipe joint includes a flare joint body 1F, a cap nut 2, and a stop ring 3. A curved pressure-contacting slope surface 32 of the stop ring 3 contacts a slope surface 5 with reduced-diameter tip of the flare joint body 1F under pressure to establish sealing by means of mutual contact between metallic surfaces. The pipe P is grasped in a tightly pressure-contacting state using a back tooth and a front tooth formed at a tip head 37 of a substantially cylindrical thin part 35 of the stop ring 3.