Flexible Spray Bottle Housing With Pivoting Head for Tight Spaces
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional spray bottles are inflexible, bulky, and contribute to material waste due to their rigid design, making them difficult to use in tight spaces and inefficient in terms of liquid dispensation, leading to environmental concerns from discarded containers and unused liquid.
Innovation Solution
A vessel with a flexible wall that can change volume, featuring a flexure zone allowing it to expand or reduce, along with a spray head system that includes a pivoting junction and a soft refill container, enabling efficient liquid dispensation and reducing material waste through reusable components.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Strength
If rigid-body spray bottles are used, then structural strength and stability are improved, but volume efficiency and ease of storage are worsened due to bulky design
Solution Approach 1:
The spray bottle incorporates a flexible body that can dynamically change its volume. The body is designed to be collapsible and expandable, allowing it to adapt its shape and size based on the amount of liquid remaining. This dynamic characteristic resolves the contradiction by maintaining structural integrity through material selection while enabling compact storage when liquid volume is low.
Solution Approach 2:
The spray bottle uses a flexible shell material for its body construction. This flexible shell allows the bottle to be squeezed, folded, and collapsed without compromising its functional integrity. The material properties enable the bottle to maintain strength while achieving compact form factors, directly addressing the volume efficiency problem.
2Ease of manufacture
If rigid-body spray bottles with fixed spray heads are used, then manufacturing simplicity is improved, but ease of operation in tight spaces is worsened
Solution Approach 1:
The spray head is designed with rotational and articulation capabilities, allowing it to dynamically adjust its orientation and position. The spray head can rotate 360 degrees and articulate at multiple joints, enabling users to direct the spray precisely into tight spaces while maintaining a simple overall bottle design that is easy to manufacture.
Solution Approach 2:
The spray bottle is segmented into distinct functional components: the flexible body, the spray head assembly, and the trigger mechanism. This segmentation allows the spray head to be independently positioned and oriented, providing operational flexibility in tight spaces while keeping each component simple enough for easy manufacturing.
3Ease of manufacture
If conventional spray bottles are used, then initial cost is reduced, but environmental impact is worsened due to material waste and liquid disposal
Solution Approach 1:
The spray bottle is designed for reuse and refilling rather than single-use disposal. The flexible body can be collapsed flat for storage and reused multiple times. The spray head and trigger assembly can be detached and reused with different refill containers, reducing material waste and environmental impact while maintaining cost-effectiveness through extended product lifecycle.
Solution Approach 2:
The spray bottle system is designed with universal compatibility features. The spray head assembly can be detached and reused with different refill containers, and the flexible body design accommodates various liquid volumes. This multi-functionality reduces the need for multiple single-use bottles, thereby reducing environmental impact while keeping the system cost-effective.
4Stability of the object's composition
If spray bottles with fixed orientation are used, then structural stability is improved, but adaptability to different dispensation angles is worsened
Solution Approach 1:
The spray head assembly incorporates rotational joints and articulation points that allow dynamic adjustment of the spray angle and direction. The flexible body also allows the user to position the bottle at various angles while maintaining structural stability through the material's inherent properties. This combination provides both stability and adaptability.
Solution Approach 2:
The spray bottle is segmented into the stable flexible body and the independently articulated spray head. The segmentation allows the body to remain structurally stable while the spray head can be oriented at different angles for various dispensation needs. The connection between body and spray head maintains stability while permitting angular adjustment.
Data Source
AI summary
A vessel defining a variable interior volume has a wall with a first and second wall portion, and a flexure zone parallel to a longitudinal axis. In a volumetrically reduced configuration, the wall portions are brought together by flexing of the flexure zone. A fixing element attached to the wall releasably maintains the wall in the reduced configuration by maintaining proximity of the wall portions. A spray bottle system includes a housing forming a receptacle for receiving a soft refill liquid container and having at least one opening representing a reduction in material of the housing. A spray head includes an operable trigger for causing dispensation of liquid from the container. A pivoting junction connects the housing to the spray head permitting flexing of the spray head.