Fuel Tank Cap Protrusions Prevent Bracket Deformation
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Fuel tank caps on commercial vehicles tend to separate from their mounting brackets during impact conditions such as crashes or drop tests, leading to spillage and potential fires or explosions, highlighting a need for a more robust and secure cap and mounting bracket assembly that is easy to install and manufacture.
Innovation Solution
A cap and mounting bracket assembly featuring protrusions on the cap that fit into recesses and slots on the bracket, surrounded by material to prevent deformation, ensuring a secure and air-tight seal, with the cap's design including an O-ring for additional sealing and a locking mechanism to prevent separation during impacts.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a simple cap and mounting bracket connection is used, then the device is easy to manufacture and install, but the connection is insufficient to prevent cap separation during impact conditions
Solution Approach 1:
The mounting bracket is segmented into multiple functional features: slots for lateral movement, recesses for vertical retention, and raised portions for impact resistance. This segmentation allows each feature to address specific aspects of the contradiction, providing robust connection strength while maintaining a relatively simple overall structure that is easy to manufacture.
Solution Approach 2:
The cap's protrusions are nested within the mounting bracket's slots and recesses, creating a multi-level retention system. The protrusions fit into the slots for lateral constraint, then into the recesses for vertical constraint, and finally are protected by the raised portions during impact. This nesting provides enhanced reliability without significantly increasing device complexity.
2Reliability
If a robust cap and mounting bracket assembly is used to prevent separation during impact, then connection strength is improved, but manufacturing and installation become more difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The mounting bracket features are segmented into distinct slots, recesses, and raised portions, each performing a specific function. This segmentation allows for straightforward manufacturing processes where each feature can be formed independently using standard techniques, reducing overall manufacturing complexity while achieving high impact resistance.
Solution Approach 2:
The mounting bracket exhibits local quality variations with slots providing lateral flexibility, recesses providing vertical retention, and raised portions providing impact protection. Each local region is optimized for its specific function, allowing the overall structure to achieve high reliability without requiring complex manufacturing throughout the entire component.
3Stability of the object's composition
If the mounting bracket slots and recesses are surrounded by material on all sides, then the shape is protected against deformation during impact, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The mounting bracket is segmented into slots, recesses, and raised portions, where the raised portions specifically surround the slots and recesses to protect their shapes during impact. This segmentation provides shape stability where needed without adding complexity to the entire structure.
Solution Approach 2:
The material surrounding the slots and recesses provides localized shape protection and stability. This local quality enhancement ensures that the critical retention features maintain their geometry during impact without requiring the entire mounting bracket to be overly complex or reinforced.
Data Source
AI summary
One embodiment of a fuel tank cap and mounting bracket apparatus includes a cap including protrusions on a lower surface of the cap, the protrusions including a raised portion adapted to be received within a recess of a mounting bracket to secure the cap to the mounting bracket. One embodiment of the mounting bracket includes slots to receive the protrusions of the cap and recesses to receive the raised portion of each protrusion. In one embodiment of the mounting bracket the slots and the recesses are surrounded by mounting bracket material on all sides so that the shape of the slots and recesses is protected against deformation during an impact, thereby inhibiting separation of the cap from the mounting bracket.