Grab Bar With Flexible Side Legs For Fluid Isolation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing grab bars and containers fail to provide a secure and fluid-isolated mounting solution that allows for easy installation and removal while maintaining complete fluid isolation from the container's cavity.
Innovation Solution
A grab bar design featuring a body with open ends and diametrically opposed apertures, along with a flexible end cap and side legs that flex to engage and disengage from these apertures, allowing the bar to be securely positioned between facing walls and easily removed by squeezing the protrusions inward.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a traditional grab bar mounting method is used, then the installation process is simple, but the grab bar cannot provide complete fluid isolation from the container cavity
Solution Approach 1:
The grab bar is divided into distinct segments: a body portion, flexible side legs, and end caps. This segmentation allows the side legs to be inserted through openings in the container walls while the body remains isolated from the cavity, achieving fluid isolation without requiring a complex overall structure.
Solution Approach 2:
The flexible side legs act as intermediaries between the grab bar body and the container walls. These legs can be inserted through openings and flexed into position, providing a mounting mechanism that maintains fluid isolation while enabling secure attachment to the container structure.
2Ease of operation
If the grab bar is designed with fixed side legs, then the structure is simple, but the installation and removal process becomes difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The side legs are designed to be flexible rather than fixed, allowing them to dynamically adapt during installation and removal. The flexible legs can be inserted through openings and flexed into position, then locked into place, and subsequently released by applying force to the protrusions, enabling easy installation and removal without complex mechanisms.
Solution Approach 2:
The flexibility parameter of the side legs is changed from rigid to flexible, allowing them to deform during installation and removal operations. This parameter change enables the side legs to be inserted through openings and positioned correctly, then locked into place, and subsequently released by applying force to the protrusions.
3Reliability
If the grab bar uses protrusions that engage with apertures, then the mounting is secure, but the removal process requires significant force
Solution Approach 1:
The protrusions on the side legs are designed to be temporarily discarded or repositioned during removal operations. By applying force to the protrusions, they can be pushed inward to disengage from the apertures in the container walls, allowing easy removal without requiring significant continuous force.
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of requiring force to remove the protrusions from the apertures, the design allows the protrusions to be pushed inward to disengage. This inverted approach to removal reduces the force required, as the protrusions can be simply pushed back into the body rather than pulled outward with significant force.
4Ease of operation
If the end cap is designed to be flush with the body edge, then the appearance is clean, but the insertion and removal process becomes more difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The end cap is designed with flexibility in the side legs, allowing the system to dynamically adapt during insertion and removal. Although the end cap appears flush with the body edge for aesthetic purposes, the flexible side legs can be inserted through openings and flexed into position, then locked into place, and subsequently released by applying force to the protrusions.
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 solution ensures the grab bar is securely locked between the walls in complete fluid isolation and can be easily removed, providing a practical and effective mounting mechanism for containers.
Implementation Method 1
the side legs being flexible about the extremity of the central leg
Data Source
AI summary
A grab bar comprising a body with open opposite ends and diametrically opposed apertures close to the open ends; and a cap supporting a central leg supporting flexible side legs, each side leg comprising a protrusion at a free extremity thereof and being adapted to flex inwards toward the central leg as the central leg is inserted within the body from the open end thereof until the protrusions engage a respective the apertures in the body and emerge out of the outer surface of the body, and the cap is generally flush with an edge of the open end of the body; and the side legs being adapted to flex inwards toward the central leg as the protrusions are pushed toward the central leg thereby disengaging the protrusions from the apertures in the body and allowing the cap to be pulled out from the open end of the body.