Inclining Inner Cap for Airtight Sealing Against Misaligned Tips

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Solution Overview

Problem

Conventional cap structures for instruments like writing and cosmetics fail to ensure airtightness when there is an unpredictable relative angle or offset between the cap and the tip, leading to potential drying issues.

Innovation Solution

An airtight cap structure featuring an inner cap that can incline relative to the central axis of the outer cap, allowing it to adjust and come into close contact with the tip, ensuring airtightness through rotatable, swingable, or pivotable mounting mechanisms, and a rotation converting mechanism for easy attachment and detachment.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If a cup-like sealing element is used to come into close contact with the tip, then airtightness is improved, but airtightness cannot be ensured when there is an unpredictable relative angle or offset between the cap and the tip

Engineering Contradiction:

ImproveairtightnessVSAvoidadaptability to angle/offset variations

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSAdaptability or versatility

Solution Approach 1:

The inner cap is designed to be movable relative to the outer cap, capable of inclining and rotating to adapt to angular misalignments. This dynamic structure allows the sealing element to maintain contact with the tip even when there is an unpredictable relative angle or offset, resolving the contradiction between maintaining airtightness and adapting to position variations.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #15Dynamics

Solution Approach 2:

The sealing element's position and orientation parameters are made variable through the movable inner cap structure. By allowing the inner cap to incline and rotate, the system can adjust the sealing element's parameters to match the tip's position, ensuring airtightness despite angle or offset variations.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #35Parameter changes

2Device complexity

If the inner cap is fixed in the outer cap, then the structure is simple, but the cap cannot adjust to unpredictable angles or offsets

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvecap structureVSAvoidadjustability to angle/offset

Core Design Contradiction:

Device complexityVSAdaptability or versatility

Solution Approach 1:

Inventive Principle:

Principle #15Dynamics

3Device complexity

If the cap is directly attached without a rotation converting mechanism, then the attachment mechanism is simple, but the cap cannot be reliably attached and detached

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveattachment mechanismVSAvoidattachment reliability

Core Design Contradiction:

Device complexityVSReliability

Solution Approach 1:

A rotation converting mechanism is introduced as an intermediary between the knocking member and the cap. This mechanism converts the knocking motion into rotational motion that drives the cap onto the tip, ensuring reliable attachment and detachment while maintaining a reasonable level of structural complexity.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

Data Source

PatentUS7290954B2Airtight cap structure

Publication Date: 2007.11.06 KOTOBUKI & CO LTD

AI summary

A airtight cap structure is capable of coming into close contact with a tip to be used and securing airtightness, even if the tip might be inserted in the cap with having a relative angle or offset between the cap and the tip. A cap comprises an outer cap and an inner cap arranged in the outer cap. The inner cap is mounted to the outer cap so that the inner cap can incline relative to the central axial line of the cap, and the cap comes into close contact with the tip or its periphery when the cap covers the tip.