One-Way Valve for Infusion Systems Resolving Clogging and Filling Speed
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Solution Overview
Problem
One-way valves used in medical infusion and enteral feeding systems face challenges such as clogging due to dietary fiber, slow filling processes, and the need for anti-siphon solutions to prevent backflow, which complicates the handling and ensure continuous feeding.
Innovation Solution
A one-way valve design featuring a passageway that opens into a sealable cavity between the valve body and seal, allowing for easy filling by gravity and subsequent closure, ensuring reliable sealing even with large particles, and preventing backflow through a sealing lip that only opens with sufficient feed pressure.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If a traditional one-way valve design is used, then the valve structure is simple, but the filling process is slow and time-consuming
Solution Approach 1:
The valve is divided into two separate housing components (first and second valve housing components) that can be assembled in different configurations. This segmentation allows the valve to provide both a fast-fill mode (when components are in the first configuration) and a controlled-flow mode (when components are in the second configuration), resolving the contradiction between filling speed and flow control.
2Productivity
If the valve allows free flow for fast filling, then filling is accelerated, but backflow and siphoning cannot be prevented
Solution Approach 1:
The valve housing components are designed to be movable relative to each other, allowing the valve to dynamically switch between two functional configurations. In the first configuration, the valve provides unobstructed flow for rapid filling. In the second configuration, the sealing surfaces engage to prevent backflow and siphoning, thus resolving the contradiction between filling speed and backflow prevention.
3Reliability
If the valve seal is designed to prevent backflow, then reliability is improved, but the valve may clog with large particles like dietary fiber
Solution Approach 1:
The valve incorporates different sealing arrangements for different flow directions. The sealing surfaces are designed to engage only when preventing backflow, while the forward flow path remains open to accommodate large particles. This local differentiation of sealing quality resolves the contradiction between backflow prevention and particle passage.
4Reliability
If a piston-based valve design is used, then sealing is reliable, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The invention extracts and eliminates the complex piston mechanism from the valve design. Instead, it uses a simpler arrangement where two housing components with integrated sealing surfaces move relative to each other to provide both sealing and flow control functions, thereby maintaining reliability while reducing device complexity.
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
This design simplifies and accelerates the filling process, prevents clogging, and ensures continuous and interruption-free feeding by allowing only sufficient pressure to open the valve, thus preventing backflow and dripping.
Implementation Method 1
the valve seal (16) prevents a liquid emerging from the possibly open end of the tube
Implementation Method 2
a sealing lip of the valve seal rests on the valve body in elastically liftable fashion
Implementation Method 3
which is first filled by gravity
Data Source
AI summary
The invention pertains to a one-way valve 1, especially for medical use, comprising at least one valve housing, an inlet 22, an outlet 26, and a valve element consisting of a valve body 20 and a valve seal 16. To it make possible for the one-way valve 1 to function reliably even in the case of liquids containing dietary fiber and for the tubing assembly to be filled rapidly, it is provided according to the invention that the valve body 20 comprises a passageway 21, which opens out into a sealing cavity 23 between the valve body 20 and the valve seal 16, and that the valve seal 16 comprises an opening 39, which can be closed in such a way by the valve body 20upon relative movement of two housing parts 2, 3 that the valve seal 16 rests with a sealing lip 28 against the valve body 20. As part of an infusion kit above the one-way valve 1, a feed pump is used, which produces a feed pressure for lifting the sealing lip 28 from the valve body 20, so that, after the passageway 21 has been closed, the feed pressure ensures a continuous flow of the infusion solution to the patient.