Microtube Cap Geometry for Self-Alignment and Airtight Sealing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional microtube caps are difficult to align correctly, lead to low airtightness, and are hard to handle due to small grip portions, causing inefficiencies in pharmaceutical research storage and transportation.
Innovation Solution
A cap design with a plug portion and grip portion of varying diameters, a tapered end, and a concave receptacle for a picking shaft bar, ensuring correct alignment, improved airtightness, and enhanced handling capabilities.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If conventional caps are used for microtubes in storage racks, then the storage rack can accommodate microtubes, but the caps are difficult to align correctly and require much time for realigning unaligned caps individually
Solution Approach 1:
The cap is designed with asymmetric features including a tapered end portion that is smaller in diameter than the main body, and a grip portion with a larger diameter than the main body. This asymmetric structure ensures that caps align correctly in the alignment plate without requiring individual realignment, as the shape naturally guides proper orientation during the capping process.
2Ease of operation
If conventional caps with small grip portions are used, then the cap structure is compact, but it is difficult to grip manually or with automated handling devices
Solution Approach 1:
The cap is segmented into distinct functional portions: a tapered end portion for insertion, a main body for sealing, and a grip portion with larger diameter for handling. This segmentation allows the grip portion to be specifically optimized for manual or automated gripping without compromising the compactness of the overall cap structure.
3Reliability
If conventional caps are used for sealing microtubes, then the cap can close the open end, but the airtightness is low and samples may ooze through the edges
Solution Approach 1:
The cap incorporates a groove circumferentially around the main body at a position closer to the tapered end portion than the center of gravity. This localized structural feature enhances the sealing capability at the critical interface between the cap and microtube, improving airtightness and preventing sample leakage without requiring changes to the overall cap design.
4Productivity
If microtubes with conventional caps are accommodated in tight rows in a storage rack, then the storage density is high, but it is difficult to pull microtubes from the rack
Solution Approach 1:
The grip portion is designed with a larger diameter than the main body, creating a protruding feature that extends beyond the microtube. This preliminary structural design ensures that when microtubes are stored in tight rows, the grip portions provide accessible protrusions that facilitate easy extraction by automated handling devices or manual gripping, without compromising the high storage density achieved through tight row arrangement.
Data Source
AI summary
A cap for a microtube, which can be automatically aligned by an alignment plate for insertion in a correct orientation into the open end of the microtube held in a micro tube rack. The plate has partitions in a grid which produces a matrix of cells having a pitch defined by the spacing between the partitions. The cap 100 has an plug portion 120, which is adapted to be inserted into the open end of the microtube which is held in a rack having a matrix of wells congruent with the matrix of cells in the alignment plate. A grip portion 110 of the cap has an outer circumferential diameter larger than an outer circumferential diameter of the plug portion 120, so that when the cap is inserted in the microtube, the grip portion protrudes from the open end of the microtube. The entire length of the cap 100 is longer than the pitch of the alignment plate and shorter than twice the pitch. An upper edge of the grip portion 110 of the cap 100 has a collar 130 with an outer circumferential diameter larger than the diameter of the cells of the alignment plate. The plug portion 120 of the cap 100 has a taper 122 which is tapered toward a front end, and the center of gravity of the cap 100 is in the plug portion, so that the plug portion of the cap gravitates into one of the open cells of the alignment plate.