Modular Plastic Storage Tank With Direct Side Wall Welding
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing storage tanks face challenges in stability and volume expansion, with increased length complicating underground installation and limiting maximum filling volume due to gaps between base bodies.
Innovation Solution
A plastic storage tank design featuring a cuboid base body with connecting parts that form a connection opening for adjacent base bodies, allowing for internal weld seams without gaps and facilitating easy assembly, maintenance, and liquid exchange, while beveled edges enable efficient welding and compact design.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Volume of stationary object
If a large-volume storage tank is created by connecting two base bodies with a connecting frame, then the maximum filling volume is limited to the internal volume of two base bodies, but the connecting frame creates a distance between base bodies that increases the overall length and complicates underground installation
Solution Approach 1:
The storage tank is divided into multiple base bodies that are connected to each other. Each base body is a separate modular unit that can be manufactured independently and then assembled on-site to achieve the desired total storage volume without requiring a single large base body with excessive length.
Solution Approach 2:
Multiple base bodies are merged together through direct connection without a connecting frame, allowing the base bodies to touch one another along their side walls. This merging eliminates the gap that would increase overall length while maintaining the cumulative storage volume of all base bodies.
2Ease of manufacture
If a connecting frame is used to connect base bodies, then the base bodies can be joined together, but the distance between base bodies requires more excavated earth and backfilling
Solution Approach 1:
The connecting frame, which creates unnecessary distance between base bodies, is completely removed from the design. The base bodies are directly connected to each other, eliminating the gap that would require additional excavation and backfilling operations.
Solution Approach 2:
The base bodies are designed with connecting parts that include integrated support surfaces for weld seams, allowing direct connection without intermediate structures. This preliminary design arrangement ensures that no gap exists between base bodies before installation, minimizing excavation requirements.
3Reliability
If base bodies are connected without gaps, then internal weld seams can be applied without gaps, but connecting parts must provide precise support surfaces for welding
Solution Approach 1:
The connecting parts are designed with localized V-shaped support surfaces at specific edges where weld seams will be applied. These localized geometric features provide precise welding support only where needed, rather than requiring complex structures throughout the entire connecting part.
Solution Approach 2:
The connecting parts feature asymmetric geometry with specific edges designed to form V-shaped support surfaces for weld seams. This asymmetric design provides the necessary welding precision while keeping the overall structure simple and easy to manufacture.
4Ease of manufacture
If the connecting part bottom protrudes into the interior of the base body, then it forms support surfaces for internal weld seams, but it occupies internal storage volume
Solution Approach 1:
The connecting part bottom is designed as a removable component that can be separated when connection openings need to be formed. This dynamic design allows the connecting part to provide welding support during assembly, then be removed to create open connections between base bodies, optimizing both manufacturing ease and storage volume utilization.
Data Source
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AI summary
The storage tank (10) has a rectangular base body (12) made of plastic, an upper wall (16), a lower wall (20) and four side walls, where a connecting part (28,30) is formed in the side wall. The side wall closes in a usage state or forms a connecting opening for establishing a liquid-permeable connection to an adjacent base body in another usage state. The connecting part is formed as a recess in the form of a plate, whose bottom projects into the interior of the base body and is separated from the base body for forming the connecting opening. The plate edge forms lateral support surface of an inner welding seam during welding with an adjacent base body.