Packing Container with Integrated Crushing Mechanism
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing containers for edible gelatinized materials, such as those described in Patent Document 1, require manual crushing of extruded contents into grains, which is laborious and time-consuming for individuals with swallowing difficulties, like the elderly or children, due to irregularly shaped openings that result in uneven extrusion.
Innovation Solution
A container with an extruding unit that crushes edible gelatinized materials into grains of a swallowable size, featuring a narrowing opening and strategically placed crushing units on either side of the base end, facilitating efficient crushing and flow towards the extruding unit, reducing the volume of the container and allowing easy administration of medications.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Device complexity
If the container uses an irregularly shaped opening for extrusion, then the container structure is simple, but the extruded material forms irregular thin strips that require manual crushing into grains
Solution Approach 1:
The container structure is divided into distinct functional segments: a filled-up unit for storing the edible gelatinized material and an extruding unit with a specific opening configuration. This segmentation allows the extruding unit to be optimized for automatic grain formation while the filled-up unit maintains simple storage functionality, resolving the contradiction between overall structural simplicity and operational effectiveness.
Solution Approach 2:
The extruding unit is designed with a narrowing opening configuration that preliminarily shapes and crushes the material during the extrusion process itself. This preliminary action occurs automatically as the material passes through the narrowing opening, eliminating the need for subsequent manual crushing operations and solving the contradiction between simple container structure and ease of operation.
2Device complexity
If the container requires manual crushing of extruded material, then the container structure remains simple, but the administration process becomes laborious and time-consuming
Solution Approach 1:
The narrowing opening in the extruding unit performs the crushing action preliminarily during extrusion, so the material is already in grain form when discharged. This eliminates the time-consuming manual crushing step that would otherwise be required, directly addressing the contradiction between simple container structure and reduced administration time.
Solution Approach 2:
The extruding unit is designed to automatically perform the crushing function as material passes through its narrowing opening. The structure serves itself by incorporating the crushing mechanism into the extrusion process, eliminating the need for separate manual intervention and thereby reducing administration time without complicating the overall container design.
3Ease of operation
If the container has a narrowing opening for extrusion, then the material is automatically crushed into grains, but the opening configuration becomes more complex
Solution Approach 1:
The opening configuration is segmented into a simple external shape with an internal narrowing portion. This segmentation allows the external container structure to remain simple while the internal narrowing configuration performs the automatic crushing function, resolving the contradiction between ease of operation and device complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The narrowing opening configuration is applied locally at the extrusion point rather than throughout the entire container structure. This localized application provides the automatic grain formation functionality only where needed, while the rest of the container maintains a simple structure, thus resolving the contradiction between automatic grain formation and overall device complexity.
Data Source
Figure 1(A)~1(B)
Figure 2
Figure 3(A)~3(B)
AI summary
An edible gelatinized material that fills a container is enabled to be extruded being crushed into grains each having a proper size such that a patient, a child, or an elderly person who has difficulty in swallowing a medicine, etc., using ordinary drinking water, etc., for administration of the medicine, etc., is enabled to easily execute the administration, by facilitating the swallowing of the medicine, etc., without causing such a person any difficulty, feeling of a foreign substance, etc. As a solution for the above, according to the present invention, a container A1 provided with an extruding unit 20 to externally extrude an edible gelatinized material internally filling and accommodated is characterized in that crushing units 20e and 20e are provided in the vicinity of the extruding unit 20, that crush the edible gelatinized material extruded from the extruding unit 20 associated with the extruding operation of the extruding unit 20 into grains each having a size that enables easy swallowing of the grain.