Perforated Plate Storage for Sparkling Wine Bottles
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing storage trays for bottles, particularly those used in the sparkling wine industry, face difficulties in cleaning due to sticky residue from sugary content leaks during fermentation, leading to adherence issues and complex, costly automation challenges.
Innovation Solution
A planar perforated plate design with rectangular and parabolic holes allows linear contact between bottles and the plate, reducing adherence and facilitating easy cleaning, while also enabling efficient stacking and space utilization through a geometric tangent-secant principle, allowing for quincunx arrangement and centering stubs for stability.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If moulded trays with cavities are used to support bottles horizontally, then bottles can be stacked vertically in blocks, but the trays become difficult to clean due to sticky sugary residue adhering to the cavities
Solution Approach 1:
The invention divides the support structure into simple planar plates with holes rather than complex three-dimensional moulded trays with cavities. This segmentation simplifies the geometry to basic flat elements that can be easily cleaned by passing through cleaning solutions without complex cavity structures where residue accumulates.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention extracts the essential support function from the complex moulded tray structure and implements it through simple planar plates with holes. By removing the three-dimensional cavity structure and keeping only the necessary support elements (holes in flat plates), the design achieves both stacking functionality and ease of cleaning.
2Reliability
If moulded trays with three-dimensional cavity structures are used, then bottles are fully supported, but the trays are heavy and difficult to handle
Solution Approach 1:
The invention uses thin planar plates instead of heavy three-dimensional moulded structures. These thin film-like plates provide sufficient support for bottles through their hole structures while maintaining minimal weight, making the trays easier to handle and manipulate during the bottling process.
Solution Approach 2:
By segmenting the support function into simple distributed holes in flat plates rather than a monolithic three-dimensional structure, the invention reduces material usage and weight while maintaining the necessary support capability for stable bottle placement.
3Reliability
If bottles are stored in moulded tray cavities, then they are well-supported, but cleaning automation becomes complex and costly
Solution Approach 1:
The invention extracts the support function from complex moulded cavities and implements it through simple holes in planar plates. This extraction of the essential function removes the geometric complexity that makes automated cleaning difficult, allowing standard cleaning mechanisms to effectively reach and clean all surfaces.
Solution Approach 2:
The planar plates with holes create a homogeneous, uniform structure that is consistent throughout, unlike the varied three-dimensional cavity structures. This homogeneity allows automated cleaning systems to use uniform cleaning patterns and solutions across all plates, simplifying the automation of the cleaning process.
Data Source
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AI summary
Container support plate and the use thereof for the storage of containers by stacking said plates. The plate has holes for holding containers by contact between the perimeter of the holes with the surface of the container bodies, while allowing contact between containers of adjoining layers.