Safety Closure Manufacturing via Elastic Deformation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing safety closures for containers, designed to prevent children from opening them easily, are costly to manufacture and prone to damage during assembly, with unreliable long-term engagement of their components.
Innovation Solution
A process involving a one-piece injection molded part with a rotary closure and actuating part, where the actuating part is elastically deformed during assembly to ensure reliable engagement, reducing manufacturing costs and preventing damage.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If a two-step manufacturing process with separate closure cap and actuating part is used, then the safety closure can be assembled, but the manufacturing becomes demanding and the actuating part may be damaged during assembly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines the closure cap and actuating part into a single one-piece injection molded component. This eliminates the need for separate manufacturing and assembly steps, thereby simplifying the manufacturing process while preventing damage to the actuating part that would occur during separate assembly operations.
Solution Approach 2:
The actuating part is pre-formed as an integrated component during the injection molding process, with its final shape and engagement features already established. This preliminary formation eliminates subsequent assembly operations that could cause damage, ensuring the actuating part's integrity from manufacturing completion to final product.
2Ease of operation
If the closure cap and actuating part are mutually displaced during assembly, then the safety closure is formed, but the actuating part may be damaged as it is pushed inside the closure cap
Solution Approach 1:
By merging the closure cap and actuating part into a single integrated component, the patent eliminates the harmful displacement operation entirely. The actuating part is not pushed inside the closure cap during assembly because both are already unified as one piece, thereby preventing damage while maintaining the safety closure formation.
3Reliability
If the first engagement part and second engagement part are designed to overlap radially, then the engagement reliability is improved, but the actuating part requires elastic deformation during assembly
Solution Approach 1:
The integration of both engagement parts into a single molded piece ensures their radial overlap is precisely maintained throughout the product lifecycle without requiring complex elastic deformation during assembly. The unified structure guarantees engagement reliability while simplifying the assembly process to a single molding operation.
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
The solution results in a cost-effective, reliable, and safely operable safety closure with enhanced long-term engagement reliability and reduced risk of actuating part damage, allowing for various design configurations and tamper-evident features.
Implementation Method 1
the actuating part is elastically and ovally deformed by the first engagement part during the pushing-in movement and resumes its original shape after the pushing-in movement has been completed
Data Source
AI summary
Disclosed is a process for manufacturing a safety closure, wherein in a first step, a monolithic injection-molded part is made having, one behind the other in the direction of a longitudinal axis (L), a rotary closure with a closure cap, a plurality of break-off points and an actuation piece, and in a second step, a force acting in the direction of the longitudinal axis (L) is applied to the injection-molded part such that the closure cap and the actuation piece move against each other in the direction of the longitudinal axis (L) and the closure cap slides at least partially into the actuation piece, the actuation piece being elastically deformed by the first engagement piece during the sliding-in movement so as to take an oval shape and then regaining its original shape once the sliding-in movement has been completed.