Segmented Pillow Structure for Reconfigurable Shape Retention
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional pillows are often designed for specific purposes and tend to lose their shape over time, leading to degraded performance and limited adaptability for different user needs.
Innovation Solution
A reconfigurable pillow design featuring a flowable fill and an envelope with soft-hinges and inter-hinge regions, allowing the pillow to maintain different shapes until re-manipulated, utilizing a toroidal shape with a non-stretchable inner perimeter and stretchable materials for flexibility.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If conventional pillows are designed for a particular purpose with a fixed shape, then they provide specific support (neck or lumbar), but they lose their original shape over time and suffer from degraded performance
Solution Approach 1:
The pillow incorporates a flowable fill material that can dynamically redistribute itself within the envelope, allowing the pillow to adapt its shape over time rather than degrading. The fill flows to maintain support characteristics even as the pillow is used, transforming the static structure into a dynamic system that self-adjusts.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the physical state of the fill material to a flowable condition, allowing it to change its distribution parameters within the envelope. This parameter change enables the fill to flow and redistribute, maintaining the pillow's functional properties over an extended service life rather than losing shape.
2Adaptability or versatility
If conventional pillows are designed for a specific purpose, then they provide targeted support, but they lack adaptability for different user needs and positions
Solution Approach 1:
The envelope is divided into multiple compartments or sections that can independently contain or release fill material. This segmentation allows different regions of the pillow to be independently configured, enabling adaptability for various user needs while maintaining a relatively simple overall structure.
Solution Approach 2:
The flowable fill material provides inherent dynamics that allow the pillow to adapt to different configurations without adding mechanical complexity. The fill naturally flows and redistributes based on user position and weight, providing versatility through material behavior rather than structural mechanisms.
3Ease of operation
If the envelope is made fully stretchable to allow reconfiguration, then the pillow can be bent and folded easily, but it cannot maintain stable shapes
Solution Approach 1:
The envelope employs different material properties in different regions: some portions are stretchable to allow bending and folding, while other portions are non-stretchable to maintain shape stability. This local differentiation of material qualities enables both reconfigurability and shape retention without contradiction.
Solution Approach 2:
The envelope is segmented into stretchable and non-stretchable regions, allowing the pillow to be reconfigured in certain areas while maintaining stability in others. This segmentation enables controlled flexibility where needed and rigidity where shape maintenance is required.
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
Enables the pillow to be easily bent, folded, or twisted into various configurations while maintaining each shape until reconfigured, providing consistent support and comfort without external forces, addressing the issue of shape retention and adaptability.
Implementation Method 1
a fill (108) including a plurality of discrete pieces configured to make the fill flowable
Implementation Method 2
having a back portion that is generally circular and connected to the front portion, wherein the back portion is made of a stretchable material having at least a stretchability of at least 50%
Implementation Method 3
wherein the flowable fill is provided within the interior cavity in an amount such that the flowable fill is under positive pressure throughout the interior cavity without any forces being applied externally to the pillow
Data Source
AI summary
A pillow that can be manipulated into a variety of bent/folded/twisted configurations and can retain each of those configurations until manipulated into a different configuration. The pillow has a segmented toroidal shape and includes an envelope and a flowable fill filling the envelope so that the fill is under positive pressure throughout. The pillow has a plurality of constrictions that, in conjunction with the pressurized fill, provides the pillow with soft hinges that facilitate bending/folding/twisting of the pillow.