Segmented Tray Structure for Longer Articles on Curved Transport Routes
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing tray designs face challenges in increasing total length while minimizing the radial width of the movement locus in curved transport routes, leading to potential size increases in transport devices and difficulties in coexistence with shorter trays.
Innovation Solution
A tray design featuring a rectangular intermediate section and trapezoidal front and rear sections, along with guide walls, to maintain a smaller radial width and facilitate smooth transport through curved routes without enlarging the transport device.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Length of moving object
If the total length of the tray is increased to transport elongated articles, then the tray can accommodate longer items, but the radial width of the movement locus in the curved route section increases, requiring larger transport devices
Solution Approach 1:
The tray is divided into three distinct sections: a front section with a first width, a rear section with a second width, and an intermediate section with a third width. This segmentation allows different parts of the tray to have optimized dimensions, enabling the tray to be longer without proportionally increasing the radial width of its movement locus in curved sections.
Solution Approach 2:
Different sections of the tray are assigned different width characteristics: the front and rear sections have widths optimized for their respective functions, while the intermediate section has a width specifically optimized to control the radial width of the movement locus. This local quality approach ensures that only necessary portions of the tray have larger dimensions, rather than the entire tray uniformly increasing in width.
2Length of moving object
If a tray with increased total length is added to an existing transport facility designed for shorter trays, then the facility can handle elongated articles, but it becomes difficult to transport the longer tray close to the original movement locus
Solution Approach 1:
By segmenting the tray into front, rear, and intermediate sections with differently optimized widths, the tray can be extended in length while the intermediate section's narrower width ensures that the overall movement locus remains close to the original facility design parameters, maintaining compatibility.
Solution Approach 2:
The tray design changes the width parameter across different sections rather than uniformly increasing all dimensions. The intermediate section maintains a width that keeps the movement locus radial width within acceptable limits for existing facilities, while the front and rear sections can have larger widths to accommodate elongated articles.
Data Source
AI summary
An upper surface of a main body section (10) is used as a placement surface (11) on which an article is placeable. The main body section (10) includes an intermediate section (12), a front section (13) adjacent to the intermediate section (12) on a front side (X1) in a front-rear direction (X), and a rear section (14) adjacent to the intermediate section (12) on a rear side (X2) in the front-rear direction (X). The intermediate section (12) is rectangular in a plan view, the front section (13) is shaped as a trapezoid that becomes smaller in a width direction (Y) while extending toward the front side (X1) in a plan view, and the rear section (14) is shaped as a trapezoid that becomes smaller in the width direction (Y) while extending toward the rear side (X2) in a plan view.