Semi-Circular Pressure Vessel Clamp With Beveled Notches
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing fastening systems for underwater pressure vessels face issues such as single point failure, challenging installation due to tight fits, inconsistent gap maintenance, and potential damage during assembly and disassembly, leading to unreliable watertight seals and hydrodynamic inefficiencies.
Innovation Solution
A pressure clamp system utilizing semi-circular sections with beveled notches and jack screws to maintain a consistent assembly gap, allowing for easy and reliable assembly and disassembly while ensuring a watertight seal and hydrodynamic efficiency, using semi-circular clamps with beveled surfaces and jack screws to maintain uniformity and facilitate torque application.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If hemispherical clamps are used to mate adjacent body segments, then the vessel can be assembled, but the system is subject to single point failure and has challenging installation due to tight fit
Solution Approach 1:
The clamp is divided into two separate semi-circular sections instead of a single hemispherical clamp. This segmentation allows the sections to be installed independently around the vessel segments, eliminating the single point failure mode while maintaining the watertight seal through the O-ring positioned between the sections.
Solution Approach 2:
The design incorporates a predetermined gap between the two semi-circular clamp sections that accommodates the O-ring sealing element in advance. This preliminary arrangement of the gap and O-ring positioning simplifies the installation process by eliminating the need for precise face-to-face alignment that would otherwise be required.
2Reliability
If clamps are designed with tight fit to ensure seal, then sealing reliability improves, but installation becomes more challenging requiring mallet and difficult gap maintenance
Solution Approach 1:
An O-ring sealing element is introduced as an intermediary component between the two semi-circular clamp sections. This O-ring mediator provides the watertight seal while allowing the clamp sections to be positioned with a predetermined gap, eliminating the need for tight face-to-face fit and simplifying installation by removing the requirement for mallet strikes and precise gap maintenance.
3Adaptability or versatility
If gap is introduced for clamp adjustment, then installation flexibility improves, but consistent gap maintenance becomes challenging leading to uneven torque application
Solution Approach 1:
The design incorporates a predetermined gap dimension that is established during the clamp manufacturing process. This preliminary setting of the gap ensures consistency between clamps while still providing the necessary adjustment flexibility for installation, eliminating the need for field adjustments and ensuring uniform torque application across all clamp fasteners.
4Manufacturing precision
If Marmon clamp design is used to solve gap issues, then gap consistency improves, but device complexity increases with non-compact design and protruding features
Solution Approach 1:
The clamp is segmented into two semi-circular sections with a predetermined gap between them, achieving gap consistency through the design of the sections themselves rather than through complex adjustment mechanisms. This segmented approach maintains a compact profile without protruding features while ensuring consistent gap dimensions for proper fastener torque application.
Data Source
AI summary
A pressure clamp for connecting pressure vessel segments and method can include a pair of semi-circular sections, which can be placed around the ends of the segments, so that there is a slight gap between the semi-circular sections. The inner surfaces of the semi-circular sections can be formed with two notches with beveled surfaces. The beveled surfaces can engage corresponding slanted surfaces on the segment ends, to urge the segments towards each other as the clamp is tightened. A pair of jack screws can be threaded through the semi-circular sections so that the jack screws extend slightly outwardly from one of the sections and contact the other section at the beginning of the tightening process, to establish an initial assembly gap. As fasteners tighten the clamp around the segment, the jack screws can be backed out to maintain a uniformly decreasing assembly gap between the semi-circular sections.