Tamper-Resistant Food Container With Segmented Breakable Hinge
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing tamper-resistant food containers fail to balance ease of opening and closing with effective sealing and tamper-indication, often requiring complex systems or unreliable adhesive seals.
Innovation Solution
A tamper-resistant container design featuring a cover with an outwardly extending peripheral flange and a bottom with a protruding rib, connected by a breakable hinge that partially separates from the cover when removed, allowing easy opening while maintaining sealing and indicating tampering through the rib's positioning.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a breakable hinge is used to connect cover and bottom, then tamper indication is improved, but ease of opening and closing deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The hinge is segmented into a breakable portion and a non-breakable portion. The breakable portion contains a fracture line that breaks upon opening, providing tamper indication, while the non-breakable portion remains intact to maintain the hinge connection between cover and bottom, enabling repeated opening and closing operations.
Solution Approach 2:
The breakable portion is extracted as a separate functional element within the hinge structure. This portion is designed to fracture and separate from the main hinge body, leaving the non-breakable portion intact to continue functioning as the hinge connection, thus separating the tamper-indication function from the mechanical connection function.
2Device complexity
If adhesive seals are used for tamper indication, then device complexity is reduced, but reliability of tamper indication deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The adhesive sealing system is replaced with a mechanical fracture-based tamper indication system. Instead of relying on adhesive bonds that may fail silently, the invention uses a breakable hinge portion with a fracture line that mechanically breaks upon opening, providing reliable and obvious tamper indication through a tangible structural change.
3Ease of operation
If a complete hinge connection is used between cover and bottom, then ease of opening and closing is improved, but tamper indication capability deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The hinge is divided into functional segments: a breakable portion that provides tamper indication through fracture, and a non-breakable portion that maintains the mechanical connection. This segmentation allows the hinge to simultaneously provide both tamper indication capability and ease of repeated opening/closing operations.
Solution Approach 2:
Different portions of the hinge have different structural qualities: the breakable portion is designed with a fracture line for easy breaking and tamper indication, while the non-breakable portion is designed for durability and maintaining connection. This local differentiation of properties allows the hinge to fulfill multiple contradictory functions.
Data Source
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AI summary
A tamper-resistant container (1; 101) is described, comprising a cover (3; 103), having an upper outwardly extending peripheral flange (17; 117), a bottom (2; 102) having an upper peripheral flange (8; 108) forming, at least in part, an upwardly protruding rib (15; 115) which extends around the perimeter of bottom (2; 102), said rib (15; 115) being arranged in such a way as to render said upper peripheral flange (17; 117) of the cover (3; 103) relatively inaccessible, when the container (1; 101) is closed, and a hinge (10; 110), having a breakable portion (21; 121), which connects said peripheral flange (17; 117) of the cover (3; 103) to said bottom (2; 102), characterized in that said breakable portion (21; 121) is joined, in a partially removable way, to said peripheral flange (17; 117) of the cover (3; 103), and in a completely removable way to said bottom (2; 102), so that the removal of breakable portion (21; 121) causes said cover (3; 103) to detach from said bottom (2; 102) and the hinge (10; 110) to only partially separate from said peripheral flange (17; 117) of the cover (3; 103), thereby facilitating the removal of the cover (3; 103) from the bottom (2; 102)to open the container (1; 101).