Undulating Drainage Spacer Stability Material Reduction
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing drainage body surface units require excessive material for stability and lack efficient stackability, which increases costs and complicates transport and construction.
Innovation Solution
The drainage body surface unit features conical spacer elements with undulating casing surfaces, including wave peaks and troughs connected by transitional regions of smaller thickness, allowing for high stability with minimal material usage and improved stackability.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Stability of the object's composition
If conventional drainage body surface units with uniform thickness spacer elements are used, then stability is achieved, but material consumption increases and stackability deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The spacer elements feature undulating casing surfaces with varying material thickness: wave troughs have greater thickness for stability, while wave peaks have smaller thickness to reduce material consumption. This local variation in thickness optimizes the balance between stability and material efficiency.
Solution Approach 2:
The spacer elements incorporate undulating casing surfaces with wave peaks and troughs, replacing flat surfaces with curved geometries. This curvature provides structural stability while reducing overall material consumption compared to uniform thickness designs.
2Productivity
If conventional drainage body surface units are stacked for storage and transport, then storage efficiency should improve, but spacer elements seize together due to complete contact
Solution Approach 1:
The undulating casing surfaces with wave peaks and troughs create a curved geometry that prevents complete contact between stacked spacer elements. The wave peaks of lower units and wave troughs of upper units align to maintain gaps, enabling easy stacking and separation.
Solution Approach 2:
The spacer elements are designed to nest within each other during stacking, with the undulating surfaces creating a fit-and-gap arrangement that maintains separation while maximizing storage efficiency.
3Ease of manufacture
If uniform thickness is used throughout spacer elements, then manufacturing is simplified, but bending stability decreases under vertical loads
Solution Approach 1:
The spacer elements feature undulating casing surfaces with varying material thickness: wave troughs have greater thickness for bending stability under vertical loads, while wave peaks have smaller thickness. This local variation optimizes structural strength where needed while maintaining manufacturing feasibility through injection moulding.
Data Source
AI summary
Drainage body surface units are known with conical spacer elements which are connected together via a base. The spacer elements have casing surfaces which run undulating in cross-section, comprising successive wave peaks and wave troughs. In order to guarantee as high a strength as possible with as little material usage as possible, a construction is proposed in which the wave peaks transform into the wave troughs via transitional regions, wherein the transitional regions have a smaller material thickness than the wave troughs.