Zipper Guide Channel Assist for Tight Garment Closure
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Solution Overview
Problem
Zippers on tight-fitting garments, such as compression hoses, are difficult to close due to high lateral stresses, often requiring assistance and risking damage to the zipper components when excessive force is applied.
Innovation Solution
A zipper assist device with diverging guide channels and a handle that reduces the zipper closure angle, allowing for easy manual operation by sliding the zipper tracks along the guide channels, thereby reducing the forces needed to close the zipper and preventing damage.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional zippers are used on tight-fitting garments, then the garment provides compression and therapeutic benefit, but the zipper becomes difficult to close and requires excessive force that may damage zipper components
Solution Approach 1:
A zipper assist device is introduced as an intermediary tool between the user and the zipper. The device includes a body with guide channels that receive the zipper tracks, and a handle for manual operation. The guide channels reduce the closure angle of the zipper tracks, allowing the zipper to be closed with reduced force and without damage to components.
2Ease of operation
If greater force is applied to close the zipper using tools like pliers, then the zipper can be closed, but the likelihood of damage to zipper components increases
Solution Approach 1:
The invention changes the geometric parameter of the zipper closure by reducing the closure angle. The guide channels in the device body are configured to maintain the zipper tracks at a reduced angle relative to each other during closure, transforming the high-force, high-angle closure into a low-force, low-angle closure that prevents component damage.
3Reliability
If assistance from another person is used to close the zipper, then the zipper can be closed without damage, but the wearer cannot independently don the garment
Solution Approach 1:
The zipper assist device enables self-service by allowing the wearer to independently close the zipper without assistance from another person. The device is attached to the garment and operated by the wearer themselves, providing both the mechanical advantage needed for safe closure and the independence needed for self-donning.
Data Source
AI summary
A device for assisting in opening and closing a zipper is provided. The device includes a body having first and second diverging guide channels having mutually oriented guide angles for receiving the respective zipper tracks for sliding, non-interlocking movement of the zipper tracks through the guide channels in advance of the zipper slider for reducing the closure angle of the zipper tracks in advance of the zipper slider to correspond to the guide angle of the guide channels, and a handle carried by the body for permitting manual pulling movement of the body along at least a portion of the length of the zipper and generally positioned in a coextensive orientation in relation to a pull tab of the zipper slider such that an operator can simultaneously grasp the pull tab of the zipper slider and the handle while sliding the zipper slider in the closing direction.