description stringlengths 2.98k 3.35M | abstract stringlengths 94 10.6k | cpc int64 0 8 |
|---|---|---|
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
[0001] This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/486,101, filed Jul. 14, 2006, which is incorporated herein by reference.
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
[0002] The invention relates to a method, article of manufacture, and a system for tracking and monitoring warranty and/or performance information for batteries, more specifically to a system having an electronics module and storage media with an at least one sensor circuit sensing the parameter of the battery product and an at least controller that analyzes the data to establish the condition of the battery.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0003] The automotive industry has been one of the leading innovators in the world throughout the last hundred years. As a leader in advanced technologies, automakers have consistently incorporated state of the art technology into the vehicles we drive. From the analog world of the early twentieth century, the automobiles of today have increasingly incorporated high technology electronics to provide enhanced functionality, ease of use, and ease of maintenance.
[0004] However, current battery technologies have lagged far behind this modernization curve.
[0005] Little impetus has been provided to improve battery technologies beyond advancing some of the chemistry and physical properties within the battery. Nonetheless, as, the myriad of technological advances have been incorporated into automobiles, the need for reliable electrical power has also increased—and the battery remains at the heart of providing that power. To supply that power in a more reliable fashion, innovative smart batteries and smart multiple battery systems have been or are being developed by automakers and battery manufacturers alike.
[0006] Devices like U.S. Patent Application No. 2005/0038614 Botts et al. shows a remote battery monitoring system and sensors in which a plurality of telesensors are connected to batteries in a battery string. The telesensors measure battery data such as voltage, current, and temperature and wirelessly transmit the battery data to a control and collection unit. The control and collection unit receives, processes, analyzes, and stores the battery data. Remote monitoring software running on the control and collection unit can be configured to provide warning alarms when the battery data is outside present limits.
[0007] Another example is U.S. Pat. No. 6,456,036 to Thandiwe, which provides for a smart battery that has a network communication interface such that the battery can send and receive battery-related data. The battery is in conductive and communicative interface with a device, such as a cellular telephone, personal digital assistant (PDA), or laptop computer, which has a network communication pathway that the battery uses for data exchange. The smart battery can alternately be in conductive and communicative interface with a charger that is interfaced with a computer, and the charger selectively establishes a network communication pathway through the charger-computer interface for the smart battery to exchange data across the network. However, the system does not provide for the communication of information exchanged with the network to include storage of battery historic information, such as warranty activation/validation data and/or warranty invalidating performance information, or for the selective enablement of the battery or features of or on the battery.
[0008] Similarly, U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2003/0197512 to Miller et al. shows a battery analyzer configured to communicatively couple to a computer network in which a processing arrangement is configured to charge and discharge the battery of each of an at least one battery arrangement via a battery interface arrangement and is configured to initiate a performance sequence. Data communication between the battery analyzer and a customer service site is illustrated in and can include for example, usage, performance, and/or technical support information of the battery arrangement to the customer service site via the computer network. The centralized computer system may store the information in a memory unit for subsequent retrieval, for example, to graph the usage and performance information and/or to perform numerical analysis on the usage and performance information. However, again, no warranty information is stored, treated, or communicated between the battery analyzer of Miller, et al., nor is there any discussion of the enablement or selective activation or deactivation of features on or in the battery.
[0009] These improved technologies come with ever increasing costs to both the customer and the manufacturer. As the batteries become more advanced, the replacement costs for meeting warranty obligations for manufacturers increases. Moreover, the cost of recalls and failures in designs that might reduce battery life make this replacement cost even greater. Additionally, smart batteries will increasingly provide a wider and wider range of functionality and become more feature rich. A system for providing control over the software and hardware enablement of the batteries is needed. Additionally, reliability and replacement for these batteries becomes increasingly important as the vehicles that utilize this power also become more feature rich.
[0010] Therefore, there exists a need to provide a system whereby information can be programmed into a smart battery and this information can be centrally stored for use by maintenance providers and manufacturers.
[0011] There exists a further need to provide an onboard programmable component of a smart battery that is capable of both receiving data at point of sale, receiving and reporting data during use, and while receiving maintenance, while also allowing for communication of this data to a centralized data network. Additionally, in receiving this data, the smart battery can be capable of disabling and/or enabling both software and hardware on the battery and reporting an estimate as to the remaining useful life of the battery.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0012] An object of the invention is to provide a smart battery together with a warranty and metrics tracking system whereby information can be programmed into a smart battery and, at the same time, that information can be centrally stored for use by maintenance providers and manufacturers.
[0013] An object of the invention is to an onboard programmable component of a smart battery that is capable of both receiving data at point of sale, during operation, and while receiving maintenance while also allowing for communication of this data to a centralized data network. Additionally, in receiving this data, the smart battery can be capable of disabling and/or enabling both software and hardware on the battery.
[0014] The invention includes an article of manufacture, an apparatus, a method for making the article, and a method for using the article.
[0015] The system of the invention includes a computer system including a computer-readable medium having software to operate a computer in accordance with the invention.
[0016] Still further, the article of manufacture of the present invention comprises a computer-readable medium embodying a computer program. For the present invention, the computer-readable medium embodying the computer program comprises program modules to control a computer to perform the method of the present invention.
[0017] Further, the apparatus of the present invention comprises a computer programmed with software to operate the computer in accordance with the present invention.
[0018] Additionally, the apparatus of the present invention includes a battery monitoring and electronics module.
[0019] Moreover, the above objects and advantages of the invention are illustrative, and not exhaustive, of those that can be achieved by the invention. Thus, these and other objects and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the description herein, both as embodied herein and as modified in view of any variations that will be apparent to those skilled in the art.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0020] Embodiments of the invention are explained in greater detail by way of the drawings, where the same reference numerals refer to the same features.
[0021] FIG. 1 illustrates a plan view of an exemplary embodiment of the invention.
[0022] FIG. 2 illustrates the program modules of an exemplary embodiment of the instant invention.
[0023] FIG. 3 illustrates a perspective view of a further exemplary embodiment of the instant invention incorporating the exemplary embodiment of the electronics battery monitoring module of the instant invention within a battery housing.
[0024] FIG. 4 illustrates a plan view of an exemplary embodiment of the electrical circuit shown in FIG. 3 .
[0025] FIG. 5 illustrates a flow diagram of an exemplary embodiment of a method of operation of the battery monitoring system.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
[0026] In describing the invention, the following definitions are applicable throughout.
[0027] A “computer” refers to any apparatus that is capable of accepting a structured input, processing the structured input according to prescribed rules, and producing results of the processing as output. Examples of a computer include: a computer; a general purpose computer; a supercomputer; a mainframe; a super mini-computer; a mini-computer; a workstation; a micro-computer; a server; an interactive television; a hybrid combination of a computer and an interactive television; a controller processor; an ASIC; and application-specific hardware to emulate a computer and/or software. A computer can have a single processor or multiple processors, which can operate in parallel and/or not in parallel. A computer also refers to two or more computers connected together via a network for transmitting or receiving information between the computers. An example of such a computer includes a distributed computer system for processing information via computers linked by a network.
[0028] A “computer-readable medium” refers to any storage device used for storing data accessible by a computer. Examples of a computer-readable medium include: a magnetic hard disk; a floppy disk; an optical disk, such as a CD-ROM and a DVD; a magnetic tape; a memory chip; and a carrier wave used to carry computer-readable electronic data, such as those used in transmitting and receiving e-mail or in accessing a network, such as the Internet or a local area network (“LAN”); and any storage device used for storing data accessible by a computer.
[0029] A “computer system” refers to a system having a computer, where the computer comprises at least one computer and a computer-readable medium embodying software to operate the computer.
[0030] A “database” is a combination of software and hardware used to efficiently store data on an at least one information storage device, in an exemplary embodiment this includes storage on an information storage device comprising an at least one computer readable medium as defined herein.
[0031] A “handheld device” is a handheld device capable of receiving and processing data in a manner emulating a computer as defined herein.
[0032] An “information storage device” refers to an article of manufacture used to store information. An information storage device has different forms, for example, paper form and electronic form. In paper form, the information storage device includes paper printed with the information. In electronic form, the information storage device includes a computer-readable medium storing the information as software, for example, as data.
[0033] A “network” refers to a number of computers and associated devices that are connected by communication facilities. A network involves permanent connections such as cables or temporary connections such as those made through telephone or other communication links. In this way the network can be maintained by conventional wires or may also be provided wirelessly. Examples of a network include: an Internet, such as the Internet; an intranet; a local area network (LAN); a wide area network (WAN); CAN and LIN networks; cellular networks; and any combination of networks, such as an internet and an intranet.
[0034] A “point of sale/point of maintenance device” refers to a network interface, a computer or handheld device that is used to interface with a network, a database, and/or with the electronics module of the battery product. This may be a single device or may be comprised of numerous component devices, such as a handheld device used in conjunction with a wireless network connection to a computer which then communicates with a network and, thereby, a database. The point of sale/point of maintenance device is located at the point of sale or point of maintenance and is coupled to the battery product.
[0035] Software” refers to prescribed rules to operate a computer or similar device. Examples of software include: software; code segments; program modules; instructions; computer programs; and programmed logic.
[0036] FIG. 1 shows a plan view of the instant invention. The exemplary embodiments of FIGS. 1-2 are directed to a battery warranty and metrics tracking network with a programmable battery product also capable of storing performance data. The components of the system include at least one of an onboard electronics module 10 on the battery product 5 ; a point of sale/point of maintenance device 20 which provides communication with the battery product 5 and a data input for communicating data from and into the battery 25 and also communication of this data to a product database 40 ; and a network 30 carrying relevant data for storage in the product database 40 and data and/or instructions 50 for storage on the battery product 5 and within the database 40 . Reference to a network, a database, an information storage device, a point of sale/point of maintenance device, and an electronics module is to be read as including at least one of each device that is reference to the singular includes all derivations of the plural for each feature disclosed.
[0037] The electronics module 10 , the point of sale/point of maintenance device 20 , network 30 , and database 40 further includes at least one computer-readable medium in an information storage device embodying software for implementing the invention and/or software to operate the electronics module 10 , the point of sale/point of maintenance device 20 , the network 30 , and database 40 in accordance with the invention. In an exemplary embodiment, the point of sale/point of maintenance device 20 would operate as a distributed network connected to servers for data storage and retrieval nationwide.
[0038] FIG. 2 shows a flow chart of the program modules used in the invention. In a first program module 1000 , software for activating the battery product 5 is provided via the instant invention from the database 40 through the point of sale/point of maintenance device. The system allows for programming, activation, and configuration of the battery product 5 . The battery product 5 may be any battery capable of accommodating the electronics module 10 . In an exemplary embodiment the battery product 5 is a smart battery or multiple battery system having an at least one electronics module 10 thereon. The electronics module 10 maintains the battery product in dormant state. The battery is only awoken from the dormant state by interaction with the point of sale/point of maintenance device 20 .
[0039] Effectively the exemplary embodiment of FIGS. 1 and 2 provides a warranty of non-use of the battery product 5 up to the point of sale, as the battery product 5 is only activated at this time. In an exemplary embodiment, this is accomplished with a point of sale/point of maintenance handheld device 22 . The battery product activates at the time of sale as software is pushed from the handheld into the electronics module 5 of the battery warranty and metrics tracking system.
[0040] A further program module 2000 provides for activation of additional programmable capabilities on the battery product 5 . In instances where the battery product 5 has multiple programmable configurations, the specific configuration can be activated via the point of sale/point of maintenance device 20 . Software is pushed into the electronic package 5 and relevant hardware components and accessory function onboard the battery can be selectively enabled based on this software. One example of such a multiple configuration intelligent battery system or programmable battery product is applicant's INTELLICELL battery system, which can be configured for multiple feature levels as well as vehicle and geographic specific functionality. These can include, for example, but certainly are not limited to, activating specific feature rich hardware onboard the intelligent battery system, such as, but certainly not limited to, the hardware indicated in applicants co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 10/604,703, 10/708,739 and 10/913,334, herein incorporated by reference.
[0041] Together with the software being pushed onto the battery product, in a further program module 3000 , warranty information specific to the purchaser, information regarding the vehicle of the purchaser, and similar information may be retained and stored on the battery product 5 and, through the network 30 , within the database 40 . In an exemplary embodiment, the point of, sale/point of maintenance device 20 is used to enter data into the battery product 5 . The data can include, for example, identifying information for the specific battery product 5 , including for instance, but certainly not limited too, the point of purchase, the date of purchase, a level of warranty, a time period of warranty, vehicle identifying information such as VIN number, vehicle make and model information, locale and geographic specific information, regional information, vehicle specific/manufacturer specific information, and other relevant information. This information, in portions or in its entirety, is stored on the battery product 5 and within the database 40 .
[0042] The information is pushed to the battery product 5 regarding the point of sale/warranty data and communicated, either at the time of purchase or at a later time, to the battery warranty and metrics tracking system network allowing for the storage of battery product 5 specific data into the battery product 5 and into the database 40 . The network component 30 of the battery warranty and metrics tracking system transmits this data and allows for storage of this data in the database 40 as a database of product and customer information.
[0043] In a further program module 4000 , the point of sale/point of maintenance device 20 is used during maintenance or at a location where the battery product 5 is being returned to interrogate the information regarding the warranty stored in the electronics module 10 . This information may be compared to the stored data within the database 40 . Additionally, performance data from the battery product 5 may be retrieved and transmitted via the network to the database 40 . This can include metrics regarding any of the characteristics of the battery, including voltage, amps, temperature, and similar characteristics as well as vehicle data communicated from the vehicle to the battery and event specific data that is stored based on previously stored event parameter data pushed onto the battery product 5 .
[0044] The program modules function together to provide tracking of specific information about individual battery products. Each module can function independently of the others and there is no specific order of operation, however, in an exemplary embodiment of the instant invention the software embodying the invention is loaded throughout the network 30 into the point of sale/point of maintenance devices 20 . During the initial sale of the battery product, the first program module or activation module 1000 is activated through the point of sale/point of maintenance device 20 to program the battery product 5 . The battery product 5 is activated by the point of sale/point of maintenance device 20 activating the electronic module 10 , which runs a diagnostic check of the battery and then allows for entry of sales specific programming, activation, and configuration information for the battery product 5 . The activation module 1000 looks for software updates, which can be pushed from the database 40 to the point of sale/point of maintenance devices 20 for installation of the latest software in the battery product 5 . With respect to the further exemplary embodiment shown in FIGS. 3-5 , a similar interaction with networks can be used to update the circuit and the software utilized to operate the battery monitoring system. Likewise, the information stored on the battery product 5 is sent back to the database 40 through the point of sale/point of maintenance device 20 and the network 30 in a further step, through activation of the warranty information module 3000 as described herein below.
[0045] If appropriate, the second program module or features activation program module 2000 is activated. This module allows the point of sale/point of maintenance device 20 to selectively enable battery products 5 having multiple configurations. Depending on the desired accessories and features in the particular configuration, the battery product 5 through electronics module 10 enables the features and accessories of the particular configuration. Additional installation procedures my be required and these are noted at the point of sale/point of maintenance device 20 .
[0046] After activation and initial diagnostics, a third program or warranty information program module 3000 programs warranty information specific to the purchase, information regarding the vehicle of the purchaser, and similar information to be retained and stored on the battery product 5 . This information is similarly communicated through the network 30 back to the database 40 . In this exemplary embodiment, the point of sale/point of maintenance device 20 is used to enter data into the battery product 5 . This can be accomplished via any input device, non-limiting examples being a keyboard or touch screen. The data can include, for example, identifying information for the specific battery product 5 , including for instance, but certainly not limited to, identification of the point of sale, the date of purchase, a level of warranty, a time period of warranty, vehicle identifying information such as VIN number, vehicle make and model information, locale and geographic specific information, regional information, vehicle specific/manufacturer specific information, and other relevant information. This information, in portions or in its entirety, is stored on the battery product 5 and within the database 40 . The information is pushed onto the battery product 5 regarding the point of sale/warranty data and this information is then communicated, either at the time of purchase or at a later time, to the battery warranty and metrics tracking system network allowing for the storage in the database 40 .
[0047] After activation and programming, the battery is fully functional and operated by the purchaser. During maintenance calls or if the battery product 5 is returned for warranty purposes, the fourth or diagnostic program module 4000 can be activated. The diagnostic module can also be used at the point of sale, if further diagnostic information is desired. The diagnostic program module is run through the point of sale/point of maintenance device 20 and communicates with the electronics module 10 of the battery through a wireless or standard wired connection (note the data port). The information obtained from the battery product 5 will report all previously stored information on the battery product 5 . This information can be checked, if desired, against the records stored in database 40 . Further, information collected on the battery products 5 metrics can include historical data, especially in the case of failure. This could include operational metrics and information regarding the past and current state of the battery, and this and other stored information can be retrieved. This information is communicated to the database 40 and added to the record of the battery product 5 stored thereon. Additionally, software upgrades and other relevant new information is then transmitted back to the battery product 5 from the database 40 through the network 30 and the point of sale/point of maintenance device 20 . The information on the battery product 5 is thus maintained and a record of the performance of the battery product 5 and its service history are recorded.
[0048] This data warehousing on the database 40 provides manufacturers and distributors with heretofore unknown tracking and metrics capabilities. The data warehousing within the battery warranty and metrics tracking system allows distributors and manufacturers to analyze the data fields in the database 40 and make determinations and correlations regarding battery costs and performance and thereby adjust warranties accordingly. The data warehousing also enables faster recall notifications for potential service issues. Additionally, the data enables manufacturers to more clearly fit and enforce warranties based on regional zones and provides enhanced tracking for warranty claims, including data on metrics. This metrics tracking would provide for faster improvements in designs based on this data. For example, if warranty hits increased or maintenance data showed increased failures in cold weather regions, battery design could more efficiently be adjusted to improve cold weather performance.
[0049] In addition to the software, computers and networks comprising the tracking system, the electronics module 5 of the instant invention provides additional security in providing accurate data on warranties. Current process of date stamping the exterior is a thing of the past. Tampering with date stamping currently used for warranty tracking and management is easily accomplished in the current market. This leads to an increased numbers of fraudulent warranty claims. The electronics module 10 of the instant invention is developed in such a manner as to deter removal and/or tampering with this component. This is done to both prevent modification of the onboard data pushed onto the battery product and to prevent remanufacture/rehabilitation of the electronics module by unauthorized manufacturers. The methodology of rendering the electronics module tamper resistant can include, but are not limited to, electronics, tamper-resistant/evident markers, mechanical tamper indicators, tamper resistant software functionality (e.g. searching for an electrical connection or otherwise search for point of sale/point of maintenance device), firmware, or similar methodologies to deter tampering. The battery product 5 may, if tampered with, be disabled or an indicator may be provided to alert customers and maintenance personnel.
[0050] In an exemplary embodiment, the functionality of the battery product 5 would be disabled; however, access to and the integrity of the stored data will be maintained and accessible via the point of sale/point of maintenance device 20 of the instant invention. The point of sale/point of maintenance device 20 will be able to access the data from the battery product 5 , either directly from the electronic module 10 or from component parts, such as, but not limited to, a secure E-PROM chip, of the electronics module 10 .
[0051] FIG. 3 illustrates a perspective view of an exemplary embodiment of the instant invention incorporating the exemplary embodiment of the battery monitoring electronics module of the instant invention within a battery housing. In addition to providing hardware, software, and networks for retrieving and monitoring the warranty information and performance characteristics, an additional embodiment that can function with the warranty tracking and monitoring software or in a stand alone capacity is included as a further exemplary embodiment of the battery monitoring system. In FIG. 3 , the battery monitoring electronics package 15 is shown attached to a battery product 5 . The battery product 5 may be any battery capable of accommodating the electronics module 15 . In an exemplary embodiment the battery product 5 is a smart battery or multiple battery system having an at least one electronics module 15 thereon. The battery monitoring electronics package 15 may be also be incorporated outside the housing of the battery product 5 , for instance as part of the electrical system of a vehicle.
[0052] FIG. 4 illustrates a plan view of an exemplary embodiment of the electrical circuit shown in FIG. 3 . The controller 2001 can incorporate a number of sub-components. These can include for instance, but not limited to, a CPU, EEPROM(s), ADC(s), PWM(s), Digital Inputs/Outputs, and similar components to enable the functionality of the controller 2001 .
[0053] The controller 2001 is in communication with an at least one sensor, for instance, but not limited to, the disclosed sensor circuits 2010 - 2040 , sensing battery parameters or battery data. The controller 2001 can measure, for example, temperature, resistivity, voltage, current, and similar variables to determine the overall health of the battery. The sensors may be incorporated in a single sensor circuit or may be provided through a group of sensors or sensor circuits. In the exemplary embodiment depicted, a battery voltage detection circuit 2010 , a current drain and source detection circuit 2020 , an internal temperature detection circuit 2030 and an internal resistance detection circuit 2040 are provided. These sensors report the respective sensed data back to the controller 2001 . In addition, a power condition and regulation circuit 2050 is used to ensure stable voltages are supplied to the detection sensors. Greater or fewer circuits can be provided to measure these or other variables within the battery.
[0054] The sensed battery parameter(s) or battery data is collected by the controller and may be used immediately or may be stored in memory for later use. The data can be compared to thresholds, stored in the controller, and adjusted for the type and size of the battery. The software regarding thresholds and analysis may be pre-programmed on the battery or downloaded to the battery at the point of purchase along with relevant purchase specific information. The controller 2001 can communicate and send an alert signal via a network, computer, or a wireless device through the communications protocols/devices 2100 or via an at least one indicator element 2200 , shown in the exemplary embodiment but certainly not limited to, an audio indication circuit or a tri-color LED driver. If the monitored values exceed the preset thresholds a warning may be triggered in real time.
[0055] Additionally or alternatively, the data may be used in a predictive model to predict, based on captured data or stored data, when a warning to change the battery should be sent. This predictive value can be adjusted in real time as the battery monitors the variables. The predictive model may be adjusted via a network, wireless device, or via an indicator element. This analysis, both with respect to real time analysis and predictive analysis is described further below in relation to the flow diagram shown as FIG. 5 .
[0056] FIG. 5 illustrates a flow diagram of an exemplary embodiment of a method of operation of the battery monitoring system. In a first step 3001 , the battery monitor acquires battery parameter(s) or battery data from sensors. In the exemplary embodiment shown, this step includes at least one of the boxed sub-steps of acquiring analog to digital converted data for current drain and source, voltage acquisition, internal temperature, internal resistance, and similar parameters or data.
[0057] This information is processed in the further step 3100 of filtering and processing the parameters and data. This processing can include, as show in the exemplary embodiment, sub-steps which can include but are not limited to ADC scaling and integration of variables, Steinhart Hart Linearization, and other modifications to the parameters or data. The modified data is passed onto the further step of analyzing the data 3200 .
[0058] In the analyzing step 3200 , the modified data is passed through a filter applying a predictive, parametric database of values. Essentially this is represented in the exemplary embodiment by the variable event filter table, a table or map with a wide number of combinations of the sensed variables resulting in an output that represents the state of the battery or the relative health of the battery with respect to its operating life. The parameters or data can be stored in memory or the state of the battery may be stored in memory in step 3300 . Additionally or alternatively, the information or data may be transmitted via the optional step of communicating 3900 through, for example, a communication protocol and network, wired or wireless, or communicating through an interface to other components in a further communicating step 3450 . It should be noted that the optional communications steps may also be used to update the thresholds and tables used in analyzing step 3200 that is the communication can be bi-directional to facilitate updates. This updating may be done through a network or a handheld device at the time of purchase or during maintenance or during operation of the battery, as disclosed previously.
[0059] Finally, in a further feedback and updating step 3500 , the information from the database can be fed to feedback drivers for further updating and correction of the thresholds and tables used in the analyzing step. This is a self-teaching, self-correcting measure to allow the battery monitoring unit to make changes for the specific battery with which it is associated.
[0060] The embodiments and examples discussed herein are non-limiting examples. The invention is described in detail with respect to exemplary embodiments, and it will now be apparent from the foregoing to those skilled in the art that changes and modifications may be made without departing from the invention in its broader aspects, and the invention, therefore, as defined in the claims is intended to cover all such changes and modifications as fall within the true spirit of the invention. | A stand alone battery monitoring system coupled to a battery product having a positive pole and a negative pole having a housing, a battery monitoring electronics package contained within the housing, the electronics package having a controller with at least one of an at least one CPU, EEPROM(s), ADC(s), PWM(s), Digital Input(s), and Digital Output(s) and including a portion of memory for storage of data and software. A sensor is coupled to and communicates with the battery product and the controller, measuring at least a battery product voltage and a battery product temperature. Multiple code segments form software on the controller, the battery monitor software includes: an at least one code segment acquiring battery product data for at least a the battery product voltage and the battery product internal temperature from the at least one sensor, an at least one code segment filtering the acquired battery product data into modified battery product data and processing the modified battery product data against stored parameters; an at least one code segment storing the acquired, filtered, modified and compared battery product data in the portion of memory and retaining whole or in part the acquired, filtered, modified and compared battery product data to provide historical battery product data over the course of the life of the battery; an at least one code segment comparing the stored battery product data against threshold levels; and an at least one indicator on a wireless device, wherein if the at least one code segment comparing the stored battery product data against threshold levels determines that data is beyond those levels, it sends an alert wirelessly to a user via the wireless device and the at least one indicator element thereon. | 8 |
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0001] 1. Field of the Invention
[0002] The present invention relates to electrical systems and, more particularly, to electrical systems for reducing power consumption by electrical appliances.
[0003] 2. State of the Art
[0004] Recent events have given urgency to what has always been a good idea: energy conservation. Energy conservation can be implemented simply by turning off power from appliances that are not in use. While power control can be done manually, e.g., people can turn off appliances when they are done using them and turn off lights as they leave a room, automated power control plays an important role in energy conservation.
[0005] Timers can be used to control power delivery. For example, business lights can be turned on automatically at the start of a business day and turned off automatically at its close. Alternatively, timers can control the duration for which an appliance is active. For example, a timer might turn off a hot air hand dryer after a fixed time; anyone wanting more time can reset the hand dryer. Many appliances, such a printers, enter a low-power “sleep” mode after a set period of non-use.
[0006] Ambient-light sensors can be used to control certain appliances. For example, street lamps can be activated in low light conditions, and deactivated when morning brings sufficient light that the artificial illumination is not required.
[0007] Motion sensors, such as occupancy sensors, can be used to supply power only when people are present. Security lights often combine ambient-light detection and motion detection. During the day, the lights remain off regardless of motion in their vicinity; however, at night, motion triggers the lights on.
[0008] Vending machines, particularly those that are refrigerated, pose special problems when it comes to energy conservation. Typically, a vending machine owner-operator places a vending machine in operation on the premises of another, and visits as necessary to refill the vending machine. The owner of the premises typically pays for the electricity consumed by the vending machine, and thus may have the biggest interest in saving power; however, the premises owner may be limited to unplugging the vending machine to save power during time of low usage.
[0009] However, unplugging or switching off a refrigerated vending machine can have the undesirable consequence that the vending items may warm up. In extreme cases, this may cause items to spoil as some artificial sweeteners in diet drinks cannot survive continual thermal cycling. However, even where spoilage is not a problem, customers might have the unpleasant experience of, for example, a warm soda if they purchase soon after the vending machine is turned on. Also, the product container may be wet due to condensation on warmup. Also, unplugging or switching off a vending machine risks losing sales and customers.
[0010] U.S. Pat. No. 6,243,626, commonly assigned to the assignee of the present invention, herein incorporated by reference in its entirety, discloses an appliance (e.g., vending machine) with an external power-management control subsystem that automatically couples/decouples the appliance to/from an electric power source (e.g., wall outlet) in response to control signals provided by one or more sensors/timing circuits. For example, a current sensor, time-of-day circuitry, an occupancy motion sensor, and timer circuitry can be used as inputs to a controller, which is programmed to automatically decouple the appliance from the wall outlet as follows. When the current level sensed by the current sensor is below a low threshold level, the occupancy motion sensor does not sense occupancy, and the time-of-day circuitry indicates the time is “off-hours”, the timer is set to a predetermined probationary period (for example, {fraction (1/2)} hour). During this probationary period, the inputs values are periodically evaluated to determine whether shutdown is appropriate. During such periodic evaluations, if shutdown is determined not to be appropriate, the probationary period is aborted. Yet, if during such evaluations, it is determined that shutdown is appropriate and the probationary period lapses, the controller automatically decouples the appliance from the wall outlet, thereby “shutting down” the appliance.
[0011] These same inputs (and other inputs) can be used by the controller to automatically couple the appliance to the wall outlet, thereby activating the appliance. For example, any one of the following conditions can trigger the controller to automatically couple the appliance to the wall outlet: lapse of a countdown period provided by the timing circuitry; the occupancy motion sensor senses occupancy; the time-of-day circuitry indicates the time is “in-business-hours”; a temperature sensor indicates the ambient temperature level has risen to a level that requires cooling/activation of the appliance.
[0012] Refrigerated vending machines utilize a compressor for cooling. It has been observed by the inventor hereof from extensive field measurements that the compressors in coin-operated beverage vending machines operate in a fairly consistent manner. In nearly all cases, the compressor will cycle from four to six times per hour. Exceptions do occur, such as when the machine is reloaded with hot product in summer. Typically, such events are transient and once the product is cooled down, the compressor operations resume to four to six cycles per hour.
[0013] However, it has been observed by the inventor hereof that the compressor operations in glass front, consumer accessible beverage coolers varies broadly. The trade names for such beverage coolers are reach-in coolers, slide coolers, or visi-coolers. More specifically, it has been observed by the inventor hereof that the compressor cycling for a representative array of commercially available reach-in coolers vary from a minimum cycle time of eight minutes to a maximum cycle time of eleven hours. This extreme range of compressor cycle times can be attributed to the following factors:
[0014] doors on some of these machines do not close properly, which causes leakage of cool air and extended compressor run time;
[0015] glass front doors, even if operating properly, are much less energy efficient than the steel, insulated interior doors used in coin-operated beverage machines; and
[0016] poor maintenance leads to clogged compressor coils and increased compressor run time.
[0017] Poor maintenance occurs from the fact that service calls to reach-in coolers generally occur only when the cooling systems completely fail, which is rare. In contrast, coin-operated beverage vending machines are typically better maintained because such machines require service calls more often due to their complex coin, mechanical vending, and electronic subsystems.
[0018] In such reach-in coolers (and other compressor-based appliances that have broadly varying compressor cycles), automatic power management control is difficult. More specifically, when the appliance is decoupled from its power source, it is difficult to determine when to recouple the appliance to its power source. The time period between the decoupling and recoupling of the appliance to the power source is referred to herein as the “shutdown time period.” This shutdown time period should be maximized for maximum energy saving.
[0019] Thus, there remains a need in the art for automatic power-management control of a reach-in cooler (and other compressor-based appliances that have broadly varying compressor cycles) that provides enhanced power conservation.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0020] It is therefore an object of the invention to conserve energy usage by compressor-based appliances (such as a reach-in coolers) that experience a large range of cooling system cycle times.
[0021] It is another object of the invention to provide enhanced power-management control of compressor-based appliances (such as a reach-in coolers) that experience a large range of cooling system cycle times.
[0022] In accord with these objects, which will be discussed in detail below, an apparatus for and method of power-management control monitors operational characteristics (such as current, compressor relay control signals, temperature) of an appliance during an extended period of operation, and analyzes such operational characteristics to derive a characteristic cycle time of the cooling system of the appliance. The power input port of the appliance is automatically decoupled from a power source in response to control signals provided by sensor(s) and possibly in response to additional control signals. When a predetermined set of conditions are satisfied, the power input port of the appliance is automatically coupled to the power source after expiration of a shutdown time period, which is automatically adjusted by the power management control system based upon the characteristic cycle time of the cooling system and possibly other control signals (such as an ambient temperature level provided by a temperature sensor).
[0023] The apparatus for and method of power-management may be integral to an appliance. In this configuration, electrical components of the appliance (including the cooling system and possibly other electrical subsystems) are coupled/decoupled to/from the power source by the power-management control system in response to control signal provided thereto.
[0024] According to one embodiment of the present invention, the characteristic cycle time is derived by:
[0025] i) analyzing the current levels drawn by the appliance to derive a high threshold current value whereby any current level above the high threshold current level provides an indication that the cooling system of the appliance is activated/ON;
[0026] ii) analyzing the current levels drawn by the appliance to derive a low threshold current value whereby any current level below the low threshold current level provides an indication that the cooling system of the appliance is deactivated/OFF;
[0027] iii) analyzing the current levels drawn by the appliance to record duration of ON time periods during which the current level drawn by the appliance is above the high threshold current;
[0028] iv) analyzing the current levels drawn by the appliance to record duration of OFF time periods during which the current level drawn by the appliance is below the low threshold current;
[0029] v) using the ON and OFF time period durations (for example, by adding the average ON time period duration to the average OFF time period duration) to generate the characteristic cycle time.
[0030] According to other embodiments of the present invention, the cycling of the cooling system (and the characteristic cycle time of the cooling system based thereon) is identified by monitoring control signals that open and close a relay that selectively activates and deactivates the compressor of the cooling system, or by monitoring temperature (such as differential temperature across a condenser of the cooling system) within the appliance.
[0031] These features enable the power-management control methodology and subsystem to automatically maximize the shutdown time period for appliances that experience large range of cooling system cycle times (such as reach-in coolers), and thus provide for maximal power conservation for such appliances.
[0032] Additional objects and advantages of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon reference to the detailed description taken in conjunction with the provided figures.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0033] [0033]FIG. 1 is a perspective view of an exemplary embodiment of an external power-management control system 1 that controls the coupling of an appliance to a power source in accordance with the present invention.
[0034] [0034]FIG. 2 is a schematic illustration of an exemplary power-management control system in accordance with the present invention.
[0035] [0035]FIG. 3 is a flow chart of an exemplary power-management control scheme carried out by the power-management control system of FIG. 2.
[0036] [0036]FIG. 4 is a schematic illustration of an exemplary appliance with the power-management control subsystem of FIG. 2 integrated therein in accordance with the present invention.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
[0037] Turning now to FIG. 1, a power-management control subsystem 11 and at least one sensor 13 (one shown) cooperate to automatically manage supply of power from an electric power source 15 (e.g., wall outlet as shown) to an appliance machine 17 . Power cord 19 electrically couples the power-management control subsystem 11 to the power source 15 , and power cord 22 electrically couples the power-management control subsystem 11 to the power input port 23 of the appliance machine 17 . The output of the sensor(s) 13 is operably coupled to the power-management control subsystem 11 preferably via wiring 25 as shown. Alternately, a wireless data communication link may be used to couple the output of the sensor(s) 13 to the power-management control subsystem 11 .
[0038] The power-management control subsystem 11 , which may be external to the appliance machine 17 as shown, automatically couples/decouples the power input port 23 of the appliance machine 17 to/from the power source 15 in response to control signals provided by sensor(s) 13 (and possibly in response to additional control signals, for example provided by timing circuitry, time-of-day circuitry, and a current sensor as described hereinafter in detail). The sensor(s) 13 may include a motion-based occupancy sensor (preferably realized as a passive infrared motion detector) that senses occupancy in or near the area adjacent the appliance vending machine 17 and/or a temperature sensor that senses ambient temperature. In the configuration shown in FIG. 1, the power-management control subsystem 11 and the sensor(s) 13 are preferably mounted on a support member that is releasably affixed to the appliance machine 17 as described in detail in U.S. patent application Ser. No. (Attorney Docket No. BAY-004), herein incorporated by reference in its entirety. In alternate embodiments (not shown), the power-management control subsystem 11 and possibly the sensor(s) 13 may be fastened to a wall structure adjacent the appliance machine 17 .
[0039] In an alternate embodiment shown in FIG. 4, the power-management control subsystem 11 and possibly the sensor(s) 13 are integral to the appliance machine 17 . In such a configuration, the power-management control subsystem 11 and cooling system 27 of the appliance 17 are disposed within a common system housing 29 as shown, and the power-management control subsystem 11 manages supply of power to the cooling system 27 (and possibly to other electric systems 28 of the appliance) utilizing the power management operations described herein.
[0040] The power-management control subsystem 11 may be adapted to act as a master controller by forwarding sensor status information (derived from the output of the sensor(s) 13 ) to other power-management control subsystems 11 ′ (slave controller(s)) operably coupled thereto as shown in FIG. 1, which is typically found in applications where a bank of vending machines are co-located in a facility. Preferably, the master power-management control subsystem 11 forwards such sensor status information by asserting a signal which is then electrically isolated, typically using an opt-coupler, before connection to the slave power management control system(s) 11 ′. Isolating this signal eliminates voltage differences between the master and slave power-management control subsystems, which may occur in the event that the two subsystems are plugged into outlets on separate electrical circuits. Repeating the sensor status information from the master power-management control subsystem 11 to the slave power-management control subsystem(s) 11 ′ allows each slave power-management control subsystem 11 ′ to automatically manage supply of power from an electric power source to an appliance machine(s) operably coupled thereto without the need for sensors, thereby reducing the cost of the overall power management control system. Also, this repeating function allows the master power-management control subsystem 11 to delay the sending of such sensor status information for a small time period (e.g., few seconds) so that when occupancy is detected, the bank of appliance machines controlled by the chain of power-management control subsystems will power up sequentially and not in unison. Sequential power-up prevents electrical surges that might trip circuit protection devices such as circuit breakers.
[0041] [0041]FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of an exemplary power-management control system 1 . The power-management control subsystem 11 is disposed electrically between an electrical power source (e.g., wall socket) 15 and an appliance machine 17 . The subsystem 11 includes a switch 30 that, when in its “ON” condition, electrically couples the input power port 23 of the appliance machine 17 to wall socket 15 . In its “OFF” condition, indicated in phantom in FIG. 2, switch 30 causes the input power port 23 of the appliance machine 17 to be decoupled electrically from the power source 15 .
[0042] Power switch 30 has a control input 32 that is coupled to a controller 34 . Through its connection to control input 32 , controller 34 controls when switch 30 is in its ON condition and when it is in its OFF condition. Controller 34 determines the appropriate condition for switch 30 at any given time as a function of present and past readings from a current sensor 35 , a temperature sensor 13 - 1 , an occupancy sensor 13 - 2 , and a time-of-day circuit 39 (an absolute time sensor). In addition, subsystem 11 includes a timer 38 for elapsed time indications and a random-access memory 36 for storing data for use by controller 34 . Thus, each of these devices is coupled to the controller 34 so as to provide respective parameter readings thereto.
[0043] Alternative embodiments of the invention omit one or more of the current sensor 35 , the temperature sensor 18 , the occupancy sensor 20 , and the time-of-day circuit 39 . Also, some embodiments include a time-of-day circuit 39 that is used to provide data from which a controller calculates elapsed time, thus dispensing with the need for a separate timer circuit 38 .
[0044] The appliance machine 17 may be a glass front, consumer accessible beverage cooler (sometimes referred to as a reach-in cooler, slide cooler or visi-cooler) that includes a glass door 8 and a plurality of shelves 9 as shown in FIG. 1. The shelves 9 support beverage containers (not shown) that are all visible and therefore available for access by customers. Alternatively, the appliance machine 17 may be another appliance that exhibits a large range of cooling system cycle times.
[0045] [0045]FIG. 3 is a flow chart illustrating an exemplary power-management control scheme carried out by the power-management control system 1 of FIG. 2. The control operations begin in block S 10 where data is collected and is used to build a profile of appliance machine 17 , which is stored in memory 36 . This profile includes the characteristic cycle time (t c ) of the cooling system of the appliance machine 17 . For example, minima and maxima of the current levels drawn by the appliance machine 17 (measured by current sensor 35 ) are recorded and stored by controller 34 in memory 36 . Current thresholds are calculated by controller 34 as a function of the minima and maxima current levels and are also stored in memory 36 . Such current thresholds preferably include a high threshold current level that provides an indication that the cooling system of the appliance is activated/ON, and a low threshold current value that provides an indication that the cooling system of the appliance is deactivated/OFF. Between the high and low threshold current levels is an indeterminate or transition range that can be used to introduce hysteresis into the determination of when to remove power from the appliance vending machine 17 . In addition, the controller 34 preferably calculates durations of ON time periods during which the current level drawn by the appliance is above the high threshold current in addition to durations of the OFF time periods during which the current level drawn by the appliance is below the low threshold current, and stores the durations of such ON time periods and the durations of such OFF time periods in memory 36 . The controller 34 calculates the characteristic cycle time (t c ) of the cooling system of the appliance machine 17 as a function of such ON time period durations and OFF time period durations (for example, by adding the average ON time period duration to the average OFF time period duration), and stores the characteristic cycle time (t c ) in memory 36 . During the appliance profiling operations of block S 10 , the switch 30 is placed in its ON condition so that power is supplied from power source 15 to the appliance machine 17 . In addition, the duration of the profiling operations of block S 10 is set for an extended period of time that encompasses at least one expected cycle time (and possibly one to twenty expected cycle times) of the cooling system of the appliance machine 17 . For glass front, consumer accessible beverage cooler appliances, this extended period of time is typically on the order of 12 to 48 hours, such as a 24 hour time period. In this manner, the profiling operations of block S 10 build an accurate estimate of the characteristic cycle time of the cooling system of the appliance machine 17 .
[0046] Alternatively, in the profiling operations of block S 10 , the cycling of the cooling system of the appliance may be identified by monitoring control signals that open and close a relay that selectively activates and deactivates the compressor of the cooling system, or by monitoring temperature (such as differential temperature across a condenser of the cooling system) within the appliance. In this configuration, the characteristic cycle time of the cooling system is based upon the time durations of the cycle(s) of the cooling system during the extended time period of the profiling operations of block S 10 .
[0047] After profiling is accomplished at block S 10 , the operations of the power management control scheme continue to block S 12 . Note that the operations of block S 11 (wherein the switch 30 is placed in its ON condition so that power is supplied from power source 15 to the appliance machine 17 ) are bypassed because the switch 30 has already been placed in its ON condition during the profiling operations of block S 10 .
[0048] In block S 12 , current, temperature, occupancy, and absolute time parameters are monitored. The monitoring is ongoing even as subsequent blocks are performed.
[0049] In blocks S 14 through S 17 , parameters monitored in block S 12 are used to determine whether to maintain switch 30 in the ON condition or switch it into the OFF condition (thereby shutting down the appliance machine 17 ). In particular, in block S 14 , it is determined whether the parameters indicate that the switch 30 should be maintained in the ON condition or switched into the OFF condition (thereby shutting down the appliance machine 17 ). For example, if the current level identified by current sensor 35 is high (indicated usage or a compressor cycle), if the occupancy sensor 13 - 2 determines that occupancy is positive, or if the absolute time provided by time-of-day circuit 39 is during “business hours”, the appliance machine 17 is not shut down. In this case, operations return to the monitoring block S 12 . However, if the current level identified by current sensor 35 is below the low threshold, the occupancy sensor 13 - 2 determines that occupancy is negative, and the absolute time provided by time-of-day circuit 39 is during “off hours”, then the timer 38 is set for a probationary period (e.g., half an hour time period) at block S 15 .
[0050] During this probationary period (blocks S 16 , S 17 ), the present values of the parameters are evaluated repetitively to determine whether any parameter changes to a value which would indicate that shut down is not appropriate. If there is such a change, the countdown is aborted and operations return to monitoring in block S 12 . More specifically, if the current exceeds the upper threshold, occupancy becomes positive, or the time-of-day becomes “business hours”, the probationary countdown is aborted. If the parameter values remain within the range for which shut down is appropriate and the end of “probationary” countdown period is detected in block S 17 , the operations continue at block S 18 .
[0051] In block S 18 , the controller 34 calculates a shutdown time period (that will be used to initialize the timer 38 in block S 22 ) as a function of the characteristic cycle time (t c ) calculated in block S 10 and possibly as a function of ambient temperature (as sensed by the temperature sensor 13 - 1 ). For example, the shutdown time period my be calculated by adding the characteristic cycle time (t c ) to an offset time period that is based on ambient temperature.
[0052] The control operations of block S 18 continue to block S 21 , wherein the switch 30 is placed in its OFF condition so that the power source 15 is decoupled from the appliance machine 17 , and operations continue to block S 22 . In block S 22 , timer 38 is set to the shutdown time period determined in block S 18 , and the operations continue at block S 23 . In block S 23 , parameters other than current are monitored. At block S 24 , if it is found that the parameter values call for activating the appliance machine 17 , operations jump to block S 11 and the switch 30 is set in its ON condition. Otherwise, operations continue to block S 25 .
[0053] In block S 24 , activation can be caused by:
[0054] i) the occupancy sensor 13 - 2 providing an indication that occupancy is positive;
[0055] ii) transition of the absolute time provided by time-of-day circuit 39 into “business hours”; or
[0056] iii) an increase in temperature measured by temperature sensor 13 - 1 to an ambient temperature level requiring cooling of contents.
[0057] In block S 25 , if the expiration of the shutdown time period is detected, the operations jump to block S 11 and the switch 30 is set in its ON condition. Otherwise, operations return to the monitoring operations of block S 23 .
[0058] By monitoring the operational characteristics (e.g., current compressor relay control signals, internal temperature) of the appliance over an extended period of time and building a profile of the appliance that includes the characteristic cycle time (t c ) of the cooling system of the appliance, the control scheme of FIG. 3 gathers and maintains information about the appliance that can permit more intelligent power-management. These features enable the power-management control subsystem to automatically maximize the shutdown time period for compressor-based appliances (such as a reach-in coolers) that experience a large range of cooling system cycle times, and thus provide for maximal power conservation for such appliances.
[0059] There have been described and illustrated herein several embodiments of a power-management control system and intelligent power control methodologies/schemes for use with beverage coolers. While particular embodiments of the invention have been described, it is not intended that the invention be limited thereto, as it is intended that the invention be as broad in scope as the art will allow and that the specification be read likewise. Thus, the invention applies more generally to other appliances, including those that vary the current they draw in accordance with internal activity. Most electromechanical appliances are in this category. Moreover, while particular configurations of control architectures and schemes have been disclosed, it will be appreciated that other configurations could be used as well. It will therefore be appreciated by those skilled in the art that yet other modifications could be made to the provided invention without deviating from its spirit and scope as claimed. | An apparatus for (and method of) power-management control monitors operational characteristics (such as current, compressor relay control signals, internal temperature) of an appliance during an extended period of operation, and analyzes such operational characteristics to derive a characteristic cycle time of the cooling system of the appliance. The power input port of the appliance is automatically decoupled from a power source in response to control signals provided by sensor(s) and possibly in response to additional control signals. When a predetermined set of conditions are satisfied, the power input port of the appliance is automatically coupled to the power source after expiration of a shutdown time period, which is automatically adjusted by the power management control system based upon the characteristic cycle time of the cooling system and possibly other control signals (such as an ambient temperature level provided by a temperature sensor). The apparatus for and method of power-management may be integral to an appliance. In this configuration, electrical components of the appliance (including the cooling system and possibly other electrical subsystems) are coupled/decoupled to/from the power source by the power-management control system in response to the control signal provided thereto. | 8 |
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a dental implants used to form root analogues for the attachment of dental prostheses, and more particularly, to such a dental implant having no externally threaded surfaces, particularly configured for use in areas of relatively low bone density.
2. Background Information
Cylindrical dental implants have been in use since 1976, with several different designs being incorporated into dental therapy. A dental implant is used where there are missing teeth, to act as a root analogue supporting a dental prosthetic device fitting on top of the implant. Such an implant typically has an internal threaded hole, extending inward from a hexagonally shaped surface portion, to be used for the attachment of a dental prosthetic device. The prosthesis is then screwed onto the implant, with an intermediate portion of the prosthesis engaging the hexagonal portion of the implant to prevent rotation. The implant includes a generally cylindrical portion extending from the surface portion to an apical portion at the opposite end.
Some dental implants have helically threaded exterior cylindrical surfaces and are normally inserted in dense bone areas such as the front jaw. These implants are literally screwed into properly sized holes drilled into the bone. Other dental implants are generally cylindrical shaped, without threads, and are placed into holes previously drilled into the bone. These non-threaded implants have surface designs adapted for the attachment to new bone growth. Conventional non-threaded cylindrical implants have openings extending through their apical portions for the intended purpose of permitting a space to accommodate new bone growth. However, recent research has shown that new bone growth does not predictably fill these openings. For example, the article by M. S. Block, I. M. Finger, M. G. Fontenot, and J. N. Kent, entitled "Loaded Hydroxylapatite and Grit-Blasted Titanium Implants in Dogs", in The International Journal of Oral & Maxillofacial Implants, Volume 4, pages 219 through 25, clearly shows that new bone does not completely fill these openings.
Chemical coatings and textured surfaces are also used to promote the attachment of bone to the implant. The Block et al article evaluated the response of canine mandibular bone to loaded hydroxylapatite coated and grit blasted titanium dental implants, and concluded that while soft tissue pocket depths were not statistically different, and crestal bone loss was not significantly different, the hydroxylapatite coated implants had a statistically significant greater amount of bone contacting their axial and apical surfaces. The implants used in this study included cylindrical axial portions with apical portions having cross drilled radial holes extending therethrough, and hemispherical apical ends.
One important function of the dental implant is the transmission of forces, generated by chewing actions on the prosthesis, into forces applied to the bone surrounding the implant, at stress levels compatible with the growth and maintenance of health bone tissue. Such stresses stimulate the surrounding bone, and, in accordance to Wolff's Law, if bone is not stimulated it will atrophy, whereas, if bone is over stimulated it will resorb in a process in which the calcified matrix dissolves away, lowering the density of the bone.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIOR ART
U.S. Pat. No. 4,668,191, issued to Plischka on May 26, 1987, describes a jaw implant, preferably made of aluminum oxide, having a screw head portion, and a lower cylindrical portion with an external helical screw thread extending to a spherically rounded end. The screw head portion has a flat outer surface, from which a central square hole descends into the head to accommodate the shank of a replacement tooth holder. The portion of the screw head provided for embedment into cortical bone tissue is not smaller than the outer diameter of the helical thread, while the screw head portion provided to extend through the gingivae increases in diameter while descending from the outer surface, through a truncoconical portion, before reducing to the diameter of the portion provided for embedment into bone.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,790,753, issued to Frandera on Dec. 13, 1988, describes a jaw implant, preferably made of titanium, consisting of a hexagonal screw head portion, a cylindrical lower portion with a helical exterior screw thread, and an intermediate frustoconical portion providing a ledge surface at the lower edge of the hexagonal portion, tapering down in diameter to the helically threaded lower portion. The apical portion of the implant includes a tapered portion extending to the end from the screw thread, while a central hole and a transverse slot extend upward from the end. This hole, the slot, and their intersection provide sharp edges in the apical region.
In the Frandera implant, an internally threaded hole extends downward from the upper surface of the hexagonal portion, and a cap with a central hole is provided to be fastened over the hexagonal portion, by means of a screw engaging the internally threaded hole. Attached in this way, the cap extends downward to align with the ledge surface, preventing the growth of gingival tissue over this ledge and around the hexagonal portion during the waiting period between implantation and fitting the dental prosthesis. This waiting period is required to allow healing and strengthening of the connection between the implant and surrounding bone tissue before the forces generated using the prosthesis are applied to the implant.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,793,808, issued to Kirsch on Dec. 27, 1988, describes means for attaching a dental prosthesis to a cylindrical implant. An implant post, which may be made using a synthetic elastically deformable material, is screwed into a threaded hole in the top surface of the implant. A fastening head, with a conical portion extending upward into the prosthesis, forms an upper portion of the implant post. A threaded hole extends downward from the top of the conical portion for the attachment, with a screw, of a prosthesis, which is thereby aligned to and pressed over the conical portion. Alternately, angular adjustment of the prosthesis may be provided by screwing a ball into place over the conical portion, with the prosthesis being attached to a socket engaging the surface of the ball and being locked thereto by an additional screw. The implant shown by Kirsch has a cylindrical body extending downward to a hemispherical apex. A pair of openings having cylindrically rounded edges extends entirely through the lower portion of the cylinder. The implant consists preferably of titanium, being highly polished on its upper end, while the lower part is roughened by knurling or sand blasting, or is coated with a titanium plasma process or with hydroxylapatite.
U.S Pat. No. 4,824,372, issued to Jorneus et al on Apr. 25, 1989, describes a substantially tubular spacer used for the attachment of a single tooth restoration to a cylindrical implant. A screw, with a head pressing on an annular shoulder of the tubular spacer and a threaded portion engaging a threaded central hole of the implant, is used to fasten the tubular spacer to the implant. A tool provided for this fastening operation has a central part engaging a slot in the screw and an outer part engaging the tubular spacer, so that equal but counter-directed torques can be applied to the screw and spacer, thereby eliminating torsional loading of the implant during the installation of the spacer. The implant shown by Jorneus et al is of the type having an external thread adapted to be screwed into bone. In the apical region, the Jorneus et al implant includes a tapered section used to align the implant with the hole drilled in the surrounding bone to receive it, sharp edged flutes so that threads can be cut into the bone as the implant is screwed inward, a cylindrical cavity extending upward from a flat lower surface, and a number of apertures extending radially through to this cavity from the outer surface.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,932,868, issued to Linkow, et al on Jun. 12, 1990, describes an implant having an external threads with flutes extending between a head and an unthreaded apical portion. The apical portion also includes a tapered portion and a flat bottom from which a cylindrical cavity extends upward. Slots are cut through the lower part of the threaded portion and the upper part of the unthreaded apical portion, extending into the cylindrical cavity. Edges of these slots form surfaces for cutting threads into the surrounding bone, and the slots carry bone chips downward and inward, so that they are directed at the base of the hole bored in the bone.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,934,935, issued to Edwards on Jun. 19, 1990 describes the use of an anchor, or cylindrical implant, together with an intermediate transmucosal spacer member for mounting a dental prosthesis with a post. The transmucosal spacer and the post constitute, in effect, an axially offset extension of the implant, the angle of offset of the post axis being variable and selectable by relative rotation of parts at a bonded and preferably keyed plug and socket connection between the spacer member and one end of the implant. Several implants are shown, each of which has a cylindrical shank portion above a helically threaded portion. The apical end of the implant is a shallow dome having sharp edges below a annular groove, and parallel flats, to interlock with bone. The apical ends and threaded portions of the implants further have one or more holes extending therethrough.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,960,381, issued to Niznick on Oct. 2, 1990 describes an implant having an external helical thread and an internal threaded hole, with an internal structure at an end of the internal hole for engaging a rotationally driving insertion tool. The distal, or apical, end has a cylindrical hole extending upward to intersect with a radial hole extending through the part.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,026,280, issued to Durr et al on Jun. 25, 1991, describes a method for mounting a conditionally removable denture, or prosthesis, on a threaded post extending through a centering collar to be fastened into a screw assembly in turn fastened into a cylindrical implant. The implant shown is of a type not having external helical threads, with a hemispherical apical end and a pair of vertically oriented parallel slots extending through the lower part of the cylindrical portion. The ends of the slots are cylindrically rounded.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,026,285, issued to Durr et al on Jun. 25, 1991, describes the use of a spacing element having two external threaded surfaces, the first of which engages the internal threads of a cylindrical dental implant, and the second of which engages a ring element fastened on top of the implant. A tool for fastening these elements in place includes concentric sleeves, one of which engages a head of the spacing element, while the other engages the ring element.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,100,323, issued to Friedman et al on Mar. 31, 1992, describes a dental implant having an unthreaded cylindrical body with a hexagonal head portion extending outward form an annular base. A generally cylindrical abutment with a face having a female hexagonal surface, configured to engage the head portion of the implant, is provided for use in the attachment of a prosthetic device by means of a screw extending through an unthreaded hole in the abutment to engage a threaded hole in the implant. The engagement of the hexagonal surfaces is used to prevent rotation of the abutment relative to the implant. The apical portion of the implant is similar to that described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,026,280 to Durr.
The types of implants of the prior art having external screw threads, adapted to be screwed into place and to form an internally threaded surface in the bone as they are so installed, have been shown to be relatively unsuitable for use, particularly in areas of lower bone density. Examples of implants having such threads are found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,668,191 to Plischka, 4,790,753 to Fradera, 4,932,868 to Linkow et al, 4,934,935 to Edwards, and 4,960,381 to Niznick. The unthreaded implants of the prior art have all included openings through the wall which creates problems when the bone attempts to grow thought the opening. Further, the bottom of the implant devices have not been designed to distribute the forces on the implant, such as from chewing, evenly into the bone in a manner best able to prevent atrophy or resorption of the bone. A dental implant device overcoming these problems is needed.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In accordance with one aspect of the invention, there is provided an integral dental implant including an upper end having an upper surface and an apical end, having a lower surface, opposite to the upper surface. The apical end further has a truncoconical surface extending from the lower surface toward the upper surface, the truncoconical surface being continuous and increasing in diameter along an axis from the lower surface to the upper surface. The implant further includes an generally cylindrical portion extending between the upper end and the apical end, which includes a plurality of longitudinally extending grooves in the surface thereof. Finally, the implant includes attachment means extending axially inward from the upper surface.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
Preferred embodiments or variations of the subject invention are hereafter described, with specific reference being made to the following Figures, in which:
FIG. 1 is a side elevation of a cylindrical dental implant made in accordance with the present invention;
FIG. 2 is a top elevation of the implant of FIG. 1;
FIG. 3 is a longitudinal cross-sectional view of the implant of FIG. 1, taken as indicated by section lines III--III in FIG. 1, showing in addition an attached cover screw;
FIG. 4 is a transverse cross-sectional view of the implant of FIG. 1, being taken as indicated by section lines IV--IV in FIG. 1;
FIG. 5 is a top elevation of an implant having an alternate head structure;
FIG. 6 is a side elevation of an alternative version of a cylindrical dental implant, without a flange between a head portion and a generally cylindrical portion, made in accordance with the present invention;
FIG. 7 is a side elevation of a second alternative version of a cylindrical dental implant, with a countersunk central hole instead of a head portion, also made in accordance with the present invention; and
FIG. 8 is a longitudinal cross-sectional view of a third alternative version of a cylindrical dental implant, also made in accordance with the present invention, having a countersunk central hole and a generally cylindrical portion with an enlarged diameter.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
FIGS. 1 through 4 show a first version of a dental implant made in accordance with the present invention, with FIGS. 1 and 2 being, respectively, side and top elevational views thereof, while FIGS. 3 and 4 are cross-sectional views taken asindicated, respectively, by lines III--III and IV--IV of FIG. 1.
Referring first to FIG. 1, a dental implant 10, which is preferably made from titanium or a titanium alloy, includes a generally cylindrical portion 12, an apical portion 14, a hexagonal head 16 (the shape of which is more clearly shown in FIG. 2), and a flange 18 between generally cylindrical portion 12 and head 16. Cylindrical portion 12 includes a number of longitudinally extending grooves 20, which provide gentle transitions in the shape of the surface. The shape of each groove 20 is shown particularly in the cross-sectional views of FIGS. 3 and 4. Generally, each groove 20 is shaped as an arcuate cylinder section extending into the surface 22 of cylindrical portion 12 and orientated parallel to the axis of cylindrical portion 12. The ends of each groove 20 are spherically rounded to provide a gentle transition in surface shape in both the longitudinal direction and the circumferential direction. Grooves 20 extend only slightly, if at all, into the upper half 23 of cylindrical portion 12, where a smooth cylindrical surface is provided without interruption.
As shown in FIG. 3, apical portion 14 includes a truncoconical surface 24 extending between cylindrical surface 22 and a flat annular bottom surface 26. A spherically rounded dimple 28 extends centrally into bottom surface 26. Flange 18 extends diametrically outward above cylindrical surface 22 and is connected to cylindrical surface 22 by a transition region 30. Flange 18 has a flat annular ledge 32 around hexagonally shaped head 16. Dental implant 10 also includes an internally threaded attachment hole 34 extending centrally inward from an upper surface 36 of head 16. The upper parts of attachment hole 34 include a cylindrical counterbore hole 38 and a small countersink 40.
In preferred usage, dental implant 10 is used to provide a root analogue to support an attached dental prosthetic device (not shown) in the rearward portion of the mouth, where bone is less dense than in the front of the jaw. The dental prosthetic device may be, for example, a single replacement tooth or a structure having two or more replacement teeth. In preparation for the insertion of implant 10, a hole is drilled in the bone by conventional techniques. Then implant 10 is inserted into the hole, with apical portion 14 being directed inward, and the insert is pushed into place. As noted above, grooves 20 do not extend into the upper portion of cylindrical portion 22. The reason for this structure is to provide a tight fit can between the upper surface of the implant and the hole drilled in the bone. A tight fit in this region blocks a potential pathway through which bacteria and other agents of infection might otherwise gain access to the hole drilled in the bone before the healing process is completed. An ungrooved length of 3 to 4 millimeters in the upper portion of cylindrical portion 12 is adequate for this purpose.
While the language used herein, along with the orientation of the Figures, may imply that hexagonal head 16 is an upwardly directed feature, it is to be understood that implant 10 can be used in both mandibular and maxillary applications, with the hexagonal head 16 always being directed outwardly from a hole drilled in the bone and apical portion 14 always facing the bottom of the hole.
After a suitable healing period, which provides time for new bone tissue to grow along various surfaces of implant 10, a dental prosthesis is attached to the top surface 36 of hexagonally shaped head 16 by means of a screw engaging attachment hole 34. The hexagonal shape of head 16 is provided to prevent rotation of the prosthesis relative to implant 10. The prosthesis, or an attachment device between the prosthesis and implant 10, has a cavity which engages head 16 when it is held downward by a screw engaging attachment hole 34. For example, the prosthesis or attachment device may include a hexagonal cavity fitting over head 16, extending to ledge 32 of flange 18.
The establishment and maintenance of healthy bone tissue in attachment with, or at least in very close proximity to, various surfaces of implant 10 is key to the success of any implant operation. To promote proper bone development, all surfaces below lower edge 41 of flange 18, including transition surface 30, cylindrical portion 12, and apical portion 14, are coated with a bioactive coating which attracts the growth of body tissue. For example, in a preferred embodiment, hydroxylapatite may be used. Alternatively, fluorapatite, bioactive carbons, and other bioactive materials may be used to coat the surfaces below edge 41. Instead of a bioactive coating, a controlled roughening of the metal surface may be used to promote adjacent bone attachment. According to the Block et al article, a titanium alloy (Ti-6Al-4V) can be grit blasted with 24 grit alumina particles at a pressure of 80 pounds per square inch for 10 seconds to create 25 to 50 micron irregularities, forming a surface suitable for this purpose. An alternate method for producing a suitable surface roughness on a titanium part is the flame spraying of titanium from a plasma.
Since it has been shown through animal studies that bone resorbs away from highly polished metal, hexagonal head 16 and flange 18 above lower edge 41 have highly polished surfaces without the surface roughening or coating described above. These upper surfaces of implant 10 are thus reserved for the adjacent growth of gingival tissue and for mating structures extending from the dental prosthesis or an attachment device between the prosthesis and implant 10. While U.S. Pat. No. 4,793,808 to Kirsch teaches the use of a titanium implant which is highly polished on its upper end, with a roughened or coated lower end, the advantage of the present invention is that the level of bone attachment is specifically limited by extending the polished metal of implant 10 down its side. A suitable demarcation between bone and gingival tissue is provided if the height, in the axial direction, of flange 18 is between 0.5 and 1.0 millimeter. Head 16 preferably extends between 0.7 millimeter and 1.5 millimeters above ledge 32, with 0.7 millimeter being the conventional distance, while 1.5 millimeters provides better retention of a single tooth prosthesis.
Since studies have shown that bone does not fully grow through radial cavities extending entirely through dental implants, cavities entirely through the implant are not included in implant 10. In the prior art implants, the material of the implant forms a stress shielded central section, to which the stresses produced by mastication and other forces acting on the implant are not transmitted at a level sufficient for the growth and maintenanee of healthy bone tissue in accordance with Wolff's Law. To overcome these problems of the prior art, cylindrical surface 22 of implant 10 remains generally continuous, except for the depressed regions formed by shallow grooves 20, and truncoconical surface 24 remains continuous. The general design of implant 10 remains one of relatively gentle changes in surface shapes, without deep slotted grooves, holes, and right angle edges.
Truncoconical surface 24 is of a shape which can be easily produced by machining or forging apical end 14 of implant 10. Also, the truncoconical shape mates with the end of a hole which can be easily drilled into bone with a properly shaped drill, and so that a close fit can be easily obtained. More importantly, truncoconical surface 24 transforms vertical forces on implant 10, caused by mastication, into outwardly radiated stresses in the adjacent bone tissue, thereby maintaining even stress levels compatible with the growth and maintenance of healthy bone tissue. While a full conical shape could be used to accomplish the same force transformation, it is less desirable than the truncoconical shape because of the additional depth required for a complete conical shape.
Apical end dimple 28 allows hemodynamic back pressure to be used to provide a venting area during the seating of implant 10 in a cavity drilled in bone. Thus, apical end of implant 10 demonstrates advantages over the prior art hemispheric end for an implant without external threads shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,793,808 to Kirsch and 5,026,280 to Durr et al and 5,100,323 to Friedman. In other prior art examples of implants having external threads, a truncoconical apical surface is used for alignment with a hole drilled in the bone, while vertical forces are transmitted between the implant and surrounding bone through the threads of the implant, rather than the bottom of the implant.
After the implantation of implant 10, bone tissue easily grows entirely into the spaces provided by shallow grooves 20 along generally cylindrical portion 12. Bone occupying the space within groove 20 is particularly useful in resisting any torque which might be applied about the axis of implant 10. However if significant stress is applied to the bone, it may fracture. In implant 10, the large angle between the interior surface of groove 20 and surface 22 of cylindrical portion 12, (which is significantly closer to 180 degrees than ninety degrees), results in no sharp angular stress points in the new bone growth. To further eliminate the bone stress, the edge between groove 20 and surface 22 may be rounded. Furthermore, the apical ends of grooves 20, when grooves 20 are filled with bone tissue, prevent outward motion of implant 10, which might occur, for example, if the dental prosthesis attached to implant 10 became adhered to a sticky food substance. Thus, the surfaces of cylindrical portion 12 and apical portion 14, without a radial opening extending therethrough, have maximized surfaces for the development of adjacent bone tissue, and optimized geometries for the transfer of forces to adjacent bone tissue.
Referring again to FIG. 3, in accordance with a preferred version of the invention, implant 10 is supplied to the patient with a threaded portion 42 of cover screw 43 fastened in engagement with threaded hole 34. Cover screw 43 is fastened into implant 10 by means of a tool (not shown) engaging a non-circular aperture 44 in head 45 of screw 43. Aperture 44, which may be, for example, generally hexagonal in transverse shape, preferably has sides tapered inward so that inner surface 46 of aperture 44 is smaller than the opening of the aperture. In this way, the axial force provided when the tool (not shown) is pushed into aperture 44 is multiplied by a wedging action to produce a relatively high level of opposing radial forces, which facilitate handling screw 43 and implant 10 attached thereto by means of a tool (not shown) without screw 43 falling off the tool. Because of the difficulties in positioning an implant within the mouth of a patient, the facilitation of such handling is particularly important. Head 45 of cover screw 43 includes a recessed cylindrical area 47, which forms clearance spaces around head 16 of implant 10 so that screw head 44 is clamped against annular ledge 32 around implant head 16. Head 45 also includes a truncoconical outer surface 48, which is tapered to reduce in diameter in the direction in which threaded portion 42 extends.
In accordance with a preferred method of usage, implant 10 is installed in suitable hole drilled in the bone of a patient. During the installation, screw 43 remains firmly attached in hole 34. Screw 43 is left in place during the healing process, during which the growth of bone produces an implant structure strong enough to withstand the forces of mastication. After the healing process is complete, screw 43 is removed using a tool (not shown) imparting a rotational torque through aperture 44. After screw 43 is removed, a suitable dental prosthesis is installed using another screw (not shown) by conventional dental techniques. Using screw 43 in this way retains the surfaces of head 16 and ledge 32 free from tissue and ready for the subsequent attachment of a dental prosthesis.
While the outer surfaces of screw head 45 are smooth metallic surfaces which do not encourage the adjacent growth of bone tissues or of gingival tissues, in some applications such growth will occur, presenting a potential problem in the removal of screw 43. To minimize this problem, truncoconical outer surface 48 is provided, whereby the outward axial motion of screw 43 pulls surface 48 uniformly away from such tissues. The design of screw head 45, thus, has a significant advantage over conventional protection caps of the prior art which lack the truncoconical outer shape of a protecting cover. It is understood that the features described above with reference to screw 43 can be applied separately to a screw used with the traditional type of implant having a threaded hole for an attachment screw and cover used during the healing process following insertion of a dental implant.
FIG. 5 is a top view of a cylindrical dental implant 49 having a head 50, extending above an upper surface 51 of flange 18 to an upper surface 52, with a different shape than that of head 16 of implant 10. Since the purpose of head 16 or 50 is basically the prevention of rotation of the prosthesis, or attachment device, relative to the implant, various types of surfaces for providing one or more features for keying engagement, radially displaced from center of threaded attachment hole 34, may be used for the head 16 or 50 of an implant. Implant 49 has two such features in the form of outward extending raised keys 53. Thus, implant 49 is an alternative form, which may otherwise have features similar or identical to those of implant 10, built in accordance with the present invention.
Referring now to FIG. 6, implant 54 is shown as another variation of the subject invention. In implants 10 and 49, flange 18 was provided to enlarge the area to which a dental prosthesis may be attached In some applications, this enlarged area is not required, so dental implant 54 is shown without an outward extending flange 18. In implant 54, a cylindrical surface 55 of a generally cylindrical portion 56 is extended to a ledge 58 below hexagonal head 16. Smooth, polished metal surfaces are provided above a level indicated by dashed line 60, while roughened metal surfaces or a bioactive surface coating, such as hydroxylapatite, are provided below line 60. To provide a suitable interface between bone and gingival tissue along the surface of implant 54, polished metal surfaces extend downward between 0.5 and 1.0 millimeter from ledge 58. Other aspects of implant 54, such as grooves 20 and apical portion 14, are as previously described portions of implant 10.
FIG. 7 shows an implant 62, which is another version of an implant built in accordance with the present invention. In implant 62, head 16 of implant 54 is eliminated, and, as shown in another alternative version of FIG. 8, a countersink 64 is provided to extend from an upper surface 66 into internally threaded hole 68. While the previously discussed implants 10, 49, and 54 include specific structure for preventing the rotation of a single tooth prosthesis attached to a single implant, implant 62 lacks that structure. Rather, implant 62 is designed for use where two or more implants are to be used for the attachment of a prosthesis including two or more replacement teeth. Countersink surface 64 can be used to center a prosthesis or attachment device fastened in place with a screw engaging threaded hole 68. Polished metal surfaces extend across the annular upper surface 66 of implant 62 and down cylindrical surface 70 for a distance preferably between 0.5 and 1.0 millimeter to a line 72, which indicates the beginning of a roughened or coated surface, as previously described with respect to implant 54 of FIG. 6.
FIG. 8 shows an implant 74, which is another version of an implant built in accordance with the present invention. Implant 74 has a generally cylindrical section 76 axially shortened and radially enlarged, to provide a suitable insert for use in the rear portions of the jawbone, where the bone is relatively wide, but where underlying nerves prevent drilling deeply. The countersunk attachment screw hole used in implant 62 is also used in implant 74. The diameter of the upper portion 78 of implant 74 is not increased with the increase in the diameter of section 76. Upper surface 66 has a smooth metallic surface, which extends down at least a portion of the side of upper portion 78 to retard the attachment or closely adjacent growth of bone tissue, while the remainder of the external surfaces of implant 74 are roughened or coated with a bioactive coating to promote such growth.
Screw 43, shown in FIG. 3, may also be applied to implants 62 and 74, with head portion 45 of screw 43 being sized to cover upper surface 66, keeping this surface 66 free from gingival and bone tissue during the healing process. In this application, recessed cylindrical area 47 is not required, although it does not interfere with the function of screw 43.
Along with the variations described above among types of implants made in accordance with the present invention, it is desirable to provide variations in the size of implants. Different sizes of implants are needed for different applications, as determined by factors such as the size of bones and dental features within the mount of a patient and by the specific location for which a prosthesis is needed. Implants 10, 49, 54, 62, and 74 can collectively be made in several diameters within a range typically between 2.9 millimeters and 6.0 millimeters. Within this range of diameters, suitable grooves 20 have a radius, as seen in a cross-sectional view such as FIG. 4, of 0.9 millimeter and are cut or formed to a depth of 0.3 millimeter below the surrounding cylindrical surface 22. Implants having diameters between, for example, 4.0 and 6.0 millimeters may have six equally spaced grooves 22, while implants having smaller diameters have four equally spaced grooves. The implants 10, 49, 53, and 62 can also be made in several lengths typically within a range between 4 millimeters and 20 millimeters.
The various types of implants described above can also be used to provide variations in the diameter of the generally cylindrical portion extending into the bone, as required to accommodate use in various types of bone structures, while the upper portion of the implant remains at a constant diameter to accommodate standard fittings for a prosthesis. For example, the diameter of the upper portion of the implant may remain at 4 millimeters, while the diameter of the lower portion varies between 2.9 millimeters and 6.0 millimeters, extending outward or inward from the upper portion.
It is to be understood that various other combinations of the features described herein are both useful and within the scope of this invention. For example, the outward-extending cylindrical portion of implant 74, shown in FIG. 8, can be usefully applied to an implant having a hexagonal head, like that of implant 10, shown in FIGS. 1 through 4. | A dental implant for holding a dental prosthesis in place, after implantation within a hole drilled in bone, includes an upper surface, a generally cylindrical portion with a plurality of longitudinal shallow grooves, and an apical portion. The shallow circumferential grooves permit bone to grow entirely therein, so that the entire exposed surface of the implant has bone adhered thereto. The apical portion has a continuous truncoconical surface for diffusing the stresses into the bone. The head and uppermost portion of the cylinder have a smooth metal surface to retard the attachment of bone after implantation, while the remaining portion of the implant has either a roughened metal surface or a bioactive coating, such as hydroxylapatite, fluorapatite, or a bioactive carbon for the purpose of promoting the attachment of bone. A cap, having an outward expanding truncoconical head, is attached to the implant before implantation and left in place during a healing process to keep the upper portion of the implant free of tissues and ready for the attachment of a prosthesis. | 0 |
This application is a National Stage completion of PCT/EP2013/051982 filed Feb. 1, 2013, which claims priority from German patent application serial no. 10 2012 203 936.8 filed Mar. 14, 2012.
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The invention concerns a multi-gear transmission of planetary design, in particular for a motor vehicle.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Such multi-gear transmissions are preferably used as automatic transmissions of motor vehicles, wherein the power flow acting in each gear within the planetary gearset is defined by selective actuation of the shifting elements. Furthermore, in an automatic transmission the planetary gearsets are usually connected to a starting element that is subject to slip and optionally provided with a locking clutch, such as a hydrodynamic torque converter or a liquid clutch.
From DE 10 2008 000 428 A1 a planetary multi-gear transmission is known, in which, in a housing four planetary gearsets and a total of eight rotating shafts are arranged, one of which is the drive input shaft and another the drive output shaft of the multi-gear transmission. In addition, in the area of the shafts at least six shifting elements are provided, by the selective actuation of which the power flow within the four planetary gearsets is varied and such that various transmission ratios between the drive input and the drive output can be defined. In that way, nine forward gears and one reverse gear can be engaged.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The purpose of the present invention is to indicate an alternative multi-gear transmission, preferably with improved efficiency and with a sufficiently large and sufficiently uniformly distributed range of transmission ratios.
The objective of the invention is achieved by a multi-gear transmission comprising at least four planetary gearsets, a housing, a drive input shaft and a drive output shaft, wherein:
a carrier of the fourth planetary gearset connected to the housing in a rotationally fixed manner, a ring gear of the first planetary gearset is connected in a rotationally fixed manner to a sun gear of the fourth planetary gearset, the drive input shaft can be coupled to a sun gear of the first planetary gearset by means of a first clutch, a ring gear of the fourth planetary gearset can be coupled to the drive output shaft by means of a second clutch, a carrier of the first planetary gearset can be coupled to the housing by a first brake, the sun gear of the first planetary gearset can be coupled to the housing by a second brake, and at least four of the following connections are formed permanently whereas at least two of the following connections can be formed detachably by means of at least one shifting element: connection of a ring gear of the second planetary gearset to the carrier of the first planetary gearset, connection of the ring gear of the first planetary gearset to a carrier of the second planetary gearset, connection of the ring gear of the first planetary to a sun gear of a third planetary gearset, connection of a ring gear of the third planetary gearset to the drive output shaft, connection of the drive input shaft to a sun gear of the second planetary gearset, connection of the drive input shaft to a carrier of the third planetary gearset.
A planetary gearset is in particular understood to mean a gearset that comprises at least one sun gear which meshes with one or more planetary gearwheels, a carrier that determines the axes of the planetary gearwheels, and a ring gear which meshes with the planetary gearwheels. Preferably, the ring gear has inner teeth and the sun gear gas outer teeth.
An advantage of the invention can be that the shifting elements of the multi-gear transmission, i.e. the brakes and clutches of the transmission, can be accessed easily from the outside. Thus the actuators, such as electric motors, hydraulic valves, hydraulic pumps and the like, can be arranged close to the shifting elements whereby mechanical and/or hydraulic losses are reduced and less energy may be required for actuating the shifting elements. Less energy may also be needed for maintaining a shifting element in its current operating condition at the time, namely open or closed, for example since by virtue of short pressure lines pressure losses are also lower. This also makes it possible to arrange shifting elements on the housing and therefore at least in part rotationally fixed, such that seals that connect a static line with a rotating line can be wholly or partially avoided.
The spatial arrangement of shifting elements that are easily accessible also simplifies the replacement of the usually hydraulically actuated disk clutches or disk brakes, for example by electro-mechanically or electro-hydraulically actuated brakes and clutches, which can be comparatively simply actuated as necessary. Easily accessible shifting elements are on the one hand brakes that couple a shaft to the housing in a rotationally fixed manner, but also shifting elements on external shafts of the multi-gear transmission, preferably on the drive input shaft or the drive output shaft, to these brakes the hydraulic fluid needed for actuation of these brakes can be supplied comparatively simply.
Besides this characteristic, the multi-gear transmission also has good gearing efficiency, only slight loading of the components, in particular planetary gearsets and shifting element torques, low absolute and relative rotation speeds, and/or little structural complexity. The latter feature enables the multi-gear transmission to be produced with relatively low weight and for low cost. Finally, the multi-gear transmission also provides a good transmission ratio range, i.e. a user-friendly gear gradation.
In general, a preferred embodiment of the multi-gear transmission has four planetary gearsets, four clutches, two brakes and a fixed housing coupling.
By actuation of two shifting elements at a time (brakes and/or clutches), nine forward gears and one reverse gear can be engaged, whereas for the fourth gear another three alternative shift positions are available.
As the starting element a hydrodynamic torque converter, a hydrodynamic clutch, an additional starting clutch, an integrated starting clutch or brake and/or an additional electric machine can be used.
In principle an electric machine or some other force/power source can be arranged on any shaft. Moreover, in principle a freewheel can be arranged on any shaft, to the housing or to another shaft.
Preferably, the multi-gear transmission is configures as a standard drive unit although a front transverse configuration is also conceivable.
All the shifting elements can be frictional or interlocking. Preferably, however, the clutch that connects the drive input shaft to the sun gear of the first planetary gearset and/or the clutch that connects the ring gear of the fourth planetary gearset to the drive output shaft are in the form of interlocking clutches, in particular claw clutches, which results in substantially better efficiency and hence substantial fuel consumption advantages.
In this case it was realized that when shifting through from the first to the ninth gear the first and second clutches have to be actuated only once, so those shifting elements are particularly suitable to be designed as claw clutches. Furthermore, it was realized that in the case of those two shifting elements, owing to their comparatively infrequent actuation, the advantage of better efficiency outweighs the disadvantage of more difficult manipulation. In particular, it was recognized that the two shifting elements can be actuated in comparatively high gears, whereby the rotational speed difference between the shafts can be small and therefore favorable for the actuation of a claw clutch.
The geometrical position (sequence) of the individual gearsets can be freely chosen provided that it permits the appropriate connections between elements. Thus, the position of individual elements can be modified as desired.
Other advantageous variants of the multi-gear transmission emerge from the description in combination with the figures. These all have the same functional properties as the main system, in particular the same efficiency, the same gradation, etc.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
For the better understanding of the invention, it is described in more detail with reference to the figures shown below.
The figures shown in each case in greatly simplified schematic form:
FIG. 1 : A first, schematically represented example variant of a multi-gear transmission according to the invention, and FIG. 1A shows a variant of this figure;
FIG. 2 : A second, schematically represented example variant of a multi-gear transmission according to the invention;
FIG. 3 : A third, schematically represented example variant of a multi-gear transmission according to the invention;
FIG. 4 : A fourth, schematically represented example variant of a multi-gear transmission according to the invention;
FIG. 5 : A fifth, schematically represented example variant of a multi-gear transmission according to the invention;
FIG. 6 : A sixth, schematically represented example variant of a multi-gear transmission according to the invention;
FIG. 7 : A seventh, schematically represented example variant of a multi-gear transmission according to the invention;
FIG. 8 : A eighth, schematically represented example variant of a multi-gear transmission according to the invention; and
FIG. 9 : A ninth, schematically represented example variant of a multi-gear transmission according to the invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
By way of introduction it should be noted that in the various embodiments described the same components are given the same indexes, so that in the disclosures given throughout the description, components with the same indexes can be logically regarded as equivalent. Likewise, positional details chosen in the description, such as above, below, lateral, etc., refer to the figure being described at the time and in the event of a position change should be logically transferred to the new position. Furthermore, individual features or combinations thereof in the various example embodiments shown and described, represent inventive solutions in their own right or ones according to the invention.
FIG. 1 shows a multi-gear transmission comprising four planetary gearsets 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , a drive input shaft 70 , a drive output shaft 71 , six further rotating shafts and six shifting elements 51 , 52 , 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , of which two are brakes 51 , 52 and four are clutches 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 . The four planetary gearsets 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 are arranged one after another in the sequence of the first planetary gearset 1 , the second planetary gearset 2 , the third planetary gearset 3 and the fourth planetary gearset 4 . The first, second and third planetary gearsets 1 , 2 , 3 are in the form of minus planetary gearsets, whereas the fourth planetary gearset is a plus planetary gearset. The planetary gearsets 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 are accommodated together in a housing 72 . In the multi-gear transmission variant shown in FIG. 1 :
a carrier of the fourth planetary gearset 4 is connected to a housing 72 in a rotationally fixed manner, a ring gear of the first planetary gearset 1 is connected in a rotationally fixed manner to a sun gear of the fourth planetary gearset 4 , the drive input shaft 70 can be coupled by the first clutch 61 to a sun gear 11 of the first planetary gearset 1 , a ring gear 42 of the fourth planetary gearset 4 can be coupled by a second clutch 62 to the drive output shaft 71 , a carrier 13 of the first planetary gearset 1 can be coupled by a second brake 52 to the housing 72 , the sun gear 11 of the first planetary gearset 1 can be coupled by a first brake 51 to the housing 72 , the ring gear 22 of the second planetary gearset 2 is permanently connected to the carrier 13 of the first planetary gearset 1 , the ring gear 12 of the first planetary gearset 1 is permanently connected to the carrier 23 of the second planetary gearset 2 , the ring gear 12 of the first planetary gearset 1 is permanently connected to the sun gear 31 of the third planetary gearset 3 , the ring gear 32 of the third planetary gearset 3 is permanently connected to the drive output shaft 71 , the drive input shaft 70 can be coupled by a fourth clutch 64 to the sun gear 21 of the second planetary gearset 2 , and the drive input shaft 70 can be coupled by a third clutch 63 to the carrier 33 of the third planetary gearset 3 .
FIG. 2 shows a multi-gear transmission very similar to the multi-gear transmission of FIG. 1 , but which differs therefrom in the following particulars:
The ring gear 22 of the second gearset 2 can be coupled by a fourth clutch 64 to the carrier 13 of the first gearset 1 , and
the drive input 70 is permanently connected to the sun gear 21 of the second gearset 2 .
FIG. 3 shows a further multi-gear transmission very similar to the multi-gear transmission of FIG. 1 , but which differs from the embodiment of FIG. 1 in the following particulars:
The ring gear 12 of the first gearset 1 can be coupled by a fourth clutch 64 to the carrier 23 of the second gearset 2 , and
the drive input shaft 70 is permanently connected to the sun gear 21 of the second gearset 2 .
FIG. 4 shows another variant of a mufti-gear transmission comprising four planetary gearsets 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , a drive input shaft 70 , a drive output shaft 71 , six further rotating shafts and six shifting elements 51 , 52 , 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 of which two 51 , 52 are brakes and four 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 are clutches. The four planetary gearsets 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 are arranged one after another in the sequence of the first planetary gearset 1 , the second planetary gearset 2 , the third planetary gearset 3 and the fourth planetary gearset 4 . The first, second and third planetary gearsets 1 , 2 , 3 are in the form of minus planetary gearsets whereas the fourth planetary gearset 4 is a plus planetary gearset. The planetary gearsets 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 are jointly accommodated in a housing 72 . In the variant shown in FIG. 4 :
the carrier of the fourth planetary gearset 4 is connected rotationally fixed to the housing 72 , the ring gear of the first planetary gearset 1 is connected rotationally fixed to the sun gear 41 of the fourth planetary gearset 4 , the drive input shaft 70 can be coupled by a first clutch 61 to the sun gear 11 of the first planetary gearset 1 , the ring gear 42 of the fourth planetary gearset 4 can be coupled by a second clutch 62 to the drive output shaft 71 , the carrier 13 of the first gearset 1 can be coupled by a second brake 52 to a housing 72 , the sun gear 11 of the first gearset 1 can be coupled by a first brake 51 to the housing 72 , the ring gear of the second gearset 2 is permanently connected to the carrier 13 of the first gearset 1 , the ring gear 12 of the first gearset 1 is permanently connected to a carrier 23 of the second gearset 2 , the ring gear 12 of the first gearset 1 is permanently connected to the sun gear of the third gearset 3 , the ring gear 32 of the third gearset 3 can be coupled by a third clutch 63 to the drive output shaft 71 , the drive input shaft 70 can be coupled by a fourth clutch 64 to the sun gear 21 of the second gearset 2 , and the drive input shaft 70 is permanently connected to the carrier 33 of the third gearset 3 .
FIG. 5 shows a multi-gear transmission that differs from the multi-gear transmission of FIG. 4 in the following particulars: the ring gear 12 of the first gearset 1 can be coupled by a third clutch 63 to the sun gear of the third gearset 3 , and the ring gear 32 of the third gearset 3 is permanently connected to the drive output shaft 71 .
FIG. 6 shows a multi-gear transmission that differs from the multi-gear transmission of FIG. 4 in the following particulars: the ring gear of the second gearset 2 can be coupled by a fourth clutch 64 to the carrier 13 of the first gearset 1 , and the drive input shaft 70 is permanently connected to a sun gear 21 of the second gearset 2 .
Furthermore, the sun gear of the second gearset 2 is permanently connected to the drive input shaft.
FIG. 8 shows a multi-gear transmission very similar to the multi-gear transmission of FIG. 6 , and in which only the points h) and k) are differently designed. To be specific: the ring gear 12 of the first gearset 1 can be coupled by a fourth clutch 64 to a carrier 23 of the second gearset 2 , and the drive input 70 is permanently connected to a sun gear 21 of the second gearset 2 .
Finally, FIG. 9 shows a multi-gear transmission that differs from the multi-gear transmission of FIG. 8 in the following particulars:
The ring gear 12 of the first gearset 1 can be coupled by a third clutch 63 to a sun gear of a third gearset 3 , and a ring gear 32 of the third gearset 3 is permanently connected to the drive output 71 .
With all the multi-gear transmissions shown in FIGS. 1 to 9 the following gears can be engaged:
A first gear can be obtained by closing the second brake 52 , the second clutch 62 and the fourth clutch 64 .
A second gear can be obtained by closing the first brake 51 , the second clutch 62 and the fourth clutch 64 .
A third gear can be obtained by closing the first, second and fourth clutches 61 , 62 and 64 .
A fourth gear can be obtained by closing the second, third and fourth clutches 62 , 63 and 64 , or
by closing the first brake 51 , the second clutch 62 and the third clutch 63 , or
by closing the first, second and third clutches 61 , 62 and 63 .
A fifth gear can be obtained by closing the first clutch 61 , the third clutch 63 and the fourth clutch 64 .
A sixth gear can be obtained by closing the first brake 51 , the third clutch 63 and the fourth clutch 64 .
A seventh gear can be obtained by closing the second brake 52 , the third clutch 63 and the fourth clutch 64 .
An eighth gear can be obtained by closing the first brake 51 , the second brake 52 and the third clutch 63 .
A ninth gear can be obtained by closing the second brake 52 , the first clutch 61 and the third clutch 63 .
A reverse gear can be obtained by closing the second brake 52 , the first clutch 61 and the second clutch 62 .
In all cases, the shifting elements not mentioned are open.
Preferably, in the multi-gear transmissions shown:
the first gearset 1 is a minus gearset, the second gearset 2 is a minus gearset, the third gearset 3 is a minus gearset, and the fourth gearset 4 is a plus gearset.
In an advantageous variant the transmission ratio of:
the first gearset 1 between the sun gear 11 and the ring gear 12 equals −2.015, and the second gearset 2 between the sun gear 21 and the ring gear 22 equals −1.600, and the third gearset 3 between the sun gear 31 and the ring gear 32 equals −1.700, and the fourth gearset 4 between the sun gear 41 and the ring gear 42 equals +1.804.
In general, instead of a first-mentioned connection/coupling to a carrier 13 , 23 , 33 , 43 of a gearset 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 and a second-mentioned connection/coupling to a ring gear 12 , 22 , 32 , 42 of the gearset 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , the first-mentioned connection/coupling can be made to the ring gear 12 , 22 , 32 , 42 of the gearset 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 and the second-mentioned connection/coupling can be made to the carrier 13 , 23 , 33 , 43 of the gearset 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , whereby the gearset 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , instead of being a minus gearset, becomes a plus gearset or instead of being a plus gearset, becomes a minus gearset. In other words, the connections/couplings to the carrier 13 , 23 , 33 , 43 and to the ring gear 12 , 22 , 32 , 42 of a gearset 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 are interchanged and the rotational direction between the sun gear 11 , 21 , 31 , 41 and the ring gear 12 , 22 , 32 , 42 of this gearset 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , is reversed. An example of such variation is shown in FIG. 1A of the drawings. In the layout of the multi-gear transmission it should also be noted that the value of the fixed transmission ratio of the gearset should be increased or reduced by 1, respectively, if the shiftable transmission ratios between the drive input 70 and the drive output 71 are otherwise to remain unchanged. By virtue of the variation of the gearsets 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 the connection/coupling between the individual transmission elements can therefore be varied without thereby changing the characteristic of the transmission. This possibility provides for a large number of design variants which, in individual cases, may simplify the production of the transmission. The aforesaid interchanging of the connection/coupling is not restricted to just one gearset 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 but can also be implemented in more than one gearset 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 .
The example embodiments illustrate possible embodiment variants of a multi-gear transmission according to the invention, but at this point it should be said that the invention is not limited specifically to the embodiment variants thereof illustrated, but rather, the individual embodiment variants can be combined with one another and such possible variation lies within the competence of a specialist active in the technical field concerned by virtue of vocational training in technical procedures by objective innovation. In particular, the options arising from such combinations but not explicitly illustrated in the figures are covered by the scope of protection. Furthermore, all conceivable embodiment variants made possible by combinations of individual details of the embodiment variants illustrated and described are also covered by the scope of protection.
For the sake of completeness let it finally be pointed out that for the better understanding of the structure of the multi-gear transmission, the structure has been illustrated in the figures in a schematic manner, and in reality therefore, it can comprise more components, fewer components or even components other than those shown. In general, the specific design details lie within the scope of specialized knowledge of the field.
The objectives addressed by the independent inventive solutions emerge from the description.
INDEXES
1 First transmission gearset
2 Second transmission gearset
3 Third transmission gearset
4 Fourth transmission gearset
11 Sun gear of the first transmission gearset
12 Ring gear of the first transmission gearset
13 Carrier of the first transmission gearset
21 Sun gear of the second transmission gearset
22 Ring gear of the second transmission gearset
23 Carrier of the second transmission gearset
31 Sun gear of the third transmission gearset
32 Ring gear of the third transmission gearset
33 Carrier of the third transmission gearset
41 Sun gear of the fourth transmission gearset
42 Ring gear of the fourth transmission gearset
43 Carrier of the fourth transmission gearset
51 First brake
52 Second brake
61 First clutch
62 Second clutch
63 Third clutch
64 Fourth clutch
70 Drive input
71 Drive output
72 Housing | A four-stage multi-gear transmission in which the carrier of a fourth gearset ( 4 ) is connected in a rotationally fixed manner to a housing ( 72 ), a ring gear of a first gearset ( 1 ) is connected rotationally fixed to a sun gear ( 41 ) of the fourth gearset ( 4 ), a drive input ( 70 ) can couple, via a first clutch ( 61 ), a sun gear ( 11 ) of the first gearset ( 1 ), a ring gear ( 42 ) of the fourth gearset ( 4 ) can couple, via a second clutch ( 62 ), a drive output ( 71 ), a carrier ( 13 ) of the first gearset ( 1 ) can couple, via a first brake ( 51 ), a housing ( 72 ) and the sun gear ( 11 ) of the first gearset ( 1 ) can couple, via a second brake ( 52= ), the housing ( 72 ). Varying other couplings within the multi-gear transmission can provide a range of transmissions with similar properties. | 5 |
TECHNICAL FIELD
[0001] The present invention relates to a filter comprising nanofiber and method for manufacturing the same, and more particularly, to a filter comprising nanofiber produced by electrospinning polymer spinning solution on a substrate, and method for manufacturing the same.
BACKGROUND ART
[0002] Generally, a filter is a filtering medium which filters out foreign matter in fluid, and comprises a liquid filter and an air filter. An air filter is used for prevention of defective high-tech products along with high-tech industry development. An air filter eliminates biologically harmful things such as dust in air, particles, bio particles such as virus and mold, bacteria, etc. An air filter is applied in various fields such as production of semiconductor, assembly of computing device, hospital, food processing plant, food and agriculture field, and also widely used in workplace with a lot of dust, and thermoelectric power plant. Gas turbine used in thermal power plant intakes purified air from outside, compresses it, injects compressed air with fuel to combustion burner, mixes them, combusts mixed air and fuel, obtains high temperature and high pressure combustion gas, injects the high temperature and high pressure combustion gas to vane of turbine, and attains rotatory power. Since the gas turbine comprises very precise components, periodic planned preventive maintenance is performed, and wherein the air filter is used for pretreatment to purify air in the atmosphere which inflows to a compressor.
[0003] Here, when an air filter adopts air for combustion intake to gas turbine, stop from permeating foreign substances in atmosphere such as dust into a filter medium, and provides purified air. However, particles with larger particle size form Filter Cake on the surface of the filter medium. Also, fine particles gradually accumulate in the filter medium, and block gas hole of the filter medium. Eventually, when particles accumulate on the surface of filter medium, it increases pressure loss of a filter, and decline sustainability of a filter.
[0004] Meanwhile, conventional air filter provides static electricity to fiber-assembly comprising a filter medium, and measures efficiency according to the principle collecting by electrostatic force. However, the Europe air filter standard classification EN779 is revised recently to eliminate efficiency of filter by static electricity effect in 2012 and revealed that conventional filter actual efficiency decreases 20% or more.
[0005] In order to solve the problems stated above, various methods which apply to filter by producing nanosize fiber have been developed and used. A nanofilter realized with nanofiber to filter, in comparison with to conventional filter medium having large diameter, specific-surface area is very large, flexibility of surface functionality is good, gas hole size has nano level, and harmful fine particles are effectively eliminated. However, realization of filter using nanofiber has problems such as increasing production cost, difficulty in adjusting various conditions for production, difficulty in mass-production, and filter using nanofiber could not be produced and distributed in relatively low unit cost. Also, since conventional technology of spinning nanofiber is limited to small scale production line concentrating on laboratory, there is no case of introduction of spinning-section as unit concept.
DISCLOSURE
Technical Problem
[0006] The present invention is contrived to solve the problems stated above, the present invention relates to a filter comprising nanofiber non-woven fabric laminating formed by electrospinning polymer spinning solution on a substrate and its manufacturing method. The present invention provides a filter and its manufacturing method that can have less pressure lose than conventional filter, increase filtering efficiency, and extend filter sustainability.
[0007] Moreover, the present invention is directed to providing a filter produced by introducing unit concept in electrospinning, which can mass-produce, and produces filter with uniformed quality.
Technical Solution
[0008] According to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the filter comprises a cellulose substrate and polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric laminating formed on the cellulose substrate by electrospinning polyvinylidene fluoride solution, and features thermosetting of the cellulose substrate and the polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric.
[0009] According to another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the filter comprises nanofiber that polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric includes a first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric layer with fiber diameter of 150 to 300 nm and a second polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric layer with fiber diameter of 100 to 150 nm laminating formed on the first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven by electrospinning.
[0010] According to yet another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, hot-melt electrospinning layer is provided between a cellulose substrate and the polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric.
[0011] According to another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric is produced by solution which mixed polyvinylidene fluoride and hot-melt.
[0012] According to yet another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the filter comprising nanofiber is laminated and electrospinned polyvinylidene fluoride solution on polyvinylidene fluoride-hot-melt nanofiber non-woven fabric produced by solution mixed polyvinylidene fluoride and hot-melt. Here, hot-melt is preferably polyvinylidene fluoride group hot-melt.
[0013] According to another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the cellulose substrate comprises cellulose and polyethylene terephthalate.
[0014] According to yet another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, composition rate of cellulose substrate is the cellulose 70 to 90 weight % and the polyethylene terephthalate 10 to 30 weight %.
[0015] According to another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the cellulose substrate is coated with a flame resistant.
[0016] According to yet another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the filter comprising nanofiber comprises a bicomponent substrate and polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric laminated by electrospinning polyvinylidene fluoride solution on the bicomponent substrate, and the bicomponent substrate and the polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric is thermosetted each other.
[0017] According to another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the filter comprising nanofiber comprises a substrate and nanofiber non-woven fabric laminated by electrospinning solution mixed polyvinylidene fluoride and polyurethane on the substrate, and the substrate and the nanofiber non-woven fabric is thermosetted each other.
[0018] According to yet another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the filer comprising nanofiber comprises a substrate, polyurethane nanofiber non-woven fabric laminated by electrospinning on the substrate, and polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric laminated by electrospinning on the polyurethane nanofiber non-woven fabric, and the polyurethane nanofiber non-woven fabric and the polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric is thermosetted each other.
[0019] According to another example embodiment of the present invention, the filter comprising nanofiber comprises a substrate, nylon nanofiber non-woven fabric with fiber diameter of 100 to 150 nm on the substrate, and polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric with fiber diameter of 80 to 150 nm laminated by electrospinning on the nylon nanofiber non-woven fabric.
[0020] According to yet another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the filter comprising nanofiber comprises a substrate, low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric laminated by electrospinning on the substrate, and high melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric laminated by electrospinning on the low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, the substrate, the low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, and the high melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric are thermosetted each other.
[0021] According to another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the filter comprising nanofiber comprises a polyethylene terephthalate substrate, a first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric with fiber diameter of 200 to 250 nm laminated by electrospinning on the polyethylene terephthalate substrate, a second polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric with fiber diameter of 150 to 200 nm laminated by electrospinning on the first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, and a third polyvinylidene fluoride with fiber diameter of 100 to 150 nm laminated by electrospinning on the second polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric.
[0022] According to yet another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the filter comprising nanofiber comprises a polyethylene terephthalate substrate, a bicomponent substrate laminated on the polyethylene terephthalate substrate, and nylon nanofiber non-woven fabric laminated by electrospinning on the bicomponent substrate, and the polyethylene terephthalate substrate, the bicomponent substrate, and the nylon nanofiber non-woven fabric are thermosetted each other.
[0023] According to another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the filter comprising nanofiber comprises a polyethylene terephthalate substrate, a bicomponent substrate laminated on the polyethylene terephthalate substrate, and polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric laminated by electrospinning on the bicomponent substrate, and the polyethylene terephthalate substrate, the bicomponent substrate, and the polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric are thermosetted each other.
[0024] According to yet another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the filter comprising nanofiber comprises a polyethylene terephthalate substrate, a bicomponent substrate laminated on the polyethylene terephthalate substrate, high melting point and low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric laminated by electrospinning solution mixed high melting point polyvinylidene fluoride and low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride on the bicomponent substrate, and the polyethylene terephthalate substrate, the bicomponent substrate, and the high melting point and low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric are thermosetted each other.
[0025] According to another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the polyethylene terephthalate substrate comprises needle felt type polyethylene terephthalate substrate.
[0026] According to yet another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the filter comprising nanofiber comprises a first bicomponent substrate, polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric laminated by electrospinning on one side of the first bicomponent substrate, and a second bicomponent substrate adhered on another side of the first bicomponent substrate and not adhered the polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, and the polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, the first bicomponent substrate, and the second bicomponent substrate are thermosetted each other.
[0027] According to another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the filter comprising nanofiber comprises a first polyethylene terephthalate substrate, a first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric with fiber diameter of 150 to 300 nm laminated by electrospinning polyvinylidene fluoride solution on one side of the first polyethylene terephthalate substrate, a second polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric with fiber diameter of 100 to 150 nm laminated by electrospinning polyvinylidene fluoride solution on the first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, and a second polyethylene terephthalate substrate adhered on another side of the first polyethylene terephthalate substrate and not adhered the first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, and thermosetting of the first polyethylene terephthalate substrate, the second polyethylene terephthalate substrate, the first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, and the second polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric are thermosetted each other.
[0028] According to yet another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the filter comprising nanofiber comprises a polyethylene terephthalate substrate, a bicomponent substrate laminated on the polyethylene terephthalate substrate, polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric laminated by electrospinning on the bicomponent substrate, and meltblown non-woven fabric laminated on the polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, and the polyethylene terephthalate substrate, the bicomponent substrate, the polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, and meltblown non-woven fabric are thermosetted each other.
[0029] According to another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, by the electrospinning apparatus comprises 2 or more units, spinning solution main tank is independently connected and installed in nozzle of nozzle block located in each unit, and polymer spinning solution is spinned on a substrate located in a collector of each unit, method for manufacturing filter comprising nanofiber comprises a step of inserting polyvinylidene fluoride solution which dissolved polyvinylidene fluoride in solvent to spinning solution main tank of each unit, a step of laminating-forming polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric by consecutively electrospinning the polyvinylidene fluoride solution in nozzle of each of the unit on a cellulose substrate, and a step of thermosetting the cellulose substrate and the polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric.
[0030] According to yet another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the step of laminating-forming the polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric comprises a step of laminating-forming a first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric with fiber diameter of 150 to 300 nm in a first unit of the electrospinning apparatus and a step of laminating-forming a second polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric with fiber diameter of 100 to 150 nm in a second unit of the electrospinning apparatus.
[0031] According to another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the polyvinylidene fluoride solution includes producing solution mixed polyvinylidene fluoride and hot-melt.
[0032] According to yet another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the method for manufacturing filter comprising nanofiber comprises a step of laminating-forming the polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric including a step of forming polyvinylidene fluoride-hot-melt nanofiber non-woven fabric by electrospinning solution mixed polyvinylidene fluoride and hot-melt on a cellulose substrate in a first unit of the electrospinning apparatus and a step of laminating-forming polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric by electrospinning polyvinylidene fluoride solution on the polyvinylidene fluoride-hot-melt nanofiber non-woven fabric in a second unit of the electrospinning apparatus. Here, the hot-melt is preferably polyvinylidene fluoride group.
[0033] According to another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, by the electrospinning apparatus comprises 2 or more units, spinning solution main tank is independently connected and installed in nozzle of nozzle block located in each unit, and polymer spinning solution is spinned on a substrate located in a collector of each unit, method for manufacturing filter comprising nanofiber comprises a step of inserting hot-melt solution which dissolved hot-melt in solvent to a spinning solution main tank of a first unit and inserting polyvinylidene fluoride solution which dissolved polyvinylidene fluoride in solvent to a spinning solution main tank of a second unit of the electrospinning apparatus, a step of laminating-forming hot-melt electrospinning layer by electrospinning hot-melt solution on a cellulose substrate in the first unit, a step of laminating-forming polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric by consecutively electrospinning polyvinylidene fluoride solution on the hot-melt electrospinning layer in the second unit, and a step of thermosetting the cellulose substrate, the hot-melt electrospinning layer, and the polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric. Here, the hot-melt is preferably polyvinylidene fluoride group hot-melt.
[0034] According to yet another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, by the electrospinning apparatus comprises 2 or more units, spinning solution main tank is independently connected and installed in nozzle of nozzle block located in each unit, and polymer spinning solution is spinned on a substrate located in a collector of each unit, method for manufacturing filter comprising nanofiber comprises a step of inserting polyvinylidene fluoride solution which dissolved polyvinylidene fluoride in solvent to a spinning solution main tank of each unit, a step of laminating forming polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric by consecutively electrospinning the polyvinylidene fluoride solution in nozzle of each of the nozzle on a bicomponent substrate, and a step of thermosetting the bicomponent substrate and the polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric.
[0035] According to another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the manufacturing method for manufacturing filter comprising nanofiber comprises a step of producing spinning solution which mixed polyvinylidene fluoride and polyurethane, a step of laminating-forming nanofiber non-woven fabric by electrospinning the spinning solution on a substrate, and a step of thermosetting the substrate and the nanofiber non-woven fabric.
[0036] According to yet another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the manufacturing method manufacturing for filter comprising nanofiber comprises a step of producing polyvinylidene fluoride solution and polyurethane solution, a step of laminating-forming polyurethane nanofiber non-woven fabric by electrospinning the polyurethane solution on a substrate in a first unit of the electrospinning apparatus, a step of laminating-forming polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric by electrospinning the polyvinylidene fluoride solution on the polyurethane nanofiber non-woven fabric in a second unit of the electrospinning apparatus, and a step of thermosetting the substrate, the polyurethane nanofiber non-woven fabric, and the polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric.
[0037] According to yet another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, by the electrospinning apparatus comprises 2 or more units, spinning solution main tank is independently connected and installed in nozzle of nozzle block located in each unit, and polymer spinning solution is spinned on a substrate located in a collector of each unit, method for manufacturing filter comprising nanofiber comprises a step of producing nylon solution by dissolving nylon in solvent and producing polyvinylidene fluoride solution by dissolving polyvinylidene fluoride in solvent, a step of laminating-forming nylon nanofiber non-woven fabric with fiber diameter of 100 to 150 nm by electrospinning the nylon solution on a substrate in a first unit of the electrospinning apparatus, a step of laminating-forming polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric with fiber diameter of 80 to 150 nm by electrospinning the polyvinylidene fluoride solution on the nylon nanofiber non-woven fabric in a second unit of the electrospinning apparatus, a step of thermosetting the substrate, the nylon nanofiber non-woven fabric, and the polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric.
[0038] According to yet another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, by the electrospinning apparatus comprises 2 or more units, spinning solution main tank is independently connected and installed in nozzle of nozzle block located in each unit, and polymer spinning solution is spinned on a substrate located in a collector of each unit, method for manufacturing filter comprising nanofiber comprises a step of producing high melting point polyvinylidene fluoride solution by dissolving high melting point polyvinylidene fluoride in solvent and producing low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride solution by dissolving low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride in solvent, a step of laminating-forming low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric by electrospinning the low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride solution on a substrate in a first unit of the electrospinning apparatus, a step of laminating-forming high melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric by electrospinning the high melting point polyvinylidene fluoride solution on the low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric in a second unit of the electrospinning apparatus, and a step of thermosetting the substrate, the low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, and the high melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric.
[0039] According to another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, by the electrospinning apparatus comprises 2 or more units, spinning solution main tank is independently connected and installed in nozzle of nozzle block located in each unit, and polymer spinning solution is spinned on a substrate located in a collector of each unit, method for manufacturing filter comprising nanofiber comprises a step of producing polyvinylidene fluoride solution by dissolving polyvinylidene fluoride in solvent, a step of laminating-forming a first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric with fiber diameter of 200 to 250 nm by electrospinning the polyvinylidene fluoride solution on a substrate, a step of laminating-forming a second polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of fiber diameter of 150 to 200 nm by electrospinning the polyvinylidene fluoride solution on the first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, and a step of laminating-forming a third polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of fiber diameter of 100 to 150 nm by electrospinning the polyvinylidene fluoride solution on the second polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric.
[0040] According to yet another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, by the electrospinning apparatus comprises 2 or more units, spinning solution main tank is independently connected and installed in nozzle of nozzle block located in each unit, and polymer spinning solution is spinned on a substrate located in a collector of each unit, method for manufacturing filter comprising nanofiber comprises a step of inserting nylon solution which dissolved nylon in solvent to a spinning solution main tank of each unit, a step of laminating-forming nylon nanofiber non-woven fabric by electrospinning the nylon solution on one side of a bicomponent substrate in nozzle of each of the unit, a step of bonding polyethylene terephthalate substrate on another side of the bicomponent substrate which is not adhered to the nylon nanofiber non-woven fabric, and a step of thermosetting the nylon nanofiber non-woven fabric, the bicomponent substrate, and the polyethylene terephthalate substrate.
[0041] According to another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, by the electrospinning apparatus comprises 2 or more units, spinning solution main tank is independently connected and installed in nozzle of nozzle block located in each unit, and polymer spinning solution is spinned on a substrate located in a collector of each unit, method for manufacturing filter comprising nanofiber comprises a step of inserting polyvinylidene fluoride solution which dissolved polyvinylidene fluoride in solvent to spinning solution main tank of each unit, a step of laminating-forming polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric by electrospinning the polyvinylidene fluoride solution on one side of a bicomponent substrate in nozzle of each of the unit, a step of bonding polyethylene terephthalate substrate on another side of the bicomponent substrate not adhered to the polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, and a step of thermosetting the polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, the bicomponent substrate, and the polyethylene terephthalate substrate.
[0042] According to yet another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, by the electrospinning apparatus comprises 2 or more units, spinning solution main tank is independently connected and installed in nozzle of nozzle block located in each unit, and polymer spinning solution is spinned on a substrate located in a collector of each unit, method for manufacturing filter comprising nanofiber comprises a step of producing polyvinylidene fluoride solution which dissolved high melting point polyvinylidene fluoride and low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride in solvent, a step of laminating-forming high melting point and low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric by electrospinning the polyvinylidene fluoride solution on a bicomponent substrate, a step of bonding polyethylene terephthalate substrate on another side of the bicomponent substrate, and a step of thermosetting the high melting point and low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, the bicomponent substrate, and the polyethylene terephthalate substrate.
[0043] Here, the polyethylene terephthalate substrate includes needle felt type polyethylene terephthalate substrate.
[0044] According to another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, by the electrospinning apparatus comprises 2 or more units, spinning solution main tank is independently connected and installed in nozzle of nozzle block located in each unit, and polymer spinning solution is spinned on a substrate located in a collector of each unit, method for manufacturing filter comprising nanofiber comprises a step of inserting polyvinylidene fluoride solution which dissolved polyvinylidene fluoride in solvent to spinning solution main tank of each unit, a step of laminating-forming polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric by electrospinning the polyvinylidene fluoride solution on one side of a first bicomponent substrate in nozzle of each of the unit, a step of bonding a second bicomponent substrate on another side of the first bicomponent substrate not adhered to the polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, and a step of thermosetting the polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, the first bicomponent substrate, and the second bicomponent substrate.
[0045] According to yet another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, by the electrospinning apparatus comprises 2 or more units, spinning solution main tank is independently connected and installed in nozzle of nozzle block located in each unit, and polymer spinning solution is spinned on a substrate located in a collector of each unit, method for manufacturing filter comprising nanofiber comprises a step of inserting polyvinylidene fluoride solution which dissolved polyvinylidene fluoride in solvent to spinning solution main tank of each unit, a step of laminating-forming a first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of fiber diameter of 150 to 300 nm by electrospinning the polyvinylidene fluoride solution on one side of a first polyethylene terephthalate substrate in a first unit of the electrospinning apparatus, a step of laminating-forming a second polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of fiber diameter of 100 to 150 nm by electrospinning the polyvinylidene fluoride solution on the first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric in a second unit of the electrospinning apparatus, a step of bonding a second polyethylene terephthalate substrate on another side of the first polyethylene terephthalate substrate not adhered with the first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, a step of thermosetting the first polyethylene terephthalate substrate, the second polyethylene terephthalate substrate, the first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, and the second polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric.
[0046] According to another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, by the electrospinning apparatus comprises 2 or more units, spinning solution main tank is independently connected and installed in nozzle of nozzle block located in each unit, and polymer spinning solution is spinned on a substrate located in a collector of each unit, method for manufacturing filter comprising nanofiber comprises a step of producing polyvinylidene fluoride solution which dissolved polyvinylidene fluoride in solvent, a step of laminating-forming polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric by electrospinning the polyvinylidene fluoride solution on one side of a bicomponent substrate, a step of bonding polyethylene terephthalate substrate on another side of the bicomponent substrate and bonding meltblown non-woven fabric on the polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric.
Advantageous Effects
[0047] The filter according to the exemplary embodiment of the present invention by laminating-forming nanofiber non-woven fabric on a filter substrate, compared to conventional filter, is capable of lessening pressure lose, enhancing filter efficiency, and extending filter sustainability.
[0048] Moreover, the electrospinning apparatus manufacturing a filter of the present invention comprises at least 2 or more units and it is possible to consecutively electrospinning, thereby having an effect of mass-producing filter using nanofiber.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0049] FIG. 1 schematically shows a side view of an electrospinning apparatus according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
[0050] FIG. 2 schematically illustrates a side view of nozzle of a nozzle block installed in each unit of the electrospinning apparatus according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
[0051] FIG. 3 schematically illustrates a side view of nozzle of a nozzle block installed in each unit of the electrospinning apparatus according to another exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
[0052] FIG. 4 schematically depicts a top plan view of a nozzle block installed in each unit of the electrospinning apparatus according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
[0053] FIG. 5 schematically shows a front sectional view of heat transfer device in a nozzle block installed in each unit of the electrospinning apparatus according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
[0054] FIG. 6 is a cross-sectional view of A-A′line according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
[0055] FIG. 7 schematically shows a front sectional view of heat transfer device in a nozzle block installed in each unit of the electrospinning apparatus according to another exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
[0056] FIG. 8 shows a cross-sectional view of B-B′line according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
[0057] FIG. 9 schematically shows a front sectional view of heat transfer device in a nozzle block installed in each unit of the electrospinning apparatus according to the other exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
[0058] FIG. 10 shows a cross-sectional view of C-C′line according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
[0059] FIG. 11 schematically illustrates a view of an auxiliary carry device of the electrospinning apparatus according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
[0060] FIG. 12 schematically illustrates a view of an auxiliary belt roller of an auxiliary carry device of the electrospinning apparatus according to another exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
[0061] FIG. 13 to FIG. 16 schematically illustrate a side view of operation process of an elongated sheet carry speed adjusting device of the electrospinning apparatus according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
[0062] FIG. 17 schematically shows a view of a filter comprising polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric on a cellulose substrate according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
[0063] FIG. 18 schematically shows a view of a filter comprising polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric on a bicomponent substrate according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
[0064] FIG. 19 schematically shows a view of a filter comprising polyurethane and polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric on a substrate according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
[0065] FIG. 20 schematically depicts a view of a filter comprising polyurethane nanofiber non-woven fabric and polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric on a substrate according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
[0066] FIG. 21 schematically depicts a view of a filter comprising nylon nanofiber non-woven fabric and polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric on a substrate according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
[0067] FIG. 22 schematically depicts a view of a filter comprising low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric and high melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric on a substrate according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
[0068] FIG. 23 schematically illustrates a side view of an electrospinning apparatus according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
[0069] FIG. 24 schematically shows a view of a filter comprising a first, a second, a third polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
[0070] FIG. 25 schematically illustrates a side view of an electrospinning apparatus according to another exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
[0071] FIG. 26 schematically shows a view of a filter comprising nylon nanofiber non-woven fabric laminated on a bicomponent substrate which is laminated on a PET substrate according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
[0072] FIG. 27 schematically shows a view of a filter comprising polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric laminated on a bicomponent substrate which is laminated on a PET substrate according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
[0073] FIG. 28 schematically shows a view of a filter comprising high melting point and low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric laminated on a bicomponent substrate which is laminated on a PET substrate according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
[0074] FIG. 29 schematically shows a view of a filter comprising high melting point and low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric laminated on a bicomponent substrate which is laminated on a needle felt type PET substrate according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
[0075] FIG. 30 schematically shows a view of a filter comprising polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric laminated on a first bicomponent substrate which is laminated on a second bicomponent substrate according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
[0076] FIG. 31 schematically shows a view of a filter comprising a first and a second polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric laminated on a first PET substrate which is laminated on a second PET substrate according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
[0077] FIG. 32 schematically illustrates a side view of an electrospinning apparatus according to the other exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
[0078] FIG. 33 schematically illustrates a view of a filter comprising polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric and meltblown non-woven fabric laminated on a bicomponent substrate which is laminated on a PET substrate according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
DESCRIPTION OF REFERENCE NUMBERS OF DRAWINGS
[0000]
1 , 1 ′, 1 ″, 1 ″′: electrospinning apparatus,
3 : supply roller,
5 : winding roller,
7 : main control device,
8 : spinning solution main tank,
10 a, 10 b, 10 c: unit,
11 : nozzle block,
12 : nozzle,
13 : collector,
14 , 14 a, 14 b, 14 c: voltage generator,
15 , 15 a, 15 b: elongated sheet,
16 : auxiliary carry device,
16 a: auxiliary belt,
16 b: auxiliary belt roller,
18 : case,
19 : insulation member,
30 : elongated sheet carry speed adjusting device,
31 : buffer section,
33 , 33 ′: support roller,
35 : adjusting roller,
40 : pipe,
41 , 42 : heat line,
43 : pipe,
60 : temperature adjusting control device,
70 : thickness measurement device,
80 : permeability measuring device,
90 : laminating device,
100 : laminating device,
200 : overflow device,
211 , 231 : agitation device,
212 , 213 , 214 , 233 : valve,
216 : second feed pipe,
218 : second feed control device,
220 : middle tank,
222 : second sensor,
230 : recycled tank,
232 : first sensor,
240 : supply pipe,
242 : supply control valve,
250 : spinning solution return path,
251 : first feed pipe,
300 : VOC recycling device,
310 : condensation device,
311 , 321 , 331 , 332 : pipe,
320 : distillation device,
330 : solvent storage device,
404 : nozzle for air supply,
405 : nozzle plate,
407 : first spinning solution storage plate,
408 : second spinning solution storage plate,
410 : overflow solution temporal storage plate,
411 : air storage plate,
412 : overflow outlet,
413 : air inlet,
414 : nozzle support plate for air supply,
415 : nozzle for overflow removal,
416 : nozzle plate for overflow removal,
500 : multi-tubular nozzle,
501 : inner tube,
502 : outer tube,
503 : front-end
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
[0140] While this invention has been described in connection with what is presently considered to be practical exemplary embodiments, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to the disclosed embodiments, but, on the contrary, is intended to cover various modifications and equivalent arrangements included within the spirit and scope of the appended claims.
[0141] FIG. 1 schematically shows a side view of an electrospinning apparatus according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 schematically illustrates a side view of nozzle of a nozzle block installed in each unit of the electrospinning apparatus according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 3 schematically illustrates a side view of nozzle of a nozzle block installed in each unit of the electrospinning apparatus according to another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 4 schematically depicts a top plan view of a nozzle block installed in each unit of the electrospinning apparatus according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 5 schematically shows a front sectional view of heat transfer device in a nozzle block installed in each unit of the electrospinning apparatus according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 6 is a cross-sectional view of A-A′ line according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 7 schematically shows a front sectional view of heat transfer device in a nozzle block installed in each unit of the electrospinning apparatus according to another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 8 shows a cross-sectional view of B-B′ line according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 9 schematically shows a front sectional view of heat transfer device in a nozzle block installed in each unit of the electrospinning apparatus according to the other exemplary embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 10 shows a cross-sectional view of C-C′ line according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 11 schematically illustrates a view of an auxiliary carry device of the electrospinning apparatus according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 12 schematically illustrates a view of an auxiliary belt roller of an auxiliary carry device of the electrospinning apparatus according to another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 13 to FIG. schematically illustrate a side view of operation process of an elongated sheet carry speed adjusting device of the electrospinning apparatus according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 17 schematically shows a view of a filter comprising polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric on a cellulose substrate according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 18 schematically shows a view of a filter comprising polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric on a bicomponent substrate according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 19 schematically shows a view of a filter comprising polyurethane and polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric on a substrate according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 20 schematically depicts a view of a filter comprising polyurethane nanofiber non-woven fabric and polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric on a substrate according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 21 schematically depicts a view of a filter comprising nylon nanofiber non-woven fabric and polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric on a substrate according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 22 schematically depicts a view of a filter comprising low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric and high melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric on a substrate according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 23 schematically illustrates a side view of an electrospinning apparatus according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 24 schematically shows a view of a filter comprising a first, a second, a third polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 25 schematically illustrates a side view of an electrospinning apparatus according to another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 26 schematically shows a view of a filter comprising nylon nanofiber non-woven fabric laminated on a bicomponent substrate which is laminated on a PET substrate according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 27 schematically shows a view of a filter comprising polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric laminated on a bicomponent substrate which is laminated on a PET substrate according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 28 schematically shows a view of a filter comprising high melting point and low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric laminated on a bicomponent substrate which is laminated on a PET substrate according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 29 schematically shows a view of a filter comprising high melting point and low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric laminated on a bicomponent substrate which is laminated on a needle felt type PET substrate according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 30 schematically shows a view of a filter comprising polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric laminated on a first bicomponent substrate which is laminated on a second bicomponent substrate according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 31 schematically shows a view of a filter comprising a first and a second polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric laminated on a first PET substrate which is laminated on a second PET substrate according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 32 schematically illustrates a side view of an electrospinning apparatus according to the other exemplary embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 33 schematically illustrates a view of a filter comprising polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric and meltblown non-woven fabric laminated on a bicomponent substrate which is laminated on a PET substrate according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
[0142] As illustrated in the drawings, the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ) according to the present invention comprises a bottom-up electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ), consecutively provided at least one or more units ( 10 a, 10 b ) separated in predetermined space, each of the unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) individually electrospinning the same polymer spinning solution, or individually electrospinning polymer spinning solution with different material, and produces filter material such as non-woven fabric.
[0143] For this, each of the unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) comprises a spinning solution main tank ( 8 ) filling polymer spinning solution inside, a metering pump (not shown) for providing quantitatively polymer spinning solution filled in the spinning solution main tank ( 8 ), a nozzle block ( 11 ) installed a plurality of nozzle ( 12 ) comprising in pin form and discharging polymer spinning solution filled in the spinning solution main tank ( 8 ), a collector ( 13 ) separated in predetermined space from the nozzle ( 12 ) to collect polymer spinning solution jetted from the nozzle ( 12 ), and a voltage generator ( 14 a, 14 b ) generating voltage to the collector ( 13 ).
[0144] The electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ) of the present invention according to the structure as stated above quantitatively provides polymer spinning solution filled in a spinning solution main tank ( 8 ) to a plurality of nozzle ( 12 ) formed in a nozzle block ( 11 ) through a metering pump, provided polymer spinning solution spun and line-focused on a collector ( 13 ) flowing high voltage through a nozzle ( 12 ), forms nanofiber non-woven fabric on an elongated sheet ( 15 ) moved from a collector ( 13 ), and formed nanofiber non-woven fabric produces filter or non-woven fabric.
[0145] Here, among each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) of the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ), in a unit ( 10 a ) located in the front-end, provided a supply roller ( 3 ) for providing an elongated sheet ( 15 ) laminating formed nanofiber non-woven fabric by jetting of polymer spinning solution, and in a unit ( 10 b ) located in the rear-end, provided a winding roller ( 5 ) for winding an elongated sheet ( 15 ) laminating formed nanofiber non-woven fabric.
[0146] Meanwhile, an elongated sheet ( 15 ) going through each of the unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) and laminating forming polymer spinning solution is properly comprising non-woven fabric or fabrics, and it does not limited thereto.
[0147] In this case, material of polymer spinning solution jetted through each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) is not limited, for example, polypropylene (PP), polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polyvinylidene fluoride, nylon, polyvinyl acetate, polymethyl methacrylate, polyacrylonitrile (PAN), polyurethane (PUR), polybutylene terephthalate (PBT), polyvinyl butyral, polyvinyl chloride, polyethyleneimine, polyolefin, polyactic acid (PLA), polyvinyl acetate (PVAc), polyethylene naphthalate (PEN), polyamide (PA), polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), polyethylene imide (PEI), polycaprolactone (PCL), polyacticacidglycidylrolsan (PLGA), silk, cellulose, chitosan, etc. Among them, polypropylene (PP) material and heat resistant polymer such as polyamide, polyimide, polyamideimide, poly(meta-phenylene isophthalamide), polysulfone, polyether ketone, polyether imide, aromatic polyester such as polyethylene terephthalate, polytrimethylene terephthalate, polyethylene naphthalate, polytetrafluoroethylene, polyphosphazene group such as polydiphenoxyphosphazene, poly bis[2-(2-methoxyethoxy)phosphazene], polyurethane and polyurethane copolymer such as polyesther polyurethane, and polymer such as cellulose acetate, cellulose acetate butyrate, and cellulose acetate propionate are preferably used in common.
[0148] Moreover, spinning solution provided through a nozzle ( 12 ) in the unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) is solution dissolved polymer of synthetic resin material capable of electrospinning, the type of solvent is not limited if it is possible to dissolve polymer, for example, phenol, formic acid, sulfuric acid, m-cresol, T-fluorineaceticanhydride/dichloromethane, water, N-methylmorpholine, N-oxide, chloroform, tetrahydrofuran, and aliphatic ketone group such as methyl isobutylketone, methylelthylketone, and aliphatic hydroxyl group such as m-butyl alcohol, isobutyl alcohol, isopropyl alcohol, methyl alcohol, ethanol, and aliphatic compound group such as hexane, tetrachlorethylene, acetone, and glycol group such as propylene glycol, diethylene glycol, ethylene glycol, and halogen group such as trichloroethylene, dichloromethane, and aromatic compound group such as toluene, xylene, and alicyclic compound group such as cyclohexanon, cyclohexane, and ester group such as n-butyl acetate, ethyl acetate, and aliphatic ether group such as butylcellosalve, 2-ethoxyethanol acetate, 2-ethoxyethanol, and amide group such as dimethylformamide, dimethylacetamide, and a plurality of solvent can be mixed and used. In spinning solution, additives such as conductive improver are preferably contained.
[0149] Meanwhile, a nozzle ( 12 ) provided in a nozzle block ( 11 ) of the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ) according to the present invention, as illustrated in FIG. 2 , comprises a multi-tubular nozzle ( 500 ), and 2 or more inner and outer tubes ( 501 , 502 ) have combined structure in Sheath-Core form capable of simultaneously electrospinning 2 or more polymer spinning solution.
[0150] Here, the nozzle block ( 11 ) comprises a nozzle plate ( 405 ) arranged multi-tubular nozzle ( 500 ) in Sheath-Core form, 2 or more spinning solution storage plates ( 407 , 408 ) supplying polymer spinning solution (not shown) to a multi-tubular nozzle ( 500 ) and located in bottom of the nozzle plate ( 405 ), an overflow solution temporal storage plate ( 410 ) which is connected to a nozzle for overflow removal ( 415 ) wrapping a multi-tubular nozzle ( 500 ) and connected to the nozzle for overflow removal ( 415 ) and located in upper side of the overflow solution temporal storage plate, and a nozzle plate for overflow removal ( 416 ) located in upper side of the overflow solution temporal storage plate ( 410 ) and supporting a nozzle for overflow removal ( 415 ).
[0151] Also, further comprising a nozzle for air supply ( 404 ) wrapping the multi-tubular nozzle ( 500 ) and the nozzle for overflow removal ( 415 ), a nozzle support plate for air supply ( 414 ) located in the upper-most side of a nozzle block ( 11 ) and supporting a nozzle for air supply ( 404 ), an air inlet ( 413 ) located in lower side of a nozzle support plate for air supply ( 414 ) and supplying air to a nozzle for air supply ( 404 ), and an air storage plate ( 411 ) storing supplied air.
[0152] In addition, an overflow outlet ( 412 ) for discharging overflow solution to outside through the nozzle for overflow removal ( 415 ) is provided.
[0153] In an exemplary embodiment of the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ) according to the present invention, the nozzle ( 12 ) comprises in cylinder form, as illustrated in FIG. 3 , the nozzle ( 12 ) is cylinder of wedge form, and the front-end ( 503 ) forms in divergent shape in 5 to 30° angle to axis.
[0154] Here, the front-end ( 503 ) formed in the divergent shape is formed narrowing from top to bottom, and if it is formed narrowing from top to bottom, other various forms can be formed.
[0155] Meanwhile, the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ) according to the present invention provided an overflow device ( 200 ). In other words, in each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) of the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ) each provided an overflow device ( 200 ) comprising a spinning solution main tank ( 8 ), a second feed pipe ( 216 ), a second feed control device ( 218 ), a middle tank ( 220 ), and a recycled tank ( 230 ).
[0156] According to an embodiment of the present invention, in each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) of the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ), each provided an overflow device ( 200 ), or among each of the unit ( 10 a, 10 b ), one unit ( 10 a ) provided an overflow device ( 200 ), and in the overflow device ( 200 ), a unit ( 10 b ) located in the rear-end can comprise structure connected integrally.
[0157] According to the structure as stated above, the spinning solution main tank ( 8 ) stores spinning solution which is raw material of nanofiber. In the spinning solution main tank ( 8 ) provided an agitation device ( 211 ) for preventing spinning solution separation or solidification.
[0158] The second feed pipe ( 216 ) comprises a pipe connected to the spinning solution main tank ( 8 ) or a recycled tank ( 230 ) and a valve ( 212 , 213 , 214 ), and spinning solution is carried from the spinning solution main tank ( 8 ) or the recycled tank ( 230 ) to a middle tank ( 220 ).
[0159] The second feed control device ( 218 ) controls valve ( 212 , 213 , 214 ) of the second feed pipe ( 216 ), and controls carry motion of the second feed pipe ( 216 ). The valve ( 212 ) controls carrying of spinning solution from a spinning solution main tank ( 8 ) to a middle tank ( 220 ), and the valve ( 213 ) controls carrying of spinning solution from a recycled tank ( 230 ) to a middle tank ( 220 ). The valve ( 214 ) controls the amount of polymer spinning solution flowed from a spinning solution main tank ( 8 ) and a recycled tank ( 230 ) to a middle tank ( 220 ).
[0160] The control method as stated above is controlled according to the level of spinning solution measured by a second sensor ( 222 ) provided in the following middle tank ( 230 ).
[0161] The middle tank ( 220 ) stores spinning solution provided from a spinning solution main tank ( 8 ) or a recycled tank ( 230 ), provides the spinning solution to a nozzle block ( 11 ), and provided a second sensor ( 222 ) which measures level of provided pinning solution.
[0162] The second sensor ( 222 ) is properly a sensor which can measure level, such as a light sensor or an infrared sensor.
[0163] In bottom of the middle tank ( 220 ) provided a supply pipe ( 240 ) which supplies spinning solution to a nozzle block ( 11 ) and a supply control valve ( 242 ). The supply control valve ( 242 ) controls supply motion the supply pipe ( 240 ).
[0164] The recycled tank ( 230 ) sores spinning solution overflowed and retrieved, having an agitation device ( 231 ) for preventing separation and solidification of spinning solution, and having a first sensor ( 232 ) measuring level of retrieved spinning solution.
[0165] The first sensor ( 232 ) is properly a sensor which can measure level, such as a light sensor or an infrared sensor.
[0166] Meanwhile, spinning solution overflowed from a nozzle block ( 11 ) is retrieved through a spinning solution return path ( 250 ) provided in bottom of a nozzle block ( 11 ). The spinning solution return path ( 250 ) retrieves spinning solution through a first feed pipe ( 251 ) to a recycled tank ( 230 ).
[0167] Also, a first feed pipe ( 251 ) has a pipe connected to the recycled tank ( 230 ) and a pump, and by power of the pump, spinning solution is carried from a spinning solution return path ( 250 ) to a recycled tank ( 230 ).
[0168] In this case, the recycled tank ( 230 ) is properly at least one or more, and in the case of two or more, a plurality of the first sensor ( 232 ) and valve ( 233 ) can be provided.
[0169] Moreover, in the case of two or more recycled tank ( 230 ), as a plurality of valve ( 233 ) located in top of the recycled tank ( 230 ) is provided, a first feed control device (not shown) according to level of the first sensor ( 232 ) provided in the recycled tank ( 230 ) controls two or more valve ( 233 ) located in top, and controls whether to carry spinning solution to any one recycled tank ( 230 ) among a plurality of recycled tank ( 230 ).
[0170] Meanwhile, the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ) has a VOC recycling device ( 300 ). In other words, in each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) of the electrospinning apparatus, the VOC recycling device ( 300 ) comprises a condensation device ( 310 ) for condensing and liquefying VOC(Volatile Organic Compounds) generated when spinning polymer spinning solution through a nozzle ( 12 ), a distillation device ( 320 ) distilling and liquefying condensed VOC through the condensation device ( 310 ), and a solvent storage device ( 330 ) storing liquefied solvent through the distillation device ( 320 ).
[0171] Here, the condensation device ( 310 ) is properly comprising water-cooled, evaporative, or air-cooled condensation device, but it does not limited thereto.
[0172] Meanwhile, pipes ( 311 , 331 ) are each connected and installed to inflow VOC in evaporation state generated in each of the unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) to a condensation device ( 310 ) and to store VOC in liquefaction state generated in the condensation device ( 310 ) to a solvent storage device ( 330 ).
[0173] In other words, pipes ( 311 , 331 ) are each connected and installed to each of the unit ( 10 a, 10 b ), to a condensation device ( 310 ) and to a solvent storage device ( 330 ).
[0174] According to an embodiment of the present invention, comprising structure of after condensing VOC through the condensation device ( 310 ) and providing condensed VOC in liquefaction state to a solvent storage device ( 330 ), or in the case of between the condensation device ( 310 ) and the solvent storage device ( 330 ) provided a distillation device ( 320 ) and one or more solvent is applied, each solvent can be comprised in separation and classification.
[0175] Here, the distillation device ( 320 ) is connected to a condensation device ( 310 ), heats VOC in liquefaction state in high temperature heat and evaporates it, again cooling it, and liquefied VOC is provided to a solvent storage device ( 330 ).
[0176] In this case, the VOC recycling device ( 300 ) comprises a condensation device ( 310 ) which provides air and cooling water to evaporated VOC discharged through each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) and condenses and liquefies, a distillation device ( 320 ) which heats VOC condensed through the condensation device ( 310 ), making it in evaporation state, again cooling it and making in liquefaction state, and a solvent storage device ( 330 ) storing VOC liquefied through the distillation device ( 320 ).
[0177] Here, the distillation device ( 320 ) is properly comprising as fractional distillation device, but it does not limited thereto.
[0178] In other words, pipes ( 311 , 321 , 331 ) for interconnecting each of the unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) and a condensation device ( 310 ), the condensation device ( 310 ) and a distillation device ( 320 ), and the distillation device ( 320 ) and a solvent storage device ( 330 ) are each connected and installed.
[0179] In addition, measuring solvent content of spinning solution overflowed and retrieved in the recycled tank ( 230 ). The measurement extracts sample of some spinning solution among recycled tank ( 230 ), and analyzes the sample. Analysis of spinning solution can be held by method already known.
[0180] Based on the measurement result as stated above, required amount of solvent provides VOC in liquefaction state supplied to the solvent storage device ( 330 ) provides to the recycled tank ( 230 ) through a pipe ( 332 ). In other words, liquefied VOC is provided to the recycled tank ( 230 ) in required amount according to the measurement result, and can be reused and recycled as solvent.
[0181] Here, a case ( 18 ) comprising each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) of the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ) is properly comprising an electric conductor, or the case ( 18 ) comprises an electric insulator, or the case ( 18 ) can be mixed an electric conductor and an electric insulator and applied, and other various materials can be comprised.
[0182] Moreover, in the case of top of the case ( 18 ) comprises an electric insulator and the bottom comprises an electric conductor, an insulation member ( 19 ) can be deleted. For this, the case ( 18 ) mutually combines the bottom forming an electric conductor and the top comprising an electric insulator and properly forms one case ( 18 ), but it does not limited thereto.
[0183] As stated above, the case ( 18 ) forms an electric conductor and an electric insulator, and top of the case ( 18 ) forms an electric insulator, in order to attach a collector ( 13 ) in upper inner side of case ( 18 ), separately provided insulation member ( 19 ) can be deleted, and because of this, composition of device can be streamlined.
[0184] Also, insulation between the collector ( 13 ) and the case ( 18 ) can be optimized, in the case of operating electrospinning by applying 35 kV between a nozzle block ( 11 ) and a collector ( 13 ), insulation breakdown generated between the collector ( 13 ) and the case ( 18 ) and other members can be prevented.
[0185] In addition, as leak voltage can be stopped in desired realm, surveillance in current provided from a voltage generator ( 14 a, 14 b ) is possible, and error in the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ) can be noticed early, so long time consecutive operation of the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ) is possible, manufacture of nanofiber with required quality is stable, and mass-production of nanofiber is possible.
[0186] Here, thickness (a) of the case ( 18 ) forming as an electric insulator comprises satisfying “a=8 mm”.
[0187] Because of this, in the case of operating electrospinning by applying 40 kV between the nozzle block ( 11 ) and the collector ( 13 ), insulation breakdown generated between the collector ( 13 ) and the case ( 18 ) and other members can be prevented, and leak voltage can be limited in desired realm.
[0188] Also, in terms of distance between inner side of a case ( 18 ) formed electric insulator and outer side of a collector ( 13 ), the case ( 18 ) thickness (a) and distance (b) between inner side of the case ( 18 ) and outer side of the collector ( 13 ) satisfy “a+b=80 mm”.
[0189] Because of this, in the case of operating electrospinning by applying 40 kV between the nozzle block ( 11 ) and the collector ( 13 ), insulation breakdown generated between the collector ( 13 ) and the case ( 18 ) and other members can be prevented, and leak voltage can be limited in desired realm.
[0190] Meanwhile, in each pipe ( 40 ) of a nozzle block ( 11 ) installed in each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) of the electrospinning apparatus provided a temperature adjusting control device ( 60 ) and it is connected to a voltage generator ( 14 a, 14 b ).
[0191] In other words, as illustrated in FIG. 4 , installed in each of the unit ( 10 a, 10 b ), in pipe ( 40 ) of nozzle block ( 11 ) comprising a plurality of nozzle ( 12 ) in the top and supplying polymer spinning solution is provided a temperature adjusting control device ( 60 ).
[0192] Here, polymer spinning solution in the nozzle block ( 11 ) is provided from a spinning solution main tank ( 8 ) which stored polymer spinning solution to each pipe ( 40 ) through solution flow pipe.
[0193] Moreover, polymer spinning solution provided to each of the pipe ( 40 ) is discharged and jetted through a plurality of nozzle ( 12 ) and collected to an elongated sheet ( 15 ) in nanofiber form.
[0194] In top of each pipe ( 40 ), in length direction, a plurality of nozzle ( 12 ) is separated in predetermined space and mounted, and the nozzle ( 12 ) and the pipe ( 40 ) comprises as an electric conductor member, electrically connected and mounted to the pipe ( 40 )
[0195] Here, in order to control temperature adjustment of polymer spinning solution supplied and flowed in to each of the pipe ( 40 ), the temperature adjusting control device ( 60 ) comprises heat line ( 41 , 42 ) provided in inner side of a pipe ( 40 ) or a pipe ( 43 ).
[0196] Also, in order to adjust temperature of the plurality of pipe ( 40 ), a temperature adjusting control device ( 60 ) is provided.
[0197] In this case, as illustrated in FIG. 5 to FIG. 6 , the temperature adjusting control device ( 60 ) in heat line ( 41 ) form is formed in spiral shape in inner side of pipe ( 40 ) of the nozzle block ( 11 ), and is preferably comprising to adjust temperature of polymer spinning solution supplied and flowed in to the pipe ( 40 ).
[0198] In an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, in inner side of pipe ( 40 ) of the nozzle block ( 11 ), the temperature adjusting control device ( 60 ) is formed in heat line ( 41 ) form in spiral shape, as illustrated in FIG. 7 to FIG. 8 , the temperature adjusting control device ( 60 ) in heat line ( 42 ) form can be provided in a plurality of number in inner side of the pipe ( 40 ), and as illustrated in FIG. 9 to FIG. 10 , the temperature adjusting control device ( 60 ) in the pipe ( 43 ) form can be provided in approximately “C” form in inner side of the pipe ( 40 ).
[0199] Here, as illustrated in FIG. 11 , an auxiliary carry device ( 16 ) for adjusting feed speed of an elongated sheet ( 15 ) incoming and providing in each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) of the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ) is provided.
[0200] The auxiliary carry device ( 16 ) comprises an auxiliary belt ( 16 a ) which rotates and synchronizes feed speed of an elongated sheet ( 15 ) in order to facilitate desorption and carrying of an elongated sheet ( 15 ) attached by electrostatic gravitation to a collector ( 13 ) installed in each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ), and an auxiliary belt roller ( 16 b ) supporting and rotating the auxiliary belt ( 16 a ).
[0201] According to the structure as mentioned above, an auxiliary belt ( 16 a ) rotates by rotation of the auxiliary belt roller ( 16 b ), an elongated sheet ( 15 ) incomes and supplies to units ( 10 a, 10 b ) by rotation of the auxiliary belt ( 16 a ), for this, any one auxiliary belt roller ( 16 b ) among the auxiliary belt roller ( 16 b ) is connected to a motor capable of rotation.
[0202] According to an embodiment of the present invention, the auxiliary belt ( 16 a ) is provided 5 auxiliary belt rollers ( 16 b ), comprising by a motor motion, any one auxiliary belt roller ( 16 b ) rotates, as auxiliary belt ( 16 a ) rotates simultaneously the other auxiliary belt roller ( 16 b ) rotates, or the auxiliary belt ( 16 a ) is provided 2 or more auxiliary belt rollers ( 16 b ), comprising by a motor motion, any one auxiliary belt roller ( 16 b ) rotates, according to this, auxiliary belt ( 16 a ) and the other auxiliary belt roller ( 16 b ) rotate.
[0203] Meanwhile, in an embodiment of the present invention, the auxiliary carry device ( 16 ) comprises an auxiliary belt roller ( 16 b ) which is capable of driving by a motor and an auxiliary belt ( 16 a ), and as illustrated in FIG. 12 , the auxiliary belt roller ( 16 b ) can comprise a roller with low coefficient of friction.
[0204] In this case, the auxiliary belt roller ( 16 b ) is preferably comprising of a roller including bearing with low coefficient of friction.
[0205] In an embodiment of the present invention, the auxiliary carry device ( 16 ) comprises an auxiliary belt ( 16 a ) and an auxiliary belt roller ( 16 b ) with low coefficient of friction, and the auxiliary belt ( 16 a ) can comprise providing a roller with low coefficient of friction and carrying an elongated sheet ( 15 ).
[0206] Also, in an embodiment of the present invention, for the auxiliary belt roller ( 16 b ), a roller with low coefficient of friction is applied, and if a roller has low coefficient of friction, the form and composition are not limited, and it is applied to a roller comprising bearings such as rolling bearing, oil bearing, ball bearing, roller bearing, sliding bearing, sleeve bearing, hydrodynamic journal bearing, hydrostatic bearing, pneumatic bearing, air dynamic bearing, air static bearing, and air bearing, and applied to a roller decreasing coefficient of friction by including materials such as plastic and emulsifier, and additives.
[0207] Meanwhile, the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ) according to the present invention is provided a thickness measurement device ( 70 ). In other words, as illustrated in FIG. 1 , between each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) of the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ) is provided a thickness measurement device ( 70 ), and according to thickness measured by the thickness measurement device ( 70 ), feed speed (V) and a nozzle block ( 11 ) are controlled.
[0208] According to the structure as mentioned above, in the case of thickness of nanofiber non-woven fabric discharged from a unit ( 10 a ) located in the front-end of the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ) is measured thinner than deviation, the next unit ( 10 b ) feed speed can be slowed, and discharging amount of nozzle block ( 11 ) is increased, by adjusting voltage intensity of a voltage generator ( 14 a, 14 b ), increases discharging amount of nanofiber non-woven fabric per unit, and makes thicker thickness.
[0209] Also, in the case of thickness of nanofiber non-woven fabric discharged from a unit ( 10 a ) located in the front-end of the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ) is measured thicker than deviation, the next unit ( 10 b ) feed speed (V) can be faster, discharging amount of nozzle block ( 11 ) is lessen, by adjusting voltage intensity of a voltage generator ( 14 a, 14 b ), lessen discharging amount of nanofiber non-woven fabric per unit, lessen laminating amount, and making thinner thickness, and because of this, nanofiber non-woven fabric having uniformed thickness can be produced.
[0210] Here, the thickness measurement device ( 9 ) is arranged in up and down opposite sides put between an elongated sheet ( 15 ) which is capable of incoming and supplying, and provided a thickness measurement portion comprising a pair of ultrasonic wave, longitudinal wave, and transverse wave measuring method that measures the distance to top or bottom of the elongated sheet ( 15 ) by ultrasonic wave measuring method.
[0211] Based on the distance measured by the pair of ultrasonic wave measuring device, thickness of the elongated sheet ( 15 ) can be calculated. In other words, the thickness measurement device projects ultrasonic wave, longitudinal wave, and transverse wave to an elongated sheet ( 15 ) laminated nanofiber non-woven fabric, each ultrasonic signal of longitudinal wave and transverse wave measures reciprocating movement time from an elongated sheet ( 15 ), in other words, after measuring propagation time of each longitudinal wave and transverse wave, and using ultrasonic wave, longitudinal wave, and transverse wave and measuring the thickness from a desired formula using the measured propagation time of longitudinal wave and transverse wave, propagation speed of longitudinal wave and transverse wave from reference temperature of an elongated sheet ( 15 ) laminated nanofiber non-woven fabric, and constant of temperature of propagation speed of longitudinal wave and transverse wave.
[0212] In other words, the thickness measurement device ( 70 ) measures each propagation time of ultrasonic wave, longitudinal wave, and transverse wave, and by calculating thickness of an elongated sheet ( 15 ) laminated nanofiber non-woven fabric from a desired formula using propagation time of the measured longitudinal wave and transverse wave, propagation velocity of longitudinal wave and transverse wave from reference temperature of an elongated sheet ( 15 ), and constant of temperature of propagation speed of longitudinal wave and transverse wave, even in state of inner temperature is non-uniform, it can precisely measure thickness by compensating error occurred by change in propagation speed according to temperature change, and can precisely measure thickness in any kind of temperature distribution inside nanofiber non-woven fabric.
[0213] Meanwhile, the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ) of the present invention is provided a thickness measurement device ( 70 ) which measures thickness of nanofiber non-woven fabric of an elongated sheet ( 15 ) carried after polymer spinning solution is sprayed and laminated, and controls an elongated sheet ( 15 ) feed speed and a nozzle block ( 11 ). Also, the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ) is provided an elongated sheet carry speed adjusting device ( 30 ) for adjusting feed speed of an elongated sheet ( 15 ).
[0214] Here, the elongated sheet carry speed adjusting device ( 30 ) comprises a buffer section ( 31 ) forming between each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) of the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ), a pair of support roller ( 33 , 33 ′) provided on the buffer section ( 31 ) and supporting an elongated sheet ( 15 ), and an adjusting roller ( 35 ) provided between the pair of support roller ( 33 , 33 ′).
[0215] In this case, the support roller ( 33 , 33 ′) is for supporting the elongated sheet ( 15 ) carry when conveying of an elongated sheet ( 15 ) laminating formed nanofiber non-woven fabric by spinning solution jetted by a nozzle ( 12 ) in each of the unit ( 10 a, 10 b ), and the support roller ( 33 , 33 ′) is each provided in the front-end and the rear-end of a buffer section ( 31 ) formed between each of the unit ( 10 a, 10 b ).
[0216] In addition, the adjusting roller ( 35 ) is provided between the pair of support roller ( 33 , 33 ′), the elongated sheet ( 15 ) is wound, and by up and down motion of the adjusting roller ( 35 ), feed speed and movement time of an elongated sheet ( 15 a, 15 b ) are adjusted according to each of the unit ( 10 a, 10 b ).
[0217] For this, a sensing sensor (not shown) for sensing feed speed of an elongated sheet ( 15 a, 15 b ) in each of the unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) is provided, and a main control device ( 7 ) for controlling an adjusting roller ( 35 ) motion according to feed speed of an elongated sheet ( 15 a, 15 b ) in each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) sensed by the sensing sensor is provided.
[0218] In an embodiment of the present invention, in each of the unit ( 10 a, 10 b ), an elongated sheet ( 15 a, 15 b ) feed speed is sensed, according to the sensed elongated sheet ( 15 a, 15 b ) feed speed, a controlling portion controls an adjusting roller ( 35 ) motion, or sensing an auxiliary belt ( 16 a ) for conveying the elongated sheet ( 15 a, 15 b ) and provided in the outer side of a collector ( 13 ) or an auxiliary belt roller ( 16 b ) for driving the auxiliary belt ( 16 a ) or a motor (not shown) driving speed, and according to this, a controlling portion controls an adjusting roller motion.
[0219] According to the structure described above, in the case of the sensing sensor sensed feed speed of an elongated sheet ( 15 a ) in a unit ( 10 a ) located in the front-end among each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) is faster than feed speed of an elongated sheet ( 15 b ) in unit ( 10 b ) located in the rear-end, as illustrated in FIG. 13 to FIG. 14 , in order to prevent sagging of an elongated sheet ( 15 a ) carried from a unit ( 10 a ) located in the front-end, provided between the pair of support roller ( 33 , 33 ′), an elongated sheet ( 15 ) moves wound adjusting roller ( 35 ) to lower side, among an elongated sheet ( 15 ) carried from a unit ( 10 a ) located in the front-end to a unit ( 10 b ) located in the rear-end, pulling an elongated sheet ( 15 a ) carried to the external side of a unit ( 10 a ) located in the front-end and excessively carried to a buffer section ( 31 ) located between each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ), and correct and control to make feed speed of an elongated sheet ( 15 a ) in a unit ( 10 a ) located in the front-end and feed speed of an elongated sheet ( 15 b ) in unit ( 10 b ) located in the rear-end same, and prevents sagging and crumpling of an elongated sheet ( 15 a ).
[0220] Meanwhile, in the case of the sensing sensor sensed feed speed of an elongated sheet ( 15 a ) in a unit ( 10 a ) located in the front-end among each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) is slower than feed speed of an elongated sheet ( 15 b ) in unit ( 10 b ) located in the rear-end, as illustrated in FIG. 15 to FIG. 16 , in order to prevent snapping of an elongated sheet ( 15 b ) carried from a unit ( 10 b ) located in the rear-end, provided between the pair of support roller ( 33 , 33 ′), an elongated sheet ( 15 ) moves wound adjusting roller ( 35 ) to upper side, among an elongated sheet ( 15 ) carried from a unit ( 10 a ) located in the front-end to a unit ( 10 b ) located in the rear-end, an elongated sheet ( 15 a ) carried to the external side of a unit ( 10 a ) located in the front-end and wound by an adjusting roller ( 35 ) in a buffer section ( 31 ) located between each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) is quickly provided to a unit ( 10 b ) in the rear-end, and correct and control to make feed speed of an elongated sheet ( 15 a ) in a unit ( 10 a ) located in the front-end and feed speed of an elongated sheet ( 15 b ) in unit ( 10 b ) located in the rear-end same, and prevents snapping of an elongated sheet ( 15 a ).
[0221] According to the structure as described above, by adjusting feed speed of an elongated sheet ( 15 b ) carried to a unit ( 10 b ) located in the rear-end among each of the unit ( 10 a, 10 b ), it can achieve effects such as feed speed of an elongated sheet ( 15 b ) in a unit ( 10 b ) located in the rear-end among each of the unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) and feed speed of an elongated sheet ( 15 a ) in a unit ( 10 a ) located in the front-end are same.
[0222] Meanwhile, the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ) of the present invention is provided a permeability measuring device ( 80 ). In other words, a permeability measuring device ( 80 ) for measuring permeability of nanofiber non-woven fabric produced through the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ) in the rear of a unit ( 10 b ) located in the rear-end among each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) is provided.
[0223] As described above, based on the permeability of nanofiber non-woven fabric measured through the permeability measuring device ( 80 ), an elongated sheet ( 15 ) feed speed and a nozzle block ( 11 ) are controlled.
[0224] In the case of permeability of nanofiber non-woven fabric discharged through each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) of the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ) is measured large, by slowing feed speed (V) of a unit ( 10 b ) located in the rear-end, by increasing discharging amount of a nozzle block ( 11 ), and by increasing discharging amount of nanofiber per unit area by adjusting voltage intensity of a voltage generator ( 14 a, 14 b ), forms permeability small.
[0225] Also, in the case of the permeability of nanofiber non-woven fabric discharged through each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) of the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ) is measured small, by increasing feed speed (V) of a unit ( 10 b ) located in the rear-end, by increasing discharging amount of a nozzle block ( 11 ), and by decreasing discharging amount of nanofiber per unit area by adjusting voltage intensity of a voltage generator ( 14 a, 14 b ), forms permeability large.
[0226] As described above, after measuring permeability of the nanofiber non-woven fabric, by controlling each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) feed speed and a nozzle block ( 11 ) according to permeability, nanofiber non-woven fabric having uniformed permeability can be produced.
[0227] Here, in the case of permeability deviation (P) of the nanofiber non-woven fabric is less than a desired value, feed speed (V) is not changed from the initial value, and in the case of the permeability (P) is a desired value or more, as feed speed can be controlled to change from the initial value, control of feed speed (V) according to feed speed control device is possible.
[0228] Also, except for feed speed (V) control, a nozzle block ( 11 ) discharging amount and voltage intensity can be adjusted, in the case of permeability deviation (P) is less than a desired value, a nozzle block ( 11 ) discharging amount and voltage intensity are not changed from the initial value, and in the case of the deviation (P) is a desired value or more, a nozzle block ( 11 ) discharging amount and voltage intensity are controlled to change from the initial value, and control of nozzle block ( 11 ) discharging amount and voltage intensity can be simplified.
[0229] Here, the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ) comprises a main control device ( 7 ), and the main control device ( 7 ) controls a nozzle block ( 11 ), a voltage generator ( 14 a, 14 b ), a thickness measurement device ( 70 ), an elongated sheet carry speed adjusting device ( 30 ), and a permeability measuring device ( 80 ).
[0230] Meanwhile, a laminating device ( 90 ) for laminating nanofiber non-woven fabric electrospun through each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) of the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ) is provided in the rear of a unit ( 10 b ) located in the rear-end among each of the unit ( 10 a, 10 b ), and according to the laminating device ( 90 ), the post-process of nanofiber non-woven fabric electrospun through the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ) is performed.
[0231] The following description explains manufacturing method of filter comprising nanofiber of the electrospinning apparatus according to the present invention.
[0232] In the present invention, for polymer uses polyvinylidene fluoride, and for an elongated sheet ( 15 ) uses a cellulose substrate. The cellulose substrate used in the present invention is excellent in dimensional stability in high temperature and has high heat-resisting property. In terms of cellulose fiber forming fine porous structure, it has high crystalline and high elasticity, and essentially it is fiber very excellent in dimensional stability. A cellulose substrate according to such features is used in consumer products such as highly efficient filter, functional paper, sheet for cooking, and intake sheet, etc. and technical fields such as semiconductor device, board for circuit board, substrate of low coefficient of thermal expansion material, and separator for power storage device.
[0233] The cellulose substrate used in the present invention preferably comprises composition rate of 100% cellulose, and a cellulose substrate comprising cellulose and polyethylene terephthalate in ratio of 70˜90:10˜30 weight % can be used, and a cellulose substrate of flame resistant coating can be used.
[0234] First, polyvinylidene fluoride solution which dissolved polyvinylidene fluoride in organic solvent is supplied to a spinning solution main tank ( 8 ) connected to each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) of the electrospinning apparatus, and polyvinylidene fluoride solution provided to the spinning solution main tank ( 8 ) is consecutively and quantitatively provided to a plurality of nozzle ( 12 ) of a nozzle block ( 11 ) provided high voltage through a metering pump (not shown). Polyvinylidene fluoride solution provided from each of the nozzle ( 12 ) is electrospun and line-focused through a nozzle ( 12 ) on a cellulose substrate located on a collector ( 13 ) provided high voltage, and laminating forming polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric.
[0235] Meanwhile, in each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) of the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ), a substrate laminated polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric is carried from the first unit ( 10 a ) to the second unit ( 10 b ) by a supply roller ( 3 ) operated by driving of a motor (not shown) and an auxiliary carry device ( 16 ) driving by rotation of the supply roller ( 3 ), the process is repeated, and on the substrate, nanofiber non-woven fabric is consecutively electrospun and laminating formed.
[0236] According to the present invention, spinning solution provided to the spinning solution main tank ( 8 ) used polyvinylidene fluoride solution which dissolved polyvinylidene fluoride in organic solvent, or polyvinylidene fluoride and hot-melt can be mixed and used, or polyvinylidene fluoride solution and hot-melt solution can be provided differently according to each unit. Here, the hot-melt uses polyvinylidene fluoride group hot-melt, and it plays a role as adhesive on polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric and a cellulose substrate, and prevents separation of the polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric from a cellulose substrate.
[0237] Also, in the process of electrospinning and laminating forming the polyvinylidene fluoride solution on the cellulose substrate, by differing spinning conditions according to each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) of the electrospinning apparatus, in a first unit ( 10 a ), laminating forming polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric with large fiber diameter, and in a second unit ( 10 b ), consecutively laminating forming polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric with small fiber diameter.
[0238] In this case, a voltage generator ( 14 a ) installed in a first unit ( 10 a ) of the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ) and providing voltage to a first unit ( 10 a ) is provided low spinning voltage, and forms polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of fiber diameter of 150 to 300 nm on a cellulose substrate, and a voltage generator ( 14 b ) installed in a second unit ( 10 b ) and providing voltage to a second unit ( 10 b ) is provided high spinning voltage, laminating forming polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of fiber diameter of 100 to 150 nm on the polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of fiber diameter of 150 to 300 nm. Here spinning voltage provided by each of the voltage generator ( 14 a, 14 b ) is 1 kV or more, and preferably 15 kV or more, and voltage provided by a voltage generator ( 14 a ) of a first unit ( 10 a ) is lower than voltage provided by a voltage generator ( 14 b ) of a second unit ( 10 b ).
[0239] In an embodiment of the present invention, voltage of a first unit ( 10 a ) of the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ) is provided low, laminating polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of fiber diameter of 150 to 300 nm on a cellulose substrate, and voltage of a second unit ( 10 b ) is provided high, laminating forming polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of fiber diameter of 100 to 150 nm, and produces a filter. However, by differing voltage intensity, polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of fiber diameter of 100 to 150 nm spun and laminating formed in the first unit ( 10 a ), and polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of fiber diameter of 150 to 300 nm can be spun in the second unit ( 10 b ).
[0240] Here, in order to put difference in fiber diameter, a method of differing voltage intensity provided according to each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) is used, or by adjusting the distance between a nozzle ( 12 ) and a collector ( 13 ), polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric with different fiber diameter can be formed. In the case of spinning solution type and provided voltage intensity is the same, according to the principle of the nearer spinning distance is, the larger fiber diameter is, and the further spinning distance is, the smaller fiber diameter is, 2 different nanofiber non-woven fabric can be formed. Also, by adjusting density and viscosity of spinning solution, or by adjusting moving speed of an elongated sheet, fiber diameter can be different.
[0241] In addition, by comprising 3 or more units of the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ) and by differing electrospinning conditions according to each unit, a filter laminating formed layer or more polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric with different fiber diameter on a cellulose substrate can be produced.
[0242] According to the method as described above, consecutively laminating forming polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric on a cellulose substrate and thermosetting in a laminating device ( 90 ), and produces a filter according to the present invention.
EXAMPLE 1
[0243] Polyvinylidene fluoride with weight average molecular weight of 50,000 is dissolved in N,N-Dimethylacetamide (DMAc) and produces spinning solution, and it is inserted in a spinning solution main tank of each unit of the electrospinning apparatus. In each unit, on a cellulose substrate, the spinning solution is consecutively electrospinning in conditions of the distance between an electrode and a collector is 40 cm, applied voltage 20 kV, spinning solution flow rate is 0.1 mL/h, temperature 22° C., and humidity 20%, and laminating formed polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric with thickness of 3 μm. After electrospinning, going through a process of thermosetting, and produces a filter.
EXAMPLE 2
[0244] Polyvinylidene fluoride with weight average molecular weight of 50,000 is dissolved in N,N-Dimethylacetamide (DMAc) and produces spinning solution, and it is inserted in a spinning solution main tank of each unit of the electrospinning apparatus. In a first unit of the electrospinning apparatus, applied voltage is provided 15 kV, on a cellulose substrate, electrospinning the spinning solution, and laminating formed polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric with thickness of 2.5 μm and fiber diameter of 250 nm. In a second unit, applied voltage is provided 20 kV, electrospinning the spinning solution on the polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, and laminating formed polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric with thickness of 2.5 μm and fiber diameter of 130 nm. In this case, in conditions of spinning solution flow rate is 0.1 mL/h, temperature 22° C., and humidity 20%, after electrospinning and going through thermosetting, and a filter is produced.
EXAMPLE 3
[0245] Polyvinylidene fluoride resin for hot-melt with number average molecular weight of 3,000 is dissolved in N,N-Dimethylformamide (DMF) of 8 weight % and produces hot-melt solution, and it is inserted in a spinning solution main tank of a first of the electrospinning apparatus. Polyvinylidene fluoride with weight average molecular weight of 50,000 is dissolved in N,N-Dimethylacetamide (DMAc) and produces polyvinylidene fluoride spinning solution, and it is inserted in a spinning solution main tank of a second unit of the electrospinning apparatus. In the first unit of the electrospinning apparatus, on a cellulose substrate comprising composition rate of cellulose and PET is 80 weight %: 20 weight %, hot-melt solution is electrospun, and laminating formed hot-melt electrospinning layer of thickness of 1 μm, and in a second unit, laminating formed polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of thickness of 3 μm on the hot-melt electrospinning layer. The electrospinning conditions and post process is the same as example 1.
EXAMPLE 4
[0246] Polyvinylidene fluoride with weight average molecular weight of 50,000 and polyvinylidene fluoride resin for hot-melt with number average molecular weight of 3,000 is dissolved in N,N-Dimethylacetamide (DMAc) and produces spinning solution, and it is inserted to a spinning solution main tank of each unit of the electrospinning apparatus. In each unit, on a water-proof coating cellulose substrate, electrospinning the spinning solution in conditions of distance between an electrode and a collector is 40 cm, applied voltage 20 kV, spinning solution flow rate is 0.1 mL/h, temperature 22° C., and humidity 20%, and laminating forming polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of thickness of 3 μm. After electrospinning, going through a process of thermosetting, and produces a filter.
EXAMPLE 5
[0247] Polyvinylidene fluoride with weight average molecular weight of 50,000 and polyvinylidene fluoride resin for hot-melt with number average molecular weight of 3,000 is dissolved in N,N-Dimethylacetamide (DMAc) and produces spinning solution which mixed polyvinylidene fluoride and hot-melt, and it is inserted to a spinning solution main tank of a first unit of the electrospinning apparatus. Also, polyvinylidene fluoride solution which dissolved polyvinylidene fluoride in N,N-Dimethylacetamide is inserted to a spinning solution main tank of a second unit of the electrospinning apparatus. In the first unit, on a cellulose substrate, electrospinning spinning solution which mixed polyvinylidene fluoride and hot-melt, and laminating formed polyvinylidene fluoride-hot-melt nanofiber non-woven fabric with thickness of 2.5 μm. In the second unit, consecutively electrospinning the polyvinylidene fluoride spinning solution on the polyvinylidene fluoride-hot-melt nanofiber non-woven fabric, and laminating formed polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric with thickness of 2.5 μm. Electrospinning conditions and post process are the same as example 1.
COMPARATIVE EXAMPLE 1
[0248] The cellulose substrate used in example 1 is used as filter medium.
COMPARATIVE EXAMPLE 2
[0249] A filter is produced by laminating forming polyamide nanofiber non-woven fabric which electrospun polyamide on a cellulose substrate.
[0250] Filtering Efficiency Measurement
[0251] In order to measure efficiency of the produced nanofiber filter, DOP test method is used. DOP test method measures dioctylphthalate (DOP) efficiency by an automated filter analyzer (AFT) of TSI 3160 in TSI Incorporated, and it can measure a filter media material permeability, filter efficiency, and pressure difference.
[0252] The automated analyzer makes DOP in a desired size particle, penetrates on a filter sheet, and automatically measures air speed, DOP filtering efficiency, air permeability in coefficient method, and it is very important device in high efficiency filter.
DOP % efficiency is defined as follows. DOP % transmissivity=1-100 (lower DOP concentration/upper DOP concentration)
[0255] Filtering efficiency in example 1 to 5 and comparative example 1 is measured by the method as described above, and it is shown in Table 1.
[0000]
TABLE 1
Exam-
Exam-
Exam-
Exam-
Exam-
Comparative
ple 1
ple 2
ple 3
ple 4
ple 5
Example 1
0.35 μm
90
93
92
92
93
70
DOP
Filtering
efficiency
(%)
[0256] As described above, a filter produced in example 1 to 5 of the present invention is excellent in filtering efficiency compared to comparative example 1.
[0257] Pressure Drop and Filter Sustainability Measurement
[0258] The produced nanofiber non-woven fabric filter is measured pressure drop by ASHRAE 52.1 according to flow rate of 50/m 3 , and measures filter life according to this. Table 2 shows data comparing example 1 to 5 and comparative example 1.
[0000]
TABLE 2
Exam-
Exam-
Exam-
Exam-
Comparative
ple 1
ple 2
ple 3
ple 4
Example 5
example 1
Pressure
4.5
4.3
4.2
4.5
4.2
8
drop
(in.w.g)
Filter
6.4
6.5
6.5
6.4
6.5
4
life
(month)
[0259] According to Table 2, a filter produced through an embodiment of the present invention, compared to comparative example, has low pressure drop which results in low pressure lose and has longer filter life which results in excellence in durability.
[0260] Desorption of Nanofiber Non-Woven Fabric
[0261] In result of measuring whether desorption or not of nanofiber non-woven fabric and a filter substrate of the produced filter by ASTM D 2724 method, in a filter produced by example 3, 4 and 5 does not occur desorption of nanofiber non-woven fabric, and a filter produced by comparative example 2 occurs desorption of nanofiber non-woven fabric.
[0262] Therefore, a filter produced through an embodiment of the present invention, compared to comparative example, does not occur desorption well between nanofiber non-woven fabric and a substrate.
[0263] Meanwhile, in an embodiment of the present invention, for substrate of a filter, a cellulose substrate is used, or a bicomponent substrate can be used.
[0264] In an embodiment of the present invention, for polymer spinning solution, polyvinylidene fluoride solution is used, and for an elongated sheet ( 15 ), a bicomponent substrate is used. Fiber forming polymer of a bicomponent substrate used in an embodiment can be polyester comprising polyethylene terephthalate, polyethylene naphthalate, polypropylene terephthalate, and polybutylene terephthalate, and polypropylene terephthalate also is polybutylene terephthalte such as polytrimethylene terephthalte and polytetramethylene terephthalte.
[0265] A bicomponent substrate of an embodiment of the present invention is most preferably polyethylene terephthalate combined two components of different melting point. The polyethylene terephthalate bicomponent substrate can be classified as Sheath-Core, Side-by-Side, and C-Type. Among them, in the case of Sheath-Core type bicomponent substrate, Sheath part is low melting point polyethylene terephthalate, and core part comprises generally polyethylene terephthalte. Here, the sheath part is approximately 10 to 90 weight %, and the core part comprises approximately 90 to 10 weight %. The sheath part acts as thermal bonding agent forming the outer surface of binder fiber, having a melting point of approximately 80 to 150° C., and the core part having a melting point of approximately 160 to 250° C. A Sheath-Core type bicomponent substrate used in an embodiment of the present invention, in the sheath part for a conventional melting point analyzer, comprising non-crystalline polyester copolymer not showing a melting point, and for the core part, it is preferably heat-adhesive composite fiber using relatively high melting point component.
[0266] Polyester copolymer included in sheath part is copolymer polyester made of polyethylene terephthalte unit in 50 to 70 mol %. Isophthalic acid is preferably for copolymer acid component in 30 to 50 mol %, but conventional dicarboxylic acid is all possible.
[0267] For a high melting point component used in core part, polymer with a melting point of 160° C. or more is preferable, for example, polyethylene terephthalate, polybutylene terephthalate, polyamide, polyethylene terephthalate copolymer, and polypropylene. Basis weight of the bicomponent used in an embodiment of the present invention is preferably 10 to 50 g/m 2 .
[0268] Meanwhile, in order to produce a filter of an embodiment of the present invention, it is produced according to the manufacturing method as described above, for a substrate, a bicomponent is applied, and on the bicomponent substrate, polyvinylidene fluoride is electrospun, and forming nanofiber non-woven fabric, and produces a filter.
[0269] After laminating forming polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric in each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) according to the method as described above, going through a process of thermosetting in a laminating device ( 90 ), and produces a filter.
EXAMPLE 6
[0270] Polyvinylidene fluoride with weight average molecular weight of 50,000 is dissolved in N,N-Dimethylacetamide (DMAc) and produces spinning solution, and it is inserted to a spinning solution main tank of each unit of the electrospinning apparatus. In each unit, on a bicomponent substrate, the spinning solution is electrospinning in conditions of distance between an electrode and a collector is 40 cm, applied voltage 20 kV, spinning solution flow rate is 0.1 mL/h, temperature 22° C., and humidity 20%, and laminating formed polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric with thickness of 3 μm. After electrospinning, going through a process of thermosetting in a laminating device, and produces a filter.
EXAMPLE 7
[0271] Polyvinylidene fluoride with weight average molecular weight of 50,000 is dissolved in N,N-Dimethylacetamide (DMAc) and produces spinning solution, and it is inserted to a spinning solution main tank of each unit of the electrospinning apparatus. In a first unit of the electrospinning apparatus, applied voltage is provided 15 kV, on a bicomponent substrate, electrospinning the spinning solution, and laminating formed a first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric with thickness of 2.5 μm and fiber diameter of 250 nm. In a second unit, applied voltage is provided 20 kV, electrospinning the spinning solution on the first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, and laminating formed a second polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric with thickness of 2.5 μm and fiber diameter of 130 nm. In this case, for electrospinning conditions, spinning solution flow rate is 0.1 mL/h, temperature 22° C., and humidity 20%. After electrospinning, going through a process of thermosetting, and produces a filter.
EXAMPLE 8
[0272] Polyvinylidene fluoride with weight average molecular weight of 50,000 and polyvinylidene fluoride resin for hot-melt with number average molecular weight of 3,000 is dissolved in N,N-Dimethylacetamide (DMAc) and produces spinning solution, and it is inserted to a spinning solution main tank of each unit of the electrospinning apparatus. In each unit, on a bicomponent substrate, electrospinning the spinning solution in conditions of the distance between an electrode and a collector is 40 cm, applied voltage 20 kV, spinning solution flow rate is 0.1 mL/h, temperature 22° C., and humidity 20%, and laminating formed polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric with thickness of 3 μm. After electrospinning, going through a process of thermosetting, and produces a filter.
EXAMPLE 9
[0273] Polyvinylidene fluoride resin for hot-melt with number average molecular weight of 3,000 is dissolved in N,N-Dimethylformamide (DMF) by 8 weight % and produces hot-melt solution, and it is inserted to a spinning solution main tank of a first unit of the electrospinning apparatus. Polyvinylidene fluoride with weight average molecular weight of 50,000 is dissolved in N,N-Dimethylacetamide (DMAc) and produces polyvinylidene fluoride spinning solution, and it is inserted to a spinning solution main tank of a second unit of the electrospinning apparatus. In the first unit of the electrospinning apparatus, on a bicomponent substrate, hot-melt solution is electrospun and laminating formed hot-melt electrospinning layer of thickness of 1 μm, and in the second unit, on the hot-melt electrospinning layer, polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of thickness of 3 μm laminating formed. The electrospinning conditions and post process are the same as example 6.
EXAMPLE 10
[0274] Polyvinylidene fluoride with weight average molecular weight of 50,000 and polyvinylidene fluoride resin for hot-melt with number average molecular weight of 3,000 is dissolved in N,N-Dimethylacetamide (DMAc) and produces spinning solution which mixed polyvinylidene fluoride and hot-melt, and it is inserted to a spinning solution main tank of a first unit of the electrospinning apparatus. Also, polyvinylidene fluoride solution which dissolved polyvinylidene fluoride in N,N-Dimethylformamide is inserted to a spinning solution main tank of a second unit of the electrospinning apparatus. In the first unit, on a bicomponent substrate, electrospinning spinning solution which mixed polyvinylidene fluoride and hot-melt, and laminating formed a first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of thickness of 2.5 μm. In the second unit, on the first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, consecutively electrospinning the polyvinylidene fluoride solution, and laminating formed a second polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of thickness of 2.5 μm. The electrospinning conditions and post process is the same as example 6.
COMPARATIVE EXAMPLE 3
[0275] The bicomponent substrate used in example 6 is used as filter medium.
COMPARATIVE EXAMPLE 4
[0276] Laminating forming polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric which electrospun polyvinylidene fluoride on a cellulose substrate, and produces a filter.
[0277] Filtering efficiency of the example 6 to 10 and comparative example 3 is measured according to the filtering efficiency measuring method and shown in table 3.
[0000]
TABLE 3
Exam-
Exam-
Exam-
Exam-
Exam-
ple
Comparative
ple 6
ple 7
ple 8
ple 9
10
Example 3
0.35 μm
89
93
92
91
92
68
DOP
Filtering
efficiency
(%)
[0278] As described above, a filter comprising polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric produced through example 6 to 10 of the present invention is excellent in filtering efficiency compared to comparative example 3.
[0279] Pressure drop and filter life of the example 7 and comparative example 3 are measured according to the measuring method and shown in Table 4.
[0000]
TABLE 4
Example 7
Comparative Example3
Pressure drop
4.6
8.2
(in · w · g)
Filter life
6.5
3.9
(month)
[0280] According to Table 4, a filter produced through example 7, compared to comparative example 3, has lower pressure drop which results in lower pressure lose and has longer filter life which results in excellence in durability.
[0281] Also, in a filter produced by example 6 to 10 does not occur desorption of nanofiber non-woven fabric, but a filter produced by comparative example 4 occurs desorption of nanofiber non-woven fabric.
[0282] Therefore, in a filter produced through example 6 to 10, compared to comparative example 4, desorption does not easily occur between nanofiber non-woven fabric and a substrate.
[0283] Meanwhile, in an embodiment of the present invention, for substrate, a cellulose substrate is used, and in another embodiment of the present invention, for substrate, general substrate can be used, and for polymer used in polymer spinning solution, polyurethane and polyvinylidene fluoride is used, or solution which mixed polyurethane and polyvinylidene fluoride or polyurethane solution and polyvinylidene fluoride solution can be used. Here, the general substrate is one or more selected among a cellulose substrate, a polyethylene terephthalate substrate, synthetic fiber, natural fiber, and etc.
[0284] First, solution which dissolved polyurethane and polyvinylidene fluoride in organic solvent is provided to a spinning solution main tank ( 8 ) connected to each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) of the electrospinning apparatus, and polyurethane and polyvinylidene fluoride solution provided to the spinning solution main tank ( 8 ) is consecutively and quantitatively provided to a plurality of nozzle ( 12 ) of a nozzle block ( 11 ) provided high voltage through a metering pump (not shown). Polyurethane and polyvinylidene fluoride solution provided from each of the nozzle ( 12 ) electrospun and line-focused on a substrate located on a collector ( 13 ) flowing high voltage through a nozzle ( 12 ), and laminating formed nanofiber non-woven fabric. Here in each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) of the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ), a substrate laminated polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric is carried from the first unit ( 10 a ) to the second unit ( 10 b ) by a supply roller ( 3 ) operated by driving of a motor (not shown) and an auxiliary carry device ( 16 ) driving by rotation of the supply roller ( 3 ), the process is repeated, and on the substrate, nanofiber non-woven fabric is consecutively electrospun and laminating formed, and produces a filter.
[0285] Also, in the process of electrospinning and laminating forming the polyurethane and polyvinylidene fluoride solution on a substrate, by differing spinning conditions according to each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) of the electrospinning apparatus, in the first unit ( 10 a ), polyurethane and polyvinylidene nanofiber non-woven fabric with large fiber diameter laminating formed, and in the second unit ( 10 b ), polyurethane and polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric with small diameter can be consecutively laminating formed.
[0286] Also, polyurethane spinning solution which dissolved polyurethane in organic solvent is supplied to the first unit, and polyvinylidene fluoride spinning solution which dissolved
[0287] Polyvinylidene fluoride in organic solvent is provided to the second unit, and on a substrate, polyurethane nanofiber non-woven fabric and polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric can be laminating formed in order. In other words, by laminating polyurethane nanofiber non-woven fabric on a substrate, and laminating forming polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric on the polyurethane nanofiber non-woven fabric, a filter can be produced.
[0288] Meanwhile, for spinning solution in an embodiment of the present invention, solution which dissolved polyurethane and polyvinylidene fluoride in organic solvent is used, and in another embodiment, hot-melt can be mixed in the solution. Also, polyurethane solution and polyvinylidene fluoride solution can be mixed with hot-melt and spun in each unit.
[0289] According to the method as described above, in the first unit ( 10 a ), by electrospinning polyurethane solution on a substrate, laminating formed polyurethane nanofiber non-woven fabric, and in the second unit ( 10 b ), by electrospinning polyvinylidene fluoride solution on the polyurethane nanofiber non-woven fabric, laminating forming polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, going through a process of thermosetting, and a filter of the present invention can be produced.
EXAMPLE 11
[0290] By dissolving polyvinylidene fluoride and polyurethane in N,N-Dimethylformamide (DMF) and produces spinning solution, and it is inserted to a spinning solution main tank of each unit of the electrospinning apparatus. In each unit, on a polyethylene terephthalate substrate, electrospinning the spinning solution in conditions of the distance between an electrode and a collector is 40 cm, applied voltage is 20 Kv, spinning solution flow rate is 0.1 mL/h, temperature 22° C., and humidity 20%, and after laminating forming nanofiber non-woven fabric of thickness of 3 μm, and going through thermosetting, and produces a filter.
EXAMPLE 12
[0291] Polyvinylidene fluoride, polyurethane, and polyurethane group resin for hot-melt are dissolved in N,N-Dimethylformamide (DMF) and produces spinning solution, and it is inserted to a spinning solution main tank of each unit. In each unit, spinning solution is electrospun on a polyethylene terephthalate substrate. Other conditions are the same as example 11, and a filter is produced.
EXAMPLE 13
[0292] Polyurethane is dissolved in N,N-Dimethylformamide (DMF) and produces spinning solution and it is inserted to a spinning solution main tank of a first unit, and polyvinylidene fluoride is dissolved in N,N-Dimethylformamide (DMF) and produces spinning solution and it is inserted to a spinning solution main tank of a second unit. In the first unit of the electrospinning apparatus, electrospinning polyurethane on a polyethylene terephthalate substrate, and laminating formed polyurethane nanofiber non-woven fabric of thickness of 2 μm. In the second unit, electrospinning the polyvinylidene fluoride spinning solution on the polyurethane nanofiber non-woven fabric, laminating forming polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of thickness of 2 μm, going through thermosetting, and produces a filter.
EXAMPLE 14
[0293] Polyurethane and polyurethane group resin for hot-melt is dissolved in N,N-Dimethylformamide (DMF) and produces spinning solution, and it is inserted to a spinning solution main tank of a first unit, and polyvinylidene fluoride and polyvinylidene fluoride group resin for hot-melt is dissolved in N,N-Dimethylformamide (DMF) and produces spinning solution, and it is inserted to a spinning solution main tank of a second unit. In the first unit of the electrospinning apparatus, electrospinning polyurethane spinning solution which mixed hot-melt on a polyethylene terephthalate substrate, and laminating formed polyurethane nanofiber non-woven fabric of thickness of 2 μm. In the second unit, electrospinning polyvinylidene fluoride spinning solution which mixed hot-melt on the polyurethane nanofiber non-woven fabric, laminating forming polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of thickness of 2 μm, going through thermosetting, and produces a filter.
COMPARATIVE EXAMPLE 5
[0294] The polyethylene terephthalate substrate used in example 11 is used as filter medium.
COMPARATIVE EXAMPLE 6
[0295] By laminating forming polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric which electrospun polyvinylidene fluoride on a polyethylene terephthalate substrate, and a filter is produced.
[0296] Filtering efficiency of a filter produced according to the example 11 to 14 and comparative example 5 is measured by the filtering efficiency measuring method and it is shown in Table 5.
[0000]
TABLE 5
Example
Example
Example
Example
Comparative
11
12
13
14
Example 5
0.35 μm
92
91
92
93
60
DOP
Filtering
efficiency
(%)
[0297] As described above, a filter comprising polyurethane and polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric produced through example 11 to 14, compared to comparative example 5, is excellent in filtering efficiency.
[0298] Pressure drop and filter life of a filter produced by the example 11 to 14 and comparative example 5 are measured by the pressure drop and filter life measuring method and shown in Table 6.
[0000]
TABLE 6
Example
Example
Example
Example
Comparative
11
12
13
14
Example 5
Pressure
4.3
4.4
4.2
4.3
5.2
drop
(in · w ·
g)
Filter life
5.2
5.3
5.1
5.3
3.8
(month)
[0299] According to Table 6, a filter produced through example 11 to 14, compared to comparative example 6, has lower pressure drop which results in lower pressure lose and has longer filter life which results in excellence in durability.
[0300] In result of measuring whether desorption or not of nanofiber non-woven fabric and a filter substrate of nanofiber non-woven fabric of produced filter by the measuring method according to example 12 and 14 and comparative example 6, in a filter produced by example 12 and 14 does not occur desorption of nanofiber non-woven fabric, but a filter produced by comparative example 6 occurs desorption of nanofiber non-woven fabric.
[0301] Therefore, a filter produced by example 12 and 14, compared to comparative example 6, does not occur desorption well between nanofiber non-woven fabric and a substrate.
[0302] Meanwhile, in an embodiment of the present invention, for substrate, a cellulose substrate is used, and in another embodiment of the present invention, for substrate, a general substrate is used, and for polymer, nylon and polyvinylidene fluoride can be used. Here, the general substrate comprises one or more selected from a cellulose substrate, a polyethylene terephthalate substrate, synthetic fiber, natural fiber, and etc., and the nylon preferably comprises nylon 6, nylon 66, nylon 12, and etc.
[0303] In order to produce a filter of an embodiment the present invention, for substrate, not a cellulose substrate but a general substrate is applied, in a first unit ( 10 a ) of the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ), nylon is electrospun on the substrate, and nylon nanofiber non-woven fabric with fiber diameter of 100 to 150 nm is laminated, and in a second unit ( 10 b ), polyvinylidene fluoride is electrospun on the nylon nanofiber non-woven fabric, laminating forming polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric with fiber diameter of 80 to 150 nm, and produces a filter.
[0304] Here, by differing voltage of unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) of the electrospinning apparatus, differing diameter of each nanofiber non-woven fabric, and produces a filter, not only spinning voltage but also by adjusting spinning level, diameter of nanofiber non-woven fabric can be different. Also, by adding hot-melt to polymer, making polymer solution and electrospinning, a filter can be produced.
[0305] According to the method as described above, in each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ), laminating forming nylon nanofiber non-woven fabric and polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric on the substrate, going through a process of thermosetting in a laminating device ( 90 ), and produces a filter of the present invention.
EXAMPLE 15
[0306] Nylon 6 is dissolved in formic acid and produces spinning solution and it is inserted to spinning solution main tank of a first unit, and polyvinylidene fluoride with weight average molecular weight of 50,000 is dissolved in N,N-Dimethylacetamide (DMAc) and produces spinning solution and it is inserted to a spinning solution main tank of a second unit. In the first unit of the electrospinning apparatus, applied voltage is provided 20 kV, electrospinning the nylon 6 spinning solution on a cellulose substrate, and laminating formed nylon nanofiber non-woven fabric of thickness of 2 μm and fiber diameter of 130 nm. In the second unit, applied voltage is provided 20 kV, electrospinning the polyvinylidene fluoride spinning solution on the nylon 6 nanofiber non-woven fabric, laminating forming polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of 2μm and fiber diameter of 130 nm, going through thermosetting, and produces a filter.
EXAMPLE 16
[0307] Polyamide group resin for hot-melt with number average molecular weight of 3,000 is dissolved in formic acid and produces spinning solution, and it is inserted to a spinning solution main tank of a first unit, and nylon 6 is dissolved in formic acid and produces spinning solution, and it is inserted to a spinning solution main tank of a second unit, and polyvinylidene fluoride of weight average molecular weight of 50,000 is dissolved in N,N-Dimetylacetamide (DMAc), and it is inserted to a spinning solution main tank of a third unit. In the first unit of the electrospinning apparatus, electrospinning the hot-melt spinning solution on a cellulose substrate, and laminating formed hot-melt electrospinning layer. In the second unit of the electrospinning apparatus, applied voltage is provided 20 kV, electrospinning the nylon 6 spinning solution on hot-melt electrospinning layer, and laminating formed nylon 6 nanofiber non-woven fabric of thickness of 2 μm and fiber diameter of 130 nm. In the third unit, applied voltage is provided 20 kV, electrospinning the polyvinylidene fluoride spinning solution on the nylon 6 nanofiber non-woven fabric, laminating forming polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of thickness of 2 μm and fiber diameter of 130 nm, going through thermosetting, and produces a filter.
COMPARATIVE EXAMPLE 7
[0308] The cellulose substrate used in example 15 is used as filter medium.
COMPARATIVE EXAMPLE 8
[0309] By laminating forming polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric which electrospun polyvinylidene fluoride on a cellulose substrate, a filter is produced.
[0310] Filtering efficiency of a filter produced by the example 15 and 16 and comparative example 7 is measured according to the filtering efficiency measuring method and shown in Table 7.
[0000]
TABLE 7
Example 15
Example 16
Comparative Example 7
0.35 μm DOP
91
92
60
Filtering
efficiency (%)
[0311] Also, pressure drop and filter life of a filter produced by the example 15 and 16 and comparative example 7 are measured according to the measuring method and shown in Table 8.
[0000]
TABLE 8
Example 15
Example 16
Comparative Example 7
Pressure drop
4.5
4.3
5.2
(in · w · g)
Filter life
5.4
5.3
3.8
(month)
[0312] As described above, a filter comprising polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric produced by example 15 and 16 of the present invention, compared to comparative example 7, is excellent in filtering efficiency. Also, according to Table 8, a filter produced by the example 15 and 16, compared to comparative example 7, has lower pressure drop which results in less pressure loss, and longer filter life which results in excellence in durability.
[0313] In result of measuring whether desorption or not of nanofiber non-woven fabric of a filter produced according to the example 15 and 16 and comparative example 8, in a filter produced by example 15 and 16 does not occur desorption of nanofiber non-woven fabric, but a filter produced by comparative example 8 occurs desorption of nanofiber non-woven fabric. Therefore, a filter produced by the example 15 and 16, compared to comparative example 8, does not occur desorption well between nanofiber non-woven fabric and a substrate.
[0314] Meanwhile, in an embodiment of the present invention, for substrate, a cellulose substrate is used, and in another embodiment of the present invention, a general substrate can be used, and for polymer used in polymer spinning solution, high melting point polyvinylidene fluoride and low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride can be used. Here, the low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride non-woven fabric plays a role as bonding layer between a substrate and high melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, and has effects of preventing desorption of nanofiber.
[0315] In order to produce a filter of an embodiment the present invention, for substrate, not a cellulose substrate but a general substrate is applied, in a first unit ( 10 a ) of the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ), low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride is electrospun on the substrate, and low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric is laminated, and in a second unit ( 10 b ), high melting point polyvinylidene fluoride is electrospun on the low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, laminating forming high melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, and produces a filter.
[0316] Here, by differing voltage of each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) of the electrospinning apparatus, differing diameter of each nanofiber non-woven fabric, and produces a filter. Also, by adding hot-melt to polymer, making polymer solution and electrospinning, a filter can be produced.
[0317] According to the method as described above, in each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ), laminating forming low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric and high melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric on the substrate in order, going through a process of thermosetting in a laminating device ( 90 ), and produces a filter of the present invention.
EXAMPLE 17
[0318] Low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric with number average molecular weight of 5,000 is dissolved in N,N-Dimethlacetamide (DMAc) and produces low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride solution, and it is inserted to a spinning solution main tank of a first unit, and high melting point polyvinylidene fluoride with weight average molecular weight of 50,000 is dissolved in N,N-Dimethlacetamide (DMAc) and produces high melting point polyvinylidene fluoride solution, and it is inserted to a spinning solution main tank of a second unit of the electrospinning apparatus. In the first unit of the electrospinning apparatus, electrospinning the low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride solution on a polyethylene terephthalate substrate with basis weight of 100 g/m 2 , and laminating formed low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of thickness of 2 μm. In the second unit, electrospinning the high melting point polyvinylidene fluoride solution on the low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, laminating forming high melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of thickness of 2 μm, going through thermosetting, and produces a filter.
EXAMPLE 18
[0319] In a first unit of the electrospinning apparatus, applied voltage is provided 15 kV, electrospinning the low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride solution on a cellulose substrate, and laminating formed low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of thickness of 2 μm and fiber diameter of 170 nm. In a second unit, applied voltage is provided 20 kV, electrospinning the high melting point polyvinylidene fluoride solution on the low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, and laminating formed high melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of thickness of 2 μm and fiber diameter of 130 nm, going through thermosetting, and except for producing a filter, it produces a filter the same as example 17.
EXAMPLE 19
[0320] Low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of number average molecular weight of 5,000 is dissolved in N,N-Dimethlacetamide (DMAc) and produces low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride solution, and it is inserted to a spinning solution main tank of a first and a third unit of the electrospinning apparatus, and high melting point polyvinylidene fluoride of weight average molecular weight of 50,000 is dissolved in N,N-Dimethlacetamide (DMAc) and produces high melting point polyvinylidene fluoride solution and it is inserted to a spinning solution main tank of a second and a fourth unit of the electrospinning apparatus. In the first unit of the electrospinning apparatus, electrospinning the low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride solution on a cellulose substrate, and laminating formed a first low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of thickness of 1 μm. In the second unit, applied voltage is provided 15 kV, electrospinning the high melting point polyvinylidene fluoride solution on the first low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, and laminating formed a first high melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of thickness of 1 μm and fiber diameter of 170 nm. In the third unit of the electrospinning apparatus, electrospinning the low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride solution on the first high melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, and laminating formed a second low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of thickness of 1 μm. In the fourth unit, applied voltage is provided 20 kV, electrospinning the high melting point polyvinylidene fluoride solution on the second low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, laminating forming a second high melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of thickness of 1 μm and fiber diameter of 130 nm, going through thermosetting, and produces a filter.
COMPARATIVE EXAMPLE 9
[0321] Polyethylene terephthalate substrate of basis weight of 100 g/m 2 used in example 17 is used as filter medium.
COMPARATIVE EXAMPLE 10
[0322] By laminating forming polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric which electrospun polyvinylidene fluoride on a polyethylene terephthalate substrate, and a filter is produced.
[0323] Filtering efficiency of the example 17 to 19 and comparative example 9 is measured by the filtering efficiency measuring method and shown in Table 9.
[0000]
TABLE 9
Example
Example
Example
Comparative
17
18
19
Example 9
0.35 μm DOP
91
92
94
62
Filtering
efficiency (%)
[0324] As described above, a filter comprising low melting point and high melting point polyvinylidene fluoride produced by example 17 to 19, compared to comparative example 9, is excellent in filtering efficiency.
[0325] Also, pressure drop and filter life of a filter produced by the example 17 to 19 and comparative example 9 are measured and shown in Table 10.
[0000]
TABLE 10
Example
Example
Example
Comparative
17
18
19
Example 9
Pressure
4.4
4.2
4.5
5.2
drop
(in · w · g)
Filter life
5.3
5.2
5.1
3.8
(month)
[0326] According to Table 10, a filter produced by example 17 and 18, compared to comparative example 9, has low pressure drop which results less pressure loss, and longer filter sustainability which results in excellence in durability.
[0327] In result of measuring whether desorption or not of nanofiber non-woven and a filter substrate of a filter produced by the measuring method according to the example 17 to 19 and comparative example 10, in a filter produced by example 17 to does not occur desorption of nanofiber non-woven fabric, but a filter produced by comparative example 10 occurs desorption of nanofiber non-woven fabric.
[0328] Therefore, a filter produced through example 17 to 19 of the present invention, compared to comparative example 10, does not occur desorption between nanofiber non-woven fabric and a substrate.
[0329] Meanwhile, in the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ) according to the present invention, provided 2 units ( 10 a, 10 b ) in order, and in an embodiment, it can be provided 3 units ( 10 a, 10 b, 10 c ). In other words, as illustrated in FIG. 23 , the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ′) comprises a bottom-up electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ), and 3 units ( 10 a, 10 b, 10 c ) are provided consecutively separated in predetermined space in order, and each of the unit ( 10 a, 10 b, 10 c ) individually electrospinning the same polymer spinning solution, or by individually electrospinning polymer spinning solution with different matter, and produces filter material such as non-woven fabric.
[0330] In this case, composition of each of the unit ( 10 a, 10 b, 10 c ) is the same as described above, and in the case of 3 units are provided, the last unit ( 10 c ) also is provided a voltage generator ( 14 c ).
[0331] The following description explains manufacturing method of a filter comprising nanofiber of an embodiment of the present invention using the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ′). In an embodiment of the present invention, the electrospinning apparatus uses 3 units ( 10 a, 10 b, 10 c ), and for polymer, uses polyvinylidene fluoride, and for an elongated sheet ( 15 ), uses general substrate. The general substrate is a substrate conventionally used in a filter such as a cellulose substrate, a polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrate, synthetic fiber, natural fiber, and etc.
[0332] First, polyvinylidene fluoride is dissolved in organic solvent and produces polyvinylidene fluoride solution, and it is provided to a spinning solution main tank ( 8 ) connected to each unit ( 10 a, 10 b, 10 c ) of the electrospinning apparatus, and polyvinylidene fluoride solution provided to the spinning solution main tank ( 8 ) is consecutively and quantitatively provided to a plurality of nozzle ( 12 ) of a nozzle block ( 11 ) flowing high voltage through a metering pump (not shown). Polyvinylidene fluoride solution provided from each of the nozzle ( 12 ) electrospun and line-focused on a substrate located on a collector ( 13 ) flowing high voltage through a nozzle ( 12 ), and laminating forming polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric. Here, in each unit ( 10 a, 10 b, 10 c ) of the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ), a substrate laminated polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric is carried from a first unit ( 10 a ) to a second unit ( 10 b ) and to a third unit ( 10 c ) in order by a supply roller ( 3 ) operated by driving of a motor (not shown) and rotation of an auxiliary carry device ( 16 ) driving by rotation of the supply roller ( 3 ), the process is repeated, and polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric is consecutively electrospun and laminating formed on the substrate.
[0333] Also, in the process of electrospinning and laminating forming the polyvinylidene fluoride solution on a substrate, by differing spinning conditions according to each unit ( 10 a, 10 b, 10 c ) of the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ′), in a first unit ( 10 a ), a first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric is laminating formed, and in a second unit ( 10 b ), polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric with smaller fiber diameter than that of the first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric can be consecutively laminating formed, and in a third unit ( 10 c ), a third polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric with smaller fiber diameter than that of the second polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric is consecutively laminating formed.
[0334] A voltage generator ( 14 a ), which is installed in a first unit ( 10 a ) of the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ) and provides voltage to the first unit ( 10 a ) and providing low spinning voltage, forms a first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric with fiber diameter of 200 to 250 nm on a substrate, and a voltage generator ( 14 b ), which is installed in a second unit ( 10 b ) of the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ) and provides voltage to the second unit ( 10 b ) and providing high spinning voltage, laminating forms a second polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of fiber diameter of 150 to 200 nm on the first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, and a voltage generator ( 14 c ), which is installed in a third unit ( 10 c ) of the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ) and provides voltage to the third unit ( 10 c ), provides high spinning voltage, and laminating forms a third polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of fiber diameter of 100 to 150 nm on the second polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric. Here, spinning voltage provided by each of the voltage generator ( 14 a, 14 b, 14 c ) is 1 kV or more, and preferably 15 kV or more, and voltage provided by the voltage generator ( 14 a ) of the first unit ( 10 a ) is lower than voltage provided by the voltage generator ( 14 b ) of the second unit ( 10 b ).
[0335] In an embodiment of the present invention, providing low voltage of the first unit ( 10 a ) of the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ), and laminating forming a first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of fiber diameter of 200 to 250 nm on a substrate, and providing higher voltage in the second unit ( 10 b ), and laminating a second polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of fiber diameter of 150 to 200 nm, and providing higher voltage in the third unit ( 10 c ), and laminating forming a third polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of fiber diameter of 100 to 150 nm, and produces a filter. However, by differing voltage intensity, spinning is possible.
[0336] Here, in order to provide grade of fiber diameter, method of differing voltage intensity provided according to each unit ( 10 a, 10 b, 10 c ) is used, and by differing the distance between a nozzle ( 12 ) and a collector ( 13 ), nanofiber non-woven fabric with different fiber diameter can be formed. In this case, in the case of spinning solution type and provided voltage intensity are the same, according to the principle of nearer spinning distance, larger fiber diameter, and further spinning distance, smaller fiber diameter, nanofiber non-woven fabric with different fiber diameter can be formed. Also, by adjusting spinning solution concentration and viscosity, or by adjusting an elongated sheet feed speed, fiber diameter can be different.
[0337] Moreover, in an embodiment of the present invention, number of unit of the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ′) is limited to 3, but 3 or more units can be provided.
[0338] In an embodiment of the present invention, for spinning solution, polyvinylidene fluoride solution which dissolved polyvinylidene fluoride in organic solvent is used, or polyvinylidene fluoride and hot-melt can be mixed and used, and polyvinylidene fluoride solution and hot-melt solution can be provided differently according to each unit and be used.
[0339] According to the method as described above, in the first unit ( 10 a ), electrospinning polyvinylidene fluoride solution on a substrate, and laminating forming a first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of fiber diameter of 200 to 250 nm, and in the second unit ( 10 b ), electrospinning polyvinylidene fluoride solution on the first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, and laminating forming a second polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of fiber diameter of 150 to 200 nm, and in the third unit ( 10 c ), electrospinning polyvinylidene fluoride solution on the second polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, laminating forming a third polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of fiber diameter of 100 to 150 nm, going through a process of thermosetting, and produces a filter of the present invention.
EXAMPLE 20
[0340] Polyvinylidene fluoride of weight average molecular weight of 50,000 is dissolved in N,N-Dimethylacetamide (DMAc) and produces spinning solution, and it is inserted to a spinning solution main tank of each unit. In the first unit of the electrospinning apparatus, applied voltage is provided 15 kV, electrospinning the spinning solution on a polyethylene terephthalate substrate of basis weight of 100 g/m 2 , and laminating formed a first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of thickness of 2 μm and fiber diameter of 250 nm. In the second unit, applied voltage is provided 17.5 kV, electrospinning the spinning solution on the first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, and laminating formed a second polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of thickness of 2 μm and fiber diameter of 170 nm. In the third unit, applied voltage is provided 20 kV, electrospinning the spinning solution on the second polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, and laminating formed a third polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of thickness of 2 μm and fiber diameter of 130 nm.
EXAMPLE 21
[0341] Polyvinylidene fluoride resin for hot-melt of number average molecular weight of 3,000 is dissolved in N,N-Dimethylacetamide (DMAc) in 8 weight % and produces hot-melt solution, and it is inserted to a spinning solution main tank of a first, third, fifth unit of the electrospinning apparatus, and polyvinylidene fluoride of weight average molecular weight of 50,000 is dissolved in N,N-Dimethylacetamide (DMAc) and produces polyvinylidene fluoride solution, and it is inserted to a spinning solution main tank of a second, fourth, sixth unit of the electrospinning apparatus. In the first unit of the electrospinning apparatus, electrospinning the hot-melt solution on a polyethylene terephthalate substrate of basis weight of 100 g/m 2 , and laminating formed a first hot-melt electrospinning layer of thickness of 1 μm. In the second unit, applied voltage is provided 15 kV, electrospinning the polyvinylidene fluoride solution on the first hot-melt electrospinning layer, and laminating formed a first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of thickness of 2 μm and fiber diameter of 250 nm.
[0342] In the third unit of the electrospinning apparatus, electrospinning the hot-melt solution on the first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, and laminating formed a second hot-melt electrospinning layer of thickness of 1 μm. In the fourth unit, applied voltage is provided 17.5 kV, electrospinning the polyvinylidene fluoride solution on the second hot-melt electrospinning layer, and laminating formed a second polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of thickness of 2 μm and fiber diameter of 170 nm.
[0343] In the fifth unit of the electrospinning apparatus, electrospinning the hot-melt solution on the second polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, and laminating formed a third hot-melt electrospinning layer of thickness of 1 μm. In the sixth unit, applied voltage is provided 20 kV, electrospinning the polyvinylidene fluoride solution on the third hot-melt electrospinning layer, laminating forming a third polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of thickness of 2 μm and fiber diameter of 130 nm.
COMPARATIVE EXAMPLE 11
[0344] The polyethylene terephthalate substrate of basis weight of 100 g/m 2 used in example 20 is used as filter medium.
COMPARATIVE EXAMPLE 12
[0345] By laminating forming polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric which electrospun polyvinylidene fluoride on a polyethylene terephthalate substrate, a filter is produced.
[0346] Filtering efficiency of the example 20 and 21 and comparative example 11 is measured by the filtering efficiency measuring method and shown in Table 11.
[0000]
TABLE 11
Example 20
Example 21
Comparative Example 11
0.35 μm DOP
91
92
63
Filtering
efficiency (%)
[0347] As described above, a filter produced by example 20 and 21 of the present invention, compared to comparative example 11, is excellent in filtering efficiency.
[0348] Also, pressure drop and filter life of a filter produced by the example 20 and 21 and comparative example 11 are measured and shown in Table 12.
[0000]
TABLE 12
Example
Example
Comparative
20
21
Example 11
Pressure drop (in · w · g)
4.6
4.5
5.2
Filter life (month)
5.3
5.4
3.8
[0349] According to Table 12, a filter produced by example 20 and 21 of the present invention, compared to comparative example 11, has low pressure drop which results in less pressure loss, and longer filter sustainability which results in excellence in durability.
[0350] In result of measuring whether desorption or not of nanofiber non-woven fabric and a filter substrate of filter produced by example 20 and 21 and comparative example 12 according to the measuring method, in a filter produced by example 20 and 21 does not occur desorption of nanofiber non-woven fabric, but a filter produced by comparative example 12 occurs desorption of nanofiber non-woven fabric.
[0351] Therefore, a filter produced through example 20 and 21, compared to comparative example 12, does not occur desorption well between nanofiber non-woven fabric and a substrate.
[0352] Meanwhile, in the rear-end of a unit ( 10 b ) located in the rear-end of the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ), a laminating device ( 90 ) is provided, and in another embodiment, a laminating device ( 100 ) can be provided between a unit ( 10 b ) located in the rear-end and a laminating device ( 90 ). In other words, as illustrated in FIG. 25 , in the rear-end of the unit ( 10 b ) of the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ″), a laminating device ( 100 ) is provided, and in bottom of an elongated sheet ( 15 ) laminated nanofiber non-woven fabric, a substrate (not shown) is laminated. The laminating device ( 100 ) laminates a substrate (not shown) on nanofiber non-woven fabric spun polymer spinning solution on an elongated sheet ( 15 ) through each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ).
[0353] In this case, the laminating device ( 100 ) is provided in bottom of the nanofiber non-woven fabric, and a substrate provided through the laminating device ( 100 ) is laminated on bottom side of nanofiber non-woven fabric.
[0354] In an embodiment of the present invention, the laminating device ( 100 ) is provided in bottom of nanofiber non-woven fabric to laminate on bottom side of nanofiber non-woven fabric, and the laminating device ( 100 ) can be provided in stop of nanofiber non-woven fabric to laminate upper side of nanofiber non-woven fabric.
[0355] In an embodiment of the present invention, the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ″) uses 2 units ( 10 a, 10 b ), for polymer, uses nylon, and for an elongated sheet ( 15 ), uses a bicomponent substrate. Nylon used in the present invention comprises nylon 6, nylon 66, nylon 46, nylon 12, and etc. or one selected among group comprising their polymer. Also, Fiber forming polymer of a bicomponent substrate used in an embodiment of the present invention can be polyester comprising polyethylene terephthalate, polyethylene naphthalate, polypropylene terephthalate, and polybutylene terephthalate, and polypropylene terephthalate also is polybutylene terephthalte such as polytrimethylene terephthalte and polytetramethylene terephthalte.
[0356] In order to produce a filter of an embodiment the present invention, nylon is dissolved in organic solvent and produces nylon solution which is provided to a spinning solution main tank ( 8 ) connected to each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) of the electrospinning apparatus, and nylon solution provided to the spinning solution main tank ( 8 ) is consecutively and quantitatively provided in a plurality of nozzle ( 12 ) of a nozzle block ( 11 ) provided high voltage through a metering pump (not shown). Nylon solution provided from each of the nozzle ( 12 ) electrospun and line-focused on a bicomponent substrate located on a collector ( 13 ) flowing high voltage through a nozzle ( 12 ), and laminating forming nylon nanofiber non-woven fabric.
[0357] Meanwhile, in each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) of the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ″), a bicomponent substrate laminated nylon nanofiber non-woven fabric is carried from the first unit ( 10 a ) to the second unit ( 10 b ) by a supply roller ( 3 ) operated by driving of a motor (not shown) and rotation of an auxiliary carry device ( 16 ) driving by rotation of the supply roller ( 3 ), the process is repeated, and on a bicomponent substrate, nylon nanofiber non-woven fabric is consecutively electrospun and laminating formed.
[0358] Also, in the process of electrospinning and laminating forming the nylon solution on a bicomponent substrate, by differing spinning conditions according to each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) of the electrospinning apparatus, in the first unit ( 10 a ), laminating forming nylon nanofiber non-woven fabric with large fiber diameter, and in the second unit ( 10 b ), consecutively laminating forming nylon nanofiber non-woven fabric with small fiber diameter.
[0359] In this case, a voltage generator ( 14 a ) installed in the first unit ( 10 a ) of the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ″) and providing voltage to the first unit ( 10 a ) is provided low spinning voltage, and forms nylon nanofiber non-woven fabric of fiber diameter of 150 to 300 nm on a bicomponent substrate, and a voltage generator ( 14 b ) installed in the second unit ( 10 b ) and providing voltage to the second unit ( 10 b ) is provided high spinning voltage, laminating forming nylon nanofiber non-woven fabric of fiber diameter of 100 to 150 nm on the nylon nanofiber non-woven fabric of fiber diameter of 150 to 300 nm. Here, spinning voltage provided by each of the voltage generator ( 14 a, 14 b ) is 1 kV or more, and preferably 15 kV or more, and voltage provided by the voltage generator ( 14 a ) of the first unit ( 10 a ) is lower than voltage provided by the voltage generator ( 14 b ) of the second unit ( 10 b ).
[0360] In an embodiment of the present invention, voltage of the first unit ( 10 a ) of the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ″) is provided low, laminating nylon nanofiber non-woven fabric of fiber diameter of 150 to 300 nm on a bicomponent substrate, and voltage of the second unit ( 10 b ) is provided high, laminating forming nylon nanofiber non-woven fabric of fiber diameter of 100 to 150 nm, and produces a filter. However, by differing voltage intensity, nylon nanofiber non-woven fabric of fiber diameter of 100 to 150 nm spun and laminating formed in the first unit ( 10 a ), and nylon nanofiber non-woven fabric of fiber diameter of 150 to 300 nm can be spun in the second unit ( 10 b ).
[0361] Also, number of unit of the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ″) comprises 3 or more, and by differing voltage according to each unit, a filter laminating forming 3 or more layers of nylon nanofiber non-woven fabric with different fiber diameter on a bicomponent substrate can be produced.
[0362] Here, in order to provide grade of fiber diameter, a method of differing voltage intensity provided according to each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) is used, or by adjusting the distance between a nozzle ( 12 ) and a collector ( 13 ), nanofiber non-woven fabric with different fiber diameter can be formed. In the case of spinning solution type and provided voltage intensity are the same, according to the principle of the nearer spinning distance is, the larger fiber diameter is, and the further spinning distance is, the smaller fiber diameter is, nanofiber non-woven fabric with different fiber diameter can be formed. Also, by adjusting density and viscosity of spinning solution, or by adjusting moving speed of an elongated sheet, fiber diameter can be different.
[0363] According to the method as described above, after laminating forming nylon nanofiber non-woven fabric in each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ), in a laminating device ( 100 ) located in the rear-end of the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ″), a polyethylene terephthalate substrate is laminated one side of the bicomponent substrate not laminating formed the nylon nanofiber non-woven fabric, and going through a process of thermosetting in a laminating device ( 90 ), and a filter can be produced.
EXAMPLE 22
[0364] Nylon 6 is dissolved in formic acid and produces spinning solution, and it is inserted in a spinning solution main tank of each unit of the electrospinning apparatus. In each unit, electrospinning the spinning solution on one side of a bicomponent substrate of basis weight of 30 g/m 2 , and laminating formed nylon 6 nanofiber non-woven fabric of thickness of 3 μm. After electrospinning, a polyethylene terephthalate substrate of basis weight of 150 g/m 2 is laminated on another side of a bicomponent substrate not laminated the nylon nanofiber non-woven fabric, and in a laminating device, going through thermosetting, and produces a filter comprising nylon nanofiber non-woven fabric and a bicomponent substrate and a polyethylene terephthalate substrate. In this case, electrospinning is performed in conditions of applied voltage is 20 kV, spinning solution flow rate is 0.1 mL/h, temperature 22° C., and humidity 20%.
EXAMPLE 23
[0365] Except for using polyethylene terephthalate substrate of basis weight of 55 g/m 2 , it produces a filter in the same conditions as example 22.
EXAMPLE 24
[0366] Nylon 6 is dissolved in formic acid and produces spinning solution, and it is inserted in a spinning solution main tank of each unit of the electrospinning apparatus. In a first unit of the electrospinning apparatus, applied voltage is provided 15 kV, electrospinning the spinning solution on one side of a bicomponent substrate of basis weight of 30 g/m 2 , and laminating formed a first nylon 6 nanofiber non-woven fabric of thickness of 2.5 μm and fiber diameter of 250 nm. In a second unit of the electrospinning apparatus, applied voltage is provided 20 kV, electrospinning the spinning solution on the first nylon 6 nanofiber non-woven fabric, and laminating formed second first nylon 6 nanofiber non-woven fabric of thickness of 2.5 μm and fiber diameter of 130 nm. After electrospinning, polyethylene terephthalate substrate of basis weight of 150 g/m 2 is laminated on another side of the bicomponent substrate not laminated the first nylon 6 nanofiber non-woven fabric, and in a laminating device, going through thermosetting laminating formed fabrics in order of a polyethylene terephthalate substrate, a bicomponent substrate, a first nylon 6 nanofiber, a second nylon 6 nanofiber non-woven fabric, and produces a filter.
EXAMPLE 25
[0367] Except for using polyethylene terephthalate substrate of basis weight of 55 g/m 2 , it produces a filter in the same conditions as example 24.
COMPARATIVE EXAMPLE 13
[0368] Polyethylene terephthalate substrate used in example 22 is used as filter medium.
COMPARATIVE EXAMPLE 14
[0369] By laminating forming nylon 6 nanofiber non-woven fabric which electrospun nylon 6 on a polyethylene terephthalate substrate, and produces a filter.
[0370] Filtering efficiency of the example 22 and 23 and comparative example 13 is measured according to the filtering efficiency measuring method and shown in Table 13.
[0000]
TABLE 13
Comparative
Example 22
Example 23
Example 13
0.35 μm DOP
90
93
65
Filtering
efficiecny (%)
[0371] As described above, a filter comprising nylon nanofiber non-woven fabric and a bicomponent substrate produced by example 22 and 23, compared to comparative example 13, is excellent in filtering efficiency.
[0372] Also, pressure drop and filter sustainability of a filter produced by the example 24 and 25 and comparative example 13 are measured and shown in Table 14.
[0000]
TABLE 14
Comparative
Example 24
Example 25
Example 13
Pressure drop
4.1
4.2
8.0
(in · w · g)
Filter life
6.2
6.0
4.1
(month)
[0373] According to Table 14, a filter produced by example 24 and 25 of the present invention, compared to comparative example 13, has lower pressure drop which results in less pressure loss, and longer filter sustainability which results in excellence in durability.
[0374] In result of measuring whether desorption or not of nanofiber non-woven fabric and a filter substrate of filter produced by example 22 to 25 and comparative example 14 according to the measuring method, in a filter produced by example 22 to 25 does not occur desorption of nanofiber non-woven fabric, but a filter produced by comparative example 14 occurs desorption of nanofiber non-woven fabric.
[0375] Therefore, a filter produced by example 22 to 25 of the present invention, compared to comparative example 14, does not occur desorption well between nanofiber non-woven fabric and a substrate.
[0376] Meanwhile, in an embodiment of the present invention, for nanofiber non-woven fabric laminated on a bicomponent substrate laminated on a PET substrate, nylon nanofiber non-woven fabric is used, and in another embodiment, polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric can be used.
[0377] Meanwhile, in order to produce a filter of an embodiment of the present invention, it is produced according to the manufacturing method as described above, for substrate, for nanofiber non-woven fabric, by electrospinning not nylon but polyvinylidene fluoride, and forming polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, and a filter is produced.
[0378] Here, by differing voltage of unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) of the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ″), and by differing diameter of each nanofiber non-woven fabric, a filter can be produced. Also, by adding hot-melt in polymer and making polymer solution and electrospinning, a filter can be produced. According to the method as described above, in each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ), after consecutively laminating forming polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric on the bicomponent substrate, in a laminating device ( 100 ) located in the rear-end of the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ″), a polyethylene terephthalate substrate is adhered to another side of the bicomponent substrate not laminating formed the polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, going through a process of thermosetting in a laminating device ( 90 ), and a filter is produced. In this case, basis weight of the polyethylene terephthalate substrate preferably is 50 to 300 g/m 2 .
EXAMPLE 26
[0379] Polyvinylidene fluoride of weight average molecular weight of 50,000 is dissolved in N,N-Dimethylacetamide (DMAc) and produces spinning solution, and it is inserted to a spinning solution main tank of each unit of each electrospinning apparatus. In each unit, electrospinning the spinning solution on one side of a bicomponent substrate of basis weight of 30 g/m 2 , and laminating formed polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of thickness of 3 μm. After electrospinning, bonding a polyethylene terephthalate substrate of basis weight of 150 g/m 2 on another side of the bicomponent substrate not laminated to the polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric through a laminating device, going through thermosetting in a laminating device, and finally produces a filter comprising polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, a bicomponent substrate, and a polyethylene terephthalate substrate. In this case, applied voltage is 20 kV, spinning solution flow rate is 0.1 mL/h, temperature 22° C., and humidity 20%.
EXAMPLE 27
[0380] Instead of using a polyethylene terephthalate substrate of basis weight of 55 g/m 2 , a filter is produced in the same conditions as example 26.
EXAMPLE 28
[0381] Polyvinylidene fluoride of weight average molecular weight of 50,000 is dissolved in N,N-Dimethylacetamide (DMAc) and produces spinning solution, and it is inserted to a spinning solution main tank of each unit of the electrospinning apparatus. In the first unit of the electrospinning apparatus, applied voltage is provided 15 kV, electrospinning the spinning solution on one side of a bicomponent substrate of basis weight of 30 g/m 2 , and laminating formed a first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of thickness of 2.5 μm and fiber diameter of 250 nm. In the second unit of the electrospinning apparatus, applied voltage is provided 20 kV, electrospinning the spinning solution on the first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, and laminating formed a second polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of thickness of 2.5 μm and fiber diameter of 130 nm. After electrospinning, a polyethylene terephthalate substrate of basis weight of 150 g/m 2 is laminated another side of the bicomponent substrate not laminated to the first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric through a laminating device, in a laminating device, thermosetting fabric laminating formed in order of the polyethylene terephthalate substrate, the bicomponent substrate, the first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber, the second polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, and produces a filter.
EXAMPLE 29
[0382] Instead of using a polyethylene terephthalate substrate of basis weight of 55 g/m 2 , a filter is produced in the same conditions as example 28.
COMPARATIVE EXAMPLE 15
[0383] The polyethylene terephthalate substrate used in example 26 is used as filter medium.
COMPARATIVE EXAMPLE 16
[0384] By laminating forming polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric which electrospun polyvinylidene fluoride on a polyethylene terephthalate substrate, and produces a filter.
[0385] Filtering efficiency of the example 26 and 27 and comparative example 15 is measured by the filtering efficiency measuring method and shown in Table 15.
[0000]
TABLE 15
Comparative
Example 26
Example 27
Example 15
0.35 μm DOP
91
92
63
Filtering
efficiency (%)
[0386] As described above, a filter comprising polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric and a bicomponent substrate produced by example 26 and 27, compared to comparative example 15, is excellent in filtering efficiency.
[0387] Also, pressure drop and filer sustainability of example 28 and 29 and comparative example 15 are measured and shown in Table 16.
[0000]
TABLE 16
Comparative
Example 28
Example 29
Example 15
Pressure drop
4.2
4.3
8.0
(in · w · g)
Filter
6.2
6.0
4.0
life (month)
[0388] According to Table 16, a filter produced by example 28 and 29 of the present invention, compared to comparative example 15, has lower pressure drop which results in less pressure loss, and longer filter sustainability which results in excellence in durability.
[0389] In result of measuring whether desorption or not of nanofiber non-woven fabric and a filter substrate of filter produced by example 26 to 29 and comparative example 16 according to the measuring method, in a filter produced by example 26 to 29 does not occur desorption of nanofiber non-woven fabric, but a filter produced by comparative example 15 occurs desorption of nanofiber non-woven fabric.
[0390] Therefore, a filter produced through example 26 to 29 of the present invention, compared to comparative example 16, does not occur desorption well between nanofiber non-woven fabric and a substrate.
[0391] Meanwhile, in an embodiment of the present invention, for nanofiber non-woven fabric laminated on a bicomponent substrate laminated on a polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrate, polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric is used, and in another embodiment, high melting point and low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric can be used. Also, the PET substrate can be needle felt type PET substrate.
[0392] In the case of using the high melting point and low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber, there are effects such as separation between nanofiber and a substrate does not occur even not by using adhesive such as hot-melt.
[0393] In order to produce a filter of an embodiment of the present invention, the manufacturing method as described above is used, by electrospinning spinning solution which mixed high melting point and low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride on a bicomponent substrate in each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) of the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ″), after laminating forming high melting point and low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, in a laminating device ( 100 ) located in the rear-end of the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ″), a polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrate is laminated to one side of the bicomponent substrate not laminating formed the polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, going through a process of thermosetting in a laminating device ( 90 ), and produces a filter. Here, the polyethylene terephthalate substrate can be needle felt type polyethylene terephthalate substrate.
EXAMPLE 30
[0394] High melting point polyvinylidene fluoride of weight average molecular weight of 50,000 and low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride of weight average molecular weight of 5,000 is dissolved in N,N-Dimethylacetamide (DMAc) and produces spinning solution, and it is inserted to a spinning solution main tank of each unit of each electrospinning apparatus. In each unit, electrospinning the spinning solution on one side of a bicomponent substrate of basis weight of 30 g/m 2 , and laminating formed polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of thickness of 3 μm. After electrospinning, bonding a polyethylene terephthalate substrate of basis weight of 150 g/m 2 on another side of the bicomponent substrate not adhered to the polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, and in a laminating device, going through thermosetting, and finally produces a filter comprising polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, a bicomponent substrate, and a polyethylene terephthalate substrate. In this case, electrospinning is performed in conditions of applied voltage is 20 kV, spinning solution flow rate is 0.1 mL/h, temperature 22° C., and humidity 20%.
EXAMPLE 31
[0395] Except for using needle felt type polyethylene terephthalate substrate, it produces a filter in the same conditions as example 30.
EXAMPLE 32
[0396] High melting point polyvinylidene fluoride of weight average molecular weight of 50,000 and low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride of weight average molecular weight of 5,000 is dissolved in N,N-Dimethylacetamide (DMAc) and produces spinning solution, and it is inserted to a spinning solution main tank of each unit of the electrospinning apparatus. In the first unit of the electrospinning apparatus, applied voltage is provided 15 kV, electrospinning the spinning solution on one side of a bicomponent substrate of basis weight of 30 g/m 2 , and laminating formed a first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of thickness of 2.5 μm and fiber diameter of 250 nm. In the second unit of the electrospinning apparatus, applied voltage is provided 20 kV, electrospinning the spinning solution on the first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, and laminating formed a second polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of thickness of 2.5 μm and fiber diameter of 130 nm. After electrospinning, a polyethylene terephthalate substrate of basis weight of 150 g/m 2 is laminated to another side of the bicomponent substrate not adhered to the first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, and in a laminating device, thermosetting fabric laminating formed the polyethylene terephthalate substrate, the bicomponent substrate, the first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber, the second polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric in order, and produces a filter.
EXAMPLE 33
[0397] Except for using needle felt type polyethylene terephthalate substrate, it produces a filter in the same conditions as example 32.
COMPARATIVE EXAMPLE 17
[0398] The polyethylene terephthalate substrate used in example 30 is used as filter medium.
COMPARATIVE EXAMPLE 18
[0399] By laminating forming polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric which electrospun polyvinylidene fluoride on a polyethylene terephthalate substrate, and produces a filter.
[0400] Filtering efficiency of example 30 and 31 and comparative example 17 is measured by the filtering efficiency measuring method and shown in Table 17.
[0000]
TABLE 17
Comparative
Example 30
Example 31
Example 17
0.35 μm DOP
93
92
63
Filtering
efficiency (%)
[0401] As described above, a filter comprising high melting point and low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric produced by example 30 and 31 of the present invention, compared to comparative example 17, is excellent in filtering efficiency.
[0402] Also, pressure drop and filter life of a filter produced by example 32 and 33 and comparative example 17 are measured and shown in Table 18.
[0000]
TABLE 18
Comparative
Example 32
Example 33
Example 17
Pressure
4.1
4.2
5
drop (in · w · g)
Filter
6.3
6.3
5.4
life (month)
[0403] According to Table 18, a filter produced through example 32 and 33, compared to comparative example 17, has lower pressure drop which results in lower pressure lose and has longer filter sustainability which results in excellence in durability.
[0404] In result of measuring whether desorption or not of nanofiber non-woven fabric and a filter substrate of a filter produced by example 30 to 33 and comparative example 18 by the measuring method, in a filter produced by example 30 to 33 does not occur desorption of nanofiber non-woven fabric, but a filter produced by comparative example 18 occurs desorption of nanofiber non-woven fabric.
[0405] Therefore, a filter produced through example 30 to 33 of the present invention, compared to comparative example 18, does not occur desorption well between nanofiber non-woven fabric and a substrate.
[0406] Meanwhile, in an embodiment of the present invention, for nanofiber non-woven fabric laminated on a bicomponent substrate laminated on a PET substrate, polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric is used, and in another embodiment, a bicomponent substrate is used instead of the PET substrate, and a filter comprising polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric laminated on a bicomponent substrate of 2 layers can be produced.
[0407] In order to produce a filter of an embodiment of the present invention, the manufacturing method as described above is used, in each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) of the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ″), after laminating forming polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric on a first bicomponent substrate, in a laminating device ( 100 ) located in the rear-end of the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ″), a second bicomponent substrate is laminated on one side of the first bicomponent substrate not laminating formed the polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, and going through thermosetting in a laminating device ( 90 ), and produces a filter.
[0408] Here, by differing voltage of unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) of the electrospinning apparatus, and by differing diameter of each nanofiber non-woven fabric, a filter can be produced. Also, by adding hot-melt in polymer and making polymer solution and electrospinning, a filter can be produced. Also, a melting point of the second bicomponent substrate is preferably 130 to 170° C.
[0409] According to the method as described above, in each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ), laminating formed polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric on the first bicomponent substrate, through a laminating device ( 100 ), bonding the second bicomponent substrate below the first bicomponent substrate, and going through thermosetting in a laminating device ( 90 ), a filter of the present invention is produced.
EXAMPLE 34
[0410] Polyvinylidene fluoride of weight average molecular weight of 50,000 is dissolved in N,N-Dimethylacetamide (DMAc) and produces spinning solution, and in is inserted to a spinning solution main tank of each unit of the electrospinning apparatus. In each unit, on one side of a bicomponent substrate with a melting point of 100° C., in conditions of the distance between an electrode and a collector is 40 cm, applied voltage is 20 kV, spinning solution flow rate is 0.1 mL/h, temperature 22° C., and humidity 20%, electrospinning the spinning solution, and laminating formed polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of thickness of 3 μm. After electrospinning, in a laminating device located in the rear-end of the electrospinning apparatus, on another side of the bicomponent substrate with a melting point of 100° C. not laminated polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber, bonding a bicomponent substrate with a melting point of 140° C., and putting pressure in a laminating device, and finally produces a filter.
EXAMPLE 35
[0411] The bicomponent substrate with a melting point of 100° C. in example 34, except for using a water-proof coating bicomponent substrate, it produces a filter in the same method as example 34.
COMPARATIVE EXAMPLE 19
[0412] The bicomponent substrate with a melting point of 140° C. in example 34 is used as filter medium.
COMPARATIVE EXAMPLE 20
[0413] By laminating forming polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric which electrospun polyvinylidene fluoride on a cellulose substrate, and produces a filter.
[0414] Filtering efficiency of example 34 and 35 and comparative example 19 is measured according to the filtering efficiency measuring method and shown in Table 19. Also, pressure drop and filter life of filter produced by example 34 and 35 and comparative example 19 are measured and shown in Table 20.
[0000]
TABLE 19
Comparative
Example 34
Example 35
example 19
0.35 μm DOP
90
91
65
Filtering
efficiency (%)
[0000]
TABLE 20
Comparative
Example 34
Example 35
example 19
Pressure drop
4.1
4.2
8.0
(in · w · g)
Filter life (month)
6.2
6.0
4.0
[0415] As described above, a filter comprising polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric and a bicomponent substrate produced by example 34 and 35 of the present invention, compared to comparative example 19, is excellent in filtering efficiency.
[0416] According to Table 20, a filter produced through example 34 and 35, compared to comparative example 19, has lower pressure drop which results in lower pressure lose and has longer filter sustainability which results in excellence in durability.
[0417] In result of measuring whether desorption or not of nanofiber non-woven fabric and a filter substrate of a filter produced by example 34 and 35 and comparative example 20 by the measuring method, in a filter produced by example 34 and 35 does not occur desorption of nanofiber non-woven fabric, but in a filter produced by comparative example 20 occurs desorption of nanofiber non-woven fabric.
[0418] Therefore, a filter produced through example 34 and 35 of the present invention, compared to comparative example 20, does not occur desorption well between nanofiber non-woven fabric and a substrate.
[0419] Meanwhile, in an embodiment of the present invention, it has a structure laminated polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric on a bicomponent substrate of 2 layers, and in another embodiment, instead of the bicomponent substrate of 2 layers, polyethylene terephthalate substrate of 2 layers is used, and the polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric can be polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of 2 layers with different fiber diameter.
[0420] In order to produce a filter of an embodiment of the present invention, the manufacturing method as described above is used, in the process of electrospinning and laminating forming the polyvinylidene fluoride solution on a first polyethylene terephthalate substrate, by differing spinning conditions according to each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) of the electrospinning apparatus, in the first unit ( 10 a ), laminating forming polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric with large fiber diameter, and in the second unit ( 10 b ), consecutively laminating formed polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric with small fiber diameter. Here, a voltage generator ( 14 a ) providing voltage to the first unit ( 10 a ) provides low spinning voltage, and forms a first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of fiber diameter of 150 to 300 nm on a first polyethylene terephthalate substrate, and a voltage generator ( 14 b ) installed in the second unit ( 10 b ) and providing voltage to the second unit ( 10 b ) provides high spinning voltage, and laminating forms a second polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of fiber diameter of 100 to 150 nm on the first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric. Also, by differing voltage intensity, in the first unit ( 10 a ) can be applied high voltage and the in the second unit ( 10 b ) can be applied low voltage.
[0421] Also, in an embodiment of the present invention, for spinning solution, polyvinylidene fluoride solution which dissolved polyvinylidene fluoride in organic solvent is used, polyvinylidene fluoride and hot-melt can be mixed and used, and polyvinylidene fluoride solution and hot-melt solution are provided differently according to each unit and can be used.
[0422] According to the method as described above, in the first unit ( 10 a ), electrospinning polyvinylidene fluoride solution on one side of a first polyethylene terephthalate substrate, and laminating formed a first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of fiber diameter of 150 to 300 nm. In the second unit ( 10 b ), electrospinning polyvinylidene fluoride solution on the first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, and laminating formed a second polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of fiber diameter of 100 to 150 nm. After, in a laminating device ( 100 ) located in the rear-end of the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ), bonding a second polyethylene terephthalate substrate on another side of the first polyethylene terephthalate substrate not laminating formed the first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, and going through a process of thermosetting in a laminating device ( 90 ), and produces a filter of the present invention.
EXAMPLE 36
[0423] Polyvinylidene fluoride of weight average molecular weight of 50,000 is dissolved in N,N-Dimethylacetamide (DMAc) and produces spinning solution, and it is inserted to a spinning solution main tank of each unit of the electrospinning apparatus. In the first unit of the electrospinning apparatus, applied voltage is provided 15 kV, electrospinning the spinning solution on one side of a polyethylene terephthalate substrate of basis weight of 30 g/m 2 , and laminating formed a first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of thickness of 2.5 μm and fiber diameter of 250 nm. In the second unit of the electrospinning apparatus, applied voltage is provided 20 kV, electrospinning the spinning solution on the first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, and laminating formed a second polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of thickness of 2.5 μm and fiber diameter of 130 nm. In this case, for electrospinning conditions, spinning solution flow rate is 0.1 mL/h, temperature 22° C., and humidity 20%. After electrospinning, in a laminating device located in the rear-end of the electrospinning apparatus, boding a polyethylene terephthalate substrate of basis weight of 100 g/m 2 on another side of the polyethylene terephthalate substrate of basis weight of 30 g/m 2 and one side not laminated to the first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, and going through thermosetting in a laminating device, and finally produces a filter.
EXAMPLE 37
[0424] Polyvinylidene fluoride of weight average molecular weight of 50,000 and polyvinylidene fluoride resin for hot-melt of number average molecular weight of 3,000 is dissolved in N,N-Dimethylacetamide (DMAc) and produces spinning solution, and it is inserted to a spinning solution main tank of each unit of the electrospinning apparatus. In the first unit of the electrospinning apparatus, applied voltage is provided 15 kV, electrospinning the spinning solution on one side of a polyethylene terephthalate substrate of basis weight of 30 g/m 2 , nanofiber non-woven fabric of thickness of 2.5 μm and fiber diameter of 250 nm. In the second unit of the electrospinning apparatus, applied voltage is provided 20 kV, electrospinning the spinning solution on the first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, and laminating formed a second polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of thickness of 2.5 μm and fiber diameter of 130 nm. In this case, for electrospinning conditions, spinning solution flow rate is 0.1 mL/h, temperature 22° C., and humidity 20%. After electrospinning, in a laminating device located in the rear-end of the electrospinning apparatus, in the polyethylene terephthalate substrate of basis weight of 30 g/m 2 , boding a polyethylene terephthalate substrate of basis weight of 100 g/m 2 on another side of the first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, and going through thermosetting in a laminating device, and finally produces a filter.
EXAMPLE 38
[0425] Polyvinylidene fluoride resin for hot-melt of number average molecular weight of 3,000 is dissolved in N,N-Dimethylformamide (DMF) in 8 weight % and produces hot-melt solution, and it is inserted to a spinning solution main tank of a first unit of the electrospinning apparatus, and polyvinylidene fluoride of weight average molecular weight of 50,000 is dissolved in N,N-Dimethylacetamide (DMAc) and produces polyvinylidene fluoride solution, and it is inserted to a spinning solution main tank of a second and a third unit of the electrospinning apparatus. In the first unit of the electrospinning apparatus, electrospinning the hot-melt solution on one side of a polyethylene terephthalate substrate of basis weight of 30 g/m 2 , and laminating formed hot-melt electrospinning layer of thickness of 1 μm. In the second unit, applied voltage is provided 15 kV, electrospinning the spinning solution on the hot-melt electrospinning layer, and laminating formed a first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of thickness of 2 μm and fiber diameter of 250 nm. In the third unit, applied voltage is provided 20 kV, electrospinning the spinning solution on the first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, and laminating formed a second polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of thickness of 2 μm and fiber diameter of 130 nm. In this case, for electrospinning conditions, spinning solution flow rate is 0.1 mL/h, temperature 22° C., and humidity 20%. After electrospinning, in a laminating device located in the rear-end of the electrospinning apparatus, in the polyethylene terephthalate substrate of basis weight of 30 g/m 2 , boding a polyethylene terephthalate substrate of basis weight of 100 g/m 2 on another side of the first polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, and going through thermosetting in a laminating device, and finally produces a filter.
COMPARATIVE EXAMPLE 21
[0426] The polyethylene terephthalate substrate of basis weight of 100 g/m 2 used in example 36 is used as filter medium.
COMPARATIVE EXAMPLE 22
[0427] By laminating forming polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric which electrospun polyvinylidene fluoride on a polyethylene terephthalate substrate, and produces a filter.
[0428] Filtering efficiency of example 36 to 38 and comparative example 21 is measured according to the filtering efficiency measuring method and shown in Table 21.
[0000]
TABLE 21
Comparative
Example 36
Example 37
Example 38
Example 21
0.35 μm DOP
92
90
91
70
Filtering
efficiency (%)
[0429] Also, pressure drop and filter life of a filter produced by example 37 and comparative example 21 are measured and shown in Table 22.
[0000]
TABLE 22
Example 37
Comparative Example 21
Pressure drop
4.6
7.8
(in · w · g)
Filter life
5.5
3.8
(month)
[0430] As described above, a filter comprising polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric and a bicomponent substrate produced by example 36 to 38, compared to comparative example 21, is excellent in filtering efficiency. Also, according to Table 22, a filter produced through example 37, compared to comparative example 21, has lower pressure drop which results in lower pressure lose and has longer filter sustainability which results in excellence in durability.
[0431] In result of measuring whether desorption or not of nanofiber non-woven fabric and a filter substrate of a filter produced by example 37 and 38 and comparative example 22 by the measuring method, in a filter produced by example 37 and 38 does not occur desorption of nanofiber non-woven fabric, but in a filter produced by comparative example 22 occurs desorption of nanofiber non-woven fabric.
[0432] Meanwhile, in the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ″) according to an embodiment of the present invention, in the rear-end of a unit ( 10 b ) located in the rear-end, a laminating device ( 100 ) is provided, and a laminating device can be provided in both sides such as upper side and lower side of nanofiber non-woven fabric.
[0433] In other words, as illustrated in FIG. 32 , the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ″′) is provided a laminating device ( 100 ) in the rear-end of the unit ( 10 b ), and a substrate (not shown) is laminated to upper side and lower side of an elongated sheet ( 15 ) laminated nanofiber non-woven fabric.
[0434] Moreover, in an embodiment of the present invention, filter structure which laminated polyvinylidene fluoride on a bicomponent substrate laminated on a PET substrate is suggested, and on the polyvinylidene fluoride, melt blown fabric can be additionally provided.
[0435] According to the method as described above, in each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ), after laminating forming polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric on a bicomponent substrate, and in a laminating device ( 100 ) located in the rear-end of the electrospinning apparatus ( 1 ), bonding a polyethylene terephthalate substrate on one side of the bicomponent substrate not laminating forming the polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, and bonding melt blown non-woven fabric on polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, going through a process of thermosetting in a laminating device ( 90 ), and produces a filter.
[0436] Here, in the process of electrospinning and laminating forming the polyvinylidene fluoride solution on a bicomponent substrate, by differing spinning conditions according to each unit ( 10 a, 10 b ) of the electrospinning apparatus, in the first unit ( 10 a ), laminating forming polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric with large fiber diameter, and in the second unit ( 10 b ), polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric with small fiber diameter can be consecutively laminating formed.
EXAMPLE 39
[0437] Polyvinylidene fluoride of weight average molecular weight of 50,000 is dissolved in N,N-Dimethylacetamide (DMAc) and produces spinning solution, and it is inserted to a spinning solution main tank of each unit of the electrospinning apparatus. In each unit, on a bicomponent substrate, electrospinning the spinning solution in conditions of the distance between an electrode and a collector is 40 cm, applied voltage 20 kV, spinning solution flow rate is 0.1 mL/h, temperature 22° C., and humidity 20%, and laminating formed polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of thickness of 3 μm. The bicomponent substrate is Sheath-Core type, and basis weight is 30 g/m 2 . After electrospinning, bonding a polyethylene terephthalate on one side of a bicomponent substrate, and after boding melt blown non-woven fabric on laminated polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, going through thermosetting, and produces a filter. The polyethylene terephthalate substrate basis weight is 100 g/m 2 , and the melt blown non-woven fabric basis weight is 30 g/m 2 .
EXAMPLE 40
[0438] High melting point polyvinylidene fluoride of weight average molecular weight of 50,000 and low melting point polyvinylidene fluoride is dissolved in N,N-Dimethylacetamide (DMAc) and produces spinning solution, and it is inserted to a spinning solution main tank of each unit of the electrospinning apparatus. In each unit, on a bicomponent substrate, electrospinning the spinning solution in conditions of the distance between an electrode and a collector is 40 cm, applied voltage 20 kV, spinning solution flow rate is 0.1 mL/h, temperature 22° C., and humidity 20%, and laminating formed polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric of thickness of 3 μm. The bicomponent substrate is Sheath-Core type, and basis weight is 30 g/m 2 . After electrospinning, bonding a polyethylene terephthalate on one side of a bicomponent substrate, and after boding melt blown non-woven fabric on laminated polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric, going through thermosetting, and produces a filter. The polyethylene terephthalate substrate basis weight is 100 g/m 2 , and the melt blown non-woven fabric basis weight is 30 g/m2.
COMPARATIVE EXAMPLE 23
[0439] The polyethylene terephthalate substrate used in example 39 is used as filter medium.
COMPARATIVE EXAMPLE 24
[0440] By laminating forming polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber non-woven fabric which electrospun polyvinylidene fluoride on a polyethylene terephthalate substrate, and produces a filter.
[0441] Filtering efficiency of example 39 and 40 and comparative example 23 is measured according to the filtering efficiency measuring method and shown in Table 23. Also, pressure drop and filter sustainability of a filter produced by example 39 and 40 and comparative example 23 are measured and shown in Table 24.
[0000]
TABLE 23
Example 39
Example 40
Comparative Example 23
0.35 μm DOP
92
91
63
Filtering
efficiency (%)
[0000]
TABLE 24
Example 39
Example 40
Comparative Example 23
Pressure drop
4.1
4.0
5.2
(in · w · g)
Filter life
6.1
6.3
3.8
(month)
[0442] As described above, a filter additionally provided melt blown non-woven fabric produced by example 39 and 40, compared to comparative example 23, is excellent in filtering efficiency.
[0443] Also, according to Table 24, a filter produced through example 39 and 40, compared to comparative example 23, has lower pressure drop which results in lower pressure lose and has longer filter sustainability which results in excellence in durability.
[0444] In result of measuring whether desorption or not of nanofiber non-woven fabric and a filter substrate of a filter produced by example 39 and 40 and comparative example 24 by the measuring method, in a filter produced by example 39 and 40 does not occur desorption of nanofiber non-woven fabric, but in a filter produced by comparative example 24 occurs desorption of nanofiber non-woven fabric.
[0445] While this invention has been described in connection with what is presently considered to be practical exemplary embodiments, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to the disclosed embodiments, on the contrary, is intended to cover various modifications and equivalent arrangements included within the spirit and scope of the appended claims. | The purpose of the present invention is to provide a filter comprising nanofiber and a method for manufacturing the same, and the present invention relates to a filter manufactured by continuously forming spinning solution by means of an electrospinning apparatus comprising at least two units, and a method for manufacturing the same. A filter manufactured by the method is advantageous in that manufacturing process can be made continuous, thereby making process efficient and enabling mass production, and is characterized in that, by having nanofiber non-woven fabric a filter having excellent filtering efficiency is manufactured. | 3 |
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to automatic garage door operators, and more particularly to the control of the range of movement of door operators using adjustable limit switches.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Garage door operators are well known and are commonly used to open and close automatically upwardly acting overhead garage doors. These garage door operators, which are electric motor driven and usually remotely operated by radio control, provide considerable convenience to the motorist for powered, remote opening and closing of the garage door. The operators are usually actuated using a remote transmitting unit, which is typically carried in a vehicle, and is used to signal the controller of the garage door opener system to raise or lower the door, as the driver wishes.
Many different forms have been devised in the prior art to connect the door operator drive mechanisms to the garage door to be moved. Many garage doors are sectional garage doors of the overhead acting type which slide upwardly on a track to a position adjacent the ceiling of the garage. For these doors, the garage door operator includes a frame extending along the garage ceiling which provides a rail for a load carriage that moves longitudinally along the frame. A drive mechanism moves the load carriage, and in many instances, this drive mechanism includes a flexible drive member, and more particularly, a roller chain. The load carriage is pivotally connected to the top section of the sectional garage door. This same construction is also used with slab or one-piece garage doors which are pivoted to swing upwardly adjacent the garage ceiling when in an open position. In this manner, as the load carriage is driven back and forth by the drive mechanism along the frame, the garage door, which is attached to the load carriage, opens and closes.
It is necessary to stop the movement of the drive mechanism and the load carriage when the garage door has reached the fully opened or fully closed positions. For this purpose, limit switches have typically been provided adjacent to the frame. One limit switch was usually mounted along the forward end of the frame adjacent to the door, and this limit switch was engaged by the load carriage when the door was fully closed. Another limit switch was usually mounted along the other end of the frame adjacent to the drive train housing, and this limit switch was engaged by the load carriage when the garage door was fully opened. These limit switches provided an electrical signal when the load carriage had reached a desired opened or closed position, and this electrical signal was used by the controller of the garage door operator to halt the actuation of the drive mechanism.
Both of these limit switches needed to be adjustable along the length of the frame so that they could be set in any desirable position depending upon the size of the door and the geometry of the door travel. Due to varying geometries of garages, the position of the carriage when the door was fully opened or fully closed could not be preset, so the limit switches could be positioned at any desirable location along the frame to be engaged by the carriage when the door had reached the proper position. This feature prevented the limit switches from being securely fixed in place along the frame.
In order to engage the load carriage, these limit switches needed to be exposed. The location of the limit switches also required that each of the limit switches be connected to the controller within the housing by a length of wiring, and this wiring was also not fully protected. Furthermore, because the limit switches need to be adjustable, it is not easily possible to provide for a fixed protected enclosure for the limit switches or for the wiring. As a result, the limit switches and their wiring could be subjected to inadvertent or unintentional mistreatment, mishandling or abuse. Since the limit switches and the wiring were exposed in the garage ceiling, there was a possibility that they could be damaged. Furthermore, because the limit switches were intentionally adjustable, the limit switches could become loose and could be inadvertently moved from the desired set position. This inadvertent movement could result in undesirable incomplete opening or closing of the door and the need for readjustment. This required that limit switches be routinely monitored and adjusted to assure that they were in the proper position.
In addition, the positioning of the limit switches was a procedure that required a moderate amount of time or expertise. There was no automatic procedure for initially positioning the limit switches or for later re-positioning them if needed. The user or service technician would position the limit switches in a rough fashion and then adjust the position depending on the final movement of the door. This procedure required some expertise or necessitated repeated trial-and-error to position the limit switches in the precise desired position.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention overcomes the problems of the prior art by providing an alternative arrangement for the placement of limit switches in garage door operators. The present invention provides an improvement in the garage door operators by providing a novel and unique arrangement in which the limit switches are placed within the housing that encloses the drive train, so that the exposed placement of the limit switches is avoided. According to the present invention, the limit switches are directly connected to the drive train and are engaged by a mechanism within the housing which moves in response to the movement of the drive train in the same manner as the movement of the load carriage.
The present invention eliminates the placement of limit switches along the frame in the garage ceiling, where the limit switches could be inadvertently struck or moved from their desired positions. The present invention no longer relies upon the contact of the limit switches by the carriage that moves along the frame.
In accordance with this invention, the limit switches are fully protected within the housing that also contains the motor and the control circuitry. Thus, the present invention eliminates the need for wiring extending outside the housing along the frame connecting external limit switches to the housing. With the limit switches located entirely internally within the housing, all such exposed wiring is eliminated.
The limit switches of the present invention are fully adjustable, but without the disadvantage of placing the limit switches in an exposed location in the ceiling of the garage where the position of the limit switches could be unintentionally changed through inadvertent contact with the limit switches.
The present invention also includes the capability of easily and automatically positioning the limit switches in the desired position so that the door operator is stopped when the door is fully opened and closed. This automatic setting of the limit positions can be accomplished simply by pushing a single switch without any manual movement of the limit switches or of the movable cams that contact the limit switches.
These and other advantages are provided by the present invention of a door operator for a reversibly operable door which comprises a frame and a carriage movably mounted on the frame and attached to a door for moving the door between open and closed positions. A drive member extends along the frame and is capable of moving the carriage. A drive train is connected for moving the drive member. Control means are provided for controlling the drive train to open and close the door. At least one limit switch is mounted and connected to the control means for stopping the drive train when the door has reached a completed position. A limit member is provided separate from the carriage for engaging the limit switch. Means which are connected to the drive train and which are separate from the drive member are provided for driving the limit member and engaging the limit switch when the door has reached the completed position.
Preferably, the door operator also includes a housing on the frame, and the limit switch and the limit member and the means for driving the limit member are all located within the housing, while the carriage is located outside of the housing.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 is a side elevational view of a garage door operator incorporating the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a bottom plan view of a portion of the garage door operator taken along line 2--2 of FIG. 1.
FIG. 3 is a rear elevational view of the garage door operator taken along line 3--3 of FIG. 2.
FIG. 4 is a perspective view of a portion of the drive train of the garage door operator.
FIG. 5 is a perspective view of a portion of the drive train of FIG. 4.
FIG. 6 is an exploded perspective view of a portion of FIG. 5.
FIG. 7 is a detailed elevational view of the limit cam of FIG. 3 to a larger scale.
FIG. 8 is a sectional view of the limit cam taken along line 8--8 of FIG. 7.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT
Referring more particularly to the drawings, and initially to FIG. 1, there is shown a garage door operator 11 of the present invention. The operator 11 is used to move a garage door 12 between open and closed positions. The garage door 12 may be any of several types. An upwardly acting sectional garage door 12 is shown, in this case, a door made of a plurality of sections hinged together and rolling upwardly in a non-linear path with rollers in a curved track 13. The garage door may also be a solid one-piece or two-piece door which is pivoted to move to an open position adjacent the garage ceiling. The garage door operator 11 includes a frame 14 on which a housing 15 is mounted. The housing 15 contains an electric motor and a drive train connected to the motor. The housing 15 also contains control means in the form of a control circuit that operates the motor in response to various commands and control signals. The frame 14 is adapted to be fastened in any suitable manner to the ceiling 16 of the garage. A frame extension 17 extends from the frame 14 and is fastened to the header 18 of the garage above the door 12.
The motor within the housing 15 is connected to the garage door 12 by a drive member which may be, for example, a chain, a tape, a belt or a rotating screw. In this embodiment, the drive member is a roller chain 21. The drive train in the housing 15 includes an output or drive sprocket 22, and an idler sprocket or idler roller 23 is provided near the header end of the frame extension 17. The roller chain 21, which in this preferred embodiment is an endless chain, is trained around the drive sprocket 22 and the idler roller 23. A carriage 24 is guided for longitudinal sliding movement along the frame extension 17 and is releasably connected to the chain 21 to be propelled along the frame extension by the movement of the chain. An L-shaped door arm 25 is connected at one end to the carriage 24 and has a pivot connection at the other end to the top of the door 12. Engaging means may be provided to selectively engage and disengage the carriage 24 from the chain 21. The carriage 24 is connectable to and releasable from the chain 21 by a handle 26, and the handle may actuate a dog into the chain or tape. Preferably the endless chain 21 includes an engaging member which the dog of the handle 26 engages when the engaging member passes against the dog and the handle is positioned to permit the carriage 24 to be connected to the chain. Alternatively, if the drive member is a rotating screw instead of the chain 21, the handle 26 may actuate a partial nut into engagement with the rotatable drive screw. The disconnecting handle 26 is provided so that the garage door 12 may be disconnected from the operator 11 when desired, such as when electrical power is interrupted, and the door 12 can be operated manually.
Some of the contents of bottom portion of the housing 15 may be seen with reference to FIG. 2. A motor 29 is mounted within the bottom portion of the housing 15 by means of a mounting assembly 30. A motor shaft 31 extends from the motor 29 and drives a drive train contained in a gear housing 32 within the housing 15. The drive train includes a drive worm 33 mounted on the motor shaft 31 which engages a helical gear 34. The helical gear 34 is mounted on a drive shaft 35. The drive shaft 35 extends upwardly within the housing 15, and the drive sprocket 22 is mounted on the drive shaft 35 on the top of the housing.
As indicated in FIG. 1, the housing 15 also contains the control circuit 36 which controls the operation of the motor 29 to open and close the garage door 12. The garage door operator 11 also typically includes a switch 37, such as a normally open, momentary closed switch like a doorbell push-button switch, and a remote radio transmitter which may be placed in an automobile, for example, to send a radio signal to a radio receiver 38 located in or near the housing 15. The switch 37 and the receiver 38 are connected to the control circuit 36 and are used to control the control circuit for initiating or stopping the opening or closing of the garage door 12. In response to signals received from the switch 37 or from the transmitter through the receiver 38, the control circuit 36 initiates action of the motor to open or close the garage door or discontinues action of the motor to stop movement of the door. Once the door starts moving, operation of the motor normally continues until the control circuit receives a signal from the switch 37 or from the transmitter through the receiver 38 to stop the movement of the door or until the control circuit receives a signal from a limit switch or from an obstruction detector to stop the operation of the motor because an obstruction is present.
Actuation of the motor 29 by the control circuit causes the motor shaft 34 to rotate which turns the drive worm 33 and rotates the helical gear 34 to turn the drive shaft 35. Rotation of the drive shaft 35 causes the drive sprocket 22 to rotate which causes the chain 21 to move. With the carriage 24 attached to the chain 21 the carriage slidably moves along the frame extension 17, and the garage door 12, which is attached to the carriage by the arm 25 is moved between open and closed positions.
As shown in FIG. 4, the drive shaft 35 extends from the helical gear 34 located in the lower portion of the housing to the drive sprocket 22 located at the top of the housing. A drive worm 42 is also mounted on the drive shaft 35 within the housing 15. The drive worm 42 engages a worm gear and pinon assembly 43. As shown in FIGS. 4 and 5, the worm gear and pinion assembly 43 comprises a helical worm gear 44, a shaft portion 45, and a pinion 46. The helical worm gear 44 engages the worm 42. The rotation of the worm gear 44 rotates the shaft portion 45 of the assembly which, in turn, rotates the pinion 46 which is formed on the end of the shaft portion.
The pinion 46 engages a limit wheel 47. As shown particularly in FIG. 6, the limit wheel 47 has an internal spur gear 48 on one side that is engaged by the pinion 46. On the other side the limit wheel 47 has a larger internal gear 49 (FIG. 3). A pair of limit cams 50 and 51 is movably mounted on the side of the limit wheel 47 by means of a pair of limit pinions 52 which engage the internal gear 49.
The limit wheel 47 is mounted on the gear housing 32 over a limit plate 57 which is also mounted on the gear housing. As shown in FIG. 3, the limit plate 57 is located inside the rear of the housing 15 and is covered by a rear housing panel 58. A pair of limit switches 61 and 62 is mounted to the limit plate 57 by means of fastening screws 63. The limit switches are mounted at set positions on the limit plate 57 during assembly of the operator and are not thereafter moved. A cam stop 64 is located on the limit plate 57 between the positions of the two limit switches 61 and 62.
Both limit cams 50 and 51 are identical, and one of the limit cams 50 is shown in more detail in FIGS. 7 and 8. The limit cam 50 comprises a generally circular front disk portion 67 having a central circular opening 68 through which one of the limit pinions 52 is mounted. A pair of diagonally extending reinforcing ribs 69 is formed on the front surface of the disk portion 67. A curved engaging flange 70 extends inwardly at the bottom of the front disk portion 67. The flange 70 engages the limit pinion 52 and holds the pinion in contact with the internal gear 49 of the limit wheel 47. The inner surface of the engaging flange 70 has two small protrusions 71 which engage teeth of the associated limit pinion 52 to restrain the pinion from turning easily. A camming portion 72 extends upwardly from the front disk portion 67. The camming portion 72 engages one of the limit switches 61 and 62 when the limit cam 50 is mounted on the limit wheel 47. The camming portion 72 includes a shoulder portion 73 that extends inwardly from the front disk portion 67 and extends over the outer edge of the limit wheel 47 when the limit cam 50 is mounted on the limit wheel. A pair of mounting flanges 74 and 75 extends downwardly from the ends of the shoulder portion 73 and assist in holding the limit cam 50 onto the limit wheel 47.
With one of the limit pinions 52 engaging the internal gear 49 of the limit wheel 47, one of the limit cams 50 or 51 fits over the pinion 52 and over the outer edge of the limit wheel to hold the pinion in contact with the internal gear. At the same time the limit cam 50 or 51 is held in position on the edge of the limit wheel 47 by the engagement of the limit pinion 52, with the camming portion 72 of the limit cam extending radially beyond the outer edge of the limit wheel to engage one of the limit switches 61 and 62. Each of the limit cams 50 and 51 is thus held onto the limit wheel 47 along with its associated limit pinion 52 by an interference pressure fit between the limit cams, the limit pinions, and the outer edge and internal gear 49 of the limit wheel. The small protrusions 71 in each of the limit cams 50 and 51 engage teeth in the associated limit pinion 52 to prevent easy rotation of the limit pinion to hold the limit cam in position on the limit wheel 47.
As shown in FIG. 3, each of the limit pinions 52 is provided with an engaging slot similar to the slot normally provided on a screw head, so that the pinon can be engaged by a screwdriver or other similar tool and manually rotated. Although each of the limit pinions 52 are held against easy rotation by the protrusions on the limit cam 50 or 51, the limit pinions are also capable of being rotated over the protrusions to change the position of the limit cams on the limit wheel 47. Rotation of one of the limit pinions 52 moves the pinion along the internal gear 49 and changes the position of the pinion and of the associated limit cam 50 or 51 along the limit wheel 47. In this manner, the position of the limit cams 50 and 51 can be manually adjusted by engaging the slots on the limit pinions 52 and turning them. Preferably, the rear housing panel 58 is provided with suitable access openings so that the screwdriver slots on the limit pinions 52 can be engaged.
The worm 42 and worm gear 44 engagement provides a gear reduction whereby the worm gear rotates slower than the drive shaft 35. Similarly, the pinion 46 and internal gear 48 engagement provides another gear reduction whereby the limit wheel 47 rotates slower than the shaft portion 45. These gear reductions together cause the limit wheel 47 to rotate much slower than the drive shaft 35, and preferably, this gear reduction is arranged so that the limit wheel 47 completes less than one complete revolution as chain 21 moves the carriage 24 between the drive sprocket 22 and the idler roller 23. This design of the gear reduction permits the limit cams 50 and 51 to be properly positioned around the circumference of the limit wheel 47 and to engage the limit switches 61 and 62 upon less than one complete revolution of the limit wheel.
In the operation of the garage door operator 11 of the present invention, the control circuit 36 receives a signal through the receiver 38 from a remote transmitter or from an adjacent push-button switch 37 to begin movement of the garage door 12. If the garage door 12 is initially closed, the control circuit 36 causes the garage door to open when this signal is received. To open the garage door 12, the control circuit 36 actuates the motor 29 in a predefined direction of rotation, causing the motor shaft 31 to turn to drive worm 33. The drive worm 33 engages the helical gear 34, causing the drive shaft 35 to turn. The drive sprocket 22 on the drive shaft 35 rotates, moving the chain 21 and causing the carriage 24 Which is attached to the chain to move along the frame extension 17. The garage door 12 is attached to the carriage 24 through the arm 25, and movement of the carriage pulls the garage door open.
At the same time, rotation of the drive shaft 35 causes the worm 42 to rotate the worm gear 44 of the worm gear and pinon assembly 43. The rotation of the worm gear 44, in turn, causes the pinon 46 to rotate the limit wheel 47 through engagement of the internal gear 48.
The carriage 24 continues to move slidably along the frame extension 17 and the limit wheel 47 continues to rotate until the carriage approaches the drive sprocket 22. Before the carriage reaches the drive sprocket 22, the garage door 12 reaches its fully opened position and further movement of the carriage is unnecessary. At this point, one of the limit cams 50 is positioned to engage one of the limit switches 61. The limit switch 61 is connected to the control circuit 36, and the engagement of the limit switch causes a signal to be sent to the control circuit 36 indicating that the garage door 12 has reached its fully opened position. When the control circuit 36 receives this signal, it de-actuates the motor 29, stopping all further movement of the drive train.
With the door in the fully opened position, the receipt of a signal by the control circuit 36 from a remote transmitter through the receiver 38 or from the push-button switch 37 causes the control circuit 36 to begin operation of the motor 29 in the opposite direction. The operation of the motor 29 causes rotation of the motor shaft 31, the drive worm 33, the helical gear 34, the drive shaft 35, and the drive sprocket 22. Rotation of the drive sprocket 22 causes the chain 21 to move the carriage 24 toward the idler roller 23 to push the garage door 12 closed. The rotation of the drive shaft 35 also causes rotation of the worm 42, the worm gear 44, the pinion 46 and the limit wheel 47. Before the carriage 24 reaches the idler roller 23, the garage door 12 reaches its fully closed position. At this point, the other limit cam 51 is positioned on the limit wheel 47 to engage the other limit switch 62. The limit switch 62 is connected to the control circuit 36 to send a signal to the control signal when it is engaged, and the signal from this limit switch causes the control circuit 36 to stop the motor 29 and halt further action of the drive train.
The garage door operator 11 of the present invention is also provided with the capability of automatically positioning the limit cams 50 and 51 on the limit wheel 47. This capability includes the presence of a limit override/start switch 78 preferably located on the rear of the housing 15 as shown in FIG. 3. The limit override/start switch 78 is connected to the control circuit 36, such that actuation of the switch 78 causes signals from the limit switches 61 and 62 to be ignored by the control circuit 36, thus causing the limit switches to be temporarily inoperative. For example, the limit override/start switch 78 can be wired in series with each of the limit switches 61 and 62 between the limit switches and the control circuit 36.
To set the proper position of the limit cam 50, the handle 26 should be positioned so that the dog in the carriage 24 is free to engage the chain. The garage door 12 then should be moved manually until the carriage 24 engages the chain 21. This leaves the garage door 12 in a partially open position. The limit override/start switch 78 is then actuated and held down, causing the control circuit 36 to run the motor 29 and drive train to open the door 12. Simultaneously, the limit wheel 47 rotates, and the limit cam 50 comes into contact with the limit switch 61. Since the limit override/start switch 78 is still activated, the limit switch 61 is temporarily inoperative, and the garage door 12 continues to open. The limit cam 50 moves slightly beyond the limit switch 61 but is prevented from further movement with the limit wheel 47 by engagement with the cam stop 64. With the limit wheel 47 continuing to rotate and with the limit cam 50 engaging the cam stop 64, the limit pinion 52 within the limit cam 50 begins to rotate, allowing the limit wheel 47 to continue to rotate while the limit cam 50 remains stationary. Thus, the limit cam 50 moves to a new position on the limit wheel 47. When the garage door 12 reaches the desired fully open position, the limit override/start switch 78 is released causing the limit switch 61 to signal the control circuit 36 to stop the motor 29. At this point, the limit cam 50 is at the proper position to engage the limit switch 61 when the garage door 12 is at the desired fully open position.
A similar procedure can be accomplished to position the other limit cam 51 for the door closed position. With the limit override/start switch 78 actuated and held down, the control circuit 36 causes the motor 29 and the gear train to close the garage door 12. Simultaneously, the limit wheel 47 rotates and eventually moves the limit cam 51 past the limit switch 62, which is temporarily inoperative, and into contact with the cam stop 64. With the limit wheel 47 continuing to rotate and with the limit cam 51 engaging the cam stop 64, the limit pinion 52 within the limit cam 51 begins to rotate, allowing the limit wheel 47 to continue to rotate while the limit cam 51 remains stationary. Thus, the limit cam 51 moves to a new position on the limit wheel 47. When the door 12 reaches the fully closed position, the control circuit 36 automatically stops and reverses the movement of the door through the actuation of door safety mechanisms that are well known in the art. When the motor 29 reverses, the direction of rotation of the limit wheel also reverses, and the limit cam 51 moves away from the cam stop 64. The limit override/start switch 78 is released, and the limit cam 50 is now positioned in the proper location for engagement of the limit switch 61 when the garage door is fully closed.
For fine adjustment of the limit cams 50 and 51, the screwdriver slots in the limit pinions 52 can be used. With the door 12 in the desired up or down position, a screwdriver can be inserted through appropriate Openings in the rear housing panel 58 and the limit pinion 52 may be rotated as needed. Moving the limit pinion 52 and the limit cam 50 or 51 closer to the cam stop 64 reduces the travel of the carriage 24, while moving the limit pinion and the limit cam away from the cam stop increases the carriage travel.
While the invention has been shown and described with respect to a particular embodiment thereof, this is for the purpose of illustration rather than limitation, and other variations and modifications of the specific embodiment herein shown and described will be apparent to those skilled in the art all within the intended spirit and scope of the invention. Accordingly, the patent is not to be limited in scope and effect to the specific embodiment herein shown and described nor in any other way this is inconsistent with the extent to which the progress in the art has been advance by the invention. | A door operator for a reversibly operable door includes a frame and a carriage movably mounted on the frame and attached to a door for moving the door between open and closed positions. A drive member, specifically a roller chain, extends along the frame and moves the carriage. A drive train is provided within a housing and is connected for moving the drive member, and a control circuit is provided for controlling the drive train to open and close the door. A pair of limit switches is mounted within the housing and connected to the control circuit for stopping the drive train when the door has reached a completed position. A pair of limit cams are adjustably mounted on a limit wheel within the housing and separate from the carriage for engaging the limit switches. The limit wheel, which is separate from the drive member, is connected to the drive train to rotate when the drive train moves the carriage. The placement of limit switches and associated connecting wiring along the frame in the garage ceiling is eliminated. The limit cams can be easily and automatically positioned on the limit wheel by pushing a single switch without any manual movement of the limit switches or of the movable cams that contact the limit switches. | 4 |
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention:
This invention generally relates to switchgear apparatus and, more particularly, to an improved enclosure structure for housing circuit breaker assemblies.
2. Description of the Prior Art:
Circuit breaker units of the low, medium and high voltage type require a structure or cell of sheet metal which houses and encloses the units for safety purposes and facilitates connection with the bus ducts and other auxiliary equipment. Since the circuit breaker assemblies are inserted into and mounted within such structures or enclosures, it is critical that the enclosures be manufactured in such a way that their physical dimensions meet close tolerance limits. These requirements were met in the prior art by welding the sheet metal parts of the enclosure structure together with the aid of suitable jigs or by using roll-formed parts. Since both methods of manufacture employed sophisticated and expensive tooling that required frequent maintenance, the manufacture of metal enclosures in accordance with the prior art practices was expensive and time consuming.
It would, accordingly, be very advantageous from both a manufacturing and cost standpoint if such metal enclosures and similar structures could be fabricated to the close dimensional tolerance required without the use of roll-formed parts, assembly jigs or welding operations.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention achieves the foregoing advantages by providing a protective enclosure structure for switchgear and circuit breakers of various ratings and sizes that employs metal parts that can be efficiently fabricated and then rapidly assembled by fastening the parts together with bolts or other suitable threaded fasteners. The parts consist of a pair of sheet metal side panels and a plurality of metal cross-struts that are manufactured by numerical controlled-tape metal-forming equipment and are so shaped and dimensioned that the cross-struts are provided with specially shaped tabular portions at each end which permit the cross-struts to be slip-fitted into a plurality of precisely-oriented openings provided in the side panels -- thus loosely coupling the cross-struts to the panels in interfitted relationship. The cross-struts and panels are tightly locked together by a plurality of metal bracket or gusset members of right-angle configuration that are bolted to the respective side panels and associated end portions of the cross-struts to form a rigid unitary structure or cell. The side panels, cross-struts, and locking gussets are so shaped that when the gussets are fastened to the panels and cross-struts by bolts the resulting compression or "drawing together" of the parts one against the another firmly seats positioning tabs on each end of the cross-struts against the inner surfaces of the respective side panels and thus automatically controls the width dimension of the finished enclosure and ensures that it will meet the close dimensional tolerance limits.
The use of specially-shaped parts which interfit with one another in such a manner that they can be easily bolted together in precise physical relationship with one another thus permits the metal enclosure structures to be manufactured within the critical close dimensional tolerances without the use of expensive tooling to produce and assemble the parts and without welding the parts together. The various parts can also be produced at lower cost and, since they can be rapidly fabricated and accurately duplicated by the numerical controlled-tape machines, the inventory carrying cost can also be reduced.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
A better understanding of the invention will be obtained from the exemplary embodiments of the invention shown in the accompanying drawings, wherein:
FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a metal enclosure structure or cell for medium voltage type circuit breakers which incorporates the novel construction features of the present invention;
FIG. 2 is an enlarged interior perspective view of a corner portion of the metal enclosure;
FIG. 3 is an enlarged fragmentary side elevational view of another corner of the enclosure structure illustrating the slip-interfitted relationship of the tabular ends of the cross-struts and associated slot apertures in the side panels;
FIG. 4 is an exploded fragmentary pictorial view, on an enlarged scale, of the lower left corner portion of the metal enclosure (as viewed in FIG. 1) illustrating the manner in which the tabular end portions of the cross-struts slidingly interfit with the apertured side panels and are then securely locked in place by the metal gussets and bolt fasteners;
FIGS. 5, 6 and 7 are plan, side and front elevational views, respectively, of one of the cross-struts showing the structural details thereof and the relationship of the interlock tangs and positioning tabs provided at each end of these parts; and
FIGS. 8, 9 and 10 are similar views of an alternative cross-strut component having a modified end structure.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT
While the improved metal enclosure structure or cell of the present invention can be employed to house various kinds of electrical switching and/or control apparatus, it is particularly adapted for use as a mounting and housing structure for switchgear apparatus such as medium voltage type circuit breaker assemblies and it has accordingly been so illustrated and will be so described.
In FIG. 1 there is shown a metal enclosure cell or structure 10 for mounting and housing such medium voltage circuit breaker assemblies in the manner well-known to those skilled in the art. As will be noted, the enclosure structure 10 is of generally rectangular configuration that is open at the top and bottom and at the front and back and is formed by a pair of sheet metal side panels 11, 12 of generally rectangular configuration and substantially the same size that are held in predetermined spaced-apart substantially parallel relationship by a plurality of metal cross-struts 14 that are of channel-like configuration. Each of the side panels 11, 12 are provided with retroverted inturned flanges 13 and 15, respectively, that are formed by bending the edges of the panels through two right angle bends so that the innermost edge portions of the panels provide flat ledges that are spaced a predetermined distance apart from and are disposed in substantially parallel relationship with the inner surfaces of the respective panels. The side panels 11, 12 are also provided with vertically elongated openings 16, 17 that are located at the back of the enclosure 10 and accommodate the bus duct assemblies that are connected to the circuit interrupters which are subsequently mounted within the enclosure.
The cross-struts 14 have small nibs or tangs 18, 19 at each end that slidingly fit into and engage snug-fitting slot apertures 20, 21 located at accurately spaced intervals along the sides of the panels 11, 12. As shown in FIG. 3, the pairs of interlocking tangs 18, 19 on the end portions of the cross-struts 14 are oriented in parallel-spaced horizontally-extending relationship and the paired slot apertures 20, 21 in the side panels 11, 12 are similarly oriented. In accordance with this particular embodiment, three laterally-extending cross-struts 14 are provided at the front opening of the metal enclosure 10 and two cross-struts 14 are provided at the back opening with the respective struts being fastened to the corner and central portions of the side panels 11, 12 as illustrated in FIG. 1. The panel flanges 13, 15 which extend along the top and bottom edges of the respective side panels 11, 12 are terminated short of the corners of the panels to provide sufficient clearance for the end portions of the cross-struts 14 at the corners of the enclosure 10 to slip into and engage the inturned flanges that extend along the side edges of the panels 11, 12, as described hereinafter.
The side panels 11, 12 and interfitted cross-struts 14 are securely locked together by a plurality of metal bracket or gusset members 22 of triangular shape that are located at the junctures of the cross-struts and panels. The gusset members 22 are fastened in overlapping relationship with the adjacent ledge portions of the inturned flanges 13, 15 of the side panels 11, 12 and the adjacent flat horizontal portions of the associated struts 14 by bolts 23 and nuts 24 (shown in FIGS. 2 and 4) to form a very rigid and strong unitary assembly 10.
The manner in which the cross-struts 14 slip interfit with the apertured side panels 11, 12 and are locked in firmly seated engagement therewith by means of the gusset members 22 and bolt and nut fasteners 23, 24 to automatically control the dimensions of the finished enclosure structure 10 is illustrated in detail in FIG. 4 and will now be described.
As will be noted, the cross-struts 14 are of channel-like constuction and are thus of U-shaped cross-section with two substantially flat riser segments 25, 26 that are joined by a substantially flat bridge segment 27. Each end of the cross-strut 14 is cut in such a fashion that a pair of tabular portions 28, 29 longitudinally extend from the respective riser segments 25, 26 of the strut member. As illustrated, the tabular end portions 28, 29 are terminated by generally rectangular tangs 18, 19 that extend a predetermined distance beyond the adjacent end edges of the tabular portions 28, 29 so that such edges constitute two pairs of positioning tabs 30, 31 that are offset both laterally and longitudinally from the respective tangs 18 and 19. The end edges of the positioning tabs 30, 31 are substantially straight and aligned with one another, as are the tips of the tangs 18 and 19.
The end portions of the bridge segments 27 of the cross-struts 14 are cut away and adjacent parts of the riser segments 25, 26 are also removed in such a way that the tabular end portions 28, 29 are generally rectangular in shape and of smaller width than the respective riser segments 25, 26. The cross-struts 14 are oriented so that the bridge segments 27 face outwardly from the enclosure 10 and the riser segments 25, 26 extend horizontally into the enclosure (as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2). The tabular end portions 28, 29 are dimensioned to effect a snug sliding fit with a pair of lateral slot openings 32, 33 in the inturned ledge portion of the associated panel flange 13 when the cross-strut 14 is inserted into position with the panel 11 during the assembly operation.
After the tabular end portions 28, 29 of the cross-strut 14 have passed through the slot openings 32, 33, the tips of the tangs 18, 19 enter and interlock with the pair of slot apertures 20, 21 in the main part of the panel 11. The insertion of the tabular end portions 28, 29 and tangs 18, 19 at the opposite end of the cross-strut 14 into the slot openings 32, 33 and matching set of slot apertures 20, 21 in the other panel 12 thus automatically positions each of the cross-struts 14 in laterally extending right-angle relationship with the side panels 11, 12 and positions the panels in the desired parallel spaced-apart aligned relationship.
The side panels 11, 12 and slip-interlocked cross-struts 14 are securely fastened together by the sheet metal gusset members 22 each of which consists of a right-angle bracket formed by flat plate segments 34, 35 that are bridged by a triangular-shape skirt 36, as shown in FIG. 4. The width of the bracket plate segments 34, 35 is approximately the same as the width of the riser segments 25 of the cross-struts 14 and the inturned flange ledges 13 of the panel 11 to provide a close overlapping fit. The panel 11, cross-strut 14 and gusset member 22 are secured to one another by metal bolts 23 that are inserted through a pair of snug fitting holes 37 in plate segment 34 of the gusset member 22 and another matching pair of snug fitting holes 38 provided in cross-strut 14. The bolts 23 are locked in place by nuts 24. Another pair of bolts (not shown) extend through another set of holes 39 in the upstanding plate segment 35 of the gusset member 22 and a pair of aligned holes 40 in the flange ledge 13 of the side panel 11 and are provided with nuts (not shown). The bolt fasteners 23 and nuts 24 securing the gusset members 22 to the cross-struts 14 are tightened first to lock these members together and the bolt fasteners and nuts which secure the cross-struts 14 to the flange portions 13, 15 of the panels 11, 12 are tightened afterwards so that the resulting "pulling together" of the side panels 11, 12 automatically seats the end edges of the positioning tabs 30, 31 on the strut ends against the inner surfaces of the side panels. This sequential bolt tightening automatically positions the side panels 11, 12 a precise distance apart -- thus ensuring that the width dimension of the finished enclosure structure 10 meets the established dimensional tolerance.
As shown in FIGS. 5 and 6, the tips or end edges of the two pairs of positioning tabs 30, 31 provided at each end of the cross-struts 14 are longitudinally spaced apart a precise distance "X" which is correlated with the desired width dimension of the finished enclosure structure 10.
The channel-like U-shaped configuration of the cross-struts 14 and the physical arrangement of the interlock tangs 18, 19 and positioning tabs 30, 31 relative to one another are shown most clearly in FIG. 7.
Satisfactory strength and rigidity for securely mounting medium voltage type circuit breakers (and other types of heavy switchgear) within the finished enclosure structure 10 have been achieved by forming the side panels 11, 12 from hot rolled sheet steel approximately 0.074 inch (1.88 millimeters) thick and manufacturing the cross-struts 14 and locking gusset members 22 from sheet steel of approximately the same thickness by numerical controlled-tape metal forming machines.
In accordance with the illustrated embodiment, the tangs 18, 19 are preferably of such length that the tips of the tangs are substantially flush with the outer surfaces of the side panels 11, 12 when the cross-struts 14 are bolted in tight interfitted assembled relationship with the panels.
In accordance with an alternative embodiment of the invention, the part of the bridge segment 27 of the U-shaped cross-strut 14 that is removed to provide the narrow tubular end portions 28, 29 on the ends of the cross-strut is not removed but is bent around into the interior of the cross-strut to provide an inturned reinforcing truss. A cross-strut 14a having this modified construction is shown in FIGS. 8, 9 and 10. As will be noted, the ends of the bridge segment 27a of the channel-like cross-strut 14a are slit to form end panels that are bent through right angles to form the aforementioned inturned reinforcing trusses 42. Since the trusses 42 extend across the respective ends of the cross-strut 14a, they serve as upstanding supports for the associated pairs of spaced tabular end portions 28a, 29a. Parts of the riser segments 25a, 26a are cut out and removed to provide the narrow width dimensions required to permit the tabular end portions 28a, 29a to slip through the slot openings in the panel flanges. The cross-strut 14a is also provided with interlock tangs 18a, 19a and paired positioning tabs 30a, 31a as in the previous embodiment.
As will be apparent to those skilled in the art, the same manufacturing and cost advantages can be obtained by using cross-struts that have the tabular end portions, etc. and essentially comprise flat metal bars of sufficient thickness rather than U-shaped channel members of the type illustrated and described. | An enclosure structure for housing switchgear apparatus (such as circuit breakers) is fabricated from a pair of sheet metal panels that are held in precisely-spaced upstanding relationship by a plurality of metal cross-struts of U-shaped cross-section which mechanically interlock with apertured portions of the panels and are held in such position by triangular-shaped metal gussets which overlap and are bolted to adjacent portions of the cross-struts and panels. The cross-struts are provided with longitudinally protruding tangs at each end that are slip-fitted into and interlock with slot apertures in the panels. The width dimension of the finished enclosure structure is precisely controlled by positioning tabs on the ends of the cross-struts that are offset from the associated tangs and are drawn into abutting relationship with the inner surfaces of the respective panels when the structure is bolted together. Construction and assembly of the enclosure structure is accordingly achieved without the expensive tooling, jigs and welding operations heretofore required to manufacture such structures. | 7 |
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to engine fuel systems and, more particularly, to an oxygen sensor which controls a fuel pump for providing fuel for a continuous flow fuel injection system.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Contemporary vehicles with fuel injection systems include an oxygen sensor in the exhaust line. The sensor detects the amount of oxygen in the exhaust gases and controls fuel as required for the required fuel to air ratio. However, when turbo chargers or blowers are added to a stock, naturally aspirated, engine, the stock fuel system usually cannot supply the required additional fuel in many cases. The apparatus of the present invention overcomes this problem by adding additional fuel as required by using an oxygen sensor to control the speed of an electric fuel pump to control the flow of fuel in the continuous flow fuel system. The apparatus of the present invention is a supplement to the stock fuel system of a vehicle, and accordingly the stock fuel system remains in place as designed. The present apparatus may also be used as a stand alone fuel system, if desired.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The invention described and claimed herein comprises an oxygen sensor controlled continuous flow fuel system which supplements the fuel system on a vehicle engine. The apparatus includes an oxygen sensor which provides an input signal to an electronic control module. Another input to the electronic fuel control module is a fuel mixture selector which is preset or selected by the operator of the vehicle to determine the fuel/air mixture ratio of the fuel system. Other input signals to the electronic control module may be from an engine intake air mass flow sensor, a throttle position sensor, or an intake manifold pressure sensor for providing an input signal to the control module. The output from the electronic control module actuates and controls the speed and fuel flow rate of the fuel pump, which in turn provides fuel from the vehicle's fuel tank to the engine through an additional set of fuel nozzles.
Among the objects of the present invention are the following:
To provide new and useful continuous flow fuel system;
To provide an oxygen sensor controlled continuous flow fuel system;
To provide a new and useful supplemental fuel system for a turbo charged or blown engine;
To provide an oxygen sensor controlled fuel system capable of operating on different types of fuels;
To provide new and useful continuous flow fuel system for supplementing fuel in a turbo charged engine; and
To provide new and useful continuous flow fuel system having an input to an electronic control module from an oxygen sensor and from any of selected engine condition sensors.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING
FIG. 1 is a schematic representation of the apparatus of the present invention.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT
FIG. 1 is a schematic representation of the fuel apparatus 10 of the present invention. The apparatus 10 comprises an oxygen sensor controlled continuous flow system that may work either to augment a stock fuel system in a vehicle or to become a stand alone fuel system in a vehicle. The apparatus 10 is connected to a fuel tank 12 by a conduit 16 by which fuel flows from the vehicle fuel tank 12 to a fuel pump 80, to fuel nozzles (not shown). The fuel system of the present invention may use a separate fuel tank and thus deliver other types of fuel, such as alcohol. This will be discussed below.
A conduit 14 extends from the fuel tank 12 to the stock fuel system (not shown) of the vehicle, if the apparatus 10 is used to supplement or augment the stock fuel system. The stock fuel system includes its own fuel nozzles, etc. (not shown).
The speed controlled continuous flow electric fuel pump 80 is controlled by an electronic control module 20. The electronic control module 20 is connected to the electric fuel pump 80 by a conductor 28.
A twelve volt electric source 22 is schematically illustrated, with a conductor 24 extending from the twelve volt source 22 to the electronic control module 24. A ground conductor 26 is also schematically represented for providing a ground for the electronic control module 20.
It will be understood that some of the other elements in the apparatus also require a twelve volt input and an appropriate ground. However, for convenience and clarity of illustration, only the input and ground for the control module 20 is illustrated.
The electric signal output from the oxygen sensor 30 extends to the electronic control module on a conductor 32. The output of the oxygen sensor 30 is, of course, representative of the oxygen sensed in the exhaust gases from the engine (not shown) in which the present apparatus is installed. The output voltage on conductor 32 varies inversely with the amount of oxygen in the exhaust gases. Thus, the lower the oxygen sensed, the greater the output voltage on conductor 32 to the control module 20. This is well known and understood.
A fuel mixture selector 40 is shown connected to the electronic control module 20 by a conductor 42. A setting for the control mixture selector 40 may be selected by the operator of the vehicle to define the fuel air ratio that the vehicle engine operates at. The oxygen sensor 30 detects the oxygen in the exhaust gases and provides an output representative of the oxygen in the exhaust gases to the electronic control module, which in turn adjusts the speed and thus the fuel flow rate of the fuel pump 80 to provide the desired air/fuel ratio for the engine as defined in terms of the preselected fuel mixture selector 40.
Associated with the fuel/air ratio selector 40 is a fuel/air ratio meter or gauge 44. The meter or gauge 44 is connected to the module 20 by a conductor 46. The meter 44 may, of course, be analog or digital. The meter 44 visually indicates the ratio selected by the selector 40. Thus the operator may visually note the selected ratio. This allows for the precise selection of a fuel/air ratio.
Three other electric signal inputs are illustrated for the electronic control module 20. Those inputs include an engine intake air flow sensor 50 and its conductor 52, a throttle position sensor 60 and its conductor 62, and an intake manifold pressure sensor 70 and its conductor 72. An input from any of the three elements 50, 60, or 70, may be used by the electronic control module 20 to determine when to actuate the apparatus of the present invention. That is, the signal from the air flow sensor is used to determine when to actuate the control module to control the output of the fuel pump 80, or the throttle position sensor signal of the throttle, or the intake manifold pressure sensor signal may be used to determine when to actuate the control module. Regardless of which input is used, the output from the electronic control module 20 on conductor 28 to the fuel pump causes the fuel pump 80 to provide the necessary supplemental fuel through a conduit 82 to deliver a proper quantity of fuel through a separate set of fuel injector nozzles (not shown).
Thus, while there is always a signal output on conductor 36 from the oxygen sensor 30, it is only when a signal is received by the electronic control module 20 from one of the sensors 50, 60, or 70, that the electronic control module by a signal on conductor 28 to the fuel pump 80 will cause a supplemental fuel flow as required to be provided to the engine through a set of nozzles (not shown), separate from the stock fuel nozzles.
From fuel pump 80, a conduit 82 extends to the fuel manifold 90 for the engine through the separate set of fuel nozzles. From the manifold 90, conduits 92, 94, 96, and 98 extend to the fuel nozzles (not shown) of a four cylinder engine for the apparatus 10.
The output of the fuel pump 80 is modulated or controlled by the electronic control module by controlling the voltage on conductor 28 to the fuel pump 80. Thus, the varying voltage on conductor 28 will cause the fuel pump to provide more or less fuel, all in accordance with a predetermined fuel/air ratio from the fuel mixture selector 40 on conductor 42 to the electronic control module 20, and as determined by the oxygen sensor 30.
The apparatus of FIG. 1 can be used as a stand alone fuel system, by the appropriate selection of the signals from the sensors 50, or 60, or 70, or all or some of them, and the oxygen sensor 30, along with the predetermined parameters from the fuel mixture selector 40. The electronic control module 20 then controls the speed of the fuel pump 80 to provide the desired fuel for the predetermined fuel/air ratio for the vehicle engine.
Regardless of whether the apparatus 10 is used to supplement the stock fuel system of a vehicle, or is used in place of the stock fuel system it will be understood that the apparatus provides an oxygen sensor controlled rate of continuous flow of fuel to the fuel nozzles. For a stand alone system, there is one set of nozzles. However, for a supplemental system, the apparatus 10 will have its own set of fuel nozzles, and the stock system will have its own fuel manifold, conduits, and nozzles.
If the apparatus 10 is to be used to provide supplemental fuel of a different type, such as alcohol, then the fuel pump 80 is connected to a supplemental fuel tank 110 shown in dash dot line in FIG. 1. The tank 110 is connected to the pump 80 by a conduit 112, also shown in dash dot line. In such case, the conduit 16 from the stock fuel tank 12 to the pump 80 is eliminated. However, the conduit 82 from the pump 80 to the manifold 90 is still required.
In all other respects, the apparatus 10 operates as discussed above.
While the principles of the invention have been made clear in illustrative embodiments, there will be immediately obvious to those skilled in the art many modifications of structure, arrangement, proportions, the elements, materials, and components used in the practice of the invention, and otherwise, which are particularly adapted to specific environments and operative requirements without departing from those principles. The appended claims are intended to cover and embrace any and all such modifications, within the limits only of the true spirit and scope of the invention. | A continuous flow fuel system includes an oxygen sensor for analyzing the exhaust gases of an engine. The output from the oxygen sensor, representing the oxygen content in the exhaust gases, is transmitted to an electronic control module, which in turn controls the output of a fuel pump. The output of the fuel pump provides fuel to maintain a desired fuel/air ratio. The desired fuel/air ratio may be selected by a user of the engine or it may be predetermined and factory-set. | 5 |
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
[0001] This application claims convention priority from British patent application no. 0423162.7 with a filing date of Oct. 19, 2004. The specification and drawings of the British application are specifically hereby incorporated herein by reference as if repeated in entirety herein.
[0002] The present invention relates to fully enclosed cartons made from paperboard for enclosing articles.
BACKGROUND
[0003] Conventional cartons carry bottles, in perhaps a 6×4 array, or in other arrangements in straight-sided rectangular cartons made out of corrugated board or other materials.
SUMMARY
[0004] According to the present invention there is provided a fully enclosed paperboard carton having a top, a base, a pair of oppositely disposed sides and a pair of oppositely disposed end panel arrangements, each end panel arrangement being substantially planar and perpendicular to the base and top and each side having a lower portion which is substantially planar and perpendicular to the base and an upper portion which is substantially planar and tapers inwardly towards its edge connection with the top.
[0005] Each end panel arrangement can comprise top, base and side end panels each hingedly connected to the respective top, base and sides, all being adhesively secured.
[0006] In some arrangements, each base end panel can be foldably connected at each side to a gusset panel which in turn is hingedly connected to its adjacent side end panel. Conveniently the fold connection of the gusset panel with the base end panel can be perpendicular to the fold between the base and the base end panel and the fold connection of the gusset panel with the side end panel is 45° relative to the fold connection to the base end panel.
[0007] Each top end panel can be a primary push through flap to define a handle hole. In some embodiments, at each end of the carton, each of the two side end flaps are positioned behind the top end panel and have a secondary push through flap behind the primary push through flap, all push through flaps being rotatable inwardly through 180° when moved into a carrying position by a user. The primary push through flap at each end can remain hingedly connected to the top end panel along a substantially straight primary fold line and also the secondary can be pushed through flaps at each end remain hingedly connected to the side end panels along substantially straight secondary fold lines adjacent the primary fold line. In some embodiments the primary fold line comprises a pair of folds, spaced vertically by a small distance to define a support panel therebetween.
[0008] With some arrangements at each end of each side, a corner formation each defines a pair of creases, one crease extending from the apex between the top, side and end panel arrangement to a horizontal crease joining the upper and lower side portions and the other crease extending from the apex between the base, side and end panel arrangement to the join between the upper and lower side portions.
[0009] Normally lines of weakening can be provided such as in the top and/or sides, to facilitate access to the carton contents.
[0010] Embodiments of the present invention will now be described in more detail.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0011] The description makes reference to the accompanying drawings in which:
[0012] FIG. 1 shows a paperboard blank for producing a carton according to the present invention.
[0013] FIG. 2 is a side view of a carton formed from the blank of FIG. 1 .
[0014] FIG. 3 is an end view of the carton shown in FIG. 2 .
[0015] FIG. 4 is an end perspective view of the carton shown in FIG. 2 .
[0016] FIGS. 5 and 6 are an end perspective view showing the carton in various states of use.
[0017] FIG. 7 is a close up perspective cross-section of a detail of FIG. 6 .
[0018] FIG. 8 is an internal view of the carton shown in FIG. 6 .
[0019] FIG. 9 is an end perspective view of the end panels of the FIG. 2 carton being folded.
[0020] FIG. 10 is similar to FIG. 9 but somewhat later in the folding process.
[0021] FIG. 11 shows a blank, similar to that shown in FIG. 1 , of an alternate embodiment.
[0022] FIG. 12 is an end perspective view of the end panels of the FIG. 11 blank being folded.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
[0023] In FIG. 1 there is shown a paperboard blank 10 for producing a paperboard carton 11 of the fully enclosed type, as shown in the other figures. The carton 10 could contain a number of bottles, perhaps 24 in a 6×4 array, such as 3×4, 4×3, 4×6, 5×6, 6×5, 3×2, 2×3, 2×6, 6×2, etc., although other sizes and configurations are of course possible. Although shown and described with bottles, the carton 10 could enclose cans or other containers.
[0024] The blank 10 provides a top 12 which is hingedly connected along a fold 13 to a first upper side portion 14 which in turn is connected to a first lower side portion 15 along a crease 16 . The lower side portion 14 is hingedly connected along a base fold 17 to a base 18 which is hingedly connected along a second base fold 19 to a second lower side portion 20 . The second lower side portion 20 is connected along a crease 21 to a second upper side portion 22 which in turn is hingedly connected to gluing panel 23 .
[0025] When the pack is being assembled, the base, top and sides can form a sleeve with the gluing panel 23 adhesively secured to the inside of the top 12 . Lines of weakness 24 in the form of perforations or paperboard zips are optionally provided in the top and sides to facilitate access to the contents of the carton 10 after assembly is completed. The precise shape, form and location of the lines of weakness 24 are a matter of design choice. In the embodiment shown there is a small removable portion 25 on which would be printed the bar code or other identifying means for the product, such that, for example, the removable portion 25 could be torn off and handed to the cashier at the point of sale to avoid unnecessary lifting of a potentially heavy carton.
[0026] Hingedly connected at each end of the base 18 along a fold 26 is a base end panel 27 and hingedly connected at each end of the top 12 along a fold 28 is a top end panel 29 . Each top end panel 29 has a push through flap 30 defined by a cut or an intermittent cut line 31 in the illustrated embodiment. The push through flap 30 , however, remains attached at its upper edge to the top end panel 29 by means of a pair of spaced folds 32 which define therebetween a narrow support panel 33 , the purpose of which will be discussed later.
[0027] Each base end panel 27 has an upper end portion 34 remote from the fold 26 and a lower end portion 34 a which is hingedly attached at both sides by means of folds 35 to respective gusset panels 36 . The gusset panels 36 are hingedly connected by means of reverse approximately 45° folds 37 to respective side end panels 38 which in turn are hingedly connected by means of folds 39 to the upper and lower side portions 14 , 15 . The part of the fold 39 connecting the upper side portions 14 , 22 to the side end panel 38 is shown in this embodiment as a scored fold line.
[0028] Each side end panel 38 also has a partial secondary push through flap 40 which is hingedly connected to the side end panel along a fold 41 . Adjacent the secondary push through flap is a hole 42 , the hole 42 and the secondary push through flap 40 being positioned so as to be aligned with the push through flap 30 of the top end panel 29 when the carton 11 is assembled.
[0029] In each upper side portion 14 , at each end of the carton, a crease 43 extends from the top end corner to the crease 16 a short distance in from the end. Similarly in each lower side portion 15 , there is a crease 44 extending from the base end corner to the crease 16 at the point where the crease 43 meets the crease 16 .
[0030] The carton 11 can be assembled in a number of ways. In one method, the top, base and sides are folded to form a sleeve by adhesively securing the gluing panel 23 to the inside of the top 12 . This can be done on machine or partially folded/glued blanks 10 can be supplied folded flat and opened up on the machine. The bottles (or other articles) are then inserted through an open end before the end panels are folded and glued. In another method the blanks 10 are folded around the bottles (or other articles) before securing the gluing panel 23 and then folding/gluing the end panels. This latter method makes the blank 10 suitable for running on a conventional machine for producing plain rectangular corrugated board cartons, thus giving the existing machines more flexibility in the types of carton they can produce.
[0031] The folding of the end panels at each end of the carton 10 is illustrated in FIGS. 9 and 10 . As the side end panels 38 are folded inwardly across the open end of the sleeve, the base end panel 27 is folded upwardly about the fold 26 . This causes the gusset panels 36 to activate about the fold 35 and the reverse 45° fold 37 . The base end panel 27 is then glued to the side end panels 38 . The top 12 can then be folded down and glued to the side end panels, generally not in the region of or blocking the push through flaps 30 , 40 .
[0032] Once folded, the free edges 45 of the gusset panels 36 are elevated from the base 18 of the carton. This forms a tray-like base area such that after the lines of weakening 24 are opened, ice or other substance can be deposited in the carton 10 around the bottles. The paperboard can be treated with a water resistant coating such as “Aquakote” (trade mark). As the ice melts, some cold water is retained in the carton, up to the level of the free edges 45 of the gusset panels 36 thus resisting leakage for a period of time. In this way the pack can be used to chill or keep chilled the contents of the carton and can still be moved due to the wet strength of the treated paperboard. This is in contrast to corrugated board which has a much lower wet strength.
[0033] The tray aspect of the base is also advantageous when a number of cartons are on pallets ready for distribution. With corrugated cartons, a broken bottle can, through leakage, adversely affect a whole pallet, which can lead to return of the whole pallet. With the present carton, a breakage can be contained as fluid is retained in the tray-like base area for a period of time without leakage.
[0034] Also during palletizing of cartons, since a likelihood of damage exists, the present carton includes a 4-ply cushion at the lower corner of the end panels. This can reduce the likelihood of damage to the more vulnerable corner bottles and provide improved carton integrity, while maintaining carton appearance.
[0035] Once the present carton 11 is assembled it has perpendicular end walls and sides that have a tapered upper portion. The top is, therefore, narrower between the sides than the base and this is beneficial for carrying bottles as the tapered sides results in a tighter package around the tops of the bottles. The ends, however, remain perpendicular to the base giving a perception of strength. The presence of the handles in the vertical ends is, however, beneficial.
[0036] When the carton 10 is to be lifted, the user pushes the push through flaps 30 , 40 inside and upwardly behind the top end panel as illustrated in FIGS. 5 to 7 . The vertical nature of the end wall provides sufficient space between the bottle necks and the end wall to accommodate the movement of the flaps 30 , 40 . FIG. 7 also shows how the narrow support panel 33 can take up a generally horizontal position accommodating the two plies of the side end panel 38 and its secondary push through flap 40 . The support panel 33 is effective to distribute the weight of the carton better than a simple folded edge.
[0037] Returning to the perpendicular nature of the end panels, when the carton 11 is lifted by the handles in the end walls, the paperboard only has to contend with shear forces. If the end walls were tapered, there would also be an opening moment, which would make the handle area more prone to ripping.
[0038] The angled creases 43 and 44 act to facilitate the tapering of the upper side portions 14 when the pack is formed. The creases also give the corners of the carton a softer edge by providing a form of corner panel. This renders the carton less prone to corner damage.
[0039] Since the blank 110 of FIG. 11 is substantially identical to that shown in FIG. 1 , like reference numbers correspond to like parts. In the blank 110 , however, an additional reverse fold 137 in each gusset portion 36 , between the 45° reverse fold 37 and the upright fold 39 . A short cut 111 is provided from the end of the free edge 45 to the upper end of the additional reverse fold 137 . The precise angle of the additional reverse fold 137 depends on a number of parameters, such as size of the end panels, thickness and stiffness of the paperboard etc.
[0040] It has been found that the additional reverse fold 137 and the cut 111 at each gusset area allows the side end panels 38 to be partially folded in before the base end panel 27 starts to fold up. This helps the side end flaps fold in squarely with minimum stress before pulling up the base end panel 27 .
[0041] It will be appreciated that some of the features are still a matter of design choice such that variations of the above-described arrangements will still be covered by the following claims. | A fully enclosed paperboard carton having a top, a base, a pair of oppositely disposed sides and a pair of oppositely disposed end panels. Each end panel being substantially planar and perpendicular to the base and top. Each side having a lower portion that is substantially planar and perpendicular to the base and an upper portion that is substantially planar and tapers inwardly towards its edge connection with the top. | 1 |
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0001] The invention relates to diesel particle filters.
[0002] Diesel particle filters (DPF) for filtering the exhaust gas from diesel engines are known from the market, a diesel particle filter needing to be regenerated at specific intervals, for example every 200 km to 500 km in motor vehicles. This is done by heating the diesel particle filter to a point at which the particles deposited therein can burn.
[0003] The use of a flame burner, which directly heats an exhaust gas flow, or an injection of hydrocarbons into the exhaust gas flow, to perform the required heating are also known. Both of these possible methods only function optimally in a specific temperature range, which on the one hand should have a specific minimum temperature in order to effectively remove the particles, and on the other should not exceed an upper threshold value, so as not to damage the diesel particle filter. Moreover the standard commercial filter materials have different admissible upper temperatures. For example, the material cordierite is substantially more sensitive than, say, silicon carbide (SiC). A usual method in the prior art is therefore to measure the temperature in the exhaust gas flow and to regulate a regeneration process of the DPF on the basis of this.
[0004] The so-called Arrhenius equation establishes a general correlation between a reaction rate and a temperature:
[0000] k=A· exp(− E A /R·T ), where
k=constant of the reaction rate; A=constant; E A =activation energy; R=general gas constant; and T=temperature.
[0010] For example, as a rough reference value the equation yields an approximate doubling of the reaction rate for a temperature increase of 10° K., prompting a corresponding requirement to regulate the temperature as precisely as possible when regenerating the diesel particle filter.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0011] The method according to the invention has the advantage that an oxygen content of an exhaust gas can be regulated within a wide range during a regeneration of a diesel particle filter (DPF) of an internal combustion engine (diesel engine), allowing a proper regeneration on the one hand and preventing any damage (thermal burn-out) of the DPF on the other.
[0012] The invention proceeds from the consideration that in a regeneration of the DPF, for example in a motor vehicle, a series of important variables determines the regeneration process, and that there are various means or devices of an exhaust system for influencing these variables. In particular it is possible to state a general correlation between an oxygen content and the reaction rate:
[0000] r=k·c 1 x ·c 2 y · . . . ·c n z , where r=reaction rate; k=constant of the reaction rate; c i =concentration of the “i” components; and x,y,z=exponents.
[0017] According to this equation the reaction rate in a regeneration of the diesel particle filter increases with rising oxygen content. A regeneration with rising oxygen content of the exhaust gas therefore has to be performed particularly sensitively or gently, in order not to damage the exhaust system, in particular the diesel particle filter. Usual oxygen contents varying as a function of a prevailing operating range of the diesel engine are approximately 8 percent to 18 percent, whereas an oxygen content of an ambient air is approximately 21 percent.
[0018] To this end it is proposed to perform the regeneration of the DPF so that an exhaust gas temperature and/or an oxygen content of the exhaust gas is/are detected, preferably upstream and/or downstream of the DPF in the direction of flow. This provides important variables of the exhaust gas, in order to be able to regulate the regeneration effectively.
[0019] A definite design of the exhaust system in each case is furthermore important, having regard to the available means for influencing said variables. For example, a burner, an air supply connected thereto or an independent air supply, and a metering device for injecting fuel into the exhaust system may be present in the exhaust system of a motor vehicle. In this case the air supply may be embodied as an engine-driven, controllable air pump. The purpose of the fuel injection as an alternative or supplement to the burner is to raise the exhaust gas temperature to a point at which a regeneration of the diesel particle filter can ensue within a reasonable time. According to the invention it is also possible—depending on a prevailing exhaust gas temperature and a prevailing oxygen content of the exhaust gas—to use the air supply also as a sole means of performing a regeneration of the DPF.
[0020] From these available possibilities a means of performing or assisting the regeneration can then be selected in each case. The means are advantageously selected, operated and controlled as a function of the previously determined exhaust gas variables.
[0021] In a first case, in partial load operation of an internal combustion engine, that is to say of a diesel engine, for example, the oxygen content is comparatively high, at 14 percent, for example. It is therefore proposed, according to the invention, to select the injection of fuel into the exhaust system (so-called catalytic combustion) as the means, since as a consequence of the previously relatively high oxygen content a subsequent excessive reduction of the oxygen content is not very probable. For a catalytic combustion it is beneficial if the exhaust gas temperature upstream of the DPF (or upstream of a diesel oxidation catalytic converter connected to the DPF on the inlet side) is at least approximately 300° C. Depending on an actual oxygen content of the exhaust gas, this process may or should be supported by an air supply.
[0022] In a second case, in full load operation of the internal combustion engine the oxygen content in the exhaust gas flow is comparatively low, at 8 percent, for example. If the injection of fuel into the exhaust system were now selected as the means, although the exhaust gas temperature can be raised to regeneration temperature, the oxygen content in the exhaust gas may fall considerably. If, on the other hand, a flame burner (burner) is selected for heating the exhaust gas, it is likewise possible that the oxygen content will be reduced. Compared to the catalytic combustion, however, this reduction turns out to be significantly less. In full load operation of the internal combustion engine, therefore, a heating of the exhaust gas by the burner is a preferred and advantageous choice. According to the invention the burner affords the further advantage of even being able to increase the overall oxygen content through a possibly increased setting of the air supply.
[0023] In general the burner can be used for heating the exhaust gas over a wide range of the exhaust gas temperature and/or the oxygen content, and where necessary also to support the catalytic combustion. Conversely it is likewise possible to use the catalytic combustion to supplement the burner, should the burner not be designed for the full requisite output, for instance, or if the burner cannot be regulated or controlled fully or rapidly enough. In simultaneous operation of the burner together with the catalytic combustion (that is to say the injection of hydrocarbons), it may be necessary to introduce air additionally via the air supply, and more air than would be necessary for operation of the burner alone.
[0024] In both cases according to the invention the exhaust gas mass flow, the exhaust gas temperature and/or the oxygen content of the exhaust gas can be detected upstream and/or downstream of the DPF and used for control purposes. For example, the quantity of fuel to be injected in catalytic combustion can be controlled as a function of the exhaust gas temperature and the oxygen content. Similarly the air supply and the output of the burner can be adjusted as a function of the exhaust gas temperature and the oxygen content. In this case it is advantageously possible to take account of a correlation between the exhaust gas mass flow, the temperature and the oxygen content required at any one time, so that the regeneration of the DPF takes place in a reasonable time without damaging the filter material.
[0025] The invention furthermore allows for the arrangement of a diesel oxidation catalytic converter in series with the diesel particle filter and for the fact that in the method the exhaust gas temperature and/or the oxygen content is registered upstream and/or downstream of the diesel oxidation catalytic converter and taken into account in steps (b) and (c). In this way the diesel oxidation catalytic converter is advantageously incorporated into the regeneration of the DPF by taking account of its influence on the exhaust gas temperature and/or the oxygen content.
[0026] The method can be more flexibly deployed when the means to be used in each case act upon the exhaust gas flow upstream of the diesel oxidation catalytic converter and/or upstream of the diesel particle filter, or are incorporated in these. Better account can thereby be taken of each type of exhaust system or special requirements relating to the regeneration of the DPF.
[0027] In an important development of the method the available means is the air supply. The oxygen content of the exhaust gas can advantageously be varied directly by controlling or regulating the air supply, so that the process of regenerating the DPF can be optimized. The air supply can therefore be suitably adjusted—either alone or in addition to the other means—to the oxygen content of the exhaust gas. In this case the air supply may be integrated into the burner and if necessary operated independently of the latter, or the air supply may be designed as a separate air pump.
[0028] In a further development of the method the available means are the burner and the air supply. The burner can thereby be used to supplement the air supply, in order to carry out and to control or regulate the regeneration of the DPF. This means that it is advantageously possible, for example, to widen the temperature range of the exhaust gas (exhaust gas temperature) in which a regeneration of the DPF is possible or advisable.
[0029] In yet another development of the method the available means are the metering device and the air supply. This makes it possible to perform a regeneration of the DPF without the aid of the burner, and yet at the same time to adjust the oxygen content of the exhaust gas.
[0030] The possible scope is maximized if the available means are the burner, the air supply and the metering device. Measured directly at an outlet of the internal combustion engine, this advantageously allows a regeneration of the DPF to be performed over an especially large temperature and oxygen content range of the exhaust gas. On the one hand by determining the exhaust gas mass flow, the exhaust gas temperature and/or the oxygen content, and on the other using the means described to vary the exhaust gas temperature and the oxygen content, it is possible both to keep the time needed for regeneration short and to effectively prevent any damage to the DPF.
[0031] In addition it is proposed that during a regeneration of the diesel particle filter (DPF) the means is to be used successively in different combinations and/or at different levels and in different quantities. This relates in particular to the air supply. The regeneration of the DPF can thereby be modulated, so to speak. For example, the regeneration can be started gently by initially keeping the oxygen content comparatively low and thereafter steadily increasing it. An improvement can thereby advantageously be achieved in burning the DPF clear. If in addition the exhaust gas temperature is also increased, the reaction rate also increases and the regeneration time is correspondingly reduced.
[0032] Furthermore an apparatus is proposed, which comprises means for registering or detecting an exhaust gas mass flow, an exhaust gas temperature and/or an oxygen content of the exhaust gas upstream and/or downstream of the diesel oxidation catalytic converter and/or the diesel particle filter. Important prerequisites are thereby established for detecting the variables relevant to the method according to the invention. In particular the exhaust gas temperature and the oxygen content can advantageously be registered at points of the exhaust system essential for the method and the working of the diesel oxidation catalytic converter and the DPF can thus also be monitored during the regeneration.
[0033] In addition it is proposed that the apparatus comprises a burner, in particular a flame burner, an air supply and/or a metering device for introducing hydrocarbons. The means to be used for the method are thereby provided, in order to perform the regeneration of the DPF according to the invention in addition to a variation of the exhaust gas temperature by also varying the oxygen content.
[0034] The apparatus is of more compact construction if the air supply is structurally integrated into the metering device. This advantageously combines two of the means to be used in one module and therefore saves space.
[0035] In a development of the apparatus the burner and the metering device for introducing hydrocarbons are structurally integrated. This gives the apparatus an especially compact construction whilst at the same time saving costs.
[0036] The apparatus for performing the method according to the invention functions particularly efficiently if the air supply is a blower. The oxygen content can thereby be set to particularly high levels, the oxygen content of the ambient air in borderline cases to some extent being capable of reaching approximately 21 percent.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0037] FIG. 1 shows a flow chart of a method for regenerating a diesel particle filter of an internal combustion engine;
[0038] FIG. 2 shows a first simplified exemplary embodiment of an exhaust system of the internal combustion engine having a burner and an air supply;
[0039] FIG. 3 shows a second simplified exemplary embodiment of an exhaust system having a device for injecting hydrocarbons and an air supply;
[0040] FIG. 4 shows a third simplified exemplary embodiment of an exhaust system having a burner, an air supply and a device for injecting hydrocarbons; and
[0041] FIG. 5 shows a fourth simplified exemplary embodiment of an exhaust system having a burner, a device for injecting hydrocarbons integrated therein and an air supply, together with a diagram representing important variables defining the method.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
[0042] FIG. 1 shows a flow chart for executing the method with a computer program of a control and/or regulating device. In the drawing in FIG. 1 the program runs substantially from top to bottom.
[0043] The procedure for a regeneration of a diesel particle filter (DPF) is begun in a start block 100 . In a succeeding block 102 a temperature of the exhaust gas is measured upstream of the DPF or is determined from other, available operating variables. In a succeeding block 104 an oxygen content of the exhaust gas is measured upstream of the DPF, for example by means of an exhaust gas probe (lambda probe), or is determined from other, available operating variables. A mass flow of the exhaust gas can be detected or measured in a further block 106 . An initial state of the exhaust gas can be determined by means of one or more of these three detected variables.
[0044] As a function of one or more of these variables and where necessary of other specific defaults—for a “modulated” regeneration of the DPF, for instance—at least one means to be used is then selected in block 108 , selection being made from available means formed by a flame burner, a device for injecting hydrocarbons and an air pump.
[0045] In block 110 of FIG. 1 the actual regeneration of the DPF is controlled or regulated by the available means selected in block 108 and according to the specific defaults. For this purpose block 110 may in any particular case activate, deactivate or control the level of the flame burner, the device for injecting hydrocarbons and/or the air pump. At the same time block 110 receives the current values of the variables detected in blocks 102 to 106 , in order to regulate the regeneration of the DPF, so that this can run within a predefined regeneration time and without damaging the DPF or a diesel oxidation catalytic converter.
[0046] In block 112 it is enquired whether conditions exist for either terminating the DPF regeneration in the succeeding end block 114 or continuing it in block 110 .
[0047] In the succeeding FIGS. 2 to 5 the flame burner is referred to as a burner 34 , the device for injecting hydrocarbons as a metering device 40 and the air pump as an air supply 36 .
[0048] FIG. 2 shows a simplified diagram of an exhaust system 10 of the internal combustion engine (not shown further) for performing the method for regenerating a DPF (diesel particle filter). In FIG. 2 the exhaust system 10 comprises, from left to right in the direction of flow: a pipe system 12 , through which an exhaust gas mass flow 14 flows, an oxidation catalytic converter 16 (“diesel oxidation catalytic converter”), a diesel particle filter 18 and an outlet 20 , which leads to further devices of the exhaust system 10 , for example to a silencer, which are not shown. One or more temperature sensors 22 , 24 and 26 and one or more lambda probes 28 , 30 and 32 are in each case arranged upstream of the oxidation catalytic converter 16 and upstream and downstream of the diesel particle filter 18 .
[0049] It will be pointed out in FIG. 2 that not all the temperature sensors 22 , 24 and 26 and lambda probes 28 , 30 and 32 may be needed for controlling or regulating the regeneration. Similarly the order of the diesel particle filter 18 and the oxidation catalytic converter 16 may be reversed, or the oxidation catalytic converter 16 may possibly not be contained in the exhaust system 10 .
[0050] In the drawing a burner 34 and an air supply 36 are arranged above the pipe system 12 . Here the burner 34 is embodied as a flame burner and introduces a generated flame jet and/or a generated air or hot air into the pipe system 12 via a connection 38 . The air supply 36 is embodied as a blower.
[0051] In a regeneration of the diesel particle filter 18 an initial state of the exhaust system 10 and of the exhaust gas is first detected by means of one or more of the temperature sensors 22 , 24 and 26 , the lambda probes 28 , 30 and 32 and possibly taking account of a current exhaust gas mass flow 14 . On the basis of this it is determined whether and at what level the burner 34 and/or the air supply 36 each need to be actuated in order to perform the regeneration of the diesel particle filter 18 . For example, the burner 34 is activated and a quantity of air is delivered via the air supply 36 , such that the burner 34 can be operated and an oxygen content of the exhaust gas upstream of the diesel particle filter 18 lies within predefined limits. If the exhaust gas flowing in the pipe system 12 is already at a temperature suitable for the regeneration of the diesel particle filter 18 , the burner 34 can be at least temporarily deactivated and only the air supply 36 activated in order to adjust the oxygen content of the exhaust gas.
[0052] FIG. 3 shows a diagram of an exhaust system 10 comparable to FIG. 2 , the difference compared to FIG. 2 being that a metering device 40 (HC injector) for injecting hydrocarbons and the air supply 36 are connected to the connection 38 .
[0053] In a regeneration of the diesel particle filter 18 an initial state of the exhaust system 10 is again first detected, as explained. On the basis of this it is determined whether and at what level the metering device 40 and/or the air supply 36 are each to be actuated. Again it is a question of adjusting or regulating both the temperature and the oxygen content of the exhaust gas upstream of the diesel particle filter 18 within predefined limits, in order that the regeneration can be performed within a predefined time and in a manner that spares the diesel particle filter 18 .
[0054] FIG. 4 shows an arrangement combining FIGS. 2 and 3 . The burner 34 , in turn supplied with ambient air by the air supply 36 , is arranged on the connection 38 . The metering device 40 , for injecting hydrocarbons into the exhaust gas is arranged downstream of the connection 38 .
[0055] The regeneration of the diesel particle filter 18 is performed according to the arrangements represented in FIGS. 2 and 3 , the available means to be used, comprising the burner 34 , the air supply 36 and the metering device 40 being greater, so that the regeneration can be performed even more flexibly and precisely. If the burner 34 and the metering device 40 are operated simultaneously, it is still possible to ensure, through a suitable adjustment of the level of the air supply 36 , that an oxygen content (lambda value) of the exhaust gas remains within predefined limits.
[0056] The means represented in FIG. 4 can, where appropriate, make it even easier to perform the regeneration according to predefined profiles. For example, the regeneration may be “modulated” by initially performing this at a comparatively low exhaust gas temperature and a comparatively low oxygen content, and thereafter steadily shifting to higher exhaust gas temperatures and higher oxygen contents. An improvement can thereby be achieved in burning the diesel particle filter 18 clear.
[0057] FIG. 5 , in the upper part of the drawing, shows an arrangement of an exhaust system 10 similar to FIG. 4 , this being of especially compact construction in that the metering device 40 is structurally integrated into the burner 34 , thereby at the same time saving costs.
[0058] FIG. 5 , in the lower part of the drawing, shows a diagram with an abscissa 46 , which gives a length coordinate to the same scale as the upper part of the drawing in FIG. 5 , and an ordinate 48 , on which temperatures and oxygen contents of the exhaust gas are entered according to the five curves represented in the drawing.
[0059] A first curve 50 shows a qualitative profile of an exhaust gas temperature along the pipe system 12 and the oxidation catalytic converter 16 , whilst the burner 34 is in operation. A second curve 52 shows a similar profile of the exhaust gas temperature whilst the burner 34 is not in operation, but air is merely being blown in by means of the air supply 36 . A third curve 54 shows a qualitative profile of an oxygen content of the exhaust gas whilst both the burner 34 and the metering device 40 are in operation and a lambda value of the exhaust gas is set to approximately one by means of the air supply 36 . A fourth curve 56 shows a profile of the oxygen content of the exhaust gas whilst only the air supply 36 and the metering device 40 are in operation. A fifth curve 58 shows a profile of the oxygen content of the exhaust gas whilst only the metering device 40 is in operation
[0060] It will be seen from the curves 54 and 56 how the air supply 36 , during the operation of the burner 34 and/or the metering device 40 , can keep the oxygen content of the exhaust gas at the inlet into the oxidation catalytic converter 16 and the particle filter 18 sufficiently high despite an inevitable fall. It will be seen from the curve 58 by contrast how, in operation without the air supply 36 , the oxygen content of the exhaust gas at the inlet into the oxidation catalytic converter 16 and the diesel particle filter 18 falls suddenly and sharply to an insufficient value.
[0061] The air supply 36 therefore advantageously serves to ensure that a regeneration of the diesel particle filter 18 can be performed with an optimum oxygen content of the exhaust gas at any given time. | A method for regenerating a diesel particle filter ( 18 ) of an exhaust system in which an exhaust gas flow from a diesel engine is fed through the diesel particle filter ( 18 ). The system further includes at least one of a burner ( 34 ) for heating up the exhaust gas flow, a controllable air supply ( 36 ) and a metering device ( 40 ) for introducing hydrocarbons into the exhaust gas flow being fed to the diesel particle filter ( 18 ). The method includes registering at least one of an exhaust gas temperature and an oxygen content of the exhaust gas at least one of upstream and downstream of the diesel particle filter ( 18 ), selecting and activating at least one of the burner ( 34 ), the air supply ( 36 ) and the metering device ( 40 ), and controlling the selected component as a function of the registered at least one of exhaust gas temperature and oxygen content. | 5 |
This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional application No. 60/031,146, filed Nov. 19, 1996.
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates generally to apparatuses for testing of materials subject to bending, tensile, compressing, and/or torsioning loads.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
A type of machine for providing cyclic or non-cyclic stresses to a material presently exists of a nature such that very expensive servo controlled hydraulics are employed to control force, stroke, and cycle rate. While these machines are capable of operating over a wide range of speeds, the disadvantages are high initial cost for both hardware and software, as well as high filtration requirements of the hydraulic system to prevent contamination and damage to any of the sophisticated hydraulic components. Maintenance of these machines are costly and is usually performed by a specialist in hydraulics and other specialists for solving computer hardware and software problems.
Another type of machine in use in this field is electrically controlled sliding members, often driven by a rotating screw. While this is lower in cost than the first example, it is not nearly as capable of high cyclic rates and loads.
Machines for providing stresses to material have also been described in the patent literature. For example U.S. Pat. No. 5,421,205 "Apparatus for the rapid ultimate material strength testing" of A. Pohl, U.S. Pat. No. 3,733,895 high speed fatigue tester by Ishida, and U.S. Pat. No. 3,808,885, a Spring tester by Carlson, incorporated herein by reference, are presented for the background of the reader.
These and other approaches do not offer the same advantages as the present invention. In particular there is a need for cost effective devices, devices which are simple to operate, which are minimal upkeep and which can be easily adapted to a variety of test conditions and part configurations.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates generally to an apparatus for testing materials by subjecting the materials to any combination of bending, tensile, compressive, or torsional loads, either fixed or moving relative to the test specimen, depending upon the test being performed.
The loads may be cyclic in order to determine the number of cycles to failure of the material being tested. These loads may be applied at any required cyclic rate, and up to any number of cycles required.
In addition a load may be applied once in excess of the strength of the material being tested in order to determine it's yield point or ultimate strength.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a useful machine for mechanical stress testing of materials.
A further object is to provide adjustable load and speed for providing periodic stresses.
A further object is to have a machine with readily interchangeable fixtures for testing different shaped parts.
A still further object is to have a machine with changeable set-ups and test conditions.
A further object of the invention is to provide a machine which tests valve stems.
These and other objects of the present invention will become more readily appreciated and understood from a consideration of the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments when taken together with the accompanying drawings.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 is a front view of a cyclic alternating side load setup.
FIG. 2 is a right side view of the setup of FIG. 1 at D--D.
FIG. 3 is a partial sectional view of the setup of FIG. 1 at B--B.
FIG. 4 is a partial sectional view of . . . at A--A showing a cam shaft and test specimen.
FIG. 5 is partial sectional view of . . . at C--C through left hand lever.
FIG. 6 is a front view of a cyclic compressive setup of the present invention.
FIG. 7 is a front view of a cyclic tensile setup of the present invention.
FIG. 8 is a partial sectional view at E--E of FIG. 7 through the cam shaft.
FIG. 9 is a front view of a cyclic tensile setup with hydraulic or pneumatic cylinder option to provide the external force.
FIG. 10 is a partial sectional view at F--F of the setup of FIG. 9.
FIG. 11 is a partial front view of a cyclic torsion setup.
FIG. 12 is a partial top view at G--G of the cyclic torsion setup of FIG. 11.
FIG. 13 is a partial front view of a control of cam angular position.
FIG. 14 is a partial sectional view of H--H through FIG. 13.
FIG. 15 is a control schematic of an electronically regulated force application system.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT
This machine as shown in FIG. 1 and FIG. 2 is comprised of a machine frame 1, having a, rotating camshaft or eccentric 21, a prime mover (such as an electric motor) 32, and lever arms 3 and 20 which pivot around pivot points 16 to transfer cyclic forces to sample specimen 500.
This machine is not limited to any particular cam or eccentric, or linkage, but may use-any means to provide a primary external force. In FIG. 1 this force is shown being applied by, but not limited to, a compression spring 11. Any suitable force applicator will be offered to replace or work in conjunction with the spring 11. For instance a pneumatic, hydraulic, or electric type primary force applicator is an optional part of this machine and will be furnished as ordered by the purchaser.
FIG. 1 shows a front view of the machine as set up for a cyclic side load test. The rotation of cam 23 which is in contact with lever camroll 15, causes oscillation of right hand lever 3 and left hand lever 20 by overcoming the force of springs 11. This lever oscillation causes a cyclic loading and unloading of test specimen 500.
The force is transmitted from compression spring 11 through effort arm 900 (the distance at right angles between the center of pivot 16 to the center of the force applied by spring 11) to resistance arm 901 (the distance at right angles from the center of pivot 16 to the center of motion of slide 71. This force ultimately is transmitted to test specimen 500.
Looking at FIG. 1 the right hand lever bracket 2, and the left hand lever bracket 19, are fastened to the machine frame 1 with cap screws 5, and dowel pins 4 fix a precise repeatable location when machine re-assembly is required. Optional wear bushings 43 are shown pressed into pivot holes in brackets 2 and 19. See FIG. 5 which shows the pivot shafts 16 assembled through two pivot holes in brackets 2 and 19 as well as through pivot hole in right hand lever 3, and left hand lever 20. The two pivot shafts 16 are retained by retaining screw 42 in pivot levers 3 and 20.
Optional lubrication fittings 41 are assembled in lever brackets 2 and 19 and provide a means to lubricate pivot shafts 16. The thrust bearings 41A serve as side wear surfaces side wear surfaces while maintaining the proper axial location of levers 3 and 20.
The lever cam roller 15 which is at the lower end of levers 3 and 20 is assembled on cam roll shaft 14 which is held in place on levers 3 and 20 by lock washer 47, washer 48 and hex nut 46.
In FIG. 1 cam rollers 15 are shown for purposes of illustration at the lower end of each lever 3 and 20. These cam rollers being in contact with cam or eccentric 23 are thrust outward from cam center of rotation during cam rise, causing levers to pivot outward about pivot shafts 16 and the external force from spring is transferred from the test specimen 500, which is at this point free from the external testing load, because the external force has been transferred to the cam 23.
The cam rollers 15 are held in contact with the cam 23 by the force imparted by springs 11 which push on wear discs 13. The wear discs 13 are held onto levers 3 and 20 by cap screws 12. The outer wear disc 10 is held in place by a pilot diameter on the nose end of the adjustable stud assembly 6. A stud stop tube 7 slips over the adjustable stud assembly 6 outer diameter to limit spring load adjustment thus preventing overloading of machine components or the test specimen 500.
The adjustable stud assembly 6 is threaded through plate 8 which is held in place by cap screw 9 (see FIG. 6) and is adjusted to obtain the desired force on the test specimen 500. This force can be measured by any acceptable method desired by the user, and may be attached as optional equipment.
FIG. 2 which is a sectional view D--D of FIG. 1 and FIG. 3 which is a sectional view B--B of FIG. 1 show mounted bearing units 28 are held onto frame 1 by cap screws 29. Two bearing units 28 are shown in FIG. 2 in this particular configuration. Set screws 30 are but one means to lock the inner race of bearing unit 28, to camshaft 21.
A prime mover mount 35 is attached to machine frame 1 by cap screws 37. Spacers 36 to align prime mover output shaft 32A with camshaft 21 and are assembled between prime mover 32 and prime mover mount 35 and held in place by cap screws 33.
A coupling 31 is assembled between output shaft of prime mover 32A (such as a motor) and camshaft 21. Keys 31A and 31B provide for a positive drive through coupling 31 to camshaft 21 and output shaft of prime mover 32A. The coupling 31 is held axially in place by set screws 31C.
One example of a cam mounting method is shown in FIG. 4 which is sectional view A--A of FIG. 1. A cam hub 22 is assembled near the front of the camshaft 21, and over a positive drive key 52. The cam hub 22 is retained axially onto camshaft 21 by set screw 51. A cam or eccentric 23 of any suitable shape is assembled on the cam hub 22, and locked between cam hub 22 and clamping disc 50 by means of cap screws 53. The friction between both sides of cam 23 with the friction surfaces 22A of cam hub 22, and clamping disc 50 keep the cam from slipping radially when machine is in operation, yet, when required during machine setup, the cam 23 can easily be adjusted radially by loosening cap screws 53 and re-tightening once the proper setting is obtained.
The following are two examples of many force measurements that could be used on this machine, but the machine is by no means limited to these.
The first example uses simply a compressed length of spring 11, with a known spring rate. The length can be measured to determine the external force, since force is proportional to the amount of compression. The spring rate is a change in load per unit of deflection.
A second example, and more precise method, uses a load cell, a transducer which converts a load acting on it into an electrical signal which can be read on an output device, such as a digital readout. The transducer can be set up to reflect either the load on the test specimen 500, or on the test specimen bushings 55 and 59 shown in FIG. 4, or on any suitable points in the system, and calibrated accordingly.
The pivot blocks 17 as seen in FIGS. 1, 3 and 5 (a sectional view C--C of FIG. 1) are assembled into right hand lever 3 and left hand lever 20 and retained by pivot block shafts 18 which are assembled through levers 3 and 20 as well as thrust bearings 45 (see FIG. 5) which locate pivot blocks axially and also serve as side wear surfaces. The pivot block shaft is held in place by a set screw 44. An optional lubrication fitting 41 is shown threaded into the end of pivot block shaft 18 and carries lubrication through the pivot block shaft 18 to lubricate the inside diameter of the pivot blocks 17.
FIG. 3 shows a top view of slide 71 held in contact with pivot block 17 by spring 73 which also bears against fixed thrust bearings 72, thus any motion of pivot block 17 causes a relative motion of slide 71. Slide 71 in this case is contained by wear bushing 74, which is pressed into lever brackets 2 and 19. A threaded stud 70, is adjusted to contact and transmit the required load to test specimen 500. A locknut 75 prevents unwanted rotation of stud 70 by locking it to slide 71.
This machine is capable of testing a wide variety of sizes and shapes of test specimens. Only one example is given for each cyclic bending, cyclic compressive, cyclic tensile, and cyclic torsion tests in the interest of brevity.
As an example of the test specimen 500 being located and retained for a typical cyclic bending test see FIG. 4. With the outer support 56 removed, the test specimen 500 is inserted through the bushings 59 and 61. The bushing 59 is pressed into the adapter 60 which is attached to the front face of the machine frame 1 by means of cap screws 58. The bushing 61 is pressed into the adapter 64, which is attached to the rear face of the machine frame 1 by means of the cap screws 63. The set screws 62 are but one means to hold test specimen 500 in place.
The outer support 56 is then assembled over the outer end of the test specimen 500 and over locating pins 54 and held in place by the cap screws 57. The bushing 55 is pressed into the outer support 56, and slips over and supports the outer end of the test specimen 500, which is now in position for a cyclic bending test. In this example the part is supported on both sides of the load, which is applied by the threaded stud 70.
FIG. 6 is a front view of the machine showing the machine setup for a cyclic compressive test. The fixed bracket 100 has taken the place of left hand lever bracket 19 and all its assembled components.
The compression test fixture 102 is mounted to bracket 100 by cap screws 103 and dowels 104, and will contain all the necessary components to locate and retain the test specimen 501 in a fixed position for cyclic compression testing.
Rotation of camshaft 21, causes oscillation of the machine components that are a part of the right hand mounting bracket assembly as previously described for the alternating cyclic side load setup, but in this setup the test specimen 501 is under a cyclic compressive load which is applied by compressive load member 70A.
FIGS. 7 and 8 show the machine setup for a cyclic tensile test. In FIG. 7 the fixed bracket 131 is shown mounted in the left hand position, and holds a gripper assembly 136 for gripping and retaining the tensile test specimen 502. For example, a gripper assembly 136 of any type commonly used to grip test specimens, is piloted and threaded into an adapter bushing 134 and locked in position by lock-nut 133. The adapter bushing 134 is retained by cap screws 132.
The right hand mounting bracket assembly consists of, and operates like the prior setups for cyclic bending or compression, except for the tooling changes required to impart a tensile load to the test specimen.
An example of a gripper unit 130 of any common type to grip the right end of test specimen 502 is seen in FIG. 7. This gripper unit 130 is retained in position by a tee bolt 128, and locked in position by locknut 129. The tee bolt 128 slides in bushing 74 which is pressed into the right hand bracket 2. The head of the tee bolt 128 is captive in the tee slot in the pivoting block 127 which pivots about pivot block shaft 18.
A stud type cam follower 124 is mounted on the right hand lever 137 and retained by nut 123. The cam follower 124 engages a rotating closed track cam 120 in this case shown engaged in such a manner that as the cam curve moves closer to the center of rotation, the right hand lever 137 pivots about pivot shaft 16, and is pulled clockwise toward the camshaft, thus releasing the tensile load on the test specimen 502. The closed track cam 120 is mounted to camshaft 21 and is positively driven by key 52 and is retained to camshaft 21 by set screw 65.
A spring adapter 122 is mounted to the end of lever 137 and held in place by cap screws 125. A spring retainer 121 is threaded to end of the adjustable stud assembly 138 and pinned in place by dowel 150. The compression spring 126 is contained between spring retainer 121 and the spring adapter 122. The outer end of the adjustable stud assembly 138 is threaded into the bracket 139 which is fixed to frame 1 by cap screws 141. The stud stop tube 140 limits the spring load adjustment.
As the closed track cam 120 rotates and the cam curve increases toward a larger radius, the force from compression spring 126 causes a counter-clockwise rotation of tensile test lever 137. When the force of the spring is balanced by the opposing force caused by the strain in the test specimen 502, movement of the tensile test lever 137 ceases. The cam continues to rotate to a still larger radius, causing the stud type cam follower 124 to become disengaged from the cam curve, thus insuring that all the spring force is transmitted to the test specimen 502, which is now under tension.
As the cam 120 continues to rotate and the cam curve reverses to a decreasing radius, at some point the cam curve re-engages the stud type cam follower 124 and overcomes the force of spring 126. This causes the lever 137 to move clockwise and removes the tensile force which has been induced in the test specimen 502.
FIG. 8 is a partial section at E--E of FIG. 7 through cam shaft. A stud type cam follower 124 is mounted on the right hand lever 137 and retained by nut 123. The cam follower 124 engages a rotating cam 120 in this case shown engaged in such a manner that as the cam curve moves closer to the center of rotation, the lever 137 is pulled clockwise toward the camshaft, thus releasing the tensile load on the test specimen.
A spring adapter 122 is mounted to the end of lever 137 and held in place by cap screws 125. A spring retainer 121 is threaded to end of the adjustable stud assembly 6 and pinned in place by dowel 150. The compression spring 126 is contained between spring retainer 121 and the spring adapter 122. The outer end of the adjustable stud assembly is threaded into the plate 8, which is a fixed member as shown in previous examples.
As the cam 120 rotates and the cam curve increases toward a larger radius, the force from spring 126 causes a counter-clockwise rotation of lever 137. The cam continues to rotate to a still larger radius, causing the stud type cam follower 124 to become disengaged from the cam curve, thus insuring that all the spring force is transmitted to the test specimen 502 which is now under tension.
As the cam 120 continues to rotate and the cam curve reverses to a decreasing radius, at some point the cam curve re-engages the stud type cam follower 124 and overcomes the force of spring 126. This causes the lever 137 to move clockwise and removes the tensile force which has been induced in the test specimen 502.
FIGS. 9 and 10 show a cyclic tensile setup with hydraulic or pneumatic cylinder option as primary force applicator (the external force). FIG. 9 is a front partial view. A cylinder mounting bracket 161 is mounted to the right side of the frame 1 using cap screws 9. Yoke 151 is attached to the cylinder mounting bracket 161 by cap screws 160. A pivot pin 152 is inserted into holes in the yoke 151 and the rear pivot hole of the cylinder 154 and is retained by set screw 153. The cylinder rod end 159 is screwed into knuckle 155. The pivot pin 157 attaches the knuckle 155 to the right hand lever 158 and is retained by set screw 156. The remaining parts in this setup are the same as shown in FIGS. 7 and 8.
FIG. 10 is a partial sectional view et F--F of FIG. 9. Of particular interest is the manner in which a pneumatic or hydraulic cylinder 154 is connected to the lever arm 158 by means of cylinder rod end 159 being screwed into knuckle 155. The pivot pin 157 attaches the knuckle 155 to the right hand lever 158 and is retained by set screw 156. On the other end the cylinder 154 is connected to yoke 151 which in turn is attached to the cylinder mounting bracket 161 by cap screws 160. A pivot pin 152 is inserted into holes in the yoke 151 and the rear pivot hole of the cylinder 154 and is retained by set screw 153.
FIGS. 11 and 12 show a cyclic torsion setup. In FIG. 11 is a partial front view of a cyclic torsion setup. FIG. 12 is a partial top view at section G--G of the cyclic torsion setup illustrated in FIG. 11.
In FIG. 11 the rotating cam 23 imparts motion to the right hand lever 3 and all its related parts. The torsion bracket 607 is shown mounted in the left hand position on frame 1 and provides a means to mount parts necessary to conduct any variety of torsional tests.
This particular setup shows a torsion test specimen 503, having a cylindrical shape, being held on each end of its outside diameter by the torsion retainers 601 which have a torsion retainer sawcut 611 and a torsion retainer clamp screw 609 to hold the torsion test specimen 503 against slipping both radially and axially in the torsion retainers 601. The torsion retainers 601 are assembled to the torsion bracket 607 and held in place by cap screw 602 and dowel pin 603.
The torsion arm 600 is clamped onto the center portion of torsion test specimen 503 and between torsion retainers 601. The torsion arm 600 is clamped to the torsion test specimen 503 by torsion arm clamp screws 605 which squeeze through the torsion arm sawcut 610 to clamp on the outside diameter of the torsion test specimen 503.
A torsion arm bearing support 606 is assembled to the torsion bracket 607 and held in place by cap screws 608. The torsion arm bearings 604 are provided to eliminate bending of torsion test specimen 503 by counteracting the horizontal force applied by threaded stud 70.
The force for this torsion test is applied by the threaded stud 70 to the torsion arm 600 at a suitable radial distance from the center of the torsion test specimen 503.
The amount of force and its frequency and source is the same as previously described.
FIG. 13 is a partial front view illustrating cam angular position control. FIG. 14 is a partial top view at section H--H of FIG. 13 further illustrating the inside cam 701. FIGS. 13 and 14 show a setup where the precise control of the angular position of the camshaft 21 by any well known method including but not limited to servo and stepping motors will determine the deflection or load at the test specimen 501.
A compressive stress test is shown in this example, however any type of stress test using this camshaft angular position method, can be conducted simply by using the machine components and tooling required to conduct the desired test.
By controlling the angular position of the camshaft 21, the closed camtrack 702 in cam 701, controls the displacement of the stud type cam follower 124, which causes the right hand lever to pivot about pivot shaft 16. This moves all related moving machine members as described previously. This allows the loading member 70A to move to any position required to obtain the desired deflection or load on the test specimen 501.
FIG. 15 is a control schematic of an electronically regulated force application system 800. The system 800 consists of four distinct sub-systems; a force actuation unit, 801; a load cell, 802; a force regulator, 803 and an input control panel, 804. The primary objective of this system is to provide for a precisely controlled force to be applied to the unit under test (UUT), 806, under all operating conditions and time. Secondary objectives include, but are not limited to, ease of force set up and operator alarm upon UUT failure.
The purpose of the force actuation unit 801, is to provide a means to supply the primary force to the machine 800 which ultimately gets transferred to the UUT, 806. The input to this system is either an electrical analog or digital control signal and the output is a force proportional to the control input signal. This system could be realized by, but not limited to, a pneumatic, hydraulic or spring and servo-motor control scheme.
The load cell, 802 is used to measure the force being applied to the UUT 806. The input to this system is a force and the output is an electrical analog or digital control signal proportional to the applied force.
The force regulator 803 is an electrical control circuit which is responsible for ensuring the desired force is applied to the UUT 806. The inputs to this system are the output from the load cell and an analog or digital control signal which is proportional to the force that the operator would like to be applied to the UUT 806. One output from this system is a digital or analog control signal which is connected to the force actuation unit input 801 and provides the appropriate input to maintain a constant force for the UUT 806. Another output from this system could be an alarm signal used to alert the operator if the output from the load cell 802 is out of a specified range, indicating a possible failure of the UUT 806.
The input control panel 804 is the means by which the operator can input the force to be applied to the UUT 806. The input device could be, but is not limited to, a numeric keypad with a local liquid crystal display (LCD) or light emitting diode (LED) display or a personal computer. One output from this system is an analog or digital control signal which is sent to the force regulator 803. This signal is proportional to the force which is to be applied to the UUT 806. A second output from this system could be limits to which the output from the load cell 802 are measured against in the force regulator 803. These signals are analog or digital signals which represent minimum and maximum limits for the load cell output. An input to this system could be an alarm signal from the force regulator 803 indicating the force being applied to the UUT 806 is outside specified limits. This signal would sound an audible alarm or perhaps halt the machine. | The invention is a machine for the cyclic load testing in tension, compression, torsion, shear, or any combination thereof of any one of a number of different sizes, types and configurations of test specimens at a fixed or adjustable predetermined load and cycle rate and comprising a machine frame in which is mounted a drive shaft, any number of intermediate shafts as required, and a camshaft or crankshaft. At the workstation of the machine, appropriate fixtures and tooling are either fixed, rotating, or in motion, as required to conduct the particular test to be performed. When the test specimen is to be in motion, the motion may be derived from a driving source separate from the primary mover or camshaft, for instance but not limited to an independent motor or cylinder. This source of motion may also be taken through a drive train or any suitable means from the same driving source as the camshaft or from the camshaft itself or from any other moving member in the system. A motion is ultimately imparted to drive the test specimen holder, thereby setting the test specimen in motion. | 6 |
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0001] The present invention is directed to the electroplating of copper onto a semiconductor structure and, more particularly, to the direct electroplating of copper onto a non-copper plateable layer without an intervening copper seed layer.
[0002] In damascene processing, the interconnect structure or wiring pattern is formed within a dielectric layer. Using known techniques a photoresist material is used to define the wiring pattern. The patterned photoresist acts as a mask through which a pattern of the dielectric material is removed by a subtractive etch process such as plasma etching or reactive ion etching. The etched openings are used to define wiring patterns in the dielectric layer. The wiring patterns are then filled with a metal using a filling technique such as electroplating, electroless plating, chemical vapor deposition, physical vapor deposition or a combination thereof. Excess metal can then be removed by chemical mechanical polishing through a process known as planarization.
[0003] In a single damascene process, via openings are provided in the dielectric layer and filled with a conducting metal, which is often referred to as metallization, to provide electrical contact between layers of wiring levels. In a dual damascene process, the via openings and the wiring pattern are both provided in the dielectric layer before filling with the conducting metal. Damascene processing followed by metallization is continued for each layer until the integrated circuit device is completed.
[0004] Barrier layer films are needed between the dielectric material and the conductive material in order to prevent atoms of the conductive material from migrating into and at times through the dielectric material and into other active circuit device structures. For example, barrier layers are used in conjunction with conductive materials, such as those used in interconnect wiring layers, to isolate the conductive materials from the dielectric material. Migration of conductive material in the device can cause inter-level or intra-level shorts through the dielectric material. In some cases, device functionality can be destroyed.
[0005] Migration is a particular concern when copper is used as the conductive interconnect material because copper exhibits relatively high mobility in dielectric materials used in semiconductor structures. Yet, in spite of this problem, copper is a favored material for interconnects because of its superior conductivity and good electromigration resistance. As a result, if copper is used in an interconnect structure, the copper needs to be confined with a barrier layer such as that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,709,562, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein.
[0006] A barrier layer conventionally used in conjunction with copper interconnect structures is tantalum and tantalum nitride. However, because these barrier materials are more reactive than copper, the formation of interfacial oxides can result in poor adhesion properties between the deposited copper and the barrier material. Due to the presence of the contaminating oxides, these conventional barrier materials usually require the deposition of a copper seed layer prior to standard copper electrodeposition in a copper acid bath. Electrodeposition of copper is generally only suitable for applying copper to an electrically conductive layer. As such, the copper seed layer provides the additional purpose of being electrically conductive to facilitate the electrodeposition of copper.
[0007] The copper seed layer is typically deposited by a nonconformal vapor deposition process which heretofore has worked well. However, as critical dimensions get smaller, for example less than about 45 nm, the seed layer may pinch off the damascene openings, thereby leading to voids, or may not completely cover the walls of the damascene openings.
[0008] Accordingly, a new wiring scheme is being proposed in which ruthenium, platinum, palladium, rhodium and iridium are utilized in conjunction with a barrier layer such as tantalum nitride as a liner in place of the typical metal stack of tantalum nitride and tantalum which requires a copper seed layer.
[0009] Others have proposed the use of ruthenium (and like metals such as platinum, palladium, rhodium and iridium) in semiconductor structures. Lane et al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,787,912, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein, discloses a dual barrier structure in which a first layer, for example tantalum nitride or tungsten nitride, is in contact with the dielectric layer while a second layer, for example, ruthenium, rhodium or palladium is in contact with the copper layer. The second layer is touted as being directly electroplateable by copper without the need of a copper seed layer.
[0010] However, while ruthenium (and like metals such as platinum, palladium, rhodium and iridium) per se is directly electroplateable by copper, the quality of the copper can suffer if the ruthenium (and like metals such as platinum, palladium, rhodium and iridium) is improperly deposited or if it has not been pretreated to remove deleterious oxides.
[0011] Accordingly, it is a purpose of the present invention to have a process for the electrodeposition of copper directly on a ruthenium, platinum, palladium, rhodium or iridium layer (hereafter “plateable layer”).
[0012] It is another purpose of the present invention to have a process for the electrodeposition of copper directly on the plateable layer in which the electrodeposited copper is of good quality and tightly adhered to the metallic layer.
[0013] It is yet another purpose of the present invention to have a process for the electrodeposition of copper directly on the plateable layer in which a copper seed layer is not required.
[0014] These and other purposes of the invention will become more apparent after referring to the following description considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0015] According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is disclosed a process for the formation of an interconnect in a semiconductor structure, the process comprising the steps of:
[0016] forming a dielectric layer on a substrate;
[0017] forming a first barrier layer on the dielectric layer;
[0018] forming a second barrier layer on the first barrier layer, wherein the second barrier layer is selected from the group consisting of ruthenium, platinum, palladium, rhodium and iridium and wherein the formation of the second barrier layer is manipulated so that the bulk concentration of oxygen in the second barrier layer is 20 atomic percent or less; and
[0019] directly forming a conductive layer on the second barrier layer.
[0020] According to a second aspect of the invention, there is disclosed a process for the formation of an interconnect in a semiconductor structure, the process comprising the steps of:
[0021] forming a dielectric layer on a substrate;
[0022] forming a first barrier layer on the dielectric layer;
[0023] forming a second barrier layer on the first barrier layer, wherein the second barrier layer is selected from the group consisting of ruthenium, platinum, palladium, rhodium and iridium and wherein the formation of the second barrier layer is manipulated so that the bulk concentration of oxygen in the second barrier layer is 20 atomic percent or less;
[0024] treating the second barrier layer so as to reduce the amount of oxide on the surface of the second barrier layer; and
[0025] directly forming a conductive layer on the second barrier layer.
[0026] According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is disclosed a process for the formation of an interconnect in a semiconductor structure, the process comprising the steps of:
[0027] forming a dielectric layer on a substrate;
[0028] forming a first barrier layer on the dielectric layer;
[0029] forming a second barrier layer on the first barrier layer by one of chemical vapor deposition (CVD) and atomic layer deposition (ALD), wherein the second barrier layer is selected from the group consisting of ruthenium, platinum, palladium, rhodium and iridium and wherein the formation of the second barrier layer is manipulated so that the bulk concentration of oxygen in the second barrier layer is reduced to a level at which a subsequently formed conductive layer appears bright and shiny; and
[0030] directly forming a conductive layer on the second barrier layer, the conductive layer being bright and shiny due to such reduced level of the bulk concentration of oxygen in the second barrier layer.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0031] The features of the invention believed to be novel and the elements characteristic of the invention are set forth with particularity in the appended claims. The Figures are for illustration purposes only and are not drawn to scale. The invention itself, however, both as to organization and method of operation, may best be understood by reference to the detailed description which follows taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which:
[0032] FIG. 1 is a cross sectional view of a prior art semiconductor structure having a copper seed layer.
[0033] FIG. 2 is a cross sectional view of a semiconductor structure according to the present invention prior to electrodeposition of copper.
[0034] FIG. 3 is a cross sectional view of the semiconductor structure of FIG. 2 after electrodeposition of copper and planarization of the semiconductor structure.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
[0035] Referring to the drawings in more detail, and particularly referring to FIG. 1 , there is shown a single wiring level of a conventional semiconductor structure 10 . For purposes of clarity, any part of the semiconductor structure underneath or above the single wiring level is not shown. It should be understood that there are usually a plurality of such wiring levels which may be above or below the wiring level shown in FIG. 1 . The wiring level comprises a dielectric layer 14 , a dual damascene opening 1 2 and lining the dual damascene opening 12 is a dual liner layer comprising, for example, tantalum nitride 1 6 and then tantalum 18 . In place of tantalum nitride 16 , other materials that could be utilized are, for example, titanium nitride and tungsten nitride and in place of the tantalum 18 , other materials that could be utilized are, for example, titanium and tungsten. On top of the tantalum layer 18 is deposited a copper seed layer 20 . The copper seed layer 20 tends to be thicker at the opening 24 to the dual damascene opening 12 . While not shown in FIG. 1 , copper or other conductive material would be electrodeposited over the copper seed layer 20 to fill the dual damascene opening 12 . The thickening of the copper seed layer 20 presents a problem when the dimensions of the dual damascene opening 12 become small as it can pinch off the opening 24 , thereby leading to voids in the copper that is subsequently deposited in the dual damascene opening 12 . Also, the copper seed layer 20 may be thinly deposited, or not deposited at all, on the side walls of the dual damascene opening 12 .
[0036] The dielectric layer 14 can be any suitable dielectric layer used in the semiconductor manufacturing industry such as an oxide, e.g., silicon dioxide, nitride, silicon nitride, or an oxynitride layer. Low-k dielectric materials such as SiLK® from Dow Chemical, Coral® from Novellus, Black Diamond® from Applied Materials and spin-on silicon-based dielectrics can also be used. Dielectric layer 14 can be formed by any of various methods including by chemical vapor deposition and spin-on techniques.
[0037] Referring now to FIG. 2 , the process of the present invention has been utilized to produce the semiconductor structure 110 shown in FIG. 2 in which dual damascene opening 12 has been made in dielectric layer 14 followed by a barrier layer, for example tantalum nitride 16 . Thereafter, a plateable layer 26 is directly deposited onto the tantalum nitride layer 16 . This plateable layer 26 is selected from the group consisting of ruthenium, platinum, palladium, rhodium and iridium. It is to be noted that the plateable layer 26 does not pinch off the opening 24 to the dual damascene opening 12 as much as the prior art copper seed layer illustrated in FIG. 1 . There are several reasons for this result. First, there is one less layer deposited since the tantalum layer 18 shown in FIG. 1 is not necessary. Second, because the plateable layer 26 is heavier than copper, it deposits more conformally than copper. Third, the atomic layer deposition (ALD) deposition process is available for some of these metals, such as ALD of ruthenium. The ALD process is the most conformal process among chemical vapor deposition (CVD), physical vapor deposition (PVD), and ALD process. The present inventors have the most experience with ruthenium and believe it to be a preferred material for the plateable layer 26 , especially since it can be deposited by ALD. Subsequently, copper 28 would be directly electrodeposited onto the plateable layer 26 and into the dual damascene opening 12 , preferably followed by a planarization process, such as chemical mechanical polishing, to result in the semiconductor structure 110 shown in FIG. 3 .
[0038] The plateable layer 26 can be deposited by any means including but not limited to physical vapor deposition (PVD), ionized physical vapor deposition (IPVD), atomic layer deposition (ALD), plasma enhanced atomic layer deposition (PEALD) or chemical vapor deposition (CVD). The thickness of the plateable layer 26 can be in the range of 3 to 40 nanometers (nm).
[0039] The present inventors have discovered that it is very desirable to control the amount of oxygen in the bulk of the plateable layer 26 as well as any oxide on the surface of the plateable layer 26 . Control of the oxygen in the bulk of the plateable layer 26 , it is believed, reduces the resistivity of the plateable layer 26 , thereby enabling more uniform plating of the wafer. Since electrical contact with the wafer for electroplating is only made at the outer edges of the wafer, as the resistivity of the metallic layer increases, the quality of the electroplated copper decreases beginning with the center of the wafer since it is furthest from the contacts. For low resistivity (high conductivity), the electroplated copper should be bright and shiny; this is the ideal. As resistivity increases (conductivity decreases), the electroplated copper becomes hazy away from the edge of the wafer and may even be dark at the center of the wafer indicating very poor plating quality.
[0040] The present inventors have found that the method of deposition affects the amount of oxygen in the bulk of the plateable layer 26 . Those methods that produce less oxygen in the bulk require less manipulation of the process parameters to achieve a desirable level of oxygen in the bulk while those methods that produce more oxygen in the bulk require more manipulation of the process parameters to achieve a desirable level of oxygen in the bulk. Thus, deposition by PVD results in the least oxygen in the bulk while deposition by ALD results in the most oxygen in the bulk. The oxygen content in the bulk of the CVD-deposited plateable layer 26 is in between the PVD and ALD methods. Ionized PVD (IPVD) is similar to the PVD process, which gives very low oxygen impurity. The Plasma Enhanced ALD (PEALD) process uses nitrogen, ammonia, or a mixture of nitrogen and ammonia as the reaction gas in replace of oxygen. Therefore it is reasonable to suggest its oxygen impurity is lower than the ALD process, but higher than the PVD and IPVD processes, which are carried out in a vacuum environment. For deposition of the plateable layer 26 , the oxygen must be controlled in order to control the bulk oxygen content of the plateable layer 26 . The bulk oxygen content is defined as that oxygen content measured about 10 angstroms below the surface of the plateable layer 26 . As will be seen in the examples, the best results are obtained when the oxygen content in the bulk is less than about 20 atomic percent. It should be understood that 20 atomic percent oxygen content is approximate only and may vary somewhat dependent on process conditions. While the most preferred bulk oxygen content should be about 20 atomic percent or less, the bulk oxygen content in any event should be much less than the high fifties atomic percent range as it is known that samples with this bulk oxygen content do not plate well.
[0041] The surface oxide of the metallic layer also affects plating quality, but in a different way. In the worse case where the surface of the metallic layer is heavily oxidized, the electroplated copper will be poorly adhered and have a particulate or dusty appearance. The cleaner the surface, the more the electroplated copper will be bright and shiny. It is thus desirable according to the present invention to pretreat the plateable layer 26 so as to condition it for the electroplating of the copper. The oxidation of the plateable layer surface comes from two sources. One is from the plateable layer deposition process, which depends on the deposition method. For PVD, or IPVD, since there is no oxygen exposure during the process, there will be close to zero oxygen contamination. But for some ALD or CVD processes, since there is oxygen containing gas passing through during the deposition, oxygen is incorporated both within the film and on the film surface when the deposition is finished. The other is the natural oxidation of the plateable layer in air or in oxygen containing atmosphere. This surface oxygen content increases with the age of the plateable layer. For example, even for an originally oxygen-free PVD ruthenium film, the surface oxidation in air after leaving the deposition chamber will grow to such an extent that the copper plated on top will be hazy and dark with poor adhesion to the sublayer.
[0042] There are several methods of pretreatment possible. In one method of pretreatment, the wafer having the plateable layer 26 can be subjected to forming gas (mixture of hydrogen and nitrogen in the ranges of 2-10% H 2 and 98-90% N 2 ), hydrogen plasma or other reducing gas (any mixture of hydrogen with other inert gas, such as argon) at elevated temperatures in the range of 50 to 500° C. to reduce the oxide of the plateable layer 26 back to its elemental metal form. Alternatively, halide ion solutions such as Cl—, Br— or I— or halide gas such as Cl 2 , Br 2 or I 2 can be utilized to prepare the surface of the plateable layer 26 . As an example of the halide ion solution, the plateable layer can be immerged in a dilute HCl solution, such as 10% HCl, for 1 minute to dissolve some of the surface oxide to achieve good copper plating afterwards. As an example of the halide gas, the plateable layer is placed inside a chamber with Cl 2 gas for half an hour, which can reduce the surface oxide back to metal. The downside of these methods with halide ions or gases is the reaction will not stop on the elemental metal (e.g., ruthenium). The process needs good timing to prevent excess etching of the elemental metal (e.g., ruthenium) by halide ions and gases.
[0043] Pretreatment is, in general, usually necessary when the plateable layer 26 is formed by CVD, ALD, or PEALD while pretreatment is less generally required when the plateable layer 26 is formed by PVD and IPVD due to the varying amounts of oxygen that are used in the various PVD, IPVD, CVD, ALD, and PEALD processes. Pretreatment may also be necessary, no matter the method of deposition, when the wafers having the plateable layer 26 have been in the queue too long (for example, more than one week) while waiting to be electroplated with copper.
[0044] While the ALD process does require the most control to limit the amount of oxygen in the bulk as well as on the surface, the ALD process is most desirable and most preferred since it leads to the most uniform metallic layers. Conversely, while the PVD process results in the lowest amount of oxygen in the bulk and surface, it is the least desirable deposition method because the resulting metallic layer is the least conformal. As will be further illustrated by the examples hereafter, the ALD process can be very well managed according to the teaching of the present invention so that it can be effectively used to deposit the plateable layer 26 which is directly plateable by copper to result in bright, shiny copper metallic layers.
[0045] So far, there are methods to deposition ruthenium by PVD, IPVD, CVD, ALD, or PEALD processes. While the other platinum metals, including Pt, Pd, Rh, and Ir, have not been extensively studied for their deposition methods, they usually can be deposited by PVD and IPVD processes.
[0046] The present invention is not limited to any specific type of copper plating apparatus, and includes, for example, cup and/or fountain platers (such as “Equinox” from Semitool and “Sabre” from Novellus), thin cell platers (such as “Slim cell” from AMAT and EREX from Ebara) and paddle cells (IBM).
[0047] The current densities may typically be expected to range from about 0.1 mA/cm 2 to about 100 mA/cm 2 , and more preferably from about 3 mA/cm 2 to about 60 mA/cm 2 . The voltage depends on the tool configuration. While not limiting the scope of the present invention, the voltage employed typically ranges from about 0 to about 50 volts, such as from about 0 to about 20 volts, or from about 0 to about 10 volts.
[0048] The solution chemistry of the plating bath is not limited and includes all plating bath materials disclosed in U.S. Published Application No. 2004/0069648 A1, and US Published Patent application No. 2005/0199502 A1, the disclosures of which are incorporated by reference herein. For example, the plating bath may comprise a copper salt, optionally containing a mineral acid, and optionally one or more additives selected from the group consisting of an inorganic halide salt, an organic sulfur compound with water solubilizing groups, a bath-soluble oxygen-containing compound, a bath-soluble polyether compound, or a bath-soluble organic nitrogen compound that may also contain at least one sulfur atom.
[0049] The purposes of the present invention will become more apparent by referring to the following examples.
EXAMPLES
[0050] A series of ruthenium samples were made using PVD, CVD and ALD deposition methods. The PVD samples were made by bombarding a high purity Ru target with positively charged argon ions within a high vacuum chamber. The wafer to be deposited was negatively charged, and a thin solid Ru film was deposited on top of the wafer placed in the chamber. The CVD samples were made by thermal decomposition of ruthenium metal organic precursors (such as triruthenium dodecacarbonyl) with or without reactant gases at an elevated temperature on the wafer. The ALD samples were made by a fixed number of cycles of alternate exposures of a Ru-containing source chemical (such as bis(2,4-dimethylpentadienyl)ruthenium, or DMRu) and reactant gas (such as oxygen, ammonia) to a substrate. Each cycle of ALD Ru consisted of the following sequence of four steps: the substrate was exposed to precursor for 1 to 4 seconds, the ALD reactor was evacuated for 1-2 seconds, then reactant gas was introduced at a flow rate of 5 or 10 sccm for 1 to 4 sec after which the ALD reactor was evacuated. Immediately after completion of the first cycle of ALD Ru, the next cycle of ALD Ru was started until all cycles of ALD Ru were completed.
[0051] The ruthenium surface oxide and bulk oxygen were measured by XPS (X-Ray Photo-electron Spectroscopy). The surface oxide was measured with XPS on the surface of the sample as received, while the bulk oxygen was measured after the samples were sputter etched slightly (about 50 angstroms) within the XPS chamber.
[0052] The samples were then electroplated with copper as follows and qualitatively evaluated for their plating performance. The direct plating of copper onto thin ruthenium wafers was carried out in an EREX tool from EBARA. The detail tool configuration and design appeared in the aforementioned US Published Patent Applications No. 2005/0199502 A1 and US 2004/069648 A1. The copper plating chemistry in our study is comprised of copper sulfate, sulfuric acid, hydrochloride, and C-2001, B-2001, and L-2001 additives from Shipley. The current waveform was comprised of 5 seconds of immersion time without any current, 3 seconds of controlled potential to deposit an edge ring of copper, 10-25 seconds of linear current ramping up from 1.6 mA/cm 2 to 6 mA/cm 2 , 30 seconds of controlled current deposition at 6 mA/cm 2 , 10 seconds current density deposition at 10 mA/cm 2 , 35 seconds of controlled current density deposition at 20 mA/cm 2 , and 25 seconds controlled current density deposition at 30 mA/cm 2 .
[0053] The results are tabulated in Table I below.
TABLE 1 Plating performance of various ruthenium wafers with or without pretreatment. SURFACE OXIDE, BULK OXYGEN, PLATING Example no. WAFER ATOMIC PERCENT ATOMIC PERCENT PERFORMANCE 1 200 mm ALD Ru2 31 5 Bright & shiny Cu 2 200 mm ALD Ru1 67 59 Dark particulate Cu; after stripping, still plated dark Cu 3 200 mm ALD Ru3 42 12 Slight center haziness from 1 st plating; after stripping, good Cu 4 200 mm ALD Ru4 57 18 Poor Cu from 1 st plating; After stripping, good Cu 5 300 mm ALD1 45.16 / Center hazy Cu as received/after FGA, bright and shiny Cu 6 300 mm ALD2 39.38 / Center hazy Cu as received/after FGA, bright and shiny Cu 7 300 mm ALD3 46.44 / Center hazy Cu as received/after FGA, bright and shiny Cu 8 300 mm CVD Ru 17.85 / Center hazy Cu as received/after FGA, bright and shiny Cu 9 CVD Ru without 54 / Dark and hazy FGA copper 10 CVD Ru with FGA / / Bright & shiny Cu 11 48 hrs post FGA / / Bright & shiny Cu ALD Ru 12 72 hrs post FGA / / Slight center ALD Ru haziness 13 Fresh PVD Ru 0.13 / Bright & shiny Cu 14 Aged PVD Ru 50 / Dark and hazy copper 15 FGA, aged PVD / / Bright & shiny Cu Ru
Example 1
[0054] A 200 mm silicon oxide wafer was deposited with ALD TaN and ALD Ru with 5 sccm oxygen flow rate. The thickness of the ruthenium film was about 10 nm. The copper deposited directly on top of this ruthenium surface was bright and shiny. Another ruthenium wafer made with the same ALD conditions was then analyzed with XPS for oxygen content both on the surface and in the bulk of the film. The surface oxygen was found to be 31% (atomic), and the bulk oxygen content was 5% (atomic).
Example 2
[0055] A 200 mm silicon oxide wafer was deposited with ALD TaN and ALD Ru with 10 sccm oxygen flow rate. The thickness of the ruthenium film was about 10 nm. The copper plated directly on this ruthenium surface appeared to be dark and powder-like. The plated copper was then dissolved in 10% HCl solution which resulted in a clean ruthenium surface again. Copper plating was carried out on this ruthenium wafer again and there was the same dark and particulate copper plated. Another ruthenium wafer made with the same ALD conditions was then analyzed with XPS for oxygen content both on the surface and in the bulk of the film. The surface oxygen was found to be 67% (atomic), and the bulk oxygen content was 59% (atomic).
Example 3
[0056] A 200 mm silicon oxide wafer was deposited with ALD TaN and ALD Ru. The thickness of the ruthenium film was about 10 nm. The ruthenium wafer was then plated with copper. The plated copper was mostly bright and shiny, except for a little haziness in the center. The plated copper was then dissolved in 10% HCl solution and resulted in a clean ruthenium surface again. Copper plating was carried out on this ruthenium wafer again with the result that the plated copper was bright and shiny. Another ruthenium wafer made with the same ALD conditions was then analyzed with XPS for oxygen content both on the surface and in the bulk of the film. The surface oxygen was found to be 42% (atomic), and the bulk oxygen content was 12% (atomic).
Example 4
[0057] A 200 mm silicon oxide wafer was deposited with ALD TaN and ALD Ru. The thickness of the ruthenium film was about 10 nm. The ruthenium wafer was then plated with copper. There was only dark particulate copper plated. The plated copper was then dissolved in 10% HCl solution and resulted in a clean ruthenium surface again. Copper plating was carried out on this ruthenium wafer again with the result that the plated copper was bright and shiny. Another ruthenium wafer made with the same ALD conditions was then analyzed with XPS for oxygen content both on the surface and in the bulk of the film. The surface oxygen was found to be 57% (atomic), and the bulk oxygen content was 18% (atomic).
Examples 5, 6 and 7
[0058] 300 mm silicon oxide wafers were deposited with ALD TaN and ALD Ru from a vendor. The thickness of the ruthenium film was about 10 nm. Three of the ruthenium wafers were plated with copper as received. There is hazy Cu plated in the center of the wafers. Another three ruthenium wafers were annealed in forming gas (FGA) for 30 minutes and then plated with Cu. The plated copper was bright and shiny. XPS analysis of three as-received ALD Ru wafers showed that the surface oxygen was found to be 45.16%, 39.38%, and 46.44% (atomic), respectively.
Example 8
[0059] 300 mm silicon oxide wafers were deposited with CVD Ru. The thickness of the ruthenium films was about 8 nm. One ruthenium wafer was plated with copper as received. There was hazy Cu plated in the center of the wafer. Another ruthenium wafer was forming gas annealed for 30 minutes and then plated with Cu. The plated copper was bright and shiny. XPS analysis of one of the as-received CVD Ru wafers showed that the surface oxygen was found to be 17.85% (atomic).
Examples 9 and 10
[0060] 300 mm silicon oxide wafers were deposited with CVD Ru. The thickness of the ruthenium films was about 8 nm. One ruthenium wafer was plated with copper as received. The plated Cu was dark and hazy in the center of the wafer. Another ruthenium wafer was forming gas annealed for 30 minutes and then plated with Cu. The plated copper was bright and shiny. XPS analysis of one of the as-received CVD Ru wafers showed that the surface oxygen was found to be 54% (atomic).
Examples 11 and 12
[0061] 300 mm silicon oxide wafers were deposited with ALD Ru. The thickness of the ruthenium films was about 10 nm. The wafers were all forming gas annealed for 30 minutes. The annealed wafers were left sitting in ambient atmosphere. After 48 hours, one wafer was plated with Cu, and it was bright and shiny Cu. After 72 hours, another wafer was plated, and there was hazy Cu plated in the center of the wafer. Therefore we established that the better queue time between forming gas anneal of the ALD Ru wafer and the Cu plating to be 48 hours or less. Otherwise, ageing of the ruthenium plated wafer affects the quality of the Cu plating.
Examples 13, 14, & 15
[0062] 200 mm PVD Ru wafers were deposited on silicon oxide substrates. The thickness of the ruthenium was about 20 nm. The fresh PVD ruthenium has very low oxygen content (0.13 atomic percent) on the surface. The wafer was plated with Cu without any pretreatments of the ruthenium surface. The Cu was bright and shiny. These ruthenium wafers were then left in ambient for about 6 months, and became aged PVD Ru wafers. One of the aged PVD Ru wafers was plated with Cu without pretreatment. The Cu was dark and hazy. Another of the aged PVD Ru wafers was forming gas annealed for 30 minutes and plated with bright and shiny Cu. We also observed that a thin PVD Ru film (about 4 nm thick Ru) aged much faster. After one week in ambient, the plated Cu showed haziness in the center on these thin PVD Ru wafers. Thus, it is also a good practice to always have FGA of PVD Ru before plating to eliminate any ageing effect.
[0063] It will be apparent to those skilled in the art having regard to this disclosure that other modifications of this invention beyond those embodiments specifically described here may be made without departing from the spirit of the invention. Accordingly, such modifications are considered within the scope of the invention as limited solely by the appended claims. | A process for the formation of an interconnect in a semiconductor structure including the steps of forming a dielectric layer on a substrate, forming a first barrier layer on the dielectric layer, forming a second barrier layer on the first barrier layer, wherein the second barrier layer is selected from the group consisting of ruthenium, platinum, palladium, rhodium and iridium and wherein the formation of the second barrier layer is manipulated so that the bulk concentration of oxygen in the second barrier layer is 20 atomic percent or less, and forming a conductive layer on the second barrier layer. The process may additionally include a step of treating the second barrier to reduce the amount of oxide on the surface of the second barrier layer. | 8 |
This application is a Divisional of application Ser. No. 10/788,468 filed Mar. 1, 2004, which is now matured as U.S. Pat. No. 7,312,643.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a differential current driver and a method of using the differential current driver to transmit data.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is known art to use low voltage differential signaling to transmit data between communication devices or large-scale integrated circuit (LSI) devices. This type of transmitting and receiving of data will be described with reference to FIG. 12 . Data transmission is carried out by a differential driver 1 that switches output current between two output terminals (referred to as positive and negative terminals) of the transmitting device 40 . The current is conducted by a twisted pair cable 45 to the receiving device 50 , where it generates voltages at corresponding (positive and negative) Input terminals linked by a terminating resistor (not shown). A receiver 51 in the receiving device 50 compares the voltages at these input terminals in order to determine the value of the received data (Rcv_DATA).
FIG. 13 shows the internal structure of the differential driver 1 . The differential driver 1 includes a p-channel metal-oxide-semiconductor (PMOS) transistor 2 that operates as a current source (and will be referred to below as a current source 2 ), PMOS transistors 3 and 4 (referred to below as switches 3 and 4 ), NAND gates 8 and 9 , and inverters 6 and 7 . The switches 3 and 4 switch the current output from the current source 2 between the positive (POS) and negative (NEG) output terminals according to a binary data signal received at a data input terminal. The inverters 6 and 7 invert the data signal. The NAND gates 8 and 9 control switches 3 and 4 according the data signal, the inverted data signal, and an output enable (OE) signal received at an output enable input terminal for output enable/disable control of the differential driver 1 . When the OE signal is high, one of the two switches 3 and 4 is turned on according to the data signal, and current is output from the corresponding output terminal. When the OE signal goes low, both switches 3 and 4 are turned off, and no current is output.
When the differential driver 1 is switched from the output disabled state to the output enabled state, it takes time for the operation of the current source 2 to stabilize. For that reason, in a device that transmits and receives data at high speed, the internal structure of the differential driver 1 may be altered as shown in FIG. 14 . In FIG. 14 , when the differential driver 1 is in the output disabled state, a PMOS transistor 14 (referred to below as a switch 14 ) is turned on, allowing the current from the current source 2 to escape to ground. Current therefore flows from the current source 2 at all times, irrespective of the output state of the differential driver 1 . Differing from the structure in FIG. 13 , the structure in FIG. 14 eliminates the need to wait for stabilization of the current source 2 when the differential driver is switched from the output disabled state to the output enabled state, and high-speed data transfer becomes possible. These structures are disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication Nos. 8-204557 and 2000-332610.
In the structure shown in FIG. 13 , when the differential driver 1 is in the output disabled state, since the switches 3 and 4 are both turned off, the voltage at their common node N is substantially equal to the power supply voltage (VDD). When the differential driver 1 transitions from this state to the output enabled state, since one of the switches 3 and 4 is turned on, the voltage at the common node N decreases. This node is the also drain node of the current source 2 , however. Since the gate and drain of a PMOS transistor are capacitively coupled, when the voltage at the common node N decreases (i.e., the drain voltage of the current source 2 decreases), the bias voltage at the gate of the current source 2 also decreases. As a result, the current flow from the current source 2 increases. For this reason, until the bias voltage returns to its normal level, more current than is required flows from the positive output terminal or the negative output terminal. In the structure shown in FIG. 14 , the increase in output current accompanying a transition of the differential driver from the output disabled state to the output enabled state is prevented, but the differential driver consumes much current, since current flows from the current source 2 at all times.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
A general object of the present invention is to transmit data at high speed with low power consumption.
A more specific object is to prevent the output of excess current at a transition from the output disabled state to the output enabled state of a differential current driver without significantly increasing the current consumption of the differential current driver.
In a first aspect of the invention, a differential current driver has two output terminals, a current source supplying current through two switches to the two output terminals, and a circuit for selectively closing the two switches according to data to be transmitted. A comparison circuit compares the current output by the current source with a reference value and thereby generates a control signal. A current adjustment circuit adjusts the current supplied from the current source to the two output terminals responsive to the first control signal.
The current adjustment circuit may include, for example, a transistor for shunting part of the current output by the current source to a node, such as a ground node, different from the two output terminals.
Alternatively, the current adjustment circuit may include a transistor for adjusting a bias voltage that controls the current output of the current source.
In a second aspect of the invention, the differential current driver receives a first command signal indicating validity of the data to be output and a second command signal for enabling and disabling the two switches. A switching circuit conducts the current output by the current source to a node different from the two output terminals while the first command signal indicates that the data to be output are valid but the second command signal disables the two switches.
These two aspects of the invention may be combined.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
In the attached drawings:
FIG. 1 is a circuit diagram showing the structure of a differential current driver according to a first embodiment of the invention;
FIG. 2 is a circuit diagram showing the internal structure of the current comparison circuit in FIG. 1 ;
FIG. 3 is a timing diagram explaining the operation of the differential current driver in FIG. 1 ;
FIG. 4 is a circuit diagram showing the structure of a differential current driver according to a second embodiment of the invention;
FIG. 5 is a circuit diagram showing the structure of a known type of macrocell;
FIG. 6 is a circuit diagram showing the structure of a macrocell according to a third embodiment of the invention;
FIG. 7 is a circuit diagram showing the internal structure of the differential current driver in FIG. 6 ;
FIG. 8 is a timing diagram explaining the operation of the macrocell in FIG. 6 ;
FIG. 9 is a circuit diagram showing the structure of a differential current driver according to a fourth embodiment of the invention;
FIG. 10 is a circuit diagram showing a variation of the differential current driver according to the fourth embodiment of the invention;
FIG. 11 is a circuit diagram showing the structure of a known standard type of differential current driver;
FIG. 12 is a circuit diagram showing a system for transmitting and receiving data using low voltage differential signaling;
FIG. 13 is a circuit diagram showing the structure of a conventional differential current driver; and
FIG. 14 is a circuit diagram showing the structure of a conventional high-speed differential current driver.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
Embodiments of the invention will now be described with reference to the attached drawings, in which like elements are indicated by like reference characters.
FIRST EMBODIMENT
FIG. 1 shows the structure of a differential current driver according to a first embodiment of the invention. The data input terminal is connected to the input terminal of an inverter 6 , the output terminal of which is connected to the input terminal of an inverter 7 and one input terminal of a two-input NAND gate 9 ; the output terminal of inverter 7 is connected to one input terminal of another two-input NAND gate 8 . The second input terminals of the two-input NAND gates 8 , 9 are both connected to an output enable (OE) input terminal. A bias input terminal is connected to the gate terminal of a current source 2 that outputs a current corresponding to the received bias voltage. For compliance with revision 2.0 of the Universal Serial Bus specification (USB 2.0), the output current is set to approximately 17.8 mA. The output current of the current source 2 is generally set by use of a current mirror circuit (not shown) that generates the bias voltage.
The source terminal of the current source 2 is connected to a power supply (VDD) node. The gate terminal of a switch 3 is connected to the output terminal of two-input NAND gate 8 ; the drain terminal of switch 3 is connected to a positive data (DP) output terminal. The gate terminal of a switch 4 is connected to the output terminal of two-input NAND gate 9 ; the drain terminal of switch 4 is connected to a negative data (DM) terminal. The drain terminal of the current source 2 is connected to the source terminals of the switches 3 and 4 and the source terminal of an output current adjustment transistor 11 . The bias input terminal is also connected to the bias terminal of a comparison circuit 10 . The output terminal of the comparison circuit 10 is connected to the gate terminal of the output current adjustment transistor 11 ; the drain terminal of the output current adjustment transistor 11 is connected to ground.
The comparison circuit 10 uses the bias voltage that controls the current source 2 to compare the current output by the current source 2 with a reference value, and outputs a control signal according to the comparison result. The output current adjustment transistor 11 adjusts the external current flow from the DP terminal or the DM terminal by shunting part of the output current of the current source 2 to ground, based on the value of the control signal output by the comparison circuit 10 . When the OE signal indicates the output disabled state, in which no output current may flow from the DP terminal or the DM terminal, both of the switches 3 and 4 are turned off, and the voltage at their common node N is substantially equal to the power supply voltage (VDD). When the differential current driver transitions from this state to the output enabled state, one of the switches 3 and 4 turns on responsive to the data signal, and the voltage at the common node N abruptly decreases. The bias voltage at the gate of the current source 2 also decreases due to gate-to-drain capacitive coupling in the current source 2 . As a result, the output current of the current source 2 increases. For this reason, without current adjustment, more current than required would be output from the DP terminal or the DM terminal, until the bias voltage returned to its normal level.
In this embodiment, however, the comparison circuit 10 determines the amount of current being output by the current source 2 . When the current source 2 outputs too much current, the excess current from the current source 2 is shunted to ground through the output current adjustment transistor 11 . The external current flow from the DP and DM terminals can thus be maintained at a predetermined level. The current output from the DP terminal or the DM terminal is conducted through a twisted pair cable to a terminating resistor in a receiving device to generate voltages at corresponding (positive and negative) input terminals, enabling a differential receiver in the receiving device to receive the data by comparing the generated voltages, as illustrated in FIG. 12 .
FIG. 2 shows the circuit configuration of the comparison circuit 10 . The output terminal of a reference current source 20 is connected to the drain and gate terminals of an n-channel metal-oxide-semiconductor (NMOS) transistor 21 , the gate terminal of another NMOS transistor 22 , and the non-inverting input terminal of a differential amplifier 24 . The bias input terminal is connected to the gate terminal of a PMOS transistor 23 ; the source terminal of the PMOS transistor 23 is connected to the VDD node; the drain terminal of the PMOS transistor 23 is connected to the drain terminal of NMOS transistor 22 and the inverting input terminal of the differential amplifier 24 ; and the output terminal of the differential amplifier 24 is connected to the output terminal of the comparison circuit 10 .
Since the conductivity of the current source 2 and the conductivity of PMOS transistor 23 are controlled by the same bias signal, the drain current of PMOS transistor 23 mirrors the output current of the current source 2 , being proportional to the output current of the current source 2 . The dimensions of the current source 2 and PMOS transistor 23 are selected so that the drain current of PMOS transistor 23 is less than the output current of the current source 2 .
The NMOS transistors 21 and 22 constitute a pair of loads that convert the current supplied by the reference current source 20 and the drain current of PMOS transistor 23 to voltage signals for input to the differential amplifier 24 . When these two voltage signals are equal, the differential amplifier 24 outputs the power supply voltage (VDD).
Next, the operation of the differential current driver will be described with reference to the timing diagram in FIG. 3 , which shows exemplary waveforms of the OE signal, the data input signal, the output voltage (INV- 6 ) of inverter 6 , the output voltage (INV- 7 ) of inverter 7 , the output voltage (NAND- 8 ) of NAND gate 8 , the output voltage (NAND- 9 ) of NAND gate 9 , the voltage at the common node N, the bias voltage at the gate terminal of the current source 2 and the bias input terminal of the comparison circuit 10 , the control voltage (OUT) output from the comparison circuit 10 , and the currents output from the DP and DM terminals.
When the OE signal is low, both switches 3 and 4 are turned off, so the voltage at the common node N becomes substantially equal to the power supply voltage (VDD). When the OE signal input from the OE input terminal goes from low to high, one of the two output signals of the two-input NAND gates 8 and 9 goes low, according to the level of the data signal input from the data input terminal, and one of the switches 3 and 4 is turned on, so that current is output externally from the DP terminal or the DM terminal. In FIG. 3 , the data signal is low when the OE signal goes high, so the output signal of two-input NAND gate 9 goes low and switch 3 turns on. Current therefore flows from the current source 2 out through the DM terminal.
When the OE signal goes high and switch 3 is turned on, the voltage at the common node N decreases, as described above. Accompanying this transition, the bias voltage also decreases due to the gate-to-drain capacitance of the current source 2 , or the capacitance between the bias terminal and the common node N. When the bias voltage decreases, the output current of the current source 2 increases. Since the drain current of PMOS transistor 23 in the comparison circuit 10 is proportional to the output current of the current source 2 , the drain current of PMOS transistor 23 increases correspondingly.
If the drain current of PMOS transistor 23 is larger than the reference current output by the reference current source 20 , the voltage at node B in FIG. 2 , to which the drain terminals of PMOS transistor 23 and NMOS transistor 22 are connected, becomes higher than the voltage at node A, through which the output of the current source 20 is coupled to the drain terminal of NMOS transistor 21 . The differential amplifier 24 reduces its output voltage from the power supply voltage (VDD) to a lower voltage according to the voltage difference between nodes A and B. Thus, when the bias voltage decreases, the control voltage output from the comparison circuit 10 decreases, and the output current adjustment transistor 11 begins to conduct part of the current output from the current source 2 to ground. The amount of current shunted to ground varies depending on the output voltage of the differential amplifier 24 .
As described above, when the comparison circuit 10 detects that more current is flowing from the current source 2 than is required, it reduces the voltage at its output terminal, thereby turning on the output current adjustment transistor 11 , and the output current adjustment transistor 11 routes the excess current to ground, thereby enabling the current output from the DP and DM terminals to be maintained at a desired value.
When the bias voltage returns to its normal level, the output voltage at the output terminal of the comparison circuit 10 returns to the VDD level, so that the shunting of current through the output current adjustment transistor 11 stops. Thereafter, the output signals of the two-input NAND gates 8 and 9 vary according to the changes in the level of the data signal; one of the switches 3 and 4 is always turned on, so that the current flows out from the DP terminal or the DM terminal.
When the OE signal goes from high to low, the output signals of the two-input NAND gates 8 and 9 both go high, and both of the switches 3 and 4 are turned off. The voltage at the common node N increases until it becomes substantially equal to the power supply voltage (VDD). Although the bias voltage increases due to gate-to-drain capacitive coupling in the current source 2 , no current is output from the DP terminal or the DM terminal, so there is no need to operate the output current adjustment transistor 11 . The control voltage output from the comparison circuit 10 remains at the VDD level, and the output current adjustment transistor 11 remains switched off.
Instead of using the output current of the current source 2 for comparison or monitoring, the first embodiment uses the proportional but smaller drain current of the PMOS transistor 23 in the comparison circuit 10 . Thus, current consumption can be reduced.
As described above, according to the first embodiment, when the output current of the current source 2 increases at the start of data transmission, the extra current is shunted to ground, keeping the external current flow from the DP terminal or the DM terminal within a desired range.
SECOND EMBODIMENT
FIG. 4 shows the structure of a differential current driver according to a second embodiment of the invention. Instead of shunting excess current to ground as in the first embodiment, the second embodiment directly controls the value of the current output from the DP or DM terminal.
As shown in FIG. 4 , the bias input terminal of the differential current driver 1 is connected to the gate terminal of the current source 2 , the bias input terminal of the comparison circuit 10 , and the drain terminal of a transistor for adjusting the bias voltage (referred to below as a bias adjustment transistor 12 ). The source terminal of the bias adjustment transistor 12 is connected to a VDD node. The output terminal of the comparison circuit 10 is connected to the gate terminal of the bias adjustment transistor 12 . As described before, since the bias voltage decreases at the start of data transmission, because of the influence of the gate-to-drain capacitance in the current source 2 or the capacitance between the bias terminal and the common node N, more current than necessary flows from the DP or DM terminal until the operation of the current source 2 is stabilized. As in the first embodiment, the comparison circuit 10 uses the bias voltage to perform an internal comparison, thereby determining whether the output current of the current source 2 exceeds a reference value, and outputs a voltage signal according to the result of the comparison. The comparison circuit 10 has the same internal structure as in the first embodiment, shown in FIG. 2 . In the second embodiment, however, the output voltage signal is applied to the gate terminal of the bias adjustment transistor 12 , thereby adjusting the bias voltage.
Next, the operation of the second embodiment will be described. When the bias voltage decreases at the start of data transmission as in the first embodiment, the output current of PMOS transistor 23 in the comparison circuit 10 becomes larger than the reference current. As a result, the voltage at node B in FIG. 2 becomes higher than the voltage at node A, causing the differential amplifier 24 to reduce its output voltage from the power supply voltage (VDD) to a lower voltage. The source-to-gate voltage of the bias adjustment transistor 12 accordingly increases, causing the bias adjustment transistor 12 to conduct, thereby pulling the bias voltage back up. When the bias voltage increases sufficiently that the output current of PMOS transistor 23 becomes equal to or less than the reference current of the reference current source 20 , the differential amplifier 24 outputs a voltage substantially equal to VDD. Thus, when the bias voltage returns to its normal level, the bias adjustment transistor 12 stops conducting, terminating the operation of adjusting the bias voltage.
As described above, according to the second embodiment, when the output current of the current source 2 increases at the start of data transmission, the bias voltage is automatically adjusted to prevent more than the necessary amount of current from flowing externally from the DP terminal or the DM terminal The output current of the differential current driver 1 can thereby be kept within a desired range. In the first embodiment, the current output from the DP or DM terminal varies according to the driving capability of the output current adjustment transistor 11 , which varies according to manufacturing variations and variations in ambient conditions. These output current variations are eliminated in the second embodiment, which directly controls the output current of the current source 2 .
THIRD EMBODIMENT
Next, a macrocell including a differential current driver according to a third embodiment of the present invention will be described. The macrocell is herein assumed to be compliant with the UTMI specification (USB 2.0 Transceiver Macrocell Interface specification, version 1.05). The macrocell will be referred to below as a physical layer (PHY) macrocell.
First, the UTMI specification for data transmission will be outlined with reference to FIG. 5 , which schematically shows the internal structure of the PHY macrocell. As shown in FIG. 5 , the PHY macrocell includes a differential current driver (also referred to as a high-speed or HS driver) 1 , a packet generation circuit 30 , flip-flops 31 and 32 , a phase-locked loop (PLL) circuit 33 , and a frequency divider circuit 34 .
When data transmission is performed in the high-speed mode according to the UTMI specification, the PHY macrocell receives parallel data at a frequency of 30 MHz or 60 MHz from a host controller (not shown), performs parallel-to-serial conversion, and outputs serial data at a frequency of 480 MHz. These operations are enabled by a TxValid signal received from the host controller. The PHY macrocell latches and thus recognizes the level of the TxValid signal at the rise of a data clock signal.
When transmitting a data packet, the packet generation circuit 30 converts parallel data input from a DataIn terminal to serial form, generates a synchronization (sync) pattern, and performs NRZI (Non Return to Zero Invert) encoding and bit stuffing. At the end of the packet, the packet generation circuit 30 also generates an EOP (End of Packet) signal. The packet generation circuit 30 sends the serial packet data from a serial data output (SDATA_O) terminal to the high-speed driver 1 , and also sends the high-speed driver 1 an output enable (OE) signal. To transmit data, the packet generation circuit 30 activates the OE signal and outputs serial data; the high-speed driver 1 outputs a corresponding low voltage differential signal from the DP and DM terminals. When not transmitting data, the packet generation circuit 30 inactivates the OE signal, and the output of the high-speed driver 1 is placed in the high-impedance state.
These operations are synchronized with a high-frequency clock signal output from the PLL circuit 33 and a lower-frequency clock signal output by the frequency divider circuit 34 . Both clock signals are supplied to the packet generation circuit 30 . The lower-frequency clock signal is supplied to the flip-flops 31 , 32 , and is also output from a clock output terminal as the data clock signal.
The UTMI specification recommends that a delay of eight to sixteen data clock periods be allowed at the start of data transmission, from the time when the active Txvalid signal is first received and latched by the PHY macrocell at the rise of the data clock signal to initial output of the low voltage differential signal from the DP and DM terminals. Accordingly, the packet generation circuit 30 needs to generate a packet within this time frame.
FIG. 6 shows the structure of the third embodiment of the present invention. Like the conventional macrocell shown in FIG. 5 , the macrocell in the third embodiment includes a differential current driver or high-speed driver 1 , a packet generation circuit 30 , flip-flops 31 and 32 , a frequency divider circuit 34 , and a PLL circuit 33 . Differing from the macrocell in FIG. 5 , the macrocell in the third embodiment further includes an inverter 35 .
The DataIn terminal that receives parallel data from the host controller is connected to the data input (D) terminal of flip-flop 31 , and the TxValid terminal that receives the TxValid signal for controlling data transmission is connected to the D terminal of flip-flop 32 . The data output (Q) terminal of flip-flop 31 is connected to the packet data input (PDATA_I) terminal of the packet generation circuit 30 ; the Q terminal of flip-flop 32 is connected to a VALID input terminal of the packet generation circuit 30 and to the input terminal of the inverter 35 .
The SDATA_O terminal of the packet generation circuit 30 is connected to the data input terminal of the high-speed driver I. The serial data generated by the packet generation circuit 30 are sent from the SDATA_O terminal to the high-speed driver 1 . The high-speed driver 1 outputs a low voltage differential signal, corresponding to the logic level of the serial data, from the DP and DM terminals.
The OE terminal of the packet generation circuit 30 is connected to the OF terminal of the high-speed driver 1 ; the packet generation circuit 30 sends an OE signal from the OE terminal to the high-speed driver 1 , thereby enabling and disabling data output from the high-speed driver 1 . The output terminal of the inverter 35 is connected to an ACTIVE input terminal of the high-speed driver 1 .
The internal structure of the high-speed driver 1 is shown in FIG. 7 . The ACTIVE terminal is connected to one of the input terminals of a two-input OR gate 13 ; the OE terminal is connected to the other input terminal of the two-input OR gate 13 ; the output terminal of the two-input OR gate 13 is connected to the gate terminal of a switch 14 similar to the switch 14 in FIG. 14 . With this arrangement, output enable/disable control of the high-speed driver 1 and control over the operation of the current source 2 in the high-speed driver 1 can be performed independently.
The operation of the macrocell in the third embodiment will be described with reference to the timing diagram in FIG. 8 .
Before output of the low voltage differential signal from the DP and DM terminals begins, the controller asserts the TxValid signal, which is active high. As already noted, the UTMI specification recommends an eight-bit to sixteen-bit delay from reception of the active TxValid signal by the PRY macrocell at the rise of the data clock signal to output of the low voltage differential signal from the DP and DM terminals. This delay allows time for parallel-to-serial conversion of the parallel data, generation of the sync pattern, NRZI encoding, and bit stuffing. When the PHY macrocell latches the asserted TxValid signal at the rise of the CLOCK signal, the ACTIVE signal goes low, and the output of the two-input OR gate 13 goes low. Switch 14 is thereby turned on, so that the current source 2 begins conducting current.
Next, when the packet generation circuit 30 is ready to begin transmitting packet data and therefore sets the OE signal to the high logic level, the output of the two-input OR gate 13 goes high, and switch 14 is turned off. At the same time, one of the output signals of the two-input NAND gates 8 and 9 goes low, according to the data signal, turning on switch 3 or 4 . The current output from the current source 2 is therefore output to the DM terminal or the DP terminal.
When the ACTIVE signal goes from high to low, the bias voltage decreases due to the gate-to-drain capacitance of the current source 2 , and more current flows from the current source 2 than is required. Immediately after the transition, however, the current flows only to ground through switch 14 . By the time the current output by the current source 2 is supplied to the DP terminal or the DM terminal, the current source 2 has been operating long enough for the bias voltage to return to its normal level, and the current source 2 is in a stable state.
Subsequently, the output signals of the two-input NAND gates 8 and 9 vary with changes in the logic level of the data signal. One or the other of switches 3 and 4 is always turned on, so that the output of current from the DP terminal or the DM terminal continues.
As described above, by providing an ACTIVE signal for controlling the shunting of current to ground separately from the OE signal that enables and disables data output from the differential current driver, the third embodiment allows adequate time for the current source 2 to reach a stable state before data output actually starts. The output of current from the current source 2 can therefore be stopped while data transmission is not performed, and current consumption can be reduced accordingly.
FOURTH EMBODIMENT
In the first and second embodiments, there is an input-to-output delay in the comparison circuit 10 , which allows excess current to flow from the current source 2 for a brief interval. In the third embodiment as well, if higher-speed data transfer is implemented in the future, the time from the active transition of the TxValid signal to the output of current from the DP terminal or the DM terminal may be reduced to an amount insufficient for stabilizing the operation of the current source 2 .
To remedy these problems, in the fourth embodiment, the comparison circuit 10 and the output current adjustment transistor 11 of the first embodiment are combined with the structure of the high-speed driver 1 in the third embodiment, as shown in FIG. 9 .
This structure has the same OR gate 13 and switch 14 as in the third embodiment. Switch 14 turns on to shunt current from the current source 2 to ground during the stabilization period before data transmission begins. As a result, the bias voltage of the current source temporarily drops, so the output current adjustment transistor 11 also begins shunting current to ground, based on the value of the output signal of the comparison circuit 10 . If the bias voltage of the current source 2 has not returned to the normal level by the time data transmission actually begins, the output current adjustment transistor 11 continues shunting the appropriate amount of current to ground to adjust the external current flow from the DP terminal or the DM terminal to the correct level.
Before the active transition of the Txvalid signal, when there are no data to be transmitted, the operation of the current source 2 is stopped as in the third embodiment. Current consumption can be thereby reduced. Furthermore, even if higher-speed data transfer is implemented in the future and the time from the active transition of the TxValid signal to the output of current from the DP terminal or the DM terminal becomes insufficient for stabilization of the operation of the current source 2 , the output current will be adjusted as necessary by the comparison circuit 10 and the output current adjustment transistor 11 . Thus, output of more current than is required from the DP terminal or the DM terminal can be prevented.
In the first, second, and fourth embodiments, the comparison circuit 10 shown in FIG. 2 was employed. The structure of the comparison circuit 10 , however, is not limited to the structure in FIG. 2 ; any circuit that outputs a voltage corresponding to a difference between two currents can be employed.
Though the first and third embodiments were combined in the fourth embodiment, a similar embodiment can be created by combining the second and third embodiments. The high-speed driver in this case is shown in FIG. 10 . A description of the operation of the high-speed driver in FIG. 10 will be omitted, since it can be readily understood from the descriptions of the second and third embodiments.
The above embodiments can be used in a PHY macrocell compliant with the USB 2.0 specification, but the invention can also be applied to other communication interfaces that use low voltage differential current signaling, such as the interface specified by the IEEE 1394 standard. A high-speed driver for the IEEE 1394 standard can have the structure shown in FIG. 11 , for example. In this structure, data transmission is performed from two output terminals (POS and NEG) by driving current from a first current source 2 into one of the two output terminals, and pulling current from the other output terminal through a second current source 2 ′. PMOS transistor switches 3 and 4 and NAND gates 8 and 9 have functions similar to the corresponding elements in the embodiments above; NMOS transistor switches 3 ′ and 4 ′ and AND gates 8 ′ and 9 ′ have complementary functions. The output currents are stabilized by shunting current from the first current source 2 to the second current source 2 ′ through a PMOS transistor switch 37 and an NMOS transistor switch 38 . The gate terminal of the PMOS transistor switch 37 receives the logical OR of the OE and ACTIVE signals from an OR gate 13 . The gate terminal of NMOS transistor switch 38 receives the logical NOR of the OE and ACTIVE signals from an inverter 39 that inverts the output of OR gate 13 . Switches 37 and 38 are coupled in series between the common node N through which current is supplied from the first current source 2 to switches 3 and 4 , and a corresponding node N′ through which the second current source 2 ′ draws current from switches 3 ′ and 4 ′.
For data transmission using a differential current driver, the present invention prevents an increase in output current accompanying a transition of the differential current driver from the output disabled state to the output enabled state without significantly increasing the current consumption of the differential current driver, so data can be transmitted at high speed with low power consumption.
A few variations of the above embodiments have already been described, but those skilled in the art will recognize that further variations are possible within the scope of invention, which is defined by the appended claims. | A differential current driver has a current source that supplies current selectively to two output terminals according to data to be transmitted. A comparison circuit compares the current output by the current source with a reference value and generates a control signal. Responding to the control signal, a current adjustment circuit adjusts the current supplied to the two output terminals by, for example, shunting part of the current to ground, or by adjusting a bias voltage that controls the current output of the current source. A switching circuit may shunt all of the current output by the current source during a brief period preceding output of current from the output terminals. These operations take place around transitions from the output disabled state to the output enabled state, and avoid the output of excessive current just after such transitions. | 7 |
This application is a divisional of application Ser. No. 08/394,021, filed Feb. 23, 1995 now U.S. Pat. No. 5,830,634.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates immunologically active peptides derived from a novel retrovirus of the HIV group, MVP5180/91. The invention further relates to the use of these peptides in diagnostic compositions and as immunogens.
Retroviruses which belong to the HIV group give rise, in humans infected with them, to disease symptoms which are summarized under the collective term immune deficiency or AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome). Epidemiological studies demonstrate that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) represents the etiological agent for the overwhelming majority of AIDS cases. A retrovirus which was isolated from a patient and characterized in 1983 was given the designation HIV-1 (Barré-Sinoussi, F. et al., Science 220: 868-871 (1983)). A variant of HIV-1 is described in WO 86/02383.
Until 1993, the known HIV-1 isolates were categorized into the five subtypes A-E on the basis of sequence comparisons and epidemiological standpoints (G. Myers et al., Human Retroviruses and AIDS 1992. “A compilation and analysis of nucleic acid and amino acid sequences.” Los Alamos Laboratory, Los Alamos, USA (1992)).
A second group of human immunodeficiency viruses was identified in West Africa in 1985 (Clavel, F. et al., Science 233: 343-346 (1986) and designated human immunodeficiency virus type 2 (HIV-2) (EP-A-0 239 425). While HIV-2 retroviruses clearly differ from HIV-1, they also are related to monkey SIV immunodeficiency viruses. Like HIV-1, HIV-2 also gives rise to AIDS symptoms.
EP-A-0 345 375 describes another variant of an immunodeficiency retrovirus, which is designated HIV-3 retrovirus (ANT 70). The isolation of a different variant of immunodeficiency virus is also described in Lancet 340: 681-682 (1992).
Human immunodeficiency viruses characteristically exhibit a high degree of variability which significantly complicates attempts to compare the different isolates. For example, when comparing diverse HIV-1 isolates, high degrees of variability occur in some regions of the genome while other genome regions are comparatively well conserved (Benn, S. et al. Science 230: 949-951 (1985)). A substantially greater degree of polymorphism also has been observed in HIV-2 (Clavel, F. et al., Nature 324: 691-695 (1986)). The highest degree of genetic stability is possessed by regions in the gag and pol genes, which encode proteins which are structurally and enzymatically essential; some regions in the env gene, and also the genes (vif, vpr, tat, rev and nef) which encode regulatory proteins, exhibit a high degree of variability. In addition, it has also been demonstrated that antisera against HIV-1 also cross-react with gag and pol gene products from HIV-2 although only a low degree of sequence homology was present. These two viruses also did not hybridize with each other to any significant extent unless conditions of very low stringency were used (Clavel, F. et al., Nature 324: 691-695 (1986)).
In view of the wide dissemination of the retroviruses of the HIV group, and to the fact that there is a period lasting from a few to many years (2-20) between the time of infection and the time at which unambiguous symptoms of pathological changes are recognizable, it is of great importance epidemiologically that infection with retroviruses of the HIV group be detected as early as possible and, in particular, in a reliable manner. This is not only of importance when diagnosing patients who exhibit signs of immune deficiency, but also for screening blood donors. However, antibodies cannot be detected, or can be detected only weakly, in some sera when retroviruses of the HIV-1 or HIV-2 type, or constituents of these viruses, are used in detection systems. This is true even though the patients from which the sera are derived exhibit signs of immune deficiency. Thus, a need exists for a better method for detecting HIV infection, which does not use the previously known HIV-1 or HIV-2 type antigens.
Recently, another retrovirus that causes immune deficiency has been discovered. MVP5180/91 was isolated in 1991 from the peripheral lymphocytes of a 34-year old female patient from the Cameroons who exhibited signs of immune deficiency. This retrovirus originates geographically from a region in Africa which is located between West Africa, where infection with HIV-1 and HIV-2 viruses is endemic, and East Africa, where it is almost exclusively HIV-1 which is present. DE 43 18 186 describes nucleotide sequences from the viral genome of MVP5180/91 and amino acid sequences deduced therefrom. This retrovirus has been deposited, in accordance with the terms of the Budapest Treaty, in the European Collection of Animal Cell Cultures (ECACC) under the number V 920 92 318.
Similar to HIV-1 and HIV-2, MVP5180/91 grows in the following cell lines: HUT 78, Jurkat cells, C8166 cells and MT-2 cells. The isolation and multiplication of viruses are described in detail in Viral Quantitation in HIV Infection, Jean-Marie Andrieu (Ed.), John Libbey Eurotext (1991). The procedures described in that publication are incorporated herein by reference.
MVP5180/91 possesses a magnesium-dependent reverse transcriptase, which is not manganese-dependent. This represents a further feature possessed in common with the HIV-1 and HIV-2 viruses.
While anti-env antibodies in sera from German patients who are exhibiting signs of immune deficiency are weakly detected using the virus MVP5180/91, the sera react strongly when an HIV-1 virus is used instead of MVP5180/91 (DE 43 18 186). This stronger detection reaction was located principally in the gp41 protein. Thus, MVP5180/91 and HIV-1 are immunologically distinct.
The reliable detection of HIV infection is of particular interest today in connection with blood donation. In relation to ensuring the viral safety of blood and blood products, the immunochemical testing of individual donations in blood banks for HIV-1 antibodies became obligatory once specific anti-HIV-1 tests became available in 1985. After HIV-2 had been discovered in 1986, it became clear that it was not possible to detect HIV-2-specific antibodies as reliably with established HIV-1 tests as it was to detect anti-HIV-1 using corresponding HIV-1 antibody tests. Since 1989, “combination tests” have been available which permit the simultaneous, non-differentiating, detection of anti-HIV-1 and anti-HIV-2. The majority of commercially available anti-HIV-1/anti-HIV-2 combination tests are based on HIV antigens which have been prepared recombinantly or by peptide synthesis.
Whereas the use of HIV-1 and HIV-2 antigens in the diagnosis of retrovirus infection is well-known, the diagnostic significance of the peptides from MVP5180/91 have thus far not been determined.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an immunologically active peptide comprising at least 15 consecutive amino acids selected from the amino acids in the following sequence (SEQ ID NO:1):
VWGIRQLRARLQALETLIQNQQRLNLWGXKGKLIXYTSVKWNTSWSGR,
wherein X is C or S. This peptide detects antibodies against retroviruses of the HIV type.
The invention further relates to a kit for detecting antibodies against viruses which cause immune deficiency comprising the above described peptide.
The invention further relates to a diagnostic agent for detecting an antibody against a retrovirus that causes immune deficiency, the diagnostic agent comprising the above described peptide and a detectable label that is capable of detecting the binding of the peptide with the antibody.
In another embodiment, the invention relates to a method of detecting the presence of anti-retrovirus antibodies in a sample, the method comprising contacting the sample with the above described diagnostic agent and detecting the presence of antibody bound to the diagnostic agent as a result of the contacting.
Another embodiment of the invention relates to an immunogen comprising (a) an amount of the above described peptide and (b) a physiologically-acceptable excipient therefor, wherein said amount is sufficient to elicit an immune response that is protective of a susceptible mammal against retrovirus infection.
In another embodiment, the invention relates to a method of immunizing a mammal against retrovirus infection, comprising administering to the mammal an effective amount of the above described immunogen.
Another embodiment of the present invention relates to an isolated DNA molecule which encodes the above described peptide.
Another embodiment relates to a method of detecting in a sample nucleic acids encoding a retrovirus that causes immune deficiency, comprising the steps of: (a) hybridizing a labeled DNA molecule to nucleic acids encoding a retrovirus in said sample, wherein said labeled DNA molecule is prepared by labeling the above described DNA molecule with a detectable label, and (b) detecting the hybridizing by means of said detectable label.
In another embodiment, the invention relates to a method of detecting in a sample nucleic acids encoding a retrovirus that causes immune deficiency, comprising subjecting said nucleic acids to a Polymer Chain Reaction (PCR), wherein the PCR employs at least two oligonucleotide primers that anneal to a nucleic acid encoding a retrovirus that causes immune deficiency, wherein one of the primers is complementary to a first nucleotide sequence comprising the sequence of the above described DNA molecule, or its complementary sequence, wherein the other primer is complementary to a second nucleotide sequence comprising a nucleic acid molecule encoding a retrovirus that causes immune deficiency, whereby a geometrically amplified product is obtained only when the first and second nucleotide sequences occur within the same nucleic acid molecule encoding a retrovirus that causes immune deficiency.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 is a diagram of the genome arrangement of the retrovirus HIV-1.
FIG. 2 is a graph showing the extinction at E 490 nm of HIV-1 and HIV-2 obtained by means of the antigen/antibody reaction plotted against the activity of reverse transcriptase.
FIG. 3 is a diagram showing the sequence region from MVP5180 gp41, expressed in the recombinant plasmid pSEM 41/3-III, in comparison with the corresponding sequence of the HIV-1 isolate ARV-2. (SEQ ID NOS 2-7, 10 and 11 are shown in this Figure.)
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
Although German Patent Application No. DE 43 18 186 describes the isolation, cloning and sequencing of a novel immunodeficiency virus designated MVP5180/91, no peptides from this virus have been recognized yet as being immunologically active. The present invention is based on the discovery that certain peptides from MVP5180/91 are immunologically active and capable of detecting antibodies against a retrovirus that cause immune deficiency.
MVP5180/91 is different from HIV-1 and HIV-2. In order to achieve a better understanding of the differences between MVP5180/91 and the HIV-1 and HIV-2 retroviruses; the present inventors provide the following discussion of the structure of the retroviruses which cause immune deficiency. The RNA is located in the interior of the virus in a cone-shaped core which is assembled from protein subunits which carry the designation p24 (p for protein). This inner core is surrounded by a protein coat which is constructed from the protein pl7 (outer core). The virus is surrounded by a glycoprotein coat which, in addition to lipids and other constituents, contains the transmembrane protein gp41 and the outer membrane protein gp120. This gp120 binds to the CD4 receptors of the host cells.
The RNA of the HIV viruses possesses the following gene regions: so-called long terminal repeats (LTR) at the two ends and the following gene regions gag, pol, env and nef. The gene gag encodes, inter alia, the core proteins, p24 and pl7, the gene pol encodes, inter alia, the reverse transcriptase, the RNAse H and the integrase, and the gene env encodes the glycoproteins gp41 and gp120 of the viral coat. The gene nef encodes a protein having a regulatory function. The genome arrangement of retroviruses of the HIV type is shown diagrammatically in FIG. 1 .
The retroviruses HIV-1 and HIV-2 can be differentiated from each other by testing the viral antigen with a monoclonal antibody which is obtainable commercially as a test kit from Abbott (HIVAG-1 Monoclonal) and which is directed against the (HIV-1) p24. It is known that the content of reverse transcriptase is approximately the same in the HIV-1 and HIV-2 virus types. Therefore, if, in dilutions of the disrupted viruses, the extinction (E 490 nm) obtained by means of the antigen/antibody reaction, is plotted against the activity of the reverse transcriptase, a graph is then obtained which corresponds approximately to that in FIG. 2 . This shows that, in the case of HIV-1 the monoclonal antibody employed has a very high binding affinity for p24 in relation to the content of reverse transcriptase. By contrast, the monoclonal antibody is found to have only a very low binding affinity for HIV-2 p24, again in relation to the content of reverse transcriptase in this virus. The present inventors discovered that when these measurements are carried out on MVP5180/91, the curve is found to be located almost exactly halfway between the curves for HIV-1 and HIV-2, i.e., the binding affinity of the monoclonal antibody towards MVP5180/91 p24 is reduced as compared with the situation in HIV-1. FIG. 2 shows this state of affairs diagrammatically, with RT denoting reverse transcriptase and the protein p24 being employed as antigen (Ag) against which the monoclonal antibody, which is present in the test kit obtainable commercially from Abbott, is directed.
MVP5180/91 has been further distinguished from HIV-1 and HIV-2 using Polymerase Chain Reaction (“PCR”). PCR is widely applied in gene technology, and the necessary components for carrying out PCR is commercially available. Briefly, PCR involves the amplification of DNA sequences when regions of the DNA sequence to be amplified are known. Short, complementary DNA fragments (oligonucleotide=primers), which anneal to a short region of the nucleic acid sequence to be amplified, are synthesized. In order to carry out the test, HIV nucleic acids are introduced together with the primers, into a reaction mixture which also contains a polymerase and nucleotide triphosphates. The polymerization (DNA synthesis) is carried out for a defined time and the nucleic acid strands are then separated by heating. After cooling, the polymerization then starts again. If the novel retrovirus is an HIV-1 or HIV-2 virus, it is possible to amplify the nucleic acid sequence by using primers which are conserved within the known sequences of the HIV-1 and HIV-2 viruses. Some primers of this nature have been described previously (Lauré, F. et al., Lancet ii: 538-541 (1988) for pol 3 and pol 4, and Ou, C. Y. et al., Science 239: 295-297 (1988) for sk 38/39 and sk 68/69). It has been discovered that when the above described process was applied, no amplification, or only weak amplification, of the MVP5180/91 DNA was obtained using previously described primer pairs (DE 43 18 186).
Western blot (immunoblot) analysis also has been helpful in distinguishing MVP5180 from HIV-1 and HIV-2. The western blot method is a common means for detecting HIV antibodies. In this method, the viral proteins are fractionated by gel electrophoresis and then transferred to a membrane. The membranes carrying the transferred proteins are then brought into contact with sera from the patients under investigation. Any antibodies against the viral proteins which are present will bind to these proteins. After washing, the only antibodies which remain are those which are specific for viral proteins. The antibodies are then visualized using anti-antibodies which, as a rule, are coupled to an enzyme which catalyzes a color reaction. In this way, the bands of the viral proteins can be rendered visible.
When the above western blot procedures were applied to MVP5180/91, MVP5180/91 exhibits two important and significant differences in comparison to the HIV-1 and HIV-2 viruses. HIV-1 regularly shows a strong band, which is attributed to the protein p24, and a very weak band, which is often scarcely visible, which is attributed to the protein p23. HIV-2 exhibits a strong band, which is attributed to the protein p25, and sometimes a weak band, which is to be attributed to the protein p23. In contrast to this, MVP5180/91 virus exhibits two bands of approximately equal strength, which bands correspond to the proteins p24 and p25.
It has been discovered that there is a further significant difference in the bands which are attributed to the reverse transcriptase. HIV-1 shows a band (p53) which corresponds to the reverse transcriptase and a band (p66) which corresponds to the reverse transcriptase combined with the RNAse H. In HIV-2, the reverse transcriptase corresponds to the protein p55 and, when it is combined with the RNAse H, the protein p68. By contrast, MVP5180/91 exhibits a band at protein p48, corresponding to the reverse transcriptase, and a band at protein p60, which corresponds to the reverse transcriptase in combination with RNAse H. Based on these data, the present inventors conclude that MVP5180/91 reverse transcriptase has a molecular weight which is between about 3 and about 7 kilodaltons less than that of the reverse transcriptase of HIV-1 or HIV-2.
A comparison of the nucleic acid and amino acid sequences of HIV-1, HIV-2 and MVP5180/91 reveal other significant differences. Generally, the similarity between different virus isolates is expressed in terms of the degree of “homology,” i.e, similarity between the nucleic acid sequences or protein sequences. For example, homology of 50% denotes that 50 out of 100 nucleotide positions or amino acid positions are the same in both sequences. The homology between proteins is determined by sequence analysis. Homologous DNA sequences can also be identified by the hybridization technique according to Southern (Southern E. M., J. Mol. Biol. 98: 503-517 (1975)).
The present inventors provide in Table 1 a summary of a sequence comparison between MVP5180/91 and the consensus sequences of HIV-1 and HIV-2, and also the isolate ANT70, a virus designated HIV-3 (WO 89/12094 and EP-A-0 345 375). This comparison demonstrates that in the diagnostically important env gene region, for example, MVP5180/91 possesses sequences which are only 53% homologous to those of HIV-1 and only 49% homologous to those of HIV-2. By contrast, HIV-1 isolates of the subtypes A-E, for example, exhibit, when their genomic nucleotide sequences are compared, a percentage homology among themselves which is appreciably greater. In this case, the values are, without exception, greater than 75%.
Percent Homology
Gene
(approximate)
LTR
HIV-1
67%
HIV-2
51%
ANT 70
82%
GAG
HIV-1
70%
HIV-2
62%
ANT 70
89%
POL
HIV-1
74%
HIV-2
66%
ANT 70
90%
VIF
HIV-1
68%
HIV-2
42%
ANT 70
87%
ENV
HIV-1
53%
HIV-2
49%
ANT 70
81%
NEF
HIV-1
54%
HIV-2
59%
ANT 70
81%
total
HIV-1
65%
HIV-2
56%
On the basis of these clear differences in sequence, and because MVP5180/91's genomic organization corresponds to that of an HIV-1 virus, the isolate MVP5180/91 was assigned to a new HIV-1 subtype, the subtype 0 (Myers et al., Human Retroviruses and AIDS 1993, “A compilation and analysis of nucleic acid and amino acid sequences,” Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, USA(1993)). The only other representative of this subtype which is known so far is the above-mentioned isolate ANT70.
Thus, the present invention relates to immunologically active peptides which are distinct from previously known antigens of retroviruses that cause immune deficiency diseases. The term “immunologically active” means that such peptides react with antibodies against HIV viruses which can be present in the blood of patients or blood donors. Customarily, immunologically active peptides contain at least one epitope which gives rise to the formation of antibodies.
The peptides of the present invention are suitable particular, for the diagnostic detection of antibodies against retroviruses that cause immune deficiency. Such retroviruses are of the HIV type. In a preferred embodiment, these peptides are comprised of a consecutive amino acid sequence of at least 15 amino acids, more prefereably of at least 15 to 50, and most preferably of at least 15 to about 35, amino acids selected from the amino acid sequence (SEQ ID NO:1):
VWGIRQLRARLQALETLIQNQQRLNLWGXKGKLIXYTSVKWNTSWSGR,
where X is C or S. In one embodiment, C represents a cysteine residue in an oxidized state.
“Consecutive amino acid sequences” are understood by the skilled artisan to mean fragments. In the most preferred embodiment, the peptides comprise consecutive amino acids selected from the sequence RLQALETLIQNQQRLNLWGXKGKLIXYTSVKWN (residues 10-42 of SEQ ID NO:1).
The above-described amino acid sequence is represented by the single letter code, where the individual letters have the following meanings: A=alanine, R=arginine, N=asparagine, D=aspartic acid, C=cysteine, Q=glutamine, E=glutamic acid, G=glycine, H=histidine, I=isoleucine, L=leucine, K=lysine, m=methionine, F=phenylalanine, P=proline, S=serine, T=threonine, W=tryptophan, Y=tyrosine and V=valine.
If the above amino acid sequence is depicted in the so-called three-letter code, the following sequence is obtained (SEQ ID NO:1):
Val Trp Gly Ile Arg Gln Leu Arg Ala Arg Leu Gln Ala Leu Glu Thr Leu Ile Gln Asn Gln Gln Arg Leu Asn Leu Trp Gly X Lys Gly Lys Leu Ile X Tyr Thr Ser Val Lys Trp Asn Thr Glu Thr Leu Ile Gln Asn Gln Gln Arg Leu Asn Leu Trp Gly X Lys Gly Lys Leu Ile X Tyr Thr Ser Val Lys Trp Asn Thr Ser Trp Ser Gly Arg,
where X is Cys or Ser.
In a particularly preferred embodiment, the meanings of X in one peptide are the same, i.e. cysteine is present twice or serine is present twice.
The present inventors have discovered that an epitope of MVP5180/91, which is of principal relevance for diagnosis is located in the region XKGKLIX (residues 29-35 of SEQ ID NO:1). Therefore, it is preferable that the peptide of the present invention contain a region having this amino acid sequence.
In yet another embodiment of the invention, the peptides comprise the epitope of MVP5180/91 and additionally possess, to the right (C-terminal) and/or left (N-terminal) of the epitope, amino acids which are not derived from MVP5180/91, but which are from a corresponding sequence of another virus, a virus, for example, such as those listed in Table 1. A “corresponding sequence” is not identical to those of MVP5180/91 but are “homologous” or similar to such sequence and is from the same region. The degree of homology among various retrovirus regions is set forth above in Table 1. The additional amino acids are particularly important when the peptides are employed in diagnostic tests. If the peptides are bound to a solid phase, as can be the case, for example, in an ELISA test, it is advantageous for the peptide to have an amino acid sequence to the left (N-terminal) of the epitope. If conjugations are being carried out, it is advantageous for the peptide to have a sequence which is homologous with MVP5180/91 to the right (C-terminal) of the main epitope.
In another embodiment, the peptides according to the invention have a length of about 20 to about 30 amino acids. Within the scope of the present invention, the following peptides are particularly preferred:
MVP601-623 (SEQ ID NO:2): NQQRLNLWGCKGKLICYTSVKWN
MVP591-616C (SEQ ID NO:3): RLQALETLIQNQQRLNLWGCKGKLIC and
(SEQ ID NO:4): RLQALETLIQNQQRLNLWGSKGKLIS
In addition to the amino acid sequence which is homologous to MVP5180/91, the peptides according to the invention can, at one or both ends of the peptide, have additional amino acids which are important for particular functions. In this context, these additional amino acids can be amino acids which, for example, facilitate the binding of the peptide to solid phases. If the peptides are prepared recombinantly, the peptides can also contain amino acids which arise as a result of the nature of the recombinant preparation.
The peptides of the present invention also include recombinant peptides, variants of the above described peptides and “mimetics”—compounds having mimotopes which mimic the above describe epitope of MVP5180/91.
Variants include, for example, oligopeptides and polypeptides corresponding to immunologically active portions of the above described peptides and any non-proteinaceous immunologically active portions of a retrovirus or to the above described peptides linked to a carrier.
Variants according to the present invention may be produced by conventional reverse genetic techniques, i.e. by designing a genetic sequence based upon an amino acid sequence or by conventional genetic splicing techniques. For example, variants can be produced by techniques involving site-directed mutagenesis or oligonucleotide-directed mutagenesis. (See, for example, “Mutagenesis of Cloned DNA,” in Current Protocols in Molecular Biology 8.0.3 et seq., Ausubel, et al. eds. (1989)(“Ausubel”) but also by means of synthetic methods.
To be used in recombinant expression of a peptide or peptide variant of the present invention, a polynucleotide molecule encoding such a molecule would preferably comprise a nucleotide sequence, corresponding to the desired amino acid sequence, that is optimized for the host of choice in terms of codon usage, initiation of translation and expression of commercially useful amount of the desired peptide or variant. Also, the vector selected for transforming the chosen host organism with such polynucleotide molecule should allow for efficient maintenance and transcription of the sequence encoding the polypeptide. The encoding polynucleotide molecule may code for a chimeric protein; i.e. it can have nucleotide sequence for the peptide molecule operably linked to a non-peptide moiety, such as a signal peptide for the host cell.
Once DNA fragments have been selected, these fragments can be cloned into suitable cloning vectors according to well-known techniques. (Ausubel at 5.0.1 et seq.) The skilled artisan would understand that the peptide-encoding DNA would need to be expressed in such a way so as not to destroy the immunological activity of the product. The artisan would know which host-vector system provides expression in such a way as to avoid proteolysis and denaturation of the peptides. One approach would be to use a vaccinia virus as a vector. This approach would involve preparing a recombinant vaccinia virus-derived vector in which the peptide gene is placed under the control of a promoter, along with translation and secretion signals, suitable for expressing the peptide in a vaccinia-infected host. (U.S. Pat. No. 4,603,112)
The peptides and peptide variants of the present invention may also be prepared using solid-phase synthesis, as described in Merrifield et al. in The Peptides, Analysis, Synthesis and Biology, Vol. 2, Academic Press, Ed. Erhard Gross, Johannes Meyerhofer. (See Example 1, below.) Further description of this technique, and of other processes known in the state of the art, can be found in the literature, e.g. M. Bodansky et al., Peptide Synthesis, John Wiley & Sons, 2nd Edition (1976).
In addition to the peptides and peptide variants, the present invention encompasses “mimetics,” compounds that mimic the above described epitope. One example of a mimetic is an anti-idiotype antibody, that is, an antibody that is produced by immunizing an animal with an antibody which specifically binds the epitope. The anti-idiotype antibody recognizes and conforms to the combining site on the first antibody. Therefore, the shape of its combining site closely resembles the epitope which fit into the combining site of the first antibody. Because an anti-idiotype antibody has a combining site whose shape mimics the original antigen, it can be used in diagnostic assays and in vaccines to generate antibodies which react with the original antigen. (Fineberg & Ertl, CRC Critical Reviews in Immunology 7: 269-284 (1987)). Mimetics also include protein or non-protein structures produced through elaborate structural analyses of the above described peptides, as taught in Kahn, M. “Peptide Secondary Structure Mimetics: Recent Advances and Future Challenges” in Catalytic Asymmetric Cyanohydrin Synthesis, Georg. Thieme Verlag, Stuttgart, N.Y. (1993).
In another embodiment, the present invention relates to isolated DNA which encodes the above described peptides and to isolated DNA which is complementary to the DNA encoding such peptides.
Such isolated DNA can be employed in hybridization studies to detect the presence of retrovirus nucleic acids and in PCR, such techniques being well-known in the art. Thus, in one embodiment, the present invention relates to a method of detecting in a sample nucleic acids encoding a retrovirus that causes immune deficiency. This method involves hybridizing a labeled DNA molecule to nucleic acids encoding a retrovirus in a sample, wherein the labeled DNA molecule is prepared by labeling the above described DNA molecule with a detectable label, and then detecting the hybridizing by means of the detectable label, according to methods well-known in the art, such as “Immunochemical Protocols in Methods” in Mol. Biol., Hanson, M., Vol. 10, pp. 431-449, Humana Press (1992), hereby incorporated by reference.
In another embodiment, the invention relates to a method of detecting in a sample nucleic acids encoding a retrovirus that causes immune deficiency, involving subjecting the nucleic acids to a Polymer Chain Reaction (PCR), wherein the PCR employs at least two oligonucleotide primers that anneal to a nucleic acid encoding a retrovirus that causes immune deficiency. One of the primers is complementary to a first nucleotide sequence comprising the sequence of the above described DNA molecule, or its complementary sequence. The other primer is complementary to a second nucleotide sequence comprising a nucleic acid molecule encoding a retrovirus that causes immune deficiency. In accordance with this method, a geometrically amplified product is obtained only when the first and second nucleotide sequences occur within the same nucleic acid molecule encoding a retrovirus that causes immune deficiency. The fundamentals of PCR are well-known to the skilled artisan, see, e.g. McPherson, et al., PCR, A Practical Approach, IRL Press, Oxford, Eng. (1991), hereby incorporated by reference.
In both of the above methods, by “sample” is meant any body fluid or tissue, including blood, urine, saliva, spinal fluid, semen, peritoneal fluid, and tissue from any part of the body, such as any organ, muscle or skin. A “retrovirus that causes immune deficiency” includes all retroviruses of the HIV group. This includes, but is not limited to MVP5180/91, HIV-1, HIV-2 and HIV-3 and variant strains of these viruses. In accordance with the present invention, the above described DNA can be labeled by any of several techniques known in the art. For instance, such DNA can be labeled by using radioisotopes (Maniatis et al., Molecular Cloning, Sect. 11.15-11.16, 2nd Ed., Cold Spring Harbor Lab. Press (1989)) or non-radioactive labels, such as haptens, proteins, digoxigenin, biotin and so forth. Chemically modified DNA can be used so long as the modification does not interfere with hybridization. For instance, acetylaminofluorene (AFF)-is widely used for such purposes (“Immunochemical Protocols in Methods” in Mol. Biol., Manson, M., Vol. 10, pp. 399-408, Humana Press (1992)). Labeling may also be accomplished by modifying DNA using the Klenow fragment of E. coli DNA polymerase (Maniatis et al., Molecular Cloning, Sect. 11.4, 2nd Ed., Cold Spring Harbor Lab. Press (1989)). Hybridization occurs under hybridizing conditions which are known to the skilled artisan. Detecting hybridization can be accomplished through the use of autoradiography, when the label is a radioisotope or through chemical or enzymatic means, when the label is non-radioactive, according to techniques well-known in the art (“Immunochemical Protocols in Methods” in Mol. Biol., Manson, M., Vol. 10, pp. 431-449, Humana Press (1992)). See Example 1c. It is understood in the art that nucleic acids include both DNA and RNA.
In another embodiment, the present invention relates to method of detecting in a sample an antibody against a retrovirus that causes immune deficiency. This method involves contacting a sample with a diagnostic composition and detecting the presence of antibody bound to the diagnostic composition as a result of the contacting. A “sample” and “a retrovirus that causes immune deficiency” are as described above. A “diagnostic composition” comprises the above described peptide and a detectable label. The label may be directly bound to the peptide or bound to another moiety, such as an antibody, which binds the peptide, depending upon the precise assay. A “detectable label” includes radioisotopes, such as I 125 , and non-radioactive labels, such as enzymes, fluorescein, antibody conjugates and subtrates and other labels known to the skilled artisan. The detection methods according the present invention encompass competitive or sandwich assays, or any assay well-known to the artisan which depends on the formation of an antibody-antigen immune complex. For purposes of this invention, the above described peptide which is a part of the diagnostic composition of the present invention, can be immobilized or labeled. Many carriers are known to the skilled artisan to which the diagnostic agent of the present invention can be bound for immobilization. Well-known carriers include glass, polystyrene, polypropylene, polyethylene, dextran, nylon, amylases, natural and modified celluloses etc. The carrier can be either soluble or insoluble. Immunoassays encompassed by the method of detecting of the present invention include, but are not limited to Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assays (ELISA) and those described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,367,110 (double monoclonal antibody sandwich assay); Wide et al., Kirkham and Hunter, eds. Radioimmunoassay Methods, E. and S. Livingstone, Edinburgh (1970); U.S. Pat. No. 4,452,901 (western blot); Brown et al., J. Biol. Chem. 255: 4980-4983 (1980) (immunoprecipitation of labeled ligand); and Brooks et al., Clin. Exp. Immunol. 39: 477 (1980) (immunocytochemistry), all of which are hereby incorporated by reference.
The peptides and diagnostic compositions of the present invention are suitable for use in a diagnostic kit. Such a kit comprises the peptide of the present invention, and optionally a control—antibody having a known binding affinity for the peptide—and written instructions for using the kit. Typically, such a kit would be comprised of a receptacle being compartmentalized to receive one or more containers such as vials, tubes and the like, such containers holding separate elements of the invention. For example, one container may contain the peptide of the present invention and another container may contain a control. Both positive and negative controls may be included with the kit of the present invention along with a set of written instructions explaining how to use the kit. A kit of this nature can be used in the methods of detecting antibodies against retroviruses, described above.
In another embodiment, the present invention relates to an immunogen comprising an amount of the above described peptide and a physiologically-acceptable excipient therefor, wherein the amount is sufficient to elicit an immune response that is protective of a susceptible mammal against retrovirus infection. Additionally, the present invention relates to a method of immunizing a mammal against retrovirus infection comprising administering the above described immunogen to a mammal in an effective amount.
The term “immunogen” means an antigen which evokes a specific immune response leading to humoral or cell-mediated immunity, in this context, to HIV virus infections, particularly of 0 subtype. “Immunity” thus denotes the ability of the individual to resist or overcome infection more easily when compared to individuals not immunized, or to tolerate infection without being clinically affected. The preferred susceptible mammal is a human. An immune response that is protective prevents or ameliorates a retrovirus infection.
The immunogen of the present invention is further comprised of an acceptable physiological carrier. Such carriers are well-known in the art and include macromolecular carriers. Examples of suitable carriers in mammals include tuberculin PPD, bovine serum albumin, ovalbumin or keyhole limpet hemocyanin. The carrier should preferably be non-toxic and non-allergenic.
The immunogen may be further comprised of an adjuvant such as an aluminum compound, water and vegetable or mineral oil emulsions (e.g., Freund's adjuvant), liposomes, ISCOM (immunostimulating complex), water-soluble glasses, polyanions (e.g., poly A:U, dextran sulphate, lentinan), non-toxic lipopolysaccharide analogues, muramyl dipeptide, and immunomodulating substances (e.g., interleukins 1 and 2) or combinations thereof. The preferred adjuvant is aluminum hydroxide. Immunogenicity can also be enhanced in mammals which have received live attenuated bacterial vectors, such as Salmonella or Mycobacteria, or more importantly, viral vectors like Vaccinia, which express the immunologically active peptide.
Techniques for formulating such immunogens are well-known in the art. For instance, the immunogen may be lypholized for subsequent rehydration in an excipient such as saline or other physiological solution. In any event, the vaccine of the present invention is prepared by mixing an immunologically effective amount of the peptide with the excipient in an amount resulting in the desired concentration of the immunogenically effective component of the vaccine. The amount of the immunogenically effective component in the vaccine will depend on the mammal to be immunized, with consideration given to the age and weight of the subject as well as the immunogenicity of the immunogenic component in the vaccine. The determination of the precise dosage is a matter within the skill of the art of the invention.
The methods of preparation of the immunogens of the present invention are designed to ensure that the identity and immunological effectiveness of the specific molecules are maintained and that no unwanted microbial contaminants are introduced. The final products are distributed and maintained under aseptic conditions.
The method of immunizing a mammal against HIV infection involves administering to the mammal an effective amount of the foregoing immunogen. Administration may involve any procedure well-known in the art. For instance, a suitable administration strategy may involve administering the above described vaccine to mammals which are most likely to be exposed to HIV virus, prior to the known time of anticipated exposure. Any immunization route which may be contemplated or shown to produce an appropriate immune response can be employed, in accordance with the present invention, although parenteral administration is preferred. Suitable administration forms include subcutaneous, intracutaneous or intramuscular injections or preparations suitable for oral, nasal or rectal administration.
The present invention is described in more detail in the following examples, which are illustrative and in no way intended to limit the scope of the invention.
EXAMPLE 1
Indirect Immunoassay for the HIV Detection of Serotype 0-Specific Antibodies
EXAMPLE 1A
Synthesis of the MVP 601-623 Peptide According to the Invention and Also of the HIV-1 Peptide HIV 601-623
The synthesis of MVP 601-623, NQQRLNLWGCKGKLICYTSVKWN (SEQ ID NO:2), as shown in FIG. 3, from the transmembrane protein gp41 of MVP5180 was carried out in accordance with Barani, G. and Merrifield, R. B. in The Peptides, Analysis, Synthesis and Biology, Vol. 2, Academic Press, Ed. Erhard Gross, Johannes Meyerhofer. The analytical purity was 81% according to HPLC. The reference peptide HIV 60L-623, DQQLLGIWGCSGKLICTTAVPWN (SEQ ID NO:5) was likewise synthesized by the Merrifield method. The crude peptide was purified by HPLC. The purity is 87%.
FIG. 3 is a diagram showing the sequence region (SEQ ID NO:10) from MVP5180 gp4l, expressed in the recombinant plasmid pSEM 41/3-III, in comparison with the corresponding sequence of the HIV-1 isolate ARV-2 (SEQ ID NO:11). The peptides designated HIV are HIV-1 isolate-derived sequences (SEQ ID NOS:5-7). The peptides designated MVP are MVP5180-derived sequences (SEQ ID NOS:2-4). The numbering of the sequences relates to the data regarding the HIV-1 BH10 env sequence in Rattner et al., Nature, 313: 277-284.
EXAMPLE 1B
Preparation of Peptide Solutions and Coating of Micro-titration Plates with These Peptides
The peptides MVP 601-623 (SEQ ID NO:2) and HIV 601-623 from (SEQ ID NO:5) Example 1a were dissolved in 50% (v/v) acetic acid at a concentration of 6 mg/ml. The stock solutions were diluted in 0.10 M sodium bicarbonate (pH 9.6) such that the concentrations of the polypeptides are 1 μg/ml. 100 μl of the dilute solution were added to each of the wells of type B microtitration plates from Nunc, Roskilde, Denmark. The filled test plates were incubated at 20° C. for 18 hours. The solutions were then sucked off and the wells were rinsed 3-4 times with 300 μl of a 10 g/l solution of bovine serum albumin in phosphate-buffered physiological sodium chloride solution (PBS, pH 7.4), and the test plates were then dried over silica gel at 20° C.
EXAMPLE 1C
Preparation of a Peroxidase-labelled Antibody Against Human Immunoglobulin of the IgG Class (h-IgG), and also TMB Substrate for Detection
Monoclonal antibodies against h-IgG were prepared in accordance with the method of Koehler and Milstein, Nature 256: 495, 1975, with different monoclonal antibodies having the same antigen specificity being identified by the method described by Stahli et al., J. of Immunological Methods 32: 297-304 (1980). Following purification by gel chromatography and dialysis against PBS buffer, pH 7.4, the monoclonal antibody fraction (4 mg of protein/ml) was reacted with N-gammamaleimidobutyloxysuccinimide (GMBS) in accordance with Tanamori et al., J. Immunol. Meth. 62: 123-131 (1983). In parallel with this, 2-iminothiolane hydrochloride (from Sigma, Cat. No. 1 6256) was reacted with horseradish peroxidase (POD, from Boehringer Mannheim, Cat. No. 413470) in accordance with King et al. Biochem. 17: 1499-1506 (1978). An antibody/POD conjugate was prepared from the GMBS/antibody conjugate and the iminothiolane/POD conjugate as described by Tanamori et al., supra.
The resulting solution of the IgG/POD conjugate had a protein content of 360 μl/ml. The ratio of POD to IgG was 2.8. The solution was subsequently diluted to 500 ng/ml IgG/POD using a solution of 50 ml/l fetal calf serum (FCS, from Biochrom KG, Berlin) and 5 g/l polyoxyethylene (20) sorbitan monolaurate (Tween 20) in PBS, and was given the designation anti-IgG/POD conjugate. For use in the ELISA, the anti-IgG/POD conjugate was diluted 1:100 to 1:20,000 with Tris buffer (pH 7.4, containing 0.5% Tween 20), and then a series of 1:26 final dilutions in conjugate buffer (0.1 M 1-amino-2-(hydroxymethyi)-1,3-propanediol (Tris), 0.1 M sodium chloride (NaCl) and 0.1% Tween 20, pH 8.4) is prepared.
For detecting anti-human IgG/POD, the present inventors used a substrate system, or a substrate preparation, composed of hydrogen peroxide and tetramethylbenzidine (TMB), which was prepared from two stock solutions as follows:
Stock solution 1: TMB dihydrochloride was dissolved with stirring in double-distilled water at a concentration of 5 g/l (16 mmol/l), and this solution was adjusted to pH 1.5 using 5 N hydrochloric acid. Penicillin G was added to this solution with stirring, up to a final concentration of 200 mg/l (0.56 mmol/l).
Stock solution 2: 1.4 ml of glacial acetic acid, 1.5 ml of 1 N NaOH and 250 mg (3 mmol) of H 2 O 2 , as a urea/hydrogen peroxide adduct, were added to 900 ml of double-distilled water. After these substances had dissolved completely, the solution was made up to 1 liter using double-distilled water.
TMB substrate preparation: One part by volume of stock solution 1 and 10 parts by volume of stock solution 2 were mixed together.
EXAMPLE 1D
Determination of Human Antibodies of the Immunoglobulin G Class Against MVP5180 in an ELISA Using the Peptide According to the Invention
50 μl of serum or plasma were added to 50 νl of sample buffer, containing 0.3 M Tris, 0.3 M NaCl, 20% bovine serum and 0.1% Tween 20, in wells of coated microtiter plates which were prepared in accordance with Example 1b. After the plates had been incubated at 37° C. for 30 minutes, the test solutions were sucked off and the wells were in each case washed five times with washing buffer containing 1 g/l Tween 20 in PBS. After that, 100 μl of conjugate (according to Example 1c) were added to each of the wells, a preliminary dilution of 1:3000 in Tris buffer (pH 7.4, 0.5% Tween 20) and a final dilution of 1:26 in conjugate buffer preferably being selected. After the plates had been incubated at 37° C. for 30 minutes, the contents of the wells were sucked off and the wells were once again in each case washed five times. Subsequently, 100 μl of TMB substrate preparation were added to each well and the plates were incubated at 20-22° C. for 30 minutes; the reaction was then stopped by adding 100 μl of 1 normal sulfuric acid. The extinction of the colored solution was measured at a wavelength of 450 nm (E450) against a blank value of PBS.
In Table 2, the reactivities of Western-blot anti-HIV-1 negative and Western-blot anti-HIV-1 positive samples (all from blood donors from the Cameroons) are compared on microtitration plates which are coated, on the one hand, with the synthetic peptide MVP 601-623 and, on the other, with the synthetic peptide HIV 601-623.
TABLE 2
Signal/
Cut off
MVP 601-623
(reagent
Signal/
according
Cut/off
Status according
Samples,
to the
HIV 601-623
to Western blot
I.D.
invention)
(Reference)
Anti-HIV
16749
0.1
0.2
negative
16750
0.1
0.1
Anti-HIV
17038
>6
0.7
positive
17041
0.8
3.0
16717
>6
>6
16748
>6
>6
Cut off
0.400
0.400
It can be seen from Table 2 that, while some samples (16717 and 16748) clearly react positively in both assays, others (17038) only react with the MVP peptide according to the invention.
EXAMPLE 2
Immunometric Immunoassay for Detecting Serotype O-Specific HIV Antibodies
EXAMPLE 2A
Preparation of the MVP 601-623 Peptide/POD Conjugate
10 mg of the peptide MVP 601-623 (SEQ ID NO:2) according to the invention (Example 1a) were dissolved in 1 ml of glacial acetic acid/water (50:50, v/v). When the solution had been neutralized with 5 N sodium hydroxide solution, a 10-fold molar excess of GMBS was added to it and the mixture was incubated at room temperature for 1 hour. The GMBS which had not reacted was separated off by gel filtration (Sephadex G-25) using 0.1 M sodium phosphate/5 mmol/l nitrilotriacetic acid, pH 6.0. 10 mg of horseradish peroxidase (POD) were incubated, at room temperature for 1 hour, in 5 ml of 10 mmol/l sodium phosphate, 100 mmol/l NaCl, pH 8.0), together with a 100-fold molar excess of 2-iminothiolane. Free modifying reagent was then removed by gel chromatography (Sephadex G-25) using 0.1 M sodium phosphate/5 mmol/1 NTA, pH 6.0. The two eluates (SH-activated peroxidase and maleimide-modified HIV-1 peptide) were combined and incubated at room temperature overnight. When the reaction had been stopped using 1/19 vol. of 0.1 M N-ethylmaleimide, the non-reacted HIV-1 peptide was removed from the conjugate by gel chromatography (Sephadex G-25). After the solution has been concentrated (2 mg/ml), the peptide/peroxidase conjugate was stored at −20° C.
EXAMPLE 2B
Immunometric Immunoassay for Detecting Anti-MVP Antibodies
An enzyme immunoassay for detecting anti-HIV antibodies was carried out as follows: 25 μl of sample buffer (0.3 M Tris/HCl, 1% albumin, 2% Tween 20, pH 7.2) were incubated, at 37° C. for 30 minutes, together with 100 μl of human serum in the wells of a test plate coated with HIV peptides. After the wells had been washed 4 times with 50 mmol/l PBS, 0.1% Tween 20, 100 μl of the HIV peptide/ peroxidase conjugate prepared in accordance with Example 1b (1:1000 in 0.1 M Tris/HCl, 1% albumin, 2% Pluronic F 64, pH 8.1) were pipetted in.
The 30-minute incubation (+37° C.) is terminated by four further washing steps. The bound peroxidase activity, which correlates directly with the number of bound HIV-1-specific antibody molecules, was determined by adding H 2 O 2 /tetramethylbenzidine (Behringwerke AG, Marburg, FRG)
EXAMPLE 2C
Use of the Diagnostic Composition According to the Invention
Western-blot characterized anti-HIV negative and anti-HIV positive samples (see Example 1 as well) were examined in the immunoassay according to Example 2b. The results (signal/cut off) of this investigation are given in Table 3, as are comparative investigations with a commercial anti-I-HIV assay of the 3rd generation (immunometric test principle).
TABLE 3
Signal/Cut off
MVP immunometr.
Signal/Cut off
Sample status
(diag. comp.)
Anti-HIV (3rd
according to
Samples,
according to
Gen.) Assay,
Western blot
I.D.
the invention)
Reference
Anti-HIV
16749
0.1
0.1
negative
16750
0.1
0.1
Anti-HIV
17038
>16.6
0.8
17041
0.6
9.5
16717
>16.6
14.1
16748
>16.6
9.6
Cut-off
0.150
0.141
In this comparison, it is found that, even when the same assay test principle is used, the different antigens are recognized differently, especially in the case of samples 17038 and 17041. The diagnostic composition according to the invention very clearly demonstrates the presence of HIV antibodies in sample 17038, whereas the commercial reference assay reacts inadequately.
EXAMPLE 3
Immunoassay for Selectively Detecting Serotype O-Specific HIV Antibodies
EXAMPLE 3A
Synthesis of the Peptides According to the Invention and of Their Reference Peptides
The following 4 peptides were synthesized by the method of Example 1a:
RILAVERYLKDQQLLGIWGCSGKLIC HIV 591-616 C (SEQ ID NO:6) Reference
RILAVERYLKDQQLLGIWGSSGKLIS HIV 591-616 S (SEQ ID NO:7) peptides
RLQALETLIQNQQRLNLWGCKGKLIC MVP 591-616 C (SEQ ID NO:3) Peptides
RLQALETLIQNQQRLNLWGSKGKLIS MVP 591-616 S (SEQ ID NO:4) according to the invention (see FIG. 3)
Following purification of the 4 crude peptides by HPLC, purities of 81%-89% were obtained.
EXAMPLE 3B
Coating and Implementation
The 4 peptides prepared and purified according to Example 3a were dissolved according to Example 1b and coated on microtitration plates. An assay was carried out in accordance with Example 1d.
EXAMPLE 3C
Use of the Diagnostic Composition According to the Invention
The samples from Examples 1 and 2 were tested, in accordance with Example 3b, in an indirect antibody test both for the peptides MVP 591-616 “C” (SEQ ID NO:3) and MVP 591-616 “S” (SEQ ID NO:4) according to the invention and for the reference peptides. The results of these investigations are listed in Table 4.
TABLE 4
Status
Signal/Cut off
Signal/Cut off
accord-
MVP 591-616
HIV 591-616
ing to
MVP 591-616
HIV 591-616
Western
Samples,
Invention
Reference
blot
I.D.
C
S
C
S
Anti-HIV
16749
0.6
0.6
0.5
0.5
negative
16750
0.4
0.5
0.1
0.8
Anti-HIV
17038
14.2
5.6
5.3
0.1
positive
17041
0.3
0.3
5.1
2.8
16717
>16.6
0.7
>8.3
>8.3
16748
16.2
0.7
>8.3
>8.3
cut off
0.150
0.150
0.300
0.300
As can be seen from Table 4, it is possible to discriminate, in a selective and specific manner, between serotype O-specific and “non” -serotype O-specific HIV antibodies if the signal/cut off values of the MVP 591-616 “S” assay are compared with those of HIV 591-616 “S” assay.
EXAMPLE 4
Immunoassay for the Simultaneour Detection of Serotype A-E and Serotype O-Specific HIV Antibodies
EXAMPLE 4A
Preparation of Peptide Solutions and Coating of Microtitration Plates
The peptides MVP 601-623 (SEQ ID NO:2) and HIV 601-623 (SEQ ID NO:5), prepared in accordance with Example 1a, were dissolved in 50% (v/v) acetic acid at a concentration of 6 mg/ml. The stock solutions were mixed in different proportions on a volume basis and diluted in 0.10 M sodium carbonate (pH 9.6) such that the total concentration of the peptides is between 0.125 and 2 μg/ml. As in Example 1b, these solutions were added to microtitration plates and the antigens are coated such plates.
EXAMPLE 4B
Implementation of the Immunoassay and Results
An immunoassay was carried out according to Examples 1c and 1d. The results are summarized in Table 5.
TABLE 5
Status
accord-
Signal/
ing to
Signal/
Signal/
Cut off
Western
Samples,
Cut off
Cut off
MVP 601-623
blot
I.D.
MVP 601-623
HIV 601-623
Invention
Anti-HIV
16749
0.2
0.2
0.2
negative
16750
0.5
0.2
0.2
Anti-HIV
17038
>10
0.4
>10
positive
17041
0.5
2.5
4.7
16717
>10
>10
>10
16748
>10
>7
>10
Cut off
0.250
0.250
0.250
EXAMPLE 5
Immunoassay for Detecting Serotype O-Specific HIV Antibodies Using Recombinant Antigens
EXAMPLE 5A
Construction of the Plasmid pSEM 41/3-III
The present inventors investigated the serodiagnostic importance of the MVP5180/91 gp41 region. To do this, a recombinant expression clone was constructed which contains a constituent region of MVP5180 gp41. The methodology for constructing such plasmids is known (Sambrook, Fritsch, Maniatis, Molecular Cloning, A Laboratory Manual, 2nd Edition, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 1989).
A suitable DNA segment from gp41 was obtained by means of PCR (polymerase chain reaction, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,683,195 and 4,683,202). The following primers were employed for this purpose:
1A: 5′ TGTGTGGTACCGCAGCGGCAACAGCGCTGACG 3′ (SEQ ID NO:8) and
1B: 5′ GTGTGTCTAGTTTAGTTATGTCAAACCAATTC 3′ (SEQ ID NO:9)
0.1 μg of plasmid pSP4 DNA was used as template (DE 4318184). The conditions for the PCR were:
1. Initial denaturation: 94° C., 3 min,
2. Amplification: 1.5 min. 94° C., 1 min., 56° C. and 1 min. 72° C. for 30 cycles. Nucleotide and buffer concentrations were used, and Taq polymerase was employed, in accordance with the supplier's (Perkin Elmer) instructions.
The amplified DNA was subsequently digested, at 37° C. for 1 hour, with the restriction endonucleases Asp 718 and XbaI, and the DNA was fractionated in a 1% agarose gel. The DNA band 440 bp in size was cut out of the gel, and the DNA was electroeluted, phenol-extracted, precipitated with ethanol, dried and resuspended in 5 μl of H 2 O.
0.5 μg of the dissolved, amplified DNA was ligated to 0.5 μg of the Asp718/XbaI-,digested expression vector PSEM 3 (Knapp et al., Biotechniques 8: 280-281 (1990)) (2 Weiss units of lambda T4 ligase, 12 hrs. at 15° C.) and transformed into E. coli XL1 Blue (from Stratagene). The clone resulting from this procedure, harboring the recombinant plasmid pSEM 41/3-III, expresses the MvP5180/gp41-specific peptide as a fusion protein with a fragment of E. coli β-galactosidase.
The expressed MVP5180 sequence is depicted in FIG. 3 (SEQ ID NO:10).
EXAMPLE 5B
Expression and Purification of the MVP 41/3-III Fusion Protein
Escherichia coli XL1 Blue, transformed with the plasmid pSEM 41/3-III (according to Example 5a), was cultivated in Luria broth medium and induced with 1 mM isopropyl thiogalactoside at an optical density of 0.5. After three hours, the cells were centrifuged down, washed with 100 mM sodium phosphate buffer, 10 mM MgCl 2 , pH 7.5, and, after centrifugation for 10 minutes at 5000×g, resuspended in the same buffer. After adding RNase and DNase, the cell suspension was disrupted using a high-pressure homogenizer at 1000 bar and the homogenate was centrifuged (20 minutes, 80,000×g, 4° C.). The sediment contained the inclusion bodies and was resuspended in 50 mM Tris-HCl, pH 8.0, and 0.5% deoxycholate and centrifuged once again (20 minutes, 100,000×g, 4° C.). The sediment which was obtained was resuspended in 3 M urea, 20 mM Tris-HCl, 0.5 mM phenylmethylsulfonyl fluoride (PMSF) and centrifuged once again (20 minutes, 100,000×g, 4° C.).
The sediment, which already had been washed twice, was subsequently incubated for 1 hour in 5 M guanidine HCl, 10 mM Tris-HCl, 5 mM ethylenediaminetetraacetate (EDTA), 0.5 mM PMSF and 100 mM dithiothreitol. After centrifugation (20 minutes, 100,000×g, 4° C.), the supernatant, which contained the solubilized MVP 41/3-III protein, was purified chromatographically by gel filtration on TSK-HW-55 S (from Merck, Darmstadt) in 5 M guanidine HCl, 10 mM Tris-HCl, 5 mM EDTA, pH 8.0. The product-containing fractions were identified by electrophoresis, combined and transferred, by rebuffering, into 5 M urea, 10 MM Tris-HCl, 5 mM EDTA, pH 8.0.
EXAMPLE 5C
Immunoassay for Detecting Serotype O-specific HIV Antibodies
The recombinant antigen MVP 41/3-III according to the invention, which was purified according to Example 5b, was diluted in 0.1 M sodium carbonate (pH 9.6) such that the concentration of the protein was 0.5 μg/ml.
The antigen was coated on a plate, as described in Example 1b, and the assay which had been set up in this way was carried out as in Example 1d.
EXAMPLE 5D
Results with the Recombinant Antigen in the Immunoassay
The results from the samples which were investigated in accordance with Example 5c are summarized in Table 6:
TABLE 6
Signal/Cut off
MVP 41/3-III (diag.
Status according
comp. according to
to Western blot
Samples, I.D.
the invention)
Anti-HV negative
16749
0.6
16750
0.5
Anti-HIV positive
17038
4.2
17041
2.1
16717
3.2
16748
3.8
cut off
0.500
These results clearly show that recombinant proteins from MVP5180/gp41 which contain the region according to the invention are also antigens which are very well suited for detecting both serotype O-specific and “non”-serotype O-specific HIV antisera.
It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications and variations can be made to the compositions and processes of this invention. Thus, it is intended that the present invention cover such modifications and variations, provided they come within the scope of the appended claims and their equivalents.
The disclosure of all publications cited above are expressly incorporated herein by reference in their entireties to the same extent as if each were incorporated by reference individually. The disclosure of German Patent Application No. P 44 05 810.1, filed Feb. 23, 1994, for which benefit under 35 USC §119 is claimed, is expressly incorporated herein in its entirety.
11
48 amino acids
amino acid
linear
Modified-site
29
/note= “Xaa represents Cys or Ser”
Modified-site
35
/note= “Xaa represents Cys or Ser”
1
Val Trp Gly Ile Arg Gln Leu Arg Ala Arg Leu Gln Ala Leu Glu Thr
1 5 10 15
Leu Ile Gln Asn Gln Gln Arg Leu Asn Leu Trp Gly Xaa Lys Gly Lys
20 25 30
Leu Ile Xaa Tyr Thr Ser Val Lys Trp Asn Thr Ser Trp Ser Gly Arg
35 40 45
23 amino acids
amino acid
linear
2
Asn Gln Gln Arg Leu Asn Leu Trp Gly Cys Lys Gly Lys Leu Ile Cys
1 5 10 15
Tyr Thr Ser Val Lys Trp Asn
20
26 amino acids
amino acid
linear
3
Arg Leu Gln Ala Leu Glu Thr Leu Ile Gln Asn Gln Gln Arg Leu Asn
1 5 10 15
Leu Trp Gly Cys Lys Gly Lys Leu Ile Cys
20 25
26 amino acids
amino acid
linear
4
Arg Leu Gln Ala Leu Glu Thr Leu Ile Gln Asn Gln Gln Arg Leu Asn
1 5 10 15
Leu Trp Gly Ser Lys Gly Lys Leu Ile Ser
20 25
23 amino acids
amino acid
linear
5
Asp Gln Gln Leu Leu Gly Ile Trp Gly Cys Ser Gly Lys Leu Ile Cys
1 5 10 15
Thr Thr Ala Val Pro Trp Asn
20
26 amino acids
amino acid
linear
6
Arg Ile Leu Ala Val Glu Arg Tyr Leu Lys Asp Gln Gln Leu Leu Gly
1 5 10 15
Ile Trp Gly Cys Ser Gly Lys Leu Ile Cys
20 25
26 amino acids
amino acid
linear
7
Arg Ile Leu Ala Val Glu Arg Tyr Leu Lys Asp Gln Gln Leu Leu Gly
1 5 10 15
Ile Trp Gly Ser Ser Gly Lys Leu Ile Ser
20 25
32 base pairs
nucleic acid
single
linear
8
TGTGTGGTAC CGCAGCGGCA ACAGCGCTGA CG 32
32 base pairs
nucleic acid
single
linear
9
GTGTGTCTAG TTTAGTTATG TCAAACCAAT TC 32
146 amino acids
amino acid
linear
10
Ala Ala Thr Ala Leu Thr Val Arg Thr His Ser Val Leu Lys Gly Ile
1 5 10 15
Val Gln Gln Gln Asp Asn Leu Leu Arg Ala Ile Gln Ala Gln Gln His
20 25 30
Leu Leu Arg Leu Ser Val Trp Gly Ile Arg Gln Leu Arg Ala Arg Leu
35 40 45
Gln Ala Leu Glu Thr Leu Ile Gln Asn Gln Gln Arg Leu Asn Leu Trp
50 55 60
Gly Cys Lys Gly Lys Leu Ile Cys Tyr Thr Ser Val Lys Trp Asn Thr
65 70 75 80
Ser Trp Ser Gly Arg Tyr Asn Asp Asp Ser Ile Trp Asp Asn Leu Thr
85 90 95
Trp Gln Gln Trp Asp Gln His Ile Asn Asn Val Ser Ser Ile Ile Tyr
100 105 110
Asp Glu Ile Gln Ala Ala Gln Asp Gln Gln Glu Lys Asn Val Lys Ala
115 120 125
Leu Leu Glu Leu Asp Glu Trp Ala Ser Leu Trp Asn Trp Phe Asp Ile
130 135 140
Thr Lys
145
145 amino acids
amino acid
linear
11
Val Ser Leu Thr Leu Thr Val Gln Ala Arg Gln Leu Leu Ser Gly Ile
1 5 10 15
Val Gln Gln Gln Asn Asn Leu Leu Arg Ala Ile Glu Ala Gln Gln His
20 25 30
Leu Leu Gln Leu Thr Val Trp Gly Ile Lys Gln Leu Gln Ala Arg Val
35 40 45
Leu Ala Val Glu Arg Tyr Leu Arg Asp Gln Gln Leu Leu Gly Ile Trp
50 55 60
Gly Cys Ser Gly Lys Leu Ile Cys Thr Thr Ala Val Pro Trp Asn Ala
65 70 75 80
Ser Trp Ser Asn Lys Ser Leu Glu Asp Ile Trp Asp Asn Met Thr Trp
85 90 95
Met Gln Trp Glu Arg Glu Ile Asp Asn Tyr Thr Asn Thr Ile Tyr Thr
100 105 110
Leu Leu Glu Glu Ser Gln Asn Gln Gln Glu Lys Asn Glu Gln Glu Leu
115 120 125
Leu Glu Leu Asp Lys Trp Ala Ser Leu Trp Asn Trp Phe Ser Ile Thr
130 135 140
Asn
145 | The present invention is directed toward nucleic-acid based methodologies for the detection of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) nucleic acids in a sample. A novel HIV-1 isolate, designated MVP5180/91, was isolated from a West African Cameroonian patient with immunodeficiency. Nucleic acid and amino acid sequence comparisons of this isolate, with other HIV-1 strains of subtypes A-E and HIV-2 isolates, demonstrated that this virus shares only limited homology with other known HIV-1 and -2 isolates. However, this virus does display some genetic relatedness to another Cameroonian isolate designated ANT-70. These viruses form the basis for a new HIV-1 group which has been designated subtype O. An immunologically important epitope, corresponding to amino acids 601-623 of the MVP5180/91 transmembrane envelope glycoprotein, was identified. Labeled nucleic acids can be prepared from the nucleotide sequence encoding this region and employed in standard hybridization assays to detect HIV-1 nucleic acids. Alternatively, oligonucleotide primers can also be prepared from this region and employed in polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays to detect viral-specific nucleic acids. | 2 |
TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION
[0001] Systems and methods disclosed herein relate generally to surgical instrumentation. In particular, the systems and methods relate to surgical instruments for illuminating an area during eye surgery. Even more particularly, the systems and methods relate to illuminators for illumination of a surgical field that are preconditioned to relieve stress.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0002] In ophthalmic surgery, and in particular in vitreo-retinal surgery, it is desirable to use a wide-angle surgical microscope system to view as large a portion of the retina as possible. Wide-angle objective lenses for such microscopic systems exist, but they require a wider illumination field than that provided by the cone of illumination of a typical fiber-optic probe. As a result, various technologies have been developed to increase the beam spreading of the relatively incoherent light provided by a fiber-optic illuminator. These known wide-angle illuminators can thus illuminate a larger portion of the retina as required by current wide-angle surgical microscope systems.
[0003] Current wide-angle illuminators can experience run-away heating that degrades the performance of the illuminator. Run-away heating occurs when the cannula of an illuminator absorbs light from the optical fiber running through the illuminator and, consequently, increases in temperature. As the cannula heats, the optical fiber may begin to deform, causing even more light to be incident on the cannula, increasing the temperature of the cannula further and, hence, increasing the deformation in the optical fiber. This cycle can lead to catastrophic failure of the illuminator.
SUMMARY
[0004] The various embodiments of the method and system of the present invention provide for an illuminator that is resistant to run-away heat deformation. In general, the optical fiber of the illuminator undergoes heat preconditioning at its distal portion to relieve axial stress at the distal portion prior to or in lieu of the distal portion being fixed in place relative to other components of the illuminator. Such preconditioned illuminators can be used for longer periods of time using more intense light than traditional illuminators.
[0005] According to one embodiment, an illuminator can comprise a cannula defining a passage, an optical element disposed at a distal end of the cannula, and an optical fiber running through the passage with the distal end of the optical fiber in contact with the optical element. The optical fiber includes at least a heat preconditioned distal portion that terminates in the distal end that is in contact with the optical element.
[0006] One embodiment of preconditioning an illuminator can comprise inserting an optical fiber through a proximal portion of a cannula/optical element assembly until the distal end of the optical fiber contacts the optical element, heating a distal portion of the optical fiber to between a softening temperature and a melting temperature for a period of time to cause the distal portion to axially shrink and moving the optical element so that the optical element is in contact with the distal end of the optical fiber when the distal portion of the optical fiber has axially shrunk. Moving the optical element so that the optical element is in contact with the distal end of the optical fiber when the distal portion of the optical fiber has axially shrunk can comprise applying a force to the cannula/optical element assembly to maintain the optical element in continuous contact with the distal end of the optical fiber while the optical fiber axially shrinks. In a vertical arrangement, this can be done through the force of gravity.
[0007] Yet another embodiment of an illuminator method comprises inserting an optical fiber through a proximal portion of a cannula until the distal end of the optical fiber contacts a lens, vertically aligning the cannula with an opening defined by a heating member, lowering the heating member until the cannula is inserted a desired insertion depth in the opening, heating a distal portion of the optical fiber to between a softening temperature and a melting temperature for a period of time to cause the distal portion to axially shrink and allowing the cannula to move so that the lens remains in contact with the distal end of the optical as the distal portion axially shrinks.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES
[0008] A more complete understanding of the various embodiments and the advantages thereof may be acquired by referring to the following description, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which like reference numbers indicate like features and wherein:
[0009] FIG. 1 is a simplified diagram of a surgical system;
[0010] FIG. 2 is a diagrammatic representation of a portion of an illuminator;
[0011] FIG. 3 is a graph showing data for run-away thermal deformation;
[0012] FIG. 4A is a diagrammatic representation of one embodiment of a system for preconditioning an illuminator;
[0013] FIG. 4B is a diagrammatic representation of one embodiment of an arrangement during preconditioning an illuminator;
[0014] FIG. 5 is a diagrammatic representation of another embodiment of a system for preconditioning an illuminator;
[0015] FIG. 6 is a graph illustrating resistance to run-away thermal deformation due to preconditioning;
[0016] FIG. 7 is a graph illustrating optical performance for a preconditioned versus non-preconditioned illuminator; and
[0017] FIG. 8 is another graph illustrating optical performance for a preconditioned versus non-preconditioned illuminator.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
[0018] Preferred embodiments of the present invention are illustrated in the FIGURES, like numerals being used to refer to like and corresponding parts of the various drawings.
[0019] FIG. 1 is a simplified diagram of a surgical system 2 comprising a handpiece 10 for delivering a beam of light, which can be incoherent light, from a light source 12 through cable 14 to the distal end of a stem (cannula) 16 . Handpiece 10 can be any surgical handpiece as known in the art, such as the Revolution-DSP™ handpiece sold by Alcon Laboratories, Inc. of Fort Worth, Tex. Light source 10 can be a xenon light source, a halogen light source, or any other light source capable of delivering relatively incoherent light which can be transmitted through a fiber optic cable. By way of example, but not limitation, light source 10 can be an Accurus High Brightness Illuminator or a Constellation Illuminator, both manufactured and sold by Alcon Laboratories, Inc. Cable 14 can comprise a proximal optical fiber 13 of any gauge fiber optic cable as known in the art, but proximal optical fiber 13 is preferably a 20 or 25 gauge compatible fiber. Cannula 16 can be a small gauge cannula, preferably on the order of 19, 20, 23 or 25 gauge, as known to those having skill in the art. Stem 16 can be stainless steel or a suitable biocompatible polymer (e.g., PEEK, polyimide, etc.) as known to those having skill in the art. Cannulla 16 is configured to house a distal optical fiber 20 , as is more clearly illustrated in FIG. 2 . Coupling system 32 can comprise an optical fiber connector at the proximal end of optical cable 14 to optically couple light source 12 to proximal optical fiber 13 within optical cable 14 .
[0020] The proximal optical fiber 13 , distal optical fiber 20 and/or stem 16 can be operably coupled to the handpiece 10 , for example, via an adjusting mechanism. The adjusting mechanism can comprise, for example, a simple push/pull mechanism as known to those having skill in the art. Light source 12 can be operably coupled to handpiece 10 (i.e., optically coupled to proximal optical fiber 13 within optical cable 14 ) using, for example, standard SMA (Scale Manufacturers Association) optical fiber connectors at the proximal end of fiber optic cable 14 . This allows for the efficient transmission of light from the light source 12 to a surgical site through proximal optical fiber 13 , passing within handpiece 10 , through tapered section 26 (whether separate or integral to distal optical fiber 20 ) and optical fiber 20 to emanate from the distal end of distal optical fiber 20 and stem 16 . Light source 12 may comprise filters, as known to those having skill in the art, to reduce the damaging thermal effects of absorbed infrared radiation originating at the light source. The light source 12 filter(s) can be used to selectively illuminate a surgical field with different colors of light, such as, for example, to excite a surgical dye.
[0021] FIG. 2 is a diagrammatic representation of a portion of one embodiment of an endo-illuminator of the present invention including a cannula 16 , a distal optical fiber 20 and a proximal optical fiber 13 . Distal optical fiber 20 can be optically coupled to proximal optical fiber 13 at coupling 30 , which can, in turn, be optically coupled to light source 12 (see FIG. 1 ) to receive light from the light source 12 . Proximal optical fiber 13 can be a larger diameter, small NA (e.g., 0.5 NA) optical fiber, such as a 20 gauge compatible optical fiber. Distal optical fiber 20 can be a high numerical aperture (“NA”), smaller diameter (e.g., 25 gauge compatible) optical fiber or light pipe (e.g., cylindrical light pipe) located downstream of the proximal optical fiber. An optical element 26 is in contact with the distal end of distal optical fiber 20 . One or more of proximal optical fiber 13 or distal optical fiber 20 may include a protective sheath made out of a suitable material, such as PVC or other material.
[0022] Fiber(s) 20 is terminated by optically coupling to optical element 26 . Optical element 26 can be an optical grade sapphire diffuser having a hemispherical or slightly larger than hemispherical shape. Optical element 26 can comprise a polished flat surface 28 at the distal end of stem 16 (i.e., facing out towards a surgical field) and a hemispherical surface 29 facing the distal end of fiber 20 . Optical element 26 is sized for housing within stem 16 (e.g., a 19 to 30 gauge cannula). For example, optical element 26 can have a diameter of about 0.75 mm to about 0.4 mm. The flat surface 28 of optical element 26 can be co-incident with the open aperture at the distal end of stem 16 .
[0023] The embodiment of the high throughput endo-illuminator of this invention illustrated in FIG. 2 comprises a low-NA, larger diameter proximal optical fiber 13 optically coupled to a tapered, high-NA, smaller diameter distal optical fiber 20 . The proximal optical fiber 13 can be a 0.50 NA plastic fiber (e.g., to match the NA of the light source 12 ), having a polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) core and a 0.030″ (750 micron) core diameter, or another such comparable fiber as known to those having skill in the art. For example, such a fiber is compatible with the dimensions of the focused light spot from a 20 gauge light source 12 , such as the ACCURUS® illuminator manufactured by Alcon Laboratories, Inc. of Fort Worth, Tex. As one example, suitable fibers for the proximal optical fiber 13 of the embodiments of this invention are produced by Mitsubishi (Super-Eska fiber), which can be purchased through Industrial Fiber Optics, and Toray, which can be purchased through Moritex Corporation.
[0024] Suitable fibers for the distal optical fiber 20 (downstream fiber) are Polymicro's High OH (FSU), 0.66 NA, silica core/Teflon AF clad optical fiber, having a core diameter that can be custom-made to required specifications and Toray's PJU-FB500 0.63 NA fiber (486 micron core diameter). Proximal optical fiber 13 and distal optical fiber 20 can be optically coupled together using any suitable mechanism known to those skilled in the art.
[0025] In the embodiment of FIG. 2 , the endo-illuminator comprises a proximal optical fiber 13 coupled to a distal optical fiber 20 at a coupling 30 . Various methods of coupling optical fibers are described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/354,615 entitled “High Throughput Endo-Illuminator Probe”, filed Feb. 15, 2006, by Alcon Research, Ltd. (Attorney Docket No. 2825), which is hereby fully incorporated by reference herein.
[0026] Cannula/optical element assembly 32 can be formed by selecting a cannula 16 of a desired diameter, such as a 23 gauge or 25 gauge cannula, selecting an optical element material that is slightly larger than the inner diameter cannula 16 and press fitting the optical element material into the cannula. For example, a sapphire ball can be selected and press fit into the distal end of cannula 16 . The optical element material can then be ground to a desired shape. In one embodiment, for example, the sapphire ball (and potentially the end of the cannula) can be ground away until the remaining optical element 26 is slightly larger than hemispherical.
[0027] According to one method of assembly, the distal optical fiber 20 is slid into the proximal end of cannula 16 until the distal end of distal optical fiber 20 contacts the optical element 26 . If the cannula 16 were to be bonded at this point to optical fiber 20 without preconditioning optical fiber 20 , the resulting device is more susceptible to experience runaway heating and catastrophic failure during use. This results because plastic optical fiber is created through a drawing process that stretches the fiber axially before it hardens, causing potential energy to be stored in the fiber. When the fiber is heated and the softening point reached (around 105©)), the potential energy is released by axial shrinking and lateral swelling of the fiber.
[0028] When a high-luminance xenon light is coupled to the fiber, a significant amount of luminous flux passes through the distal end of the probe through optical element 26 to illuminate the retina. However, from distal fiber 20 , some amount may be absorbed by cannula 16 , causing the distal end of cannula 16 and consequently the distal portion of distal fiber 20 to increase in temperature. If the temperature becomes high enough, the distal portion of distal fiber 20 will soften and axially shrink. Because the proximal end of the cannula is bonded to the distal fiber 20 , the distal end of distal fiber 20 will tend to pull away from the optical element 26 . This will cause more light to be absorbed by the cannula, which can cause a runaway cycle of thermal deformation to occur. This phenomenon is illustrated in FIG. 3 .
[0029] FIG. 3 is a graph illustrating flux over time through a cannula 16 in which cannula 16 is bonded to distal fiber 20 without preconditioning. Over time the luminous flux provided by the source light gradually increases and the output of the probe increases correspondingly. However, at 8 minutes, the flux of the source light becomes large enough to cause softening of the distal fiber 20 , causing distal fiber 20 to begin shrinking axially. As the distal end of distal fiber 20 moves away from optical element 26 , the output of the probe begins to gradually decrease and then, at around point 11 minutes, falls off precipitously, indicating catastrophic failure of the probe.
[0030] To prevent such failure, distal optical fiber 20 can be preconditioned to release potential energy, thereby reducing or eliminating runaway thermal deformation. To precondition the distal optical fiber 20 , cannula 16 is not bonded to fiber 20 after optical fiber 20 is brought in contact with optical element 26 . Instead, distal optical fiber 20 is heated to or above its softening point, but below its melting point for a defined period. This causes at least the distal portion of fiber 20 (a portion of fiber 20 starting at the distal end and ending at any point prior to the proximal end of the cannula) to shrink axially and expand laterally. Because distal fiber 20 is not yet bonded to cannula 16 , optical element 26 and cannula 16 will move with optical fiber 20 as it shrinks axially. Consequently, potential energy can be released while fiber 20 remains in contact with optical element 26 .
[0031] FIG. 4A is a diagrammatic representation of an embodiment of a fixture for preconditioning a fiber of an endo-illuminator in accordance with the teachings of the present invention. In the embodiment shown in FIG. 4A , proximal fiber 13 is coupled to distal fiber 20 and the cannula and optical element assembly 32 is already assembled. Distal fiber 20 is inserted into cannula 16 until the distal end of distal fiber 20 contacts the optical element 26 (shown in FIG. 2 ). A portion of the endo-illuminator can be clamped or otherwise secured to a work surface 45 . A heating member 50 can be used to heat a distal portion of the cannula 16 and optical element assembly 32 . Heating member 50 can be made of any suitable material including, but not limited to, metals and ceramics, that can be heated to a desired temperature. Heating of heating member 50 can occur by, for example, running a current through resistors in heating member 50 , preheating heating member 50 from another heat source or otherwise heating member 50 in a way known to those skilled in the art. Heating member 50 can have any suitable shape and size. According to one embodiment, heating member 50 can be a metal cylinder having an axial opening 51 with an inner diameter that is slightly larger than the outer diameter of cannula 16 . The axial opening 51 can extend partially or completely through the length of heating member 50 . Heating member 50 can be coupled to a computer controlled translation stage 52 that allows heating member 50 to translate along at least one axis for positioning. A computer 54 can control movement of stage 52 .
[0032] FIG. 4B is a diagrammatic representation of an embodiment of an arrangement for heating of cannula 16 /optical element assembly 32 . The opening in heating member 50 can be axially aligned with cannula 16 . This can be done using, for example, cameras. Heating member 50 is then moved over some or all of cannula 16 to a desired insertion depth. Cannula 16 remains inserted in heating member 50 for a desired dwell time. To save time, heating member 50 is preferably heated to a desired temperature prior to insertion of cannula 16 . However, in other embodiments, heating member 50 may be heated after insertion of cannula 16 . A small force can be applied to cannula 16 as it is heated to move cannula 16 as the distal fiber 20 axially shrinks, in a direction so as to keep optical element 26 in contact with the distal end of distal fiber 20 . However, the force can be limited to prevent or reduce concavity at the distal end of distal fiber 20 as optical element 26 pushes against distal fiber 20 .
[0033] In another embodiment, an endo-illuminator can be preconditioned using a vertical arrangement. The force of gravity on cannula 16 is a sufficient force with which to move cannula 16 . FIG. 5 is a diagrammatic representation of a heating fixture with a vertical arrangement. According to one embodiment, an alignment tube 55 can be prealligned with heating member 50 . Alignment tube 55 includes an opening through which cannula 16 can at least partially pass such that the distal end of cannula 16 is aligned with the opening 51 of heating member 50 . There can be enough clearance between alignment tube 55 and cannula 16 to allow cannula 16 to move down as the distal end of distal fiber 20 softens. Heating member 50 can be coupled to a computer controlled translation stage 52 that allows heating member 50 to translate along at least one axis for positioning. A computer 54 can control movement of stage 52 .
[0034] In operation, heating member 50 is heated to a desired temperature and translated downward (or cannula 16 translated upwards) such that the distal end of cannula 16 is inserted in heating member 50 to a desired insertion depth. Heating member 50 can heat cannula 16 for a desired time. As the distal portion of distal fiber 20 shrinks axially, gravity will cause optical element 26 to remain in contact with the distal end of distal fiber 20 , but not cause so much force as to result in unacceptable amounts of concavity in the distal end of distal fiber 20 .
[0035] The preconditioning parameters for a given heating element 50 and illuminator include the temperature of the element, insertion depth of the cannula 16 , the dwell time (amount of time cannula 16 is inserted in heating element 50 ) and amount of force applied to maintain contact between the optical element 26 and distal fiber 20 . Whether a particular set of preconditioning parameters are acceptable can be based on whether the endo-illuminator can experience a greater flux without catastrophic failure after preconditioning and whether any decrease in optical performance due to preconditioning is acceptable. By way of example, but not limitation, the following recipes have been found to create acceptable endo-illuminators:
[0036] For a 23 gauge wide angle illuminator probe using a heating element 50 with an opening having an inner diameter of 0.100″ to 0.200″:
376 degree set point 0.1″ insertion depth 18-40 seconds dwell time Insertion occurs with heating element at 400 deg F. actual temperature with temperature on the rise.
[0041] For a 25 gauge wide angle illuminator probe using a heating element 50 with an opening with an inner diameter of 0.100″ to 0.200″:
376 degree set point 0.1″ insertion depth 6-12 seconds dwell time Insertion occurs with heating element is at 400 deg F. actual temperature with temperature on the rise.
[0046] In the embodiments discussed above, the distal portion of cannula 16 and optical element assembly 32 is heated using an external heating element 50 . This, in turn, causes the distal portion of distal fiber 20 to heat and soften. According to another embodiment, however, preconditioning can be performed using high intensity light. According to this embodiment, the endo-illuminator without the handpiece and without distal fiber 20 adhered to cannula 16 can be subjected to high intensity light, such as xenon or other light. This can cause heating and softening of the distal portion of distal fiber 20 . If a small force, such as the force of gravity, is applied to the cannula 16 in the direction of axial shrinkage of the fiber, cannula 16 will move with the axially shrinking distal portion. Consequently, the optical element 26 will remain in contact with the distal end of the distal optical fiber 20 . This can allow the residual stress in the distal portion of the distal optical fiber 20 to be released while maintaining zero gap between the optical element 26 and the distal end of distal fiber 20 .
[0047] Preconditioning of distal fiber 20 causes the fiber to adhere to the cannula due to lateral swelling of the fiber to fill the inner diameter of the cannula and the sticking of tacky cladding material to the cannula. This can eliminate the need to adhere the proximal portion of cannula 16 to distal fiber 20 . In other embodiments, the proximal portion of cannula 16 can be adhered to distal fiber 20 using a suitable adhesive such as Loctite 4014 by the Henkel Loctite Corporation of Rocky Hill, Conn.
[0048] Preconditioning of distal fiber 20 relieves the axial stress stored in the fiber and reduces the susceptibility of the fiber to thermal deformation from subsequent exposure to high intensity light. Data shows that the flux can be increased greatly when compared to FIG. 3 without catastrophic failure if the distal portion of distal fiber 20 has been preconditioned as described above. FIG. 6 , for example, illustrates data from a 23 gauge wide angle illuminator that was preconditioned using xenon light. Preconditioning using a heating member provides similar results. The decreased susceptibility of the fiber to thermal deformation is accomplished with little decrease in optical performance. FIG. 7 illustrates relative luminous intensity versus viewing angle in air of a 23 gauge wide angle illuminator without preconditioning (line 60 ) and with preconditioning (line 65 ) using a heating element. FIG. 8 shows a similarly modest decrease in optical performance when preconditioning is done using xenon light (line 70 ) versus the 23 gauge wide angle illuminator without preconditioning.
[0049] In the above examples, preconditioning occurs after distal optical fiber 20 is coupled to proximal optical fiber 13 . In other embodiments, preconditioning of distal optical fiber 20 can occur first. Additionally, similar preconditioning can be performed on devices that utilize only one optical fiber or one gauge of optical fiber. Furthermore, while distal optical fiber 20 is discussed in terms a single fiber, distal optical fiber 20 can be a collection of smaller optical fibers.
[0050] As used herein, the terms “comprises,” “comprising,” “includes,” “including “has,” “having” or any other variation thereof, are intended to cover a non-exclusive inclusion. For example, a process, process, article, or apparatus that comprises a list of elements is not necessarily limited only those elements but may include other elements not expressly listed or inherent to such process, process, article, or apparatus. Further, unless expressly stated to the contrary, “or” refers to an inclusive or and not to an exclusive or. For example, a condition A or B is satisfied by any one of the following: A is true (or present) and B is false (or not present), A is false (or not present) and B is true (or present), and both A and B are true (or present).
[0051] Additionally, any examples or illustrations given herein are not to be regarded in any way as restrictions on, limits to, or express definitions of, any term or terms with which they are utilized. Instead these examples or illustrations are to be regarded as being described with respect to one particular embodiment and as illustrative only. Those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that any term or terms with which these examples or illustrations are utilized will encompass other embodiments which may or may not be given therewith or elsewhere in the specification and all such embodiments are intended to be included within the scope of that term or terms. Language designating such non-limiting examples and illustrations includes, but is not limited to: “for example”, “for instance”, “e.g.”, “in one embodiment”. | Embodiments of endo-illuminators and related methods are disclosed. One embodiment of an illuminator can comprise a cannula defining a passage, an optical element disposed at an end of the cannula, and an optical fiber running through the passage with the distal end of the optical fiber in contact with the optical element. The optical fiber includes at least a heat preconditioned distal portion that terminates in the distal end that is in contact with the optical element. One embodiment of a method can comprise inserting an optical fiber through a proximal portion of a cannula and optical element assembly until the distal end of the optical fiber contacts the optical element, heating a distal portion of the optical fiber to between a softening temperature and a melting temperature for a period of time to cause the distal portion to axially shrink and moving the optical element so that the optical element is in contact with the distal end of the optical fiber when the distal portion of the optical fiber has axially shrunk. Moving the optical element so that the optical element is in contact with the distal end of the optical fiber when the distal portion of the optical fiber has axially shrunk can comprise applying a force to the cannula and optical element assembly to maintain the optical element in continuous contact with the distal end of the optical fiber while the optical fiber axially shrinks. | 0 |
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
[0001] The present continuation-in-part patent application claims priority benefit under 35 U.S.C. 120 of the U.S. nonprovisional patent Ser. No. 12/789,840, filed May 28, 2010 and titled “Qwik Fold Golf Push/Pull Cart” which in turn claims priority to Chinese patent application number 200920236562.0 filed Sep. 29, 2009, which is hereby incorporated by reference for all purposes to the extent that such subject matter is not inconsistent herewith or limiting hereof.
FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT
[0002] Not applicable.
REFERENCE TO SEQUENCE LISTING, A TABLE, OR A COMPUTER LISTING APPENDIX
[0003] Not applicable.
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
[0004] A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material that is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or patent disclosure as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office, patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
[0005] One or more embodiments of the invention generally relate to golf equipment. More particularly, the invention relates to a folding cart for transporting a golf bag.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0006] Many golfers use a wheeled cart to carry their golf clubs around the golf course. The primary requirement for these carts is that they have a large enough framework to facilitate different sizes of golf bags. Usually on a golf bag cart, upper and lower brackets on the cart support the top and bottom of the golf bag. There must be enough space between the brackets in order to hold the golf bag. However, this makes storage and transport of the cart difficult. Existing carts typically comprise a chassis, a main bar, and a push handle, which are all welded together and cannot be adjusted or moved. This makes it hard for manufacturers to reduce the size of the golf cart during transportation and storage, and as a result, manufacturers must use more containers, more space, or more box storage in order to store the carts and increased transportation and storage cost. Furthermore, for users, when not in use, these carts take up a great deal of space, resulting in inconvenience of storage and difficulty in transport.
[0007] In view of the foregoing, there is a need for improved techniques for providing a cart for golf bags that can be folded for easier storage and transport.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0008] The present invention is illustrated by way of example, and not by way of limitation, in the figures of the accompanying drawings and in which like reference numerals refer to similar elements and in which:
[0009] FIGS. 1A , 1 B and 1 C illustrate an exemplary wheeled cart for transporting golf bags, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 1A is a diagrammatic side view of the cart in an open position. FIG. 1B is a side perspective view of the cart in a folded position, and FIG. 1C is a side perspective view of the cart in a partially folded position;
[0010] FIG. 2 is a cross sectional view of an exemplary locking device from a golf bag cart, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention; and
[0011] FIG. 3 illustrates an exemplary four wheeled version of the cart illustrated in FIG. 1C , in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.
[0012] Unless otherwise indicated illustrations in the figures are not necessarily drawn to scale.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0013] To achieve the forgoing and other objects and in accordance with the purpose of the invention, a variety of folding golf cart techniques is described.
[0014] In one embodiment an apparatus comprises a chassis comprising a front portion and a rear portion. A main member comprises a top end and a bottom end. The bottom end of the main member being rotatably joined to the chassis between the front portion and the rear portion for rotation of the main member in a generally vertical plane. A folding member comprises a top end and a bottom end. The bottom end of the folding member being rotatably joined to the rear portion of the chassis for rotation of the folding member in a generally vertical plane. A handle comprises a bottom end. The bottom end being rotatably joined to the top end of the folding member. A connector member comprises a first end and a second end. The first end being fixedly joined to the bottom end of the handle. The second end being rotatably joined to the main member. A locking device comprises a first portion and a second portion. The first portion being fixedly joined to the first end of the connector member. The second portion being fixedly joined to the top end of the main member where a rotation of the handle in a first direction mates the first portion to the second portion to secure the locking device, and a rotation of the handle in a second direction folds the main member, the folding member, and the handle down to the chassis. In another embodiment the first portion of the locking device comprises a hook member. In yet another embodiment the second portion of the locking device comprises a button mechanism for engaging the hook member. In still another embodiment the second portion of the locking device further comprises a housing comprising a first opening being configured for accepting the hook member into the housing and a second opening. The button mechanism further comprises a top portion and a hook engaging member. The button mechanism being slidably mounted within the housing and being configured to protrude the top portion through the second opening and to position the hook engaging member to engage the hook member. A spring mechanism is operable for urging the top portion through the second opening and for engaging an inserted hook member with the hook engaging member where a force applied to the top portion, in opposition to the urging, slides the button mechanism for disengaging an inserted hook member. Another embodiment further comprises a front wheel assembly joined to the front portion of the chassis. In yet another embodiment the front wheel assembly comprises at least one wheel. Still another embodiment further comprises a rear wheel assembly. In another embodiment the rear wheel assembly is slidably joined to the main member and pivotally joined to the chassis. In yet another embodiment the rear wheel assembly further comprises a brake. Still another embodiment further comprises an upper bracket joined to an upper portion of the main member, the upper bracket being configured to secure a top portion of a golf bag. Another embodiment further comprises a lower bracket joined to the front portion of the chassis, the lower bracket being configured to secure a bottom portion of a golf bag. In yet another embodiment the chassis comprises an open frame construction. In still another embodiment the handle further comprises a sheath for increased friction and comfort during use.
[0015] In another embodiment an apparatus comprises a chassis comprising a front portion and a rear portion, a main structural support means being rotatably joined to the chassis between the front portion and the rear portion for rotation in a generally vertical plane, a folding means being rotatably joined to the rear portion of the chassis for rotation in a generally vertical plane, a handle being rotatably joined to the folding means, means for fixedly joining to the handle and rotatably joining to the main structural support means, a front wheel assembly joined to the front portion of the chassis, a rear wheel assembly, and means for locking the handle to the main structural support means where a rotation of the handle in a first direction secures the locking means, and a rotation of the handle in a second direction folds the main structural support means, the folding means, and the handle down to the chassis.
[0016] In another embodiment an apparatus comprises a chassis comprising a front portion and a rear portion. A main member comprises a top end and a bottom end. The bottom end of the main member being rotatably joined to the chassis between the front portion and the rear portion for rotation of the main member in a generally vertical plane. A folding member comprises a top end and a bottom end. The bottom end of the folding member being rotatably joined to the rear portion of the chassis for rotation of the folding member in a generally vertical plane. A handle comprises a bottom end. The bottom end being rotatably joined to the top end of the folding member. A connector member comprises a first end and a second end. The first end being fixedly joined to the bottom end of the handle. The second end being rotatably joined to the main member. A front wheel assembly is joined to the front portion of the chassis. A rear wheel assembly is joined. A locking device comprises a first portion and a second portion. The first portion comprises a hook member. The first portion being fixedly joined to the first end of the connector member. The second portion comprises a button mechanism for engaging the hook member. The second portion being fixedly joined to the top end of the main member where a rotation of the handle in a first direction mates the first portion to the second portion to secure the locking device, and a rotation of the handle in a second direction folds the main member, the folding member, and the handle down to the chassis. In another embodiment the rear wheel assembly is slidably joined to the main member and pivotally joined to the chassis. In yet another embodiment the rear wheel assembly further comprises a brake. Still another embodiment further comprises an upper bracket joined to an upper portion of the main member. The upper bracket being configured to secure a top portion of a golf bag. Another embodiment further comprises a lower bracket joined to the front portion of the chassis. The lower bracket being configured to secure a bottom portion of a golf bag. In yet another embodiment the chassis comprises an open frame construction.
[0017] Other features, advantages, and objects of the present invention will become more apparent and be more readily understood from the following detailed description, which should be read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
[0018] The present invention is best understood by reference to the detailed figures and description set forth herein.
[0019] Embodiments of the invention are discussed below with reference to the Figures. However, those skilled in the art will readily appreciate that the detailed description given herein with respect to these figures is for explanatory purposes as the invention extends beyond these limited embodiments. For example, it should be appreciated that those skilled in the art will, in light of the teachings of the present invention, recognize a multiplicity of alternate and suitable approaches, depending upon the needs of the particular application, to implement the functionality of any given detail described herein, beyond the particular implementation choices in the following embodiments described and shown. That is, there are numerous modifications and variations of the invention that are too numerous to be listed but that all fit within the scope of the invention. Also, singular words should be read as plural and vice versa and masculine as feminine and vice versa, where appropriate, and alternative embodiments do not necessarily imply that the two are mutually exclusive.
[0020] It is to be further understood that the present invention is not limited to the particular methodology, compounds, materials, manufacturing techniques, uses, and applications, described herein, as these may vary. It is also to be understood that the terminology used herein is used for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only, and is not intended to limit the scope of the present invention. It must be noted that as used herein and in the appended claims, the singular forms “a,” “an,” and “the” include the plural reference unless the context clearly dictates otherwise. Thus, for example, a reference to “an element” is a reference to one or more elements and includes equivalents thereof known to those skilled in the art. Similarly, for another example, a reference to “a step” or “a means” is a reference to one or more steps or means and may include sub-steps and subservient means. All conjunctions used are to be understood in the most inclusive sense possible. Thus, the word “or” should be understood as having the definition of a logical “or” rather than that of a logical “exclusive or” unless the context clearly necessitates otherwise. Structures described herein are to be understood also to refer to functional equivalents of such structures. Language that may be construed to express approximation should be so understood unless the context clearly dictates otherwise.
[0021] Unless defined otherwise, all technical and scientific terms used herein have the same meanings as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to which this invention belongs. Preferred methods, techniques, devices, and materials are described, although any methods, techniques, devices, or materials similar or equivalent to those described herein may be used in the practice or testing of the present invention. Structures described herein are to be understood also to refer to functional equivalents of such structures. The present invention will now be described in detail with reference to embodiments thereof as illustrated in the accompanying drawings.
[0022] From reading the present disclosure, other variations and modifications will be apparent to persons skilled in the art. Such variations and modifications may involve equivalent and other features which are already known in the art, and which may be used instead of or in addition to features already described herein.
[0023] Although Claims have been formulated in this Application to particular combinations of features, it should be understood that the scope of the disclosure of the present invention also includes any novel feature or any novel combination of features disclosed herein either explicitly or implicitly or any generalization thereof, whether or not it relates to the same invention as presently claimed in any Claim and whether or not it mitigates any or all of the same technical problems as does the present invention.
[0024] Features which are described in the context of separate embodiments may also be provided in combination in a single embodiment. Conversely, various features which are, for brevity, described in the context of a single embodiment, may also be provided separately or in any suitable subcombination. The Applicants hereby give notice that new Claims may be formulated to such features and/or combinations of such features during the prosecution of the present Application or of any further Application derived therefrom.
[0025] References to “one embodiment,” “an embodiment,” “example embodiment,” “various embodiments,” etc., may indicate that the embodiment(s) of the invention so described may include a particular feature, structure, or characteristic, but not every embodiment necessarily includes the particular feature, structure, or characteristic. Further, repeated use of the phrase “in one embodiment,” or “in an exemplary embodiment,” do not necessarily refer to the same embodiment, although they may.
[0026] As is well known to those skilled in the art many careful considerations and compromises typically must be made when designing for the optimal manufacture of a commercial implementation any system, and in particular, the embodiments of the present invention. A commercial implementation in accordance with the spirit and teachings of the present invention may configured according to the needs of the particular application, whereby any aspect(s), feature(s), function(s), result(s), component(s), approach(es), or step(s) of the teachings related to any described embodiment of the present invention may be suitably omitted, included, adapted, mixed and matched, or improved and/or optimized by those skilled in the art, using their average skills and known techniques, to achieve the desired implementation that addresses the needs of the particular application.
[0027] It is to be understood that any exact measurements/dimensions or particular construction materials indicated herein are solely provided as examples of suitable configurations and are not intended to be limiting in any way. Depending on the needs of the particular application, those skilled in the art will readily recognize, in light of the following teachings, a multiplicity of suitable alternative implementation details.
[0028] A preferred embodiment of the present invention and at least one variation thereof provide a folding cart for carrying a golf bag that is easy to fold, transport and operate and saves storage space. Many preferred embodiments comprise a chassis, a main bar, a push handle, a folding bar, and a connector bar. In these preferred embodiments, the main bar, connector bar, folding bar, and chassis together form a telescopic four-bar linkage, the action of which moves other components involved in the action accordingly to fold or unfold the cart.
[0029] FIGS. 1A , 1 B and 1 C illustrate an exemplary wheeled cart for transporting golf bags, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 1A is a diagrammatic side view of the cart in an open position. FIG. 1B is a side perspective view of the cart in a folded position, and FIG. 1C is a side perspective view of the cart in a partially folded position. In the present embodiment, the folding golf bag cart comprises a chassis 1 , a main bar 2 , a push handle 3 , and a folding bar 4 . The bottom of main bar 2 connects to chassis 1 with a rotating joint 8 . The bottom of push handle 3 attaches to a connector bar 5 with a fixed connection such as, but not limited to, a welded connection or a bolted connection; however, in alternate embodiments this connection may be hinged to allow for more folding configurations. In the present embodiment, one end of connector bar 5 connects near the top of main bar 2 with a hinge 9 , and the other end of connector bar 5 connects to folding bar 4 with a hinge 10 . The end of folding bar 4 opposite of hinge 10 connects to chassis 1 with a rotating joint 11 . Main bar 2 , connector bar 5 , folding bar 4 , and chassis 1 form a telescopic four-bar linkage, and the movement of main bar 2 , connector bar 5 , folding bar 4 , and chassis 1 together can trigger the movement of the entire golf cart. The four-bar linkage is a parallel linkage, with a stable structure and smooth movements. Towards the top of main bar 2 exists a locking device 7 to lock main bar 2 to connector bar 5 . Locking device 7 is locked into place by a hook 51 on a connector 70 at the end of connector bar 5 . Hook 51 is inserted into an opening 76 in locking device 7 . A button 72 releases locking device 7 from connector 70 , as illustrated by way of example in FIG. 2 . Referring to FIG. 1A , when connector bar 5 is locked by locking device 7 , the cart is fixed in the open position. Referring to FIG. 1B , when connector bar 5 is unlocked, the movement of connector bar 5 triggers the movement of main bar 2 , push bar 3 and folding bar 4 accordingly to collapse the cart into the folded position.
[0030] In the present embodiment chassis 1 is a rigid structure comprising a lower bracket 12 and a front wheel 13 . Those skilled in the art, in light of the teachings of the present invention, will readily recognize that the shape of the chassis in alternate embodiments may vary widely depending on various factors such as, but not limited to, the size of the golf bag being carried, the size of the cart, aesthetics, etc. For example, without limitation, some alternate embodiments may comprise a round chassis to accommodate the rounded bottom of many golf bags. Other alternate embodiments may comprise a solid chassis rather than a chassis with an open frame. In the present embodiment, two rear wheels 14 are attached to main bar 2 through wheel supports 15 connected to a sliding hinge 16 . Sliding hinge 16 enables wheel supports 15 to move in relation to the four-bar linkage while the cart is being folded or unfolded. In alternate embodiments the rear wheels may be attached directly to the chassis. In other alternate embodiments the cart may comprise more wheels. For example, without limitation, one such embodiment comprises four wheels as shown in FIG. 3 . It is contemplated that alternate embodiments may use various different types of wheels such as, but not limited to, narrow bicycle-type wheels, rugged all-terrain wheels, hard plastic or metal wheels, etc. Referring to FIG. 1C , in the present embodiment, a brake 17 on one of rear wheels 14 enables rear wheel 14 to be locked to generally prevent the cart from rolling; however, this brake may be replaced by various different types of stopping means in some alternate embodiments such as, but not limited to, kick stands; other alternate embodiments may be implemented with no stopping means.
[0031] In the present embodiment an upper bracket 18 on main bar 2 holds the top portion of a golf bag. Those skilled in the art, in light of the teachings of the present embodiment, will readily recognize that a multiplicity of suitable brackets varying in size, shape and type may be used in alternate embodiments for the upper and lower brackets in order to accommodate a variety of golf bags. Furthermore, some alternate embodiments may use attachment means other than brackets such as, but not limited to, straps, clips, cages, bolts, etc. In the present embodiment push handle 3 is triangular in shape and has a protective sheath 6 made of a pliable material such as, but not limited to, rubber to increase the friction between fingers and to make push handle 3 more comfortable to use. Alternate embodiments may be implemented without this protective sheath. Furthermore, it is contemplated that a multiplicity of suitable types of push handles may be used in alternate embodiments. For example, without limitation, a push handle comprising a single L-shaped bar may be used in one alternate embodiment. Another alternate embodiment may comprise two single-bar push handles in a V formation. Other exemplary shapes for push handles that are suitable for alternate embodiments include without limitation, T shapes, U shapes, rectangular shapes, etc.
[0032] FIG. 2 is a cross sectional view of an exemplary locking device 7 from a golf bag cart, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. In the present embodiment, the top of a main bar 2 connects to a connector 70 for locking device 7 . Locking device 7 comprises a housing 71 , a button 72 , a reset spring 73 , and a card column 74 . Housing 71 is configured with an internal cavity 75 to accommodate button 72 so that the top of button 72 pierces out of housing 71 . The top of reset spring 73 sits between a stopper 77 in internal cavity 75 and button 72 . Card column 74 is fixed to button 72 . Housing 71 comprises an opening 76 near card column 74 . Connector 70 is equipped with a hook 51 , which corresponds to opening 76 in housing 71 when the cart is in the open position and can be inserted into internal cavity 75 to hook onto card column 74 . Latching hook 51 onto card column 74 locks the four-bar linkage to hold the cart in the open position. When the cart needs to be folded, button 72 is pressed to release hook 51 from card column 74 and release connector 70 from locking device 7 . Reset spring 73 returns button 72 to its original position once button 72 is released.
[0033] FIG. 3 illustrates an exemplary four wheeled version of the cart illustrated in FIG. 1C , in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. Those skilled in the art will readily recognize a multiplicity of suitable multi-wheeled designs in accordance with the teachings of the present invention. By way of example, without limitation, a four wheeled design is contemplated as exemplified in FIG. 3 .
[0034] Referring to FIGS. 1A , 1 B and 1 C, in typical use of the present embodiment, to fold the cart, a user pushes button 72 to unlock connector 70 from locking device 7 . Then, the user pushes push handle 3 downward. With this motion, connection bar 5 rotates from a parallel position with respect to main bar 2 and folding bar 4 to a position that is perpendicular to these bars. This drives the tops of main bar 2 and folding bar 4 forward while rotating about rotating joints 8 and 11 and makes the cart form a Z shape, as shown by way of example in FIG. 1C . As main bar 2 moves forward, sliding hinge 16 slides up main bar 2 , which reduces the angle between main bar 2 and wheel supports 15 and pulls rear wheels 14 in toward chassis 1 . Referring to FIG. 1B , as the user continues to push downward and forward on push bar 3 , connection bar 5 continues to rotate until it is almost parallel with folding bar 4 and the cart is fully collapsed. In this closed position, the frame is in a compressed Z shape with push handle 3 between rear wheels 14 , which are close to chassis 1 , and main bar 2 over front wheel 13 . Collapsing the cart substantially reduces the size of the cart and saves space so the cart is more convenient to store and transport.
[0035] To open the cart, the user reverses this action by pulling up on push handle 3 . This rotates connection bar 5 back into the perpendicular position with main bar 2 and folding bar 4 and then the parallel position while rotating main bar 2 and folding bar 4 about rotating joints 8 and 11 up into an upright position. Sliding hinge 16 slides back down main bar 2 to extend wheel supports 15 and rear wheels 14 back and away from chassis 1 . Referring to FIG. 1A , once the cart is upright, the user snaps connector 70 into place in locking device 7 to lock the cart in the open position. The user may now attach the top of a golf bag to upper bracket 18 and the bottom of the golf bag to lower bracket 12 and transport the golf bag easily. In the present embodiment, the cart has a simple structure that is easy to fold or unfold with one action. The cart is also easy and convenient to use.
[0036] Those skilled in the art, in light of the teachings of the present invention, will readily recognize that alternate embodiments of the present invention may be implemented with various different elements, configurations and features. For example, without limitation, some alternate embodiments may include a lock or locks to hold the cart in the folded position. Some alternate embodiments may also include handles for carrying the cart when in the folded position. Another alternate embodiment may be configured with two front wheels and a single rear wheel. Yet other alternate embodiments may include some components that are removable, for example, without limitation, the push handle or the wheels. Yet other alternate embodiments may be implemented with a variety of accessories such as, but not limited to, drink holders, writing platforms, small storage bins, lights, speakers, radios, music player docks, etc.
[0037] Having fully described at least one embodiment of the present invention, other equivalent or alternative methods of providing a folding cart according to the present invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art. The invention has been described above by way of illustration, and the specific embodiments disclosed are not intended to limit the invention to the particular forms disclosed. For example, the particular implementation of the cart may vary depending upon the particular type of application for which it is to be used. The carts described in the foregoing were directed to golfing implementations; however, similar techniques are to provide folding carts for transporting various different items such as, but not limited to, other types of sports equipment, gardening tools, camping gear, etc. Non-golfing implementations of the present invention are contemplated as within the scope of the present invention. The invention is thus to cover all modifications, equivalents, and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the following claims. | An apparatus comprises a chassis comprising a front portion and a rear portion. A main member is joined to the chassis between the front portion and the rear portion for rotation in a generally vertical plane. A folding member is joined to the rear portion of the chassis for rotation in a generally vertical plane. A handle is joined to a top end of the folding member. A connector member is joined to the bottom end of the handle and joined to the main member. A locking device comprises a first portion and a second portion. The first portion is joined to the connector member. The second portion is joined to the main member where a rotation of the handle in a first direction mates the first portion to the second portion, and a rotation of the handle in a second direction folds the apparatus down to the chassis. | 1 |
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention is related to the production of ultra-clean surfaces and more particularly for a method of cleaning flexible webs.
BACKGROUND
It is known that in modern industry there are some production processes, e.g. the manufacture of silicon wafers for microprocessors, where the tiniest speck of debris may be damaging. Certain techniques are known for the removal of even ultra-fine particles from such hard surfaces. However, more recently with increased industry movement to lighter, thinner devices both optical and electronic, the requirement for ultra-clean materials has spread to high-volume roll-to-roll production using webs of materials. While webs of hard materials, e.g. stainless steel, have been seen in this expanding market, more often polymeric materials are desired for their flexibility and optical transparency. In the same way that tiny debris can be damaging to silicon wafers, tiny debris can be a significant problem in the roll-to-roll processing of webs with the additional complications of their being many times the area needing to be cleaned, and usually, the presence of much softer surfaces. Still, webs of hard and opaque materials can benefit from cleaning of small particles from the surface.
SUMMARY
The present invention provides a method of cleaning a web of material, particularly relatively soft polymeric webs, without using dipping baths or ultrasonic energy. In one aspect, the method includes: supporting the web with a backup roller; spraying a first surface of the web with a high pressure liquid while a second opposing surface of the web is in contact with the backup roller; and directing a gas curtain at the first surface, after spraying, while the opposing second surface is supported by the backup roller. A number of fluids are considered suitable for the spraying, but ultra pure water, de-ionized water, water containing a surface-active agent, organic solvents, and high specific gravity fluids, are considered particularly convenient depending on the type of web to be cleaned. It is particularly convenient to pre-filter the fluid being used in connection with the present invention.
In another embodiment, the web of material is contacted with a cleaning roll while the web is in contact with the backup roller. A cleaning roll having a porous, knobby surface has been found useful, and is conveniently made from polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) or its variants. The knobby roll can have cylindrical mesas or other patterned mesas. It is typical for the cleaning roll to be fed internally with fluid transferred radially out through the pores as it rubs against the web in a direction opposite to the web's direction of movement. The knobby roller is compressed typically from 0.5 to about 2.5 mm measured radially as it is nipped against the web and backup roller. The method may optionally include wetting the web material prior to contacting it with the cleaning roll. This method may optionally include utilizing wetting agents or surfactants in the flow of the fluid through the knobby roller or as a dripped concentrate over the rotating surface of the roller.
In another embodiment, it is useful to perform parts or all of the method while retaining the web of material in a clean room having a particle-controlled atmosphere while cleaning the web. The web of material can be located in a clean room meeting the limits of Federal Standard 209 “Airborne Particulate Cleanliness Classes in Cleanrooms and Clean Zones.” In particular, the clean room can meet the conditions for Class 10,000, or Class 1,000, or Class 100, or Class 10 under Federal Standard 209.
In another aspect, the apparatus for cleaning a web of material includes: a backup roller positioned to wrap the web at least partially about the backup roll; a source of high pressure liquid connected to at least one nozzle for spraying the web while the web is supported by the backup roll; and a source of gas connected to an exit gas curtain located after the at least one nozzle, the gas curtain orientated crosswise to the direction of the web's travel and positioned for removing liquid from the web while the web is supported by the backup roll.
DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
It is to be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art that the present discussion is a description of exemplary embodiments only, and is not intended as limiting the broader aspects of the present invention, which broader aspects are embodied in the exemplary construction.
FIG. 1 illustrates a side view of a web cleaning apparatus according to the present invention.
FIG. 2 illustrates a side view of another embodiment of a web cleaning apparatus according to the present invention.
FIG. 3 illustrates a side view of another embodiment of a web cleaning apparatus according to the present invention.
FIG. 4 illustrates a side view of a web cleaning line.
Repeated use of reference characters in the specification and drawings (not drawn to scale) is intended to represent the same or analogous features or elements of the invention.
DEFINITIONS
As used herein, forms of the words “comprise”, “have”, and “include” are legally equivalent and open-ended. Therefore, additional non-recited elements, functions, steps or limitations may be present in addition to the recited elements, functions, steps, or limitations.
As used herein, “high pressure” is defined as about 500 psi (3.45 MPascal) to about 3000 psi (20.68 MPascal) with about 1000 psi (6.89 MPascal) to about 2500 psi (17.24 MPascal) being considered particularly convenient.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
Referring now to FIG. 1 , a first embodiment of a web cleaning apparatus 10 according to the present invention is illustrated acting on a web 12 moving in direction D 1 . The flexible web 12 typically has a length significantly greater than its width. The flexible web's length can be indefinite for a polymeric web that is continuously formed and then cleaned, or it can be a predetermined length for previously formed flexible webs that are wound into a roll and then unwound for web cleaning. In various embodiments of the invention, the length of flexible web 12 can be greater than 10 feet (3.0 meters), or greater than 100 feet (30.4 meters), or greater than 1,000 feet (304.8 meters).
The flexible web 12 is supported by a backup roll 14 , which may be a driven or non-driven roll. The flexible web can be tangent to the backup roll (0 degrees wrap) or the flexible web can wrap a significant portion of the circumference of the backup roll for the necessary support. Suitable flexible web wraps can be between 0 degrees to about 270 degrees, or between 10 degrees to about 180 degrees. Particularly suitable wrap angles include 0 degrees, 90 degrees, or 225 degrees. Larger wrap angles can allow for multiple spray nozzles, multiple cleaning rolls, gas deflectors and other apparatus to be located about the periphery of the backup roll. While being supported by the backup roll, a first side 16 of the flexible web 12 is subjected to a high pressure liquid spray 18 to clean the first surface.
By stabilizing the flexible web on the backup roll 14 , several advantages occur when contacting the flexible web with the high pressure liquid spray. First, a precise high pressure spray can be employed since the flexible web is prevented from moving or displacing in response to the high pressure spray. The angle of the high pressure spray relative to the flexible web's surface can be precisely set and maintained. The distance between a spray nozzle 42 and the flexible web's surface can be precisely set and maintained. These process variables can be adjusted based on the spray pressure and the type of flexible web being cleaned. Secondly, less damage to the flexible web 12 can result. If an unsupported flexible web 12 was subjected to a high pressure spray 18 , the liquid impact can reposition, move or displace the web and is likely to cause web flutter. The web flutter can lead to web wrinkling and/or damage of the web's surface and inconsistent cleaning of the web's surface. For wide flexible webs, any cross-direction (CD) non-uniformity of the high pressure spray can cause twisting or fluttering of an unsupported span leading to non-uniform cleaning and severe web handling problems. Finally, an unsupported flexible web can require a greater machine direction (MD) tension to resist the spray's impact. A higher MD tension can permanently distort the flexible web, which is undesirable for some applications.
In general, the backup roll 14 can have a smooth, uniform surface to prevent damaging a second side 20 of the flexible web in contact with the backup roll. Additionally, it can have conductive properties to assist in controlling static charge generated by the flexible web leaving the roll. Suitable backup rolls can include metal rolls such as aluminum or steel, deformable rolls, rubber rolls, compressive cover rolls, graphite or non-conductive rolls, rolls having durable hard coatings, anodized rolls, rolls with conductive coatings, or other suitable web processing rolls.
The choice of backup roll material can be influenced by the selection of the high pressure fluid used in order to prevent corrosion issues. The backup roll should not be susceptible to shedding particles or coatings onto the second side 20 . The backup roll diameter can be determined based on deflection considerations and space considerations when designing the web cleaning apparatus
Additional equipment included in the web cleaning apparatus 10 include, a spray chamber 22 , an optional entry gas curtain 24 , an exit gas curtain 26 , an optional cleaning roller 28 , an optional drip bar 30 , and optional static neutralizers 31 . The spray chamber 22 is mostly enclosed and may closely conform to at least a portion of the backup roll's circumference. Suitable materials for constructing the spray chamber 22 include plastic and metal materials known to those of skill in the art. At the entrance and exit of the spray chamber 22 , the gaps between the spray chamber and the backup roll 14 are minimized to allow the flexible web 12 sufficient clearances to enter and exit the spray chamber without hitting the spray chamber. Alternatively, retractable flaps or doors, air knifes, and/or rollers can be provided that open for threading or splices and then close during normal operation. The spray chamber's CD width can closely conform to maximum CD width of the flexible web and the spray chamber's CD ends can closely conform to the backup roll's diameter. If desired, end seals can be used to seal the spray chamber's CD ends to the surface of the backup roll.
The spray chamber 22 includes a drain 32 and a bottom 34 of the spray chamber can be sloped to move liquid towards the drain. In some embodiments, the liquid is filtered and cleaned for additional use. The spray chamber 22 also includes at least one exhaust duct 35 . The exhaust duct 35 can be fitted with a demisting mesh 36 to reduce mist intake into the exhaust duct. Alternatively or in combination, a mist separator or aerosol filter can be used to remove the liquid from the exhaust gas. In one embodiment, the exhaust duct 35 sloped upwardly away from the spray chamber to drain liquid into the spray chamber. In another embodiment, the exhaust duct 35 is operated to induce a negative gas pressure in the spray chamber 22 or to reduce the gas pressure inside the spray chamber resulting from the high pressure spray and gas curtains. A low or negative spray chamber air pressure minimizes or eliminates mist from exiting the spray chamber and can be set to minimize the draw of ambient air into the spray chamber 22 at any open draft areas between the spray chamber, the backup roll 14 , and the web 12 . Suitable air pressures inside the spray chamber can be between about between about −0.001 inches of water gage to about −0.50 inches of water gage, or between about −0.001 inches of water to about −0.1 inches of water gage. In some embodiments, −0.032 inches of water gage and −0.05 inches of water gage are used.
The optional entry gas curtain 24 and the exit gas curtain 26 can be used to further contain any mist within the spray chamber. The gas curtains may be located either inside or outside of the spray chamber. Suitable gas curtains can include air knifes, air bars, or air nozzles that can provide a substantially homogenous line of gas across the CD width of the flexible web or spray chamber. In one embodiment, air knifes such as the Standard Air Knife or the Super Air Knife manufactured by Exair Corporation located in Cincinnati, Ohio have been used successfully. In another embodiment, regenerative blowers and sheet metal nozzles can be used to provide the entry and exit gas curtains.
The CD uniformity of the entry gas curtain 24 is less critical since its main function is to prevent liquid and mist from exiting the spray chamber 22 . With sufficient exhaust air flow or for an apparatus located where misting is less of a concern, the entry gas curtain 24 can be eliminated.
The exit gas curtain 26 is used to strip away the majority of any liquid film adhering to the first surface 16 of the flexible web 12 and then assist in drying any remaining liquid film by evaporation. Desirably, the liquid film is uniformly removed to prevent streaking, water spotting, or leaving excess moisture that may attract or concentrate dirt particles. The backup roll 14 assists the exit gas curtain 26 by stabilizing the flexible web 12 allowing for the precise placement and orientation of the exit gas curtain. In one embodiment, an Exair model 2012SS air knife is located such that the highest pressure line of the air curtain is located approximately 0.010 inch (0.254 mm) to about 0.030 inch (0.635 mm) from the first surface 16 of the flexible web 12 while the web is supported by the backup roll 14 . The gas curtain impinges the first surface 16 at an angle between 0 degrees to about 90 degrees, or between 70 degrees to about 90 degrees relative to the web's surface. In one embodiment, an angle of approximately 80 degrees was used. In general, the entry and exit gas curtains are adjusted such that the majority of the gas supplied by the gas curtain traverses in a direction opposite to the direction of the web's travel.
A source of gas 37 that is fed to optional entry gas curtain 24 and the exit gas curtain 26 can be filtered by an oil coalescing filter 48 and dewatered using filtration equipment known to those of skill in the art. In some embodiments, the gas is compressed to a pressure between about 5 psi and about 100 psi to increase the flow from the gas curtains. Useful gases can include air, nitrogen, or other suitable gases. In particular, the supplied gas should be clean and substantially free of moisture or other liquid contaminants. In one embodiment, compressed air is filtered of all particles having a size greater than 0.01 micron absolute and then supplied to the air curtains. In one embodiment, the gas 37 supplied to the exit gas curtain 26 is heated to assist with evaporative drying of any remaining moisture on the web. The gas 37 being fed to the exit gas curtain 26 can have a temperature between about 60 degrees F. (15.5 degrees C.) and about 500 degrees F. (260 degrees C.). The temperature of the compressed gas can be determined based on the sensitivity of the flexible web material to heat and the dwell time during which the flexible web material is subjected to the gas curtain. Additional drying equipment such as infrared radiation, microwave, convection, or conduction drying can be used to evaporate any remaining moisture if needed. Additional drying equipment such as PVA sponge rollers can be used to first remove most of the moisture before air knives or other remedial measures are employed downstream.
To further assist with cleaning the first surface 16 , the first surface can be run though a nip between an optional cleaning roller 28 and the backup roll 14 . Suitable cleaning rollers 28 can include brush rolls and sponge covered rolls. The surface of the cleaning roller 28 can be bristle, ribbed, textured, dimpled, or knobby. Desirably, the cleaning roller 28 is made of a porous material such that a first cleaning fluid 38 can be supplied to the interior of the cleaning roller for application to the first surface 16 . The first cleaning fluid 38 can be the same liquid supplied to the high pressure spray 18 or different depending on the flexible web material being cleaned. Suitable cleaning fluids include de-ionized water, ultra pure water, or filtered water with surface acting agents. Typically, ammonium hydroxide in a ratio of approximately 0.10 to 2% concentration by weight is included in the fluid to assist in particle neutralization for ease of removal. Desirably, the cleaning roller 28 is readily deformable such that it can yield and conform to the first surface 16 as it rubs against that surface. In one embodiment, the surface of the cleaning roller 28 is compressed between about 0.5 mm (0.02 inch) to about 2.5 mm (0.1 inch) when in contact with the first surface.
To further enhance cleaning of the first surface 16 , the cleaning roller 28 can be run at a surface velocity differential to the surface velocity of the first surface. The velocity differential can be in the same direction at a different surface speed, in an opposing direction at the same surface speed, or in an opposing direction at a different surface speed as the first surface 16 . In one embodiment, the cleaning roller is rotated in an opposing direction to the rotation of the backup roller 14 and at a surface speed faster than the speed of the first surface 16 . Suitable surface speed differentials can be between about plus 1000% and minus 1000%.
In one embodiment, a knobby cleaning roller is used having a plurality of small protrusions or mesas on its outer surface that readily compress. The knobby protrusions not only assist with cleaning the first surface, but reduce drag of a counter rotating, compressed knobby cleaning roller. A particularly suitable cleaning roller 28 is a TEXWIPE model TX 5580 nodule cleaning brush, commercially available from ITW Texwipe of Mahwah, N.J. This cleaning roller has an apparent density of approximately 0.12 g/cm 3 , an effective porosity of 89%, an equivalent pore diameter of 528 um, and a 30% compressive strength of 71.5 g/cm 2 . Typical knobby rollers are available that are made from polyvinyl acetal (PVA) or polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) or polyvinyl-formal (PVF).
To further assist in cleaning the first surface, the drip bar 30 can apply a surfactant solution 40 to the periphery of the cleaning roller 28 or to the first surface 16 of the flexible web 12 . Suitable surfactant solutions include ammonium hydroxide (NH 4 OH) and other cationic, anionic, or non-ionic surfactants. In one embodiment, a 0.1% solution of ammonia hydroxide is supplied at a flow rate of approx 30 ml/min to a drip bar having a plurality of 0.03 inch (0.76 mm) diameter holes spaced at 1 inch (2.54 mm) along the length of the tube with the bar positioned to drip onto the surface of the cleaning roller 28 . Ammonium hydroxide can assist with cleaning the first surface 16 by equalizing the zeta potential between the dirt particles and the first surface. This reduces the attraction and allows them to be more easily removed via mechanical disturbance.
After the optional cleaning roller 28 , the first surface 16 is subjected to the high pressure spray 18 . The high pressure spray 18 is provided by one or more spray nozzles 42 attached to a CD spray manifold 44 that direct the high pressure spray 18 onto the first surface 16 . The web cleaning apparatus can include multiple CD spray manifolds located about the periphery of the backup roll thereby creating more than one high pressure spray zone as shown in FIGS. 2 and 3 . Suitable spray nozzles can include nozzles designed for fan spray patterns to concentrate spray forces into a line across the surface. One suitable nozzle is Spraying Systems Co., Wheaton, Ill., model number TPU150017. In general, the orifice of the spray nozzles can be between about 0.011 inch (0.279 mm) to about 0.015 inch (0.381 mm) equivalent diameter and the spray fan can be between about 5 degrees to about 20 degrees. The spray from the spray nozzles is directed to impinge the first surface 16 at an angle from about 45 degrees to about 90 degrees, such as from about 70 degrees to about 90 degrees relative to the web's surface.
When more than one spray nozzle is attached to the CD spray manifold 44 , each individual spray nozzle can be rotated relative to the CD direction such that the spray fan is between an angle of about 1 degree to about 10 degrees relative to the CD direction. Rotation of the spray nozzles can prevent the impingement of adjacent spray fans with each other and provides a more uniform spray across the entire first surface 16 . Spray nozzles are spaced along the spray manifold to ensure that the first surface is uniformly subjected to the high pressure spray without missing any areas and while allowing slight overlap between adjacent spray nozzles. Suitable deflectors or valves can be used to selective clean the web's surface or to run narrower web's though the web cleaning apparatus.
A source of high pressure liquid 46 is provided to the spray manifold 44 . Suitable liquids for the high pressure spray 18 include ultra pure water, de-ionized water, and water containing a surface-active agent, organic solvents, and high specific gravity fluids. High specific gravity fluids can include HFE (hydrogen fluorinated ethers) or similar high specific gravity low surface tension fluids. An absolute filter 48 is provided to remove most particles exceeding approximately 0.2 microns diameter and larger from the liquid before it is applied to the first surface.
In one embodiment, water was supplied by filtering the water to remove particles exceeding approximately 0.2 microns, de-ionizing, and then re-ionizing the water. In another embodiment, the water is filtered and de-ionized. Re-ionization is preferentially performed by passing de-ionized water across a membrane with carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) on the opposite side. The CO 2 is transferred across the membrane into the water. As a result of the process of purifying water, de-ionized water possesses a polar character that causes it to naturally disassociate into an ionic state of a low concentration of oxonium H 3 O + and hydroxyl ions —OH. Metals in contact with highly de-ionized water can show localized ionization and actual structural damage at the surface. The ferrous metals can then shed ions to be deposited as impurities on the web being cleaned. Additionally, high velocity sprays of de-ionized water can generate a corona and subsequent high static charge. Such charges imparted to dielectric polymer webs are detrimental in that static charges can cause particles to be highly attracted to the web. However, in the reaction that results from mixing de-ionized water and CO 2 , the water acquires new ions that effectively neutralize its ionic character. Thus, re-ionization can prevent ionic damage to metals in the pressurized piping system and minimize static buildup on the web. Also, using CO 2 restores neutral ions without adding ions that could be a source of impurities.
The apparatus in FIG. 1 is shown with a single backup roll for supporting the flexible web 12 while being subjected to the gas curtains, cleaning roller, and high pressure spray. However, it is possible to use more than one backup roll 14 within the spray chamber 22 to support the web as it is processed. For example, a first backup roll can be used in conjunction with the entry gas curtain 24 and the knobby roller 28 ; a second backup roller can be used in conjunction with the high pressure spray 18 ; and a third backup roll used in conjunction with the exit gas curtain 26 . One or more backup rolls can be used to support the web during each process operation.
Referring now to FIG. 2 , a second embodiment of the web cleaning apparatus 100 is shown. The apparatus includes a spray chamber 22 , an optional entry gas curtain 24 , two spray manifolds 44 each having a plurality of spray nozzles 42 thereby creating a first high pressure spray zone 50 and a second high pressure spray zone 52 along the periphery of the backup roll 14 , an exit gas curtain 26 , a first inspection system 54 , and a second inspection system 56 . The inspection system can include a camera and lighting to detect debris on the surface of the web.
In the web cleaning apparatus of FIG. 2 , the flexible web 12 wrapped the backup roll 14 approximately 100 degrees. The gas curtains ( 24 , 26 ) were located outside of the spray chamber 22 as shown. Locating the air curtains outside the spray chamber, can further enhance containment of mist within the spray chamber. In other embodiments, the air curtains can be located inside the spray chamber as shown.
Using the inspection systems ( 54 , 56 ), it is possible to measure the number of particulates on the first surface 16 prior to being subjected to the high pressure spray and then measure the number of particulates on the first surface after cleaning. The inspection systems are mounted in a fixed CD position to insure the same CD position of the flexible web is inspected by both the first and the second inspection systems ( 54 , 56 ).
Referring now to FIG. 3 , a third embodiment of the web cleaning apparatus 150 is shown. The web cleaning apparatus includes in the direction, D 1 , of web travel around the backup roll 14 : an optional entry gas curtain 24 , a first cleaning roller 28 , a first high pressure spray 50 , a second cleaning roller 51 , a second, a third, and a fourth high pressure spray ( 52 , 58 , 60 ), a first air deflector 62 , a first exit gas curtain 26 , a second air deflector 64 , and a second exit gas curtain 66 . The web cleaning components are housed in a spray chamber 22 . For clarity, liquid and gas connections to the individual components have been eliminated.
The individual components operate in the same manner as described for the web cleaning apparatus 10 of FIG. 1 . The optional entry and exit gas curtains are mounted on adjustable carriages, which allow for the orientation of the gas curtain (distance to the web and impingement angle) to be adjusted. Similarly, the cleaning rollers are mounted on adjustable carriages, which allow for the degree of compression of the cleaning roller to be adjusted. The cleaning rollers are all driven, with the rotation of the cleaning rollers reversed, relative to the direction of the web 12 to increase the velocity differential.
The first and the second air deflectors ( 62 , 64 ) are designed to scoop and deflect the mix of air and liquid particles (aerosol spray). As such, the leading edge of each air deflector is closely positioned just above the first surface 16 . The first air deflector 62 is designed to divert the aerosol mist away from the exit of the spray chamber. It can be porous with holes allowing some transfer of the aerosol to the demister 36 . The second air deflector 64 is designed to channel any remaining aerosol and flow from the exit gas curtain 26 towards the exhaust duct 35 . Removal of any residual liquid droplets at the second exit gas curtain 66 assists in mist containment and drying of the first surface.
Referring to FIG. 4 , a web cleaning line 200 is shown. The web cleaning line can be located in a clean room environment to prevent contaminating the web with particles after cleaning. The web cleaning line 200 includes an unwind 210 for feeding the flexible web 12 to a first inspection station 220 having a first inspection system 230 focused on the first side 16 of the flexible web and a second inspection system 240 focused on the second side 20 of the web. To measure the surface contaminant particles high intensity light can be amplified to a level that is reflected by small particles or surface discontinuities. The reflected light can then be measured by sensitive elements located in the reflected light path. In this manner, individual dirt particles can be isolated and counted electronically as they pass through the inspection point.
After the first inspection station 220 , the first side 16 of the flexible web 12 is cleaned with the web cleaning apparatus 150 of FIG. 3 . The second side 20 of the flexible web is then cleaned with another web cleaning apparatus 150 . A second inspection station 250 having a first inspection system 230 focused on the first side 16 and a second inspection system 240 focused on the second side 20 is located after the second web cleaning apparatus. The flexible web then passes to a winder 260 for winding into a roll.
Additional web processing equipment can be located either before or after each of the web cleaning apparatus. For example, a slitting section 270 could be located before the web cleaning apparatus and the equipment then used to remove small particles created by the slitting. Alternatively, a coating section 280 could be located after the web cleaning apparatus. In general, where contaminant free, flexible web surfaces are needed, the web cleaning apparatus can be employed to clean one or both sides of the flexible web.
The web cleaning line also includes tension sensing rollers, pull rolls, and idler rollers as known to those of skill in the art to transport the flexible web through the line while maintaining control of the web. Additionally, depending on the web material being cleaned, static control equipment such as active or passive static elimination bars and grounding conductors can be deployed at various points throughout the web cleaning line to neutralize any static build up by the flexible web.
After being subjected to the cleaning operation of FIG. 1 , 2 , or 3 , the first surface and/or the second surface of the web is substantially free of extremely small dirt and debris. In particular, more than about 90%, or more than about 95%, or more than about 97% of small dirt and debris particles having a particle size of 3 microns or greater can be removed from the surface of the web being cleaned.
The effectiveness of this wet web cleaning apparatus has been compared to dry web cleaning systems and found far superior. For example, nipped contact cleaning roll (CCR) systems and high velocity air knives with vacuum bar particle removal nozzles have been shown using highly sophisticated automated and microscope inspection techniques to redeposit particles on the first surface and do not effectively remove extremely small dust and debris.
EXAMPLE 1
An experimental set up was constructed generally as depicted in FIG. 2 . A backup roll 14 constructed from 10 inch (25.4 centimeters) outer diameter aluminum metal cylinder was provided. A web of 0.002 inch (0.00508 centimeter) thick and 9 inches (22.86 centimeters) wide of optical grade polyester film, commercially available from 3M, St. Paul, Minn. was wrapped around the backup roll approximately 90 degrees as it was conveyed through the apparatus. The approximate length of the web was 200 ft.
While the web was conveyed around the backup roll at a line speed of 15 feet/minute (4.572 meters/minute), two CD spray manifolds 42 , each having a single row of four spray nozzles 42 , created a first and a second high pressure spray zone ( 50 , 52 ). Each spray nozzle (Spraying Systems Company model number TPU150017) had a single orifice of 0.010 inch equivalent diameter and was provided with de-ionized water filtered to 0.2 micron absolute and pure to a resistive level of 18 MOhm while supplied at a pressure of 1500 psi. The flexible web was dried by the exit gas curtain 26 using an Exair model #2012SS air bar oriented at a 13 degree angle to direct and focus the main flow of compressed air in a line across the flexible web so as to remove substantially all water from the web. The first and second inspection systems ( 54 , 56 ) inspected the first surface to measure dirt particles before and after web cleaning.
COMPARATIVE EXAMPLE 2
For Comparative Example 2, a tacky roll cleaning system, 6RNWC-IIA, manufactured by Polymag Tek Inc., Rochester, N.Y. was used. The 6 roll narrow web cleaner system is designed to remove loose particulate contamination from a moving substrate. The POLYMAG® blue contact cleaning rolls contact both sides of the web as it transports through the web cleaner. Surface contamination is transferred from the web to the contact cleaning rolls. The 1.25″ O.D. contact cleaning rolls are then continuously cleaned with two adhesive tape rolls. The top contact cleaning rolls and adhesive tape roll assemblies create a nip between the web and the lower fixed contact cleaning rolls. The web drives the four contact cleaning rolls and the two tape rollers. The contamination from the web is collected on the surface of the adhesive tape rolls. When the adhesive tape rolls become saturated, a layer of tape can be removed. Each adhesive tape roll contains approximately 66 feet of adhesive tape. Approximately one foot of tape is used per tape change.
A web of 0.002 inch (0.00508 centimeter) thick and 9 inches (22.86 centimeters) wide of optical grade polyester film, commercially available from 3M, St. Paul, Minn. was conveyed through the tacky roll cleaning system at a line speed of 15 fpm with the nip pressure set at 60 psi. The approximate length of the web was 200 ft. The first and second inspection web systems inspected the first surface to measure dirt particles before and after the tacky roll cleaning system.
COMPARATIVE EXAMPLE 3
For Comparative Example 3, a dual ultrasonic web cleaner manufactured by Web Systems, Inc., Broomfield, Colo. was used. The web cleaner has two ultrasonic nozzles located on opposite sides of a cross-direction vacuum tube that is curved for close placement to an idler roller. The web to be cleaned is conveyed around the idler roller underneath the ultrasonic web cleaner.
A web of 0.002 inch (0.00508 centimeter) thick and 9 inches (22.86 centimeters) wide of optical grade polyester film, commercially available from 3M, St. Paul, Minn. was conveyed through the ultrasonic web cleaning system at a line speed of 15 fpm. The approximate length of the web was 200 ft. The first and second inspection systems inspected the first surface to measure dirt particles before and after the ultrasonic web cleaning system.
TABLE 1
Web Cleaning Results
Counts Before
Counts After
% of
Cleaning
Cleaning
Particles
(counts/m{circumflex over ( )}2)
(counts/m{circumflex over ( )}2)
Removed
Example 1
455
4
99
Comparative
282
162
42
Example 1
Comparative
385
318
17
Example 2
Table 1 presents the results of the three experiments. As seen, the web cleaning method of the present invention removes significantly more dirt and debris having a size of 3 microns or greater from the surface of the web than the prior existing methods.
Other modifications and variations to the present invention may be practiced by those of ordinary skill in the art, without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention, which is more particularly set forth in the appended claims. It is understood that aspects of the various embodiments may be interchanged in whole or part or combined with other aspects of the various embodiments. All cited references, patents, or patent applications in the above application for letters patent are herein incorporated by reference in a consistent manner. In the event of inconsistencies or contradictions between the incorporated references and this application, the information in the preceding description shall control. The preceding description in order to enable one of ordinary skill in the art to practice the claimed invention is not to be construed as limiting the scope of the invention, which is defined by the claims and all equivalents thereto. | A method of web cleaning, particularly relatively soft polymeric webs, without using dipping baths or ultrasonic energy. The method includes conveying the web against a backup roller and spraying the web with a high pressure liquid while the web is supported by the backup roller. Thereafter, residual fluid from the high pressure stream is stripped from the web by a gas curtain while the web is supported by the backup roller. In many convenient embodiments, the web is contacted with a cleaning roller while the web is in contact with the backup roller. | 3 |
RELATED U.S. APPLICATIONS
[0001] Not applicable.
STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT
[0002] Not applicable.
REFERENCE TO MICROFICHE APPENDIX
[0003] Not applicable.
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
[0004] The mud cooler is the offshore version of a series of world class drilling oil coolers that the applicant has developed for the oil-and gas industry.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0005] The mud cooler is the offshore version of a series of world class drilling oil coolers that the applicant has developed for the oil-and gas industry. Special about this drilling oil cooler is that the drilling oil does not come into contact with the ultimate cooling medium seawater. This is possible because use is made of two separate heat exchangers, which are built up of titanium cooling plates. In the first heat exchanger the drilling oil gives off its temperature to a mixture of water and glycol. In the second heat exchanger this mixture in its turn gives off its warmth to the seawater.
[0006] As an extra safety measure sensors are provided in the seawater outlet, which detect any possible oil leakage at once.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0007] Method and apparatus for the cooling of drilling fluids (also referred to as mudcooler), characterized in that use is made of two heat exchangers, wherein the drilling fluid (or warm drilling oil) is led through the first heat exchanger and is cooled by a mixture of glycol and water, while the glycol/water mixture is circulated in a closed circuit through a second heat exchanger, whereby the glycol/water mixture is cooled by seawater.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWINGS
[0008]
FIG. 1
[0009]
FIG. 2
[0010]
FIG. 3
[0011]
FIG. 4
[0012]
FIG. 5
[0013]
FIG. 6
[0014]
FIG. 7
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
[0015] Drilling Oil Cooler
[0016] The mud cooler is the offshore version of a series of world class drilling oil coolers that the applicant has developed for the oil-and gas industry. Special about this drilling oil cooler is that the drilling oil does not come into contact with the ultimate cooling medium seawater. This is possible because use is made of two separate heat exchangers, which are built up of titanium cooling plates. In the first heat exchanger the drilling oil gives off its temperature to a mixture of water and glycol. In the second heat exchanger this mixture in its turn gives off its warmth to the seawater.
[0017] As an extra safety measure sensors are provided in the seawater outlet, which detect any possible oil leakage at once.
[0018] The mud cooler MC 001 has the following advantages:
[0019] It is very suitable for the cooling of drilling oils at high pressure/high temperature (HP/HT) drillings;
[0020] It lengthens the lifespan of the drilling equipment;
[0021] It is environmentally friendly;
[0022] It improves working conditions;
[0023] It is doubly protected against oil leakages.
[0024] The mud cooler MC 001 is built in a. Ft container and weighs. Kg. The onshore units are provided with one heat exchanger with titanium plates and are cooled with air. The offshore units are provided with two heat exchangers with titanium plates. In the first heat exchanger the drilling oil is cooled with a mixture of water and glycol.
[0025] This mixture in its turn is cooled in the second heat exchanger with seawater. By using two heat exchangers it is prevented, in the case of a leakage, that oil from the drilling oil can end up directly in the sea. Further as an extra safety measure sensors are provided on the seawater outlet in order to be able to detect at once any possible oil leakages.
[0026] Usually the cooling starts when the temparature of the drilling oil is about 55 to 60 degrees Celsius, while it is always attempted to keep this below 80 degrees. Its is usual that the mixture, depending on the drilling depth, warms up ten to fifteen degrees during a circulation. More and more HT/HP (high temperature/high pressure) boreholes are drilled. It is neccesary to apply mudcoolers in order to improve the working conditions, to protect the environment and to prevent damages to the drilling equipment. The unit can play an important role in this.
[0027] Offshore drilling oil cooler.
[0028] The offshore drilling oil cooler or mud cooler is carried out with two plate type heat exchangers. The warm drilling oil is pumped through the first heat exchanger and this is cooled by a mixture of glycol and water.
[0029] The mixture of glycol/water is circulated in a closed circuit through a second heat exchanger.
[0030] This mixture is cooled by seawater.
[0031] On the seawater return pipe a sensor is connected which detects at once any possible oil leakages.
[0032] At the drilling oil side as well as at the glycol/water side flowmeters are connected.
[0033] These serve to control the cooling capacity and to detect any possible pollution of the plate packages.
[0034] At the drilling oil side of the first plate heat exchanger a manifold is provided in order to, in the case of contamination, turn the flow in order to flush back in this manner the contamination.
[0035] By using two heat exchangers, it is prevented in the case of leakage of the drilling oil cooler that oil ends up directly in the sea.
[0036] Technical specification “offshore mudcooler”.
[0037] Heat exchanger mud/glycol cooler The plate type heat exchanger is equipped with titanium plates and provided with EPDM clip on sealing.
[0038] The capacity of the heat exchanger is 2000 kW based on a flow of 750 lem mud with an inlet temperature of 85° C. and 2000 l/min ethylene glycol with an inlet temperature of 45° C. The fluid direction is countercurrent and the design pressure is 10 bar.
[0039] Heat exchanger glycol/seawater cooler.
[0040] The plate type heat exchanger is equipped with titanium plates with EPDM clip on sealing. The capacity of the heat exchanger is 2000 kW based on a flow of 2000 lem ethylene glycol with an inlet temperature of 59° C. and an outlet temperature of 45° C. Seawater flow is based on 100 m3/h with an inlet temperature of 25° C.
[0041] The fluid direction is countercurrent and the design pressure is 10 bar.
[0042] Circulation pump.
[0043] The circulation pump is used to pump the ethylene glycol mixture through the plate heat exchangers of mud and glycol cooler in a closed circuit system. One central expansion tank of approx. 50 ltrs will be mounted on the highest level and will be delivered with a Murphy levelswitch/gauge. The expansion tank is also provided a make-up line to the circulation pump. The circulation pump is of the vertical in-line type with a capacity of 2000 L/min at 16 mwc total head and is driven by a directly mounted explosion proof electric motor with an output of 7.5 kW at 400 V/S0 Hz and 440 V/60 Hz.
[0044] Starter Panel
[0045] The starter panel is explosion proof according to Cenclec standard EN 56014 and EN 50018, with all necessary starters and safety devices.
[0046] The unit is complete with a flow meter on the mud line and an oil detector mounted on the seawater return line.
[0047] The outside dimensions of the unit are:
Length 4500 mm Width 2150 mm Height 3000 mm Quan- Item tity Filename Remarks 1 1 SEAWATER/GLYCOWAT.COOLER S1 INLET S2 OUTLET S3 INLET S4 OUTLET 2 1 GLYCOLWATER/MUDCOOLER S1 OUTLET S2 INLET S3 OUTLET S4 INLET 3 1 OIL DETECTOR 4 1 FLOWMETER READING ITEM 7 AND 8 5 1 PUMP 6 1 EXPANSION TANK 7 1 FLOWMETER 8 1 FLOWMETER | Method and apparatus for the cooling of drilling fluids (also referred to as mudcooler), includes use of two heat exchangers, wherein the drilling fluid (or warm drilling oil) is led through the first heat exchanger and is cooled by a mixture of glycol and water, while the glycol/water mixture is circulated in a closed circuit through a second heat exchanger, whereby the glycol/water mixture is cooled by seawater. | 4 |
BACKGROUND
Ladder supported holding trays suitable for holding hardware or paint have existed in various configurations. These trays typically utilize support members that permit temporary attachment of the tray to a step ladder or an extension ladder. A common problem associated with ladder supported holding trays is that such trays are specifically designed to attach to a single type of ladder. Furthermore, these ladder supported holding trays often only permit attachment to a specific configuration of step ladder or a specific configuration of extension ladder. As many variations of ladders exist in the marketplace there can be difficulty in finding a proper holding tray that the ladder will accommodate.
Another problem associated with typical ladder supported holding trays has been the attachment means utilized to secure the trays to a ladder. These trays typically require attachment either to two steps of a step ladder; to a step of a step ladder and the ladder rail, or to two spaced apart rungs or an extension ladder. Due to the variations in ladder construction, the supporting members of the trays often have to be adjusted when possible to securely attach the tray to a ladder. Where adjustment isn't possible often the tray cannot be utilized with particular ladders.
Existing ladder supported holding trays are often problematic to mount on a ladder because of the necessity to attach at more than one point on the ladder. Additionally, most ladder supported holding trays require the user to hold the tray with one hand, while attaching the tray to the ladder with a second hand. This is particularly difficult when the attachment means includes fasteners. It is both difficult and dangerous to devote both hands to mounting a holding tray to a ladder when the user is standing on the ladder. If the ladder supported holding tray mounts in a manner where the tray is not centered on the ladder but is cantilevered off the ladder and attaches to the ladder rail, the attachment process becomes even more difficult and dangerous. In an arrangement of this type the user must lean away from the ladder while holding the tray while also fastening the tray to the ladder. Ladder supported holding trays of this type are also prone to destabilizing the ladder to which they are attached.
Existing tray designs that utilize a single step for attachment utilize a support on the tray which can be attached to a single rung or step and from which the tray hangs. A problem associated with this design is the lack of stability of a tray that can easily be accidentally moved in relation to the ladder. Furthermore, the support devices used to hang the tray are located above the tray container and often block access to the container portion of the tray. Tray supports of this type often do not have a secure attachment to the tray, as well, and allow the tray to swing in relation to the support if the support is used to carry the tray up or down the ladder.
An additional problem with existing ladder supporting trays is the instability of the holding tray when the trays are not in attachment to a ladder. Filling a tray with paint or other items is difficult as the user must somehow support the tray to do so. Use of a tray of this type when off the ladder is extremely restricted and often not even possible.
Still another problem with existing ladder supported holding trays is the absence of a suitable handle. Many trays do not have a handle and require the user to grab on to the tray wherever possible. This is problematic to the user who is required to both hold the tray while moving up and down the ladder, and to hold the tray while securing the tray to the ladder. Not finding an adequate area to hold on to the tray can be both difficult and dangerous to the user while moving the tray or securing it to the ladder.
Tray designs that do utilize a handle have problems associated with the use of the handle. Many handles also additionally serve as the support from which the tray hands. In this design the handle is typically located above the tray and often obstructing the user from the tray itself. Furthermore, the tray is allowed to swing from a handle of this type which is typically non-fixed and pivots freely about the tray. The user in this case has to carefully keep the tray from swinging and losing the contents of the tray. Additionally, the user of a tray of this type has to mount the handle onto a step or rung and then somehow remove his or her hand from the handle once the handle is attached to the ladder.
Other tray designs that also include a handle make the handle only useful when moving up or down the ladder. The handle in these tray designs is often unusable during the mounting of the tray on the ladder. This requires the user to hold onto a different portion of the tray during securement of the tray to the ladder, a process which is both difficult and dangerous when standing atop a ladder.
Because of the aforementioned reasons there is a need for a ladder supported holding tray that: securely and easily mounts and dismounts to different types of ladders; will securely mount to a single step of a step ladder or to adjacent side by side rungs of overlapping sections of an extension ladder; allows the user to mount the tray with one hand only and includes no fasteners; includes no support member that will obstruct the user from accessing the container portion of the tray; is self supporting when the tray is not attached to a ladder; and, provides a secure handle for easily holding the tray while moving the tray, or while securing the tray to a ladder, which does not interfere with utilizing the tray once mounted to a ladder.
SUMMARY
The tray assembly of the present invention satisfies all of the aforementioned needs for a ladder supported holding tray.
The ladder supported holding tray of the present invention comprises a tray assembly for releasable attachment to a step of a step ladder, or to adjacent side by side rungs of overlapping sections of an extension ladder. The tray assembly includes a container including at least first and second ends and a bottom panel joined together to define a hollow interior receptacle having a front and a back edge. The tray assembly further includes first and second supports disposed on the container, with the first and second supports being substantially disposed beneath the container and supporting the container in an elevated position relative to the supports. The tray assembly additionally includes step engagement means. The step engagement means may typically be disposed on the first and second supports to permit secure temporary attachment of the tray to a single step of a step ladder without the tray assembly engaging the side rail members of the ladder or other steps or rungs of the ladder.
The tray assembly of the present invention typically positions the container substantially above the step to which it is engaged and positions the supports substantially below that step. The supports of the tray assembly are typically at first and second ends of the container and each support may include two opposing step engagement means. The step engagement means typically comprise an upward sloping concave surface configured to releasably engage and securely hook onto a step from underneath the step. The step engagement means typically originate on each support proximate to the center of the container and extend therefrom to a position proximate an edge of the container. Additionally, the step engagement means are typically separated from the container bottom by a step receiving recess defined by the gap between the container bottom and the upward sloping surface of the step engagement means, with the gap being slightly larger than the thickness of a step which is received into the recess for securely positioning the tray on that step.
The tray may typically include a handle on the container bottom with the handle typically being a fixed non-pivoting type. The handle is typically disposed in a vertical orientation on the container bottom proximate to the center of the container and intermediate the first and second supports. The handle further typically comprises a first and second end attached to the container bottom and a hand grip portion intermediate the first and second ends.
The ladder supported tray assembly of the present invention includes new features providing benefits heretofore unrealized by prior art tray designs. A first benefit of the tray assembly of the present invention is the ability of the tray to be easily mounted to a single step of a step ladder or to adjacent side by side rungs of overlapping sections of an extension ladder. The user of the tray assembly needs only to choose which step or rungs to support the tray and then to slide the tray assembly onto that step or rungs. The tray assembly requires no fasteners or the manipulation of adjustable supports to mount it securely. The procedure for mounting the tray is extremely easy and requires just one hand allowing the user to maintain balance on the ladder by maintaining contact with the ladder with the other hand. The process for mounting the tray assembly to a ladder only requires a slight tilting of the tray to slide the step or rungs into the recess separating the step engagement means and the container bottom. Once the tray container is above the step or rungs the tray is securely mounted to the ladder.
The step engagement means include an upward sloping surface that is typically concave that allows the tray assembly to lock itself to the step or rungs to which it is engaged. Once engaged the upward sloping surface of the step engagement means prevent a lateral force from moving the tray in relation to the ladder. The tray assembly in mounting the container on top of a step or set of rungs while at the same time securing the tray with step engagement means that are beneath the step or set of rung is resistant to upward or downward forces, as well. Nevertheless, the tray assembly is easily removed from a step or set of rungs. The user must only tilt the tray to release the tray from the step while moving the tray assembly away from the ladder.
The tray assembly of the present invention includes the additional benefit of including no structural elements or support members that would interfere with access to the container portion of the tray in use. The entire supporting structure of the tray assembly is located beneath the container and therefore no elements of the tray are adjacent to the container top. The supporting members also provide a suitable structure for supporting the tray on a flat surface if the user desires to use the tray assembly away from a ladder.
A further benefit of the tray assembly of the present invention is the provision of a handle attached to the container bottom. The handle provides a secure attachment point for the user, and allows the user to easily move with the tray up and down a ladder. The handle located along the container bottom does not obstruct the container top as many handles do. The handle which is fixed and non-pivoting does not permit the tray to swing and possibly spill the contents from the container during movement. The handle is further located close to the center of gravity of the entire tray assembly. This attachment location causes the entire tray assembly to be easily moved without the user having to resist the weight of the tray and its contents. The handle is also mounted on the container bottom in such a way that it does not interfere with mounting the tray to a step or removing the tray from a step. The ladder supported holding tray requires a minimum of materials to manufacture, and is durable in construction.
These and other advantages of the present invention will become apparent upon inspection of the accompanying specification, claims and drawings.
DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a version of the ladder supported holding tray of the present invention attached to a wooden step ladder.
FIG. 2 is a perspective view of a version of the ladder supported holding tray of the present invention attached to a step ladder having metal steps.
FIG. 3 is a perspective view of a version of the ladder supported holding tray of the present invention attached to an adjacent side by side rungs of overlapping sections of an extension ladder.
FIG. 4 is a front elevation of a version of the ladder supported holding tray of the present invention supported on a flat surface.
DESCRIPTION
Referring in more detail to the drawings, there is illustrated in FIGS. 1 to 3 the releasable attachment of a preferred version of the ladder supported holding tray of the present invention to three types of ladders currently available on the market. FIG. 1 shows the ladder supported holding tray attached to a step ladder having a deep section metal step. FIG. 2 shows the ladder supported holding tray attached to a step ladder having a wooden metal step. And, FIG. 3 shows the ladder supported holding tray attached to two adjacent side by side rungs of overlapping sections of an extension ladder. FIG. 4 shows an elevation view of the ladder supported holding tray supported on a flat surface and showing the attachment of the handle to the container of the tray.
In greater detail, FIG. 1 shows a version of the ladder supported holding tray 10 comprising a container shown generally at 20 which includes a bottom panel 22, a first end panel 24, and a second end panel 26, a first side panel 28 and a second side panel 30. FIG. 1 additionally shows a version of the present invention that includes a spout 32 disposed on the second end panel 26, and a brush holder 34 disposed on second side panel 30. Typically included with the brush holder 34 would be a brush handle recess 36 as is shown in the version of the present invention of FIG. 1.
Integral with side panel 28 is first support 40 which includes first step engagement means 42 and second step engagement means 46. First step engagement means 42 includes a concave upward sloping surface 44 and second step engagement means 46 includes a similar concave upward sloping surface 48. A step receiving recess separates the concave upward sloping surfaces 44 and 48 from the bottom of the container 20.
Step engagement means 42 is shown in FIG. 1 engaging a deep section metal step 106 of step ladder 100. As shown in FIG. 1, ladder 100 additionally includes side rail members 102 and 104. Hidden from view in FIG. 1 is the first step engagement means of the second support 60 which is also engaged to step 106. As is further shown in FIG. 1, step 106 is disposed within the step receiving recess separating the concave upward sloping surface 44 from container 20. Concave upward sloping surface 44 engages the bottom of step 106. The step 106 is similarly engaged by the first step engagement means of the second support 60, also hidden from view. The first step engagement means of the first and second supports comprise a first set of engagement means.
First and second supports 40 and 60 each typically have a flat bottom surface 50 and 70 respectively. The flat bottom surface 50 and 70 allow the ladder supported holding tray 10 to be stable if supported on a flat surface. First support 40 additionally includes a second step engagement means 46. The second step engagement means 46 of first support 40 also includes a concave upward sloping surface 48. This concave upward sloping surface 48 is separated by a step receiving recess from the container 20. Second support 60 also includes a second step engagement means 66. This second step engagement means 66 also includes a concave upward sloping surface 68, which is also separated from the container 20 by a step receiving recess.
The second step engagement means 46 of the first support 40 with the second step engagement means 66 of the second support 60 comprise a second set of step engagement means. In the version of the present invention of FIG. 1, the second set of step engagement means include a smaller step receiving recesses than those of the first set of step receiving recesses that in FIG. 1 have step 106 disposed within them. Additionally shown in the version of the invention as shown in FIG. 1, is a handle 80 disposed on the bottom panel 22 of container 20 which has been partially cut away in this figure to show the handle.
FIG. 2 shows the ladder supported holding tray of the present invention disposed on a step ladder having a wooden step. In this figure, the ladder supported holding tray is identical to the tray of FIG. 1, however, the second set of step engagement means is engaged to a wooden step 206. In this diagram, step 206 is disposed in the small recess separating the concave upward sloping surface 68 of the second step engagement means 66 of the second support 60 from the container 20. The step is similarly engaged by the second step engagement means of the first support, also hidden from view in this figure.
FIG. 3 shows the ladder supported holding tray of the present invention disposed on an extension ladder 300 having adjacent side by side rungs 306 and 308 of overlapping sections 310 and 320 of the extension ladder. In this figure, the ladder supported holding tray is also identical to the tray of FIG. 1, however, the first step engagement means 42 is engaged to the adjacent side by side rungs 306 and 308 of the overlapping sections 31 0 and 320 of the extension ladder 300. In this diagram rungs 306 and 308 are both disposed in the large recess separating the concave upward sloping surface 44 from the container 20. The rungs 306 and 308 are similarly engaged by the step engagement means of the second support, also hidden from view in this figure.
FIG. 4 is a front elevation view of the version of the present invention of FIG. 1, showing the handle 80 in greater detail. Handle 80 includes first and second ends 82 and 84, both of which are attached to the bottom panel 22 of container 20. Intermediate the first and second ends is hand grip portion 86. The handle 80 is disposed on the ladder supported holding tray very close to the center of gravity of the entire tray and thus provides very stable maneuvering of the tray. The handle 80 is typically a fixed, non-pivoting attachment to the container portion of the tray 10, which adds to the stable maneuvering of the tray. FIG. 4 further shows the stability of the tray when resting on the bottom surfaces 50 and 70 of the first and second supports 40 and 60.
Using the ladder supported holding tray 10 of the present invention is simple. If desired, the container 20 of the tray 10 and be easily filled with paint, hardware, etc., before attachment of the tray to a ladder. The first and second supports 40 and 60 allows the user to rest the tray 10 on any flat surface. The tray 10 does not require any extra support when filling the container 20 with paint or hardware at is very stable when supported on a flat surface. Once filled, the user must determine which set of step engagement means provided on the tray will provide the tightest fit to the step or set of rungs. Thereafter, the user can easily lift the tray 10 using the handle 80 and proceed up a ladder. The handle provides the user a very stable connection to the tray and does not obstruct access to the container 20.
Once the user has determined the step or set of rungs from which to support the tray, the user needs only to slide the tray onto that step or set of rungs. To slide the tray 10 onto a step or set of rungs, the user needs only to slightly tilt the tray slightly so that the leading edge of the set of step engagement means will pass under the step. At the same time, the user moves the tray toward the step until the step is as far into the step receiving recesses as is possible. At this point, the tray is securely engaged to the step and the user can release the handle. At no time during the mounting of the tray to the step does the user have to reposition his or her hand on the handle. Additionally, the other hand of the user is not required for mounting the tray, so the user can maintain a firm hand hold on the ladder.
Releasing the tray from the step or set of rungs is as easy as securing the tray to a step or set of rungs. The user needs only to grab the handle and then pull the tray away from the ladder while slightly tilting the tray forward to release the step engagement means from the step or set of rungs.
Once secured to a step or set of rungs the tray is extremely stable. The tray is essentially locked on to the step or set or rungs and resists all movement in relation to the step or set or rungs. There is little chance of accidentally knocking the tray off the ladder as releasing the tray from the step or set of rungs requires the tray to be simultaneously tilted slightly and moved away from the ladder. The tray also resists side to side movement well and resists upward or downward movement as the container portion of the tray rides above the step while the step engagement means rides below the step. Filling the tray with paint or supplies once the tray is secured to a ladder is easy due to the stability of the tray attachment to the ladder. The ladder supported holding tray 10 is typically manufactured to be narrower than the typical ladder so that there is plenty of hand room between the side panels of the tray and the side rails of the ladder.
The ladder supported holding tray is easily manufactured using existing plastic molding techniques. The tray could be produced as a single piece or as multiple pieces that require a small degree of assembly. The tray container could be manufactured in a variety of sizes or shapes. The container could also be built for a specific purpose such as to accommodate a paint roller or certain plumbing or electrical fittings.
It is understood that various modifications and changes in form or detail could readily be made without departing from the spirit of the invention. It is therefore intended that the invention be not limited to the exact form and detail herein shown and describe, nor to anything less than the whole of the invention herein disclosed and as hereinafter claimed. | A ladder supported holding tray comprises a tray assembly for releasable attachment to a step of a step ladder, or to adjacent side by side rungs of overlapping sections of an extension ladder. The tray assembly includes a container and first and second supports disposed on the container, with the first and second supports being substantially disposed beneath the container and supporting the container in an elevated position relative to the supports. The tray assembly additionally includes step engagement means. The step engagement means may typically be disposed on the first and second supports and typically comprise a concave upward sloping surface configured to releasably engage and securely hook onto a step from underneath the step. The step engagement means permit secure temporary attachment of the tray to a single step of a step ladder without the tray assembly engaging the side rail members of the ladder or other steps or rungs of the ladder. | 4 |
This application claims the benefit of and priority from Japanese Application No. 2007-175728 filed Jul. 4, 2007, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing a hose coupling fitting for connecting various kinds of hoses for fluids, such as automotive brake hoses.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional hose coupling fittings of this kind are furnished with a coupling head portion having a connection opening and a coupling body which has a nipple portion; a line on the brake cylinder side is connected to the connection opening, and a hose on the master cylinder side is inserted into and connected with the nipple portion to connect the master cylinder with the brake cylinder. In a hose coupling fitting of this design, the nipple portion is a thin elongated pipe which inserts into the path of the hose and which must be worked to high dimensional accuracy. For this reason the part is typically manufactured by a cutting operation, or by producing a separate component and unifying this with the coupling body by welding.
In this regard, with a view to manufacturing a hose coupling fitting of simpler design composed of single component without the need for a cutting process, methods which simply entail a series of cold forging steps have been considered; one such known technique is disclosed in JP 2002-361359 A. In this conventional technique, a large-diameter bore is formed in a thick, short rod-shaped material which then undergoes several cold forging steps to produce the connection opening and the nipple portion. However, in a conventional hose coupling fitting of ferrule shape having a socket portion and a nipple portion, appreciable deformation is necessary in order to transform the large-diameter through-bore into a narrow and elongated nipple hole, and it is difficult in practice for uniform shaping to take place between the upper end face and the lower end face of the nipple hole, thus creating the problem of appreciable deviation in the inside diameter dimension due to inside diameter taper or rippling, and making it difficult to achieve the desired shape.
SUMMARY
An advantage of some aspects of the invention is to provide a hose coupling fitting whose nipple portion can be produced with a high degree of accuracy through a series of cold forging steps.
In order to achieve the stated object at least in part, it is possible for the present invention to be reduced to practice as the embodiments shown below.
According to an aspect of the invention is provided with a method of manufacturing a hose coupling fitting comprising: a coupling head portion having a connecting hole for connection to a pipe; and a nipple portion having a nipple hole for connection to a hose. The method comprises: a plurality of sequentially performed cold forging steps carried out on a column-shaped rod material. The plurality of steps include: forming a first pilot hole which extends along a center axis of the rod material from an end of the rod material to form the connecting hole, and forming a second pilot hole which extends along the center axis of the rod material from the other end of the rod material to form the nipple hole; and forming the coupling head portion by forging a portion surrounding the first pilot hole, and the nipple portion by forging a portion surrounding the second pilot hole. The second pilot hole is connected to the first pilot hole, and is formed with smaller diameter than the first pilot hole and larger diameter than the nipple hole.
In a preferred embodiment, the coupling head portion having the connecting hole and the nipple portion having the nipple hole are formed through cold forging of the rod material of circular cylinder shape. Specifically, through cold forging, a first pilot hole for forming the connecting hole is formed along the center axis of the rod material from a first end of the rod material, and a second pilot hole is formed along the center axis of the rod material from the other end of the rod material. The second pilot hole is formed with smaller diameter than the first pilot hole and larger diameter than the nipple hole. At this point the second pilot hole may be formed so as to connect to the first pilot hole at one time, or to connect with it multiple stages. Next, a working process is carried out to make the portion surrounding the first pilot hole into the coupling head portion, and to make the portion surrounding the second pilot hole into the nipple portion.
According to another embodiment, the hose coupling fitting can be formed simply through a series of steps involving cold forging of the rod material, and thus no cutting step is required, thereby affording a simpler working process and excellent productivity. Moreover, since it suffices for the second pilot hole to be bored through a solid section of the rod material equal in length to the total length of the rod material minus the depth of the first pilot hole, its passage length can be shorter, the load on the punch and pin can be reduced, and the desired shape can be produced easily with high accuracy. Additionally, since the second pilot hole is formed prior to working of the nipple portion, due the absence of work hardening in the surrounding area, a long narrow nipple hole can be formed easily in the rod material with reduced load on the punch and pin.
In the method of manufacturing a hose coupling fitting of another embodiment, there can be employed a step wherein, where the inside diameter of the second pilot hole is denoted as d 5 and the inside diameter of the nipple hole is denoted as d 3 , d 5 /d 3 is set to between 1.1 and 3, preferably between 1.2 and 2. The reason is that if d 5 /d 3 exceeds 3, a high degree of working will be needed to reduce the diameter of the second pilot hole to that of the nipple hole, making it difficult to work the material into the desired shape.
As another embodiment, there can be employed a step wherein the second pilot hole is formed by forming a recess along the center axis, then punching through the center portion along the center axis to connect with the first pilot hole.
Best Mode for Carrying Out the Invention
These and other objects, features, aspects, and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments with the accompanying drawings.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 is a sectional view of a hose coupling fitting pertaining to an embodiment of the present invention, connecting a pipe to a hose.
FIG. 2 is a sectional view showing the hose coupling fitting prior to connection of the pipe and the hose in FIG. 1 .
FIG. 3 shows the dimensions of a hose coupling fitting.
FIGS. 4A through 4D show the manufacturing process of a hose coupling fitting.
FIGS. 5A through 5C show the manufacturing process continued from FIG. 4 .
FIGS. 6A through 6B show the cold forging process.
FIGS. 7A through 7B show the cold forging process continued from FIG. 6B .
DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
(1) General Configuration of Hose Coupling Fitting 10
FIG. 1 is a sectional view of a hose coupling fitting 10 used to connect a pipe H 1 to a hose H 2 pertaining to an embodiment of the present invention. The hose coupling fitting 10 is used for connection of an automotive brake hose or the like; the pipe H 1 is connected through threadable attachment of a fastening member 30 , while at the other side of the hose coupling fitting 10 , the hose H 2 is connected through swaging with the hose H 2 pressure-fit therein. The hose coupling fitting 10 is mounted onto a mounting member VM via a mounting fitting AP by positioning a mounting hole VMa of the mounting member VM on a mounting shoulder portion 10 a which has been disposed in the outside peripheral edge part of the hose coupling fitting 10 .
(2) Configuration of Hose Coupling Fitting 10
The configuration of the various parts of the hose coupling fitting 10 will be described in detail. FIG. 2 is a sectional view showing the hose coupling fitting 10 prior to connection of the pipe H 1 and the hose H 2 in FIG. 1 . The hose coupling fitting 10 includes a coupling head portion 14 , a dividing wall 16 , a socket portion 18 , and a nipple portion 20 which are integrally formed from metal material. In the interior of the hose coupling fitting 10 there are formed holes which extend in the axial direction for attachment of the pipe H 1 and the hose H 2 shown in FIG. 1 ; the holes are separated by the dividing wall 16 , that is, a connecting hole 14 a for attachment of the pipe H 1 is formed in the coupling head portion 14 , while a socket hole 18 a for attachment of the hose H 2 is formed in the socket portion 18 and the nipple portion 20 . The socket portion 18 is the part in which the hose H 2 is connected through swaging diametrically inward from the outside peripheral portion thereof with the hose H 2 ( FIG. 1 ) inserted into the socket hole 18 a . The nipple portion 20 has a pipe body 22 which projects from the dividing wall 16 for pressure-fitting the hose H 2 . A nipple hole 22 a for connecting the pipe H 1 and the hose H 2 is formed through the center of the pipe body 22 and the dividing wall 16 . The pipe body 22 is pressure-fit into the hose H 2 , and the hose H 2 is then connected by swaging the socket portion 18 from the outside peripheral side.
As shown in FIG. 3 , exemplary dimensions for the various parts are, in the coupling head portion 14 , length L 1 of 11.5 mm, outside diameter D 1 of 15 mm, and connecting hole 14 a inside diameter d 1 of 9.5 mm. In the socket portion, length L 2 may be 17 mm, outside diameter D 2 may be 13.5 mm, and inside diameter d 2 may be 11.3 mm; while in the nipple portion 20 , length L 3 may be the same as the socket portion 18 , while outside diameter D 3 may be 3.6 mm, and inside diameter d 3 may be 2.2 mm.
(3) Manufacturing Process of Hose Coupling Fitting 10
The process for manufacturing the hose coupling fitting 10 through a cold forging process will now be described. FIGS. 4 and 5 show the cold forging process of the hose coupling fitting 10 . The hose coupling fitting 10 is manufactured from a single rod material through a plurality of cold forging steps. First, a rod material 12 A of metal material shown in FIG. 4A is set in a die (not shown), and recesses which will ultimately serve as a first pilot hole 14 Aa and a second pilot hole 22 Aa are formed in the rod material 12 A as shown in FIG. 4B , producing a workpiece 12 B. The first pilot hole 14 Aa is a hole used to form the connecting hole 14 a ( FIG. 2 ); its inside diameter d 4 is substantially identical to the inside diameter d 1 of the connecting hole 14 a . The second pilot hole 22 Aa is a hole used to form the nipple hole 22 a ; its inside diameter d 5 is smaller than the inside diameter d 4 of the first pilot hole 14 Aa, and larger than the inside diameter d 3 of the nipple hole 22 a , e.g. 3 mm. Next, as shown in FIG. 4C , a recess 14 Ab is formed in the center of the first pilot hole 14 Aa and the second pilot hole 22 Aa is increased in depth to produce a workpiece 12 C; then, as shown in FIG. 4D , the second pilot hole 22 Aa is extended and punched through to connect with the first pilot hole 14 Aa to produce a workpiece 12 D.
Next, the workpiece 12 D of FIG. 4D is worked to produce a workpiece 12 E shown in FIG. 5A . FIG. 6A depicts the cold forging process; the workpiece 12 D is arranged in a die 41 and punch 43 . At this point, since the pin 43 a of the punch 43 is formed with diameter substantially the same as the inside diameter d 3 of the nipple hole 22 a but smaller than the inside diameter d 5 of the second pilot hole 22 Aa, there will be gap between it and the second pilot hole 22 Aa. Then, the workpiece 12 D is extruded forward by the punch 43 as shown in FIG. 6B . By so doing, the workpiece 12 D is cold-forged into the shape of the workpiece 12 E, that is, the section shown at right in the drawing is reduced in diameter until it equals the outside diameter of the socket portion 18 , and the second pilot hole 22 Aa equals that of the pin 43 a.
Subsequently, the workpiece 12 E of FIG. 5A is worked to produce a workpiece 12 F shown in FIG. 5B . FIG. 7A depicts the cold forging process with the workpiece 12 E having been set in dies 45 , 46 . The die 46 has a pin 46 a . The pin 46 a is a rod shaped member of outside diameter equal to the inside diameter d 3 of the nipple hole 22 a . Meanwhile, the punch 47 is provided with a circular pipe portion 47 a which is positioned concentric to the pin 46 a . The pipe portion 47 a is the section in which the socket hole 18 a is formed, and is defined by a tubular body of outside diameter equal to the inside diameter d 2 of the socket hole 18 a . The workpiece 12 E is then extruded forward by the punch 47 as shown in FIG. 7B . The workpiece 12 E is thereby worked into the workpiece 12 F. The workpiece 12 F is then worked with a die and punch (not shown) into the workpiece 12 G ( FIG. 5C ), that is, to the length of the socket portion 18 and the length of the nipple portion 20 shown in FIG. 2 . Then, by way of an after-treatment, a screw thread or the like is formed in the workpiece 12 G, to obtain the hose coupling fitting 10 .
(4) Working Effects of the Hose Coupling Fitting 10
The hose coupling fitting 10 described above affords the following working effects.
(4)-1 The hose coupling fitting 10 can be formed from the rod material 12 A simply by a series of cold forging steps with no cutting step required, thus affording a simple working process and excellent productivity.
(4)-2 As shown in FIG. 3 and FIG. 4B , since the nipple hole 22 a in inner diameter d 3 is worked through reduction in diameter from the second pilot hole 22 Aa having inside diameter d 5 slightly larger than its original inside diameter d 3 , the forging ratio is low. Therefore, even a long narrow nipple hole 22 a can be formed easily to the desired shape with a high degree of accuracy.
(4)-3 Since the second pilot hole 22 Aa is subjected to working with the pin 43 a shown in FIG. 6 inserted leaving a gap, the load bearing on the pin 43 a can be reduced, facilitating the forging process.
(4)-4 Since the second pilot hole 22 Aa is formed prior to working of the nipple portion 20 and so on in subsequent steps, the hole can be formed easily in the rod material in the absence of work hardening in the area, under conditions of reduced load on the punch and pin.
(4)-5 Since the second pilot hole 22 Aa is formed so as to connect to the first pilot hole 14 Aa subsequent to formation of the first pilot hole 14 Aa, it can be shorter by the equivalent of the length of the first pilot hole 14 Aa, and the load on the punch and pin can be reduced.
(4)-6 As shown in FIGS. 6 and 7 , since the socket portion 18 and the nipple portion 20 are fabricated through expansion by forward extrusion of the workpieces 12 D, 12 E, the initial second pilot hole 22 Aa can be shorter and formed easily.
The foregoing detailed description of the invention has been provided for the purpose of explaining the principles of the invention and its practical application, thereby enabling others skilled in the art to understand the invention for various embodiments and with various modifications as are suited to the particular use contemplated. The foregoing detailed description is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise embodiments disclosed. Modifications and equivalents will be apparent to practitioners skilled in this art and are encompassed within the spirit and scope of the appended claims. | A hose coupling fitting is furnished with a coupling head portion having a connecting hole, and a nipple portion having a nipple hole, and is fabricated through sequential cold forging steps carried out on a rod material. Specifically, a first pilot hole is formed along the center axis from a first end of the rod material, and a second pilot hole is formed along the center axis from the other end of the rod material. The second pilot hole is connected to the first pilot hole, and is formed with smaller diameter than the first pilot hole and larger diameter than the nipple hole. The surrounding area of the second pilot hole is then worked to form the nipple portion. | 8 |
RELATED APPLICATION
This application describes and claims apparatus for the production of products described and claimed in concurrently filed application Ser. No. 723,967.
BACKGROUND
In the production of paper, a layer of fiber slurry is deposited upon a belt. The belt is permeable, and some of the liquid in the slurry is drawn by vacuum through the belt, leaving a damp fiber layer. This damp layer is transferred onto another belt made of papermaking felt, and this second belt, together with the damp fiber layer on it, passes through rollers which squeeze out some more liquid from the fiber layer. Subsequently, the fiber layer is dried to evaporate more of the liquid and leave a layer of dry paper. As the drying or evaporation process is expensive, it is important to remove as much liquid as possible before the evaporation step. To this end, many variations of rollers and papermaking felts have been tried.
It has been found in accordance with the invention described and claimed herein that papermaker's felts with improved capacities for liquid removal are possible when the felt is modified by a pattern of beads. This modified felt is the subject of copending application Ser. No. 723,967 filed Sept. 16, 1976, which is hereby incorporated by reference. This application describes and claims the apparatus of making such beaded papermaking felt.
Prior U.S. Pat. No. 3,549,712 discloses a method of making an apertured belt that, as described above, is to be drawn over a vacuum. U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,915,202; 3,928,699; 3,657,068; 3,617,442; 3,603,354 and 3,613,258 disclose various types of papermaking felt, but none of them discloses the paper-making felt to which said copending specification is directed or the apparatus for the making of such felt to which this specification is directed. U.S. Pat. No. 3,772,055 discloses a method for strengthening fabric by applying dots of stiffening agent. The stiffening agent is printed onto the fabric by screen stencils. There is also art in this field of a papermaking felt with lines or rows of plastic backing applied to its working surface.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
This invention contemplates an apparatus for affixing to a papermaking felt a plurality of beads, which may be connected, comprising means for supporting a papermaker's felt having a working surface and means for applying the beads of a material different from the material of the felt, said beads extending away from said working surface and having top portions which are spaced from each other along said working surface to form channels for liquid flow.
In papermaking, there is need for a belt-like structure called a papermaking felt to convey paper slurry through rollers which squeeze out liquid from that slurry to form paper. As the only other convenient way to extract liquid is by costly evaporation, it is desired that as much water as possible be squeezed out by these rollers. To this end, a felt belt-like structure which is well known in the art has affixed to it beads of plastic backing. The benefits of such beads are many. They include an increased drying ability due to the greater ability of the liquid to escape after being squeezed out by the rollers, and the characteristic that if dislodged only one bead will come off instead of a whole row of plastic material. Other benefits are described in the copending application Ser. No. 723967, filed Sept. 16, 1976.
OBJECTS
It is an object of this invention to provide an apparatus for the production of a papermaking felt having plastic beads attached thereon.
It is an object of this invention to provide an apparatus to secure the plastic backing to the felt so that if any portion is dislodged only that portion will come off, and not take with it any other portions of the backing.
How the foregoing and other objects are accomplished is further set out in the detailed description and the drawings in which:
FIG. 1 is a schematic sectional view of the relevant portion of a papermaking machine using a papermaking felt.
FIG. 2 is a perspective view of a part of a papermaking felt of this invention.
FIG. 3 is a perspective view of a preferred embodiment of the plastic bead applicating machine for making said papermaking felt.
FIG. 4 is a perspective view of a portion of a bead applying wheel which is a part of said machine.
FIG. 5 is a sectional view of the wheel of FIG. 4 in operation to apply beads to the felt.
FIG. 6 is a front view of an alternate apparatus to apply a bead.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
In FIG. 1, there is shown a slurry 10, a slurry applicator 11, and an apertured belt 12 around rollers 13, 14 and 15. Fiber slurry 10 is applied to a belt 12 by slurry applicator 11 to form on the belt 12 a layer of fiber slurry 10'. The top run of the belt 12, with the fiber slurry layer 10' on it, passes over vacuum 16, which draws out a portion of the liquid from the slurry 10'. The slurry layer 10' which is now merely damp fibers 21 then passes over onto a paper-making felt 17, which is stretched around rollers 18, 19 and 20. The papermaking felt 17 bearing the damp fibers 21 is drawn through the nip of pressure rollers 22 and 23 by means which are conventional and not shown. The still damp fibers 21 then are drawn through a drier (not shown) where the balance of the liquid is removed.
In FIG. 2, there is shown a product of the apparatus herein disclosed, namely the papermaking felt 17. It is in the form of a felt of any construction or composition known to the art with beads 24 of the plastic backing attached to its working surface 43.
FIG. 3 shows the papermaking felt 17, with some beads 24 already formed on its working surface 43. There are also shown means 26 for applying bands of plastic 29 and means 41 for inserting a portion of said band into said felt 17 to anchor beads 24. The means for supporting the working surface 43 of felt 17 in proximity to the applying means 26 are also shown. In this embodiment, the supporting means comprise a roller 35. Means (not shown) are provided for moving the means 26 and means 41 in the direction of the arrows 36, 37. These moving means may be any conventional means. Many are well known and need not be described here.
While in this embodiment a portion of the bead 24 is inserted in the felt 17, the invention does not require it. The bead 24 can be allowed merely to dry on the felt 17. However, in the preferred embodiment, a portion of the bead 24 is inserted into the felt 17 in order to anchor the bead 24 to the felt.
In this embodiment, the means 26 for applying bands 29 is composed of a die 27 which extrudes plastic through die extrusions 28 to apply a band of plastic 29. Below that, is the means 41 for compression molding a portion of the band 29 into the working surface 43 of the felt 17. This comprises a wheel 30 for separating the band 29 into beads 24 and for compression molding portions of the beads of plastic 29 onto and into the working surface 43 of the felt 17.
In this embodiment, the wheel 30 is at the same time a portion of the means for applying a bead 26 (as it breaks up the band 29 into beads 24) and a portion of the means 41 for inserting. However, in another embodiment this need not be true. For instance, the plastic could be extruded as shown in FIG. 6. That figure shows an outer rod 45 into which is inserted an inner rod 46. The inner rod 46 is filled with plastic under a predetermined pressure. Both rods 45, 46 have holes 47, 48 respectively. The inner rod 46 rotates within rod 45. The holes 47, 48 are positioned so that as the inner rod 46 rotates the holes 47, 48 line up allowing plastic to drop onto the felt 17. Another method in which the plastic is extruded in drops utilizing pulsating pressure. This could be done, for instance, by using small mechanized pistons to control drop ejection and size.
It is also to be realized that the "plastic backing" can be any suitable material which can be extruded onto the felt, and is inert to the papermaking environment in which it will be employed. For the purposes of this invention, it is not necessary that the material be plastic. The wheel 30 and how it works will be better described below. It is noted that the means 26 for applying beads 24 and the means 41 for inserting the plastic into the felt are movable in the horizontal direction in this specific embodiment as shown by arrows 36, 37.
The felt 17 rotates around the roller 35 so as to present consecutive portions of the working surface 43 of felt 17 to the means 26 for applying beds 24 and the means 41 for inserting. In this fashion, as the felt 17 rotates one or more lines of beads 24 are put down depending on the number of dies 27 and die extrusions 28. The applying means 26 and the inserting means 41 are simultaneously moved over a desired interval or pitch to make a continuous process and another row is done. This continues until the felt 17 is filled with beads. There can be one or more applying means 26 and inserting means 41. The only limit as to the number used is the ability of the user to obtain a uniform rate of flow of the plastic through the die extrusions 28. There can also be any number of die extrusions 28 and inserting means 41 per applying means 26. This number is again limited by the ability to obtain a uniform rate of flow. It is within the scope of this invention that there be sufficient die extrusions 28 and wheels 30 to cover the entire width of the felt 17 and that, therefore, applying means 26 and inserting means 41 need not be movable. In the preferred embodiment, it has been found that the turning of the roller at about 100 to 150 feet per minute is the desirable speed in terms of optimizing the quality of the results versus that time necessary to complete the job. The spacing between the beads has been found in this specific embodiment to be optimized at 1/8 to 3/16 of an inch, and the means 26 for applying and the means 41 for inserting can be accordingly moved and the wheel 30 adjusted as shown below.
FIG. 4 shows a portion of the outer rim 32 of the wheel 30. The outer rim 32 has alternating indented portions 33 and protuberances 34. As shown in FIG. 5, the protuberances 34 punch portions of the band of plastic 29 into the working surface 43 of the felt 17 to form anchors 40 through intimate mechanical bonding. In this fashion, the band of plastic 29 is broken into beads 24 and the indented portions 33 of the wheel allow other portions of the band 29 to remain on top of the working surface 43 of the felt 17 forming bead 24. The bead 24 remaining on top is also compression molded to the working surface 43 to produce additional mechanical bonding. It is to be realized that the band 29 need not actually be broken as long as the connection 42 between the bead 24 and the anchor 40 is such that when a bead 24 is dislocated it by itself will be dislocated and the connection 42 will break before the next bead 24 is pulled off the felt 17. The shape of the indented portion 33 can be as desired so as to form a bead 24 of the desired width, height and shape. The spacing between indented portions 33 can be as desired, but as was stated above, the spacing between the dots should be 1/8 to 3/16 of an inch, and therefore the curved distance along the protuberances 34 should be the same.
FIG. 3 shows a cooling basin 39 which contains a cool liquid such as water with a surfactant such as soap. In this fashion, the wheel 30 is cooled so that when the wheel 30 runs over the band of plastic 29 the hot plastic cools quickly, and retains the form of the indented portion 33 and the surfactant eliminates any sticking tendency of the plastic to the wheel 30. The wheel 30 may also be coated with a release agent such as polytetrafluoroethylene.
If the felt 17 is long enough and the speed of the roller 35 is fast enough there might be a chance for the felt 17 to slip on the roller 35. Therefore, there can, optionally, be placed sensors or series of sensors 49 and 50 on the edge of roller 35 to detect when the felt 17 slips and does not track evenly on the roller 35. These series of sensors 49 and 50 then communicate the exact amount of slippage to the means 38 for moving means 26 in the directions 36 and 37. These means 38 would then move the means 26 for applying the beads 24 and compensate for the slippage of the felt 17. These series of sensors 49 and 50 are well known in the art and the means of communication to means 38 is also well known in the art. In this fashion, when the felt 17 makes a rotation around roller 35 the dots are put down as desired. If the felt 17 slips, the means 26 for applying the beads 24 moves with it and lays down a straight row of beads 24 despite the slippage. | This invention contemplates an apparatus for affixing to a papermaking felt a plurality of beads comprising means for supporting a papermaking felt having a working surface and means for applying beads of plastic backing, said beads extending away from said working surface and having top portions which are spaced from each other along said working surface to form channels for liquid flow. | 1 |
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a composition for a heat-sensitive recording medium having a reversibility and to a reversible heat-sensitive recording sheet capable of forming images using the composition. More specifically, the present invention relates to a reversible heat-sensitive recording composition capable of repeatedly writing or erasing by changing a manner of giving a heat energy and to a reversible heat-sensitive recording sheet using the composition.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Recently, information processing devices such as a word processor, a personal computer, a facsimile, etc., have rapidly become widespread. With the widespread development of the information processing devices, the necessity of making hard copies of the outputs from these terminals has been increased. Various recording systems such as a heat-sensitive recording system, a heat transfer system, an electrophotographic system, an ink jet recording system, etc., have been practically used as a recording system for such a hard copy.
However, in the recording system which is practically used at present, the once recorded content of an output is semi-permanently kept and a paper used for recording cannot be used again. Thus, a large amount of recording papers have been consumed at the terminals of various information processing devices. Recently, the recognition for the preservation of the environment of the earth and for the conservation of natural resources has been increased and it has been required to use materials capable of recycling as the recording media used for printers. However, a recording paper capable of repeatedly conducting an image formation and erasing is not yet obtained at present.
Furthermore, a payment by a credit card, a prepaid card, etc., has been popularized and a so-called cashless system is being actively used. The information recorded on such a credit card, a prepaid card, etc., is generally a magnetically recorded information, an optically recorded information, an IC memory, etc. It has also been desired to convert the information which is recorded on such a card and cannot be detected visually into a visible information for the convenience of users.
From such a standpoint, a recording sheet having formed thereon a reversible heat-sensitive recording material comprising a binder having dispersed therein an organic low molecular weight material such as a higher fatty acid, etc., as the heat-sensitive recording layer is proposed and is being practically used (European Patent No. 868). However, the recording sheet records an information or an image by heating as a white turbid state in a transparent state by the difference in the sizes of crystals and hence in principle, an information or an image having both a sufficient density and a sufficient contrast is not obtained in the recording sheet and further it is impossible to obtain a colored information or image.
PCT Patent Publication (unexamined) WO/11898 proposes a composition capable of coloring and erasing an image by using an amphoteric compound having a hydroxyl group and a carboxyl group and also having inevitably an amino group as a pyridine derivative and conducting a chemical reaction while controlling a heat energy. When the composition is coated on a substrate to form a recording sheet, the recording sheet is colored by heating with a thermal head, etc., for a short period of time (from few milli-seconds to few tens milli-seconds) and decolored by heating for a long period of time (about several seconds). The invention of the above-described PCT patent publication can also provide a reversible color heat-sensitive recording medium having a good visibility and capable of repeatedly coloring and decoloring.
However, the composition described in WO/11898 described above has the disadvantages that when the colored records are allowed to stand under an ordinary storage condition, the record is decolored with the passage of time, and also at erasing the colored images by heating, color residues are formed to some extent and the recorded color images cannot be completely eliminated.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Accordingly, one object of the present invention is to provide a reversible heat-sensitive composition that the colored recording medium made thereof shows small decoloring with the passage of time and at erasing the color, the color can be almost completely erased without leaving color residue.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a reversible heat-sensitive recording sheet using the composition.
As a result of various investigations to find specific pyridine derivatives to overcome the above problems, it has been found that the above objects can be attained by combining a specific pyridine derivative and a leuco compound. The present invention has been accomplished based on this finding.
According to one embodiment of the present invention, there is provided a reversible heat-sensitive recording composition containing a leuco compound as a coloring agent and a pyridine derivative having at least one substituent selected from the group consisting of a carboxyl group and a phenolic hydroxyl group.
According to another embodiment, of the present invention, there is provided a reversible heat-sensitive recording sheet using the composition.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is described in detail below.
The composition of the present invention contains a specific pyridine derivative and a leuco compound as the essential components. It is necessary that the specific pyridine derivative used in the present invention is a pyridine derivative having at least one of a carboxyl group and a phenolic hydroxyl group and any of such pyridine derivatives can be used in the present invention.
Examples of the pyridine derivative are nicotinic acid, isonicotinic acid, picolinic acid, pyridine-2,3-dicarboxylic acid, pyridine-2,4-dicarboxylic acid, pyridine-2,5-dicarboxylic acid, pyridine-2,6-dicarboxylic acid, pyridine-3,4-dicarboxylic acid, pyridine-3,5-dicarboxylic acid, 2-pyridone, 3-pyridone, 4-pyridone, 2,3-pyridinediol, 2,4-pyridinediol, 2,5-pyridinediol, 2,6-pyridinediol, 3,4-pyridinediol, 3,5-pyridinediol, and citrazinic acid.
The balance between the strength of the acidic property and the strength of the basic property is important for the specific pyridine derivative used in the present invention. The specific pyridine derivatives are compounds represented by following formula (A) and following formula (B) ##STR1## wherein R 1 represents a carboxyl group or a phenolic hydroxyl group and R 2 represents hydrogen atom, a carboxyl group, or a phenolic hydroxyl group; ##STR2## wherein R 3 represents a carboxyl group or a phenolic hydroxyl group and R 4 represents hydrogen atom, a carboxyl group, or a phenolic hydroxyl group.
The leuco compounds which can be used for the composition of the present invention are various conventional leuco compounds which are colored or decolored by heating. Examples of the leuco compound used in the present invention are Crystal Violet Lactone (blue), 2-anilino-3-methyl-6-dibutylaminofluoran (black), 2-(2-chloroanilino)-6-dibutylaminofluoran (black), 2-(2-chloroanilino)-6-diethylaminofluoran (black), 2-N,N-dibenzylanilino-6-diethylaminofluoran (green), and 6-diethylamino-benzo[a]-fluoran (red), but the leuco compound used in the present invention is not limited to these compounds.
The composition of the present invention may further contain a proper binder. The binder which can be used is conventional resins which are dissolved in water or an organic solvent. Examples of the resins are homopolymers and copolymers such as polyvinyl alcohol, methyl cellulose, ethyl cellulose, cellulose acetate, nitrocellulose, polystyrene, polyvinyl chloride, polyvinyl acetate, saturated polyester, methyl polymethacrylate, ethyl polymethacrylate, polyurethane, polyvinyl butyral, etc., although the present invention is not limited to these resins.
The composition of the present invention may further contain a proper modifier such as a lubricant, etc.
It is preferred in the composition of the present invention that the amount of the leuco compound added is from 0.1 to 1.0 part by weight, preferably from 0.5 to 0.9 part by weight, per 1 part by weight of the pyridine derivative. If the amount of the leuco compound added is less than 0.1 part by weight, a sufficient optical density of the image is not obtained, while if the amount is larger than 1 part by weight, erasing of the image becomes insufficient.
Further, it is preferred that the amount of the binder added in the present invention is 5 parts by weight or less per 1 part by weight of the pyridine derivative. If the amount thereof is more than 5 parts by weight, a sufficient optical density of the image is not obtained.
The reversible heat-sensitive recording sheet is produced by dissolving or dispersing the composition in water or an organic solvent to obtain a coating composition and coating the coating composition on a proper support to form a recording layer.
The support which can be used is a proper material such as a paper, a synthetic paper, a plastic film, etc. In this case, for improving the adhesion of the recording layer or for static prevention, various surface treatments may be applied to the support.
At coating, proper additives such as a thickener, etc., may be added to the coating composition.
There is no particular restriction on the coating method, and various coating methods such as a bar coating method, a blade coating method, an air knife coating method, a gravure coating method, a kiss coating method, a fountain coating method, a fountain reverse coating method, etc., can be used.
The amount of the coating composition coated is preferably from 3 to 10 g/m 2 (dry thickness). Further, a protective layer may be formed on the recording layer.
The recording layer of the heat-sensitive recording sheet of the present invention colors by short-time heating. The heating time required for coloring is very short. For example, in the case of using a thermal head, the heating time may be from few milli-seconds to few tens milli-seconds. The heating temperature is usually same as the heating temperature of a thermal head.
The recording layer thus colored is alecolored by heating for a long period of time. "Long-time heating" used herein means heating for a time longer than the heating time required for coloring the recording layer, and the heating time is only about from 1 to few seconds. The temperature required for decoloring is from 80° to 110° C. and when the color of the recording layer is decolored at the temperature, a color residue scarecely remains. In addition, the color of the recording layer is scarecely decolored at a temperature lower than the above decoloring temperature, and the colored information is sufficiently maintained.
A leocu compound usually causes a coloring reaction at an acidic state, while causes a decoloring reaction at a basic state.
An acidic material opens the lactone ring of a colorless leuco compound by the applied heat energy to give a color. On the other hand, when the compound having the open lactone ring is contacted with a basic material, the lactone ring is closed and the compound becomes the original colorless leuco compound.
The pyridine derivative used in the present invention is an amphoteric compound and has a carboxyl group or a phenolic hydroxyl group showing an acidic property, and a nitrogen atom (N atom) of the pyridine ring showing a basic property, in one molecule. When the pyridine derivative is contacted with a leoco compound and heated, it is considered that a coloring reaction and a decoloring reaction probably occur simultaneously. However, reaction rate of the coloring reaction is higher and hence it is assumed that when the recording layer containing the pyridine derivative and the leuco compound is heated with a thermal head for a short period of time (from few milli-seconds to few tens milli-seconds) and cooled, the colored state is maintained. On the other hand, when the recording layer is heated for a long period of time (longer than few hundreds milli-seconds), the system becomes an equilibrium state which is considered to be a decolored state and it is assumed that when the system is cooled, the decolored state is maintained.
The present invention is described in more detail by the following examples but the invention is not limited to these examples. In addition, in the examples, all parts are by weight unless otherwise indicated.
EXAMPLE 1
______________________________________ Amount (parts)______________________________________Liquid A:3,3-Bis(4,dimethylaminophenyl)-6-dimethyl- 10aminophthalide ##STR3##Vinyl Chloride-Vinyl Acetate Copolymer Resin 5Toluene 40Methyl Ethyl Ketone 10Liquid B:Nicotinic Acid 10Vinyl Chloride-Vinyl Acetate Copolymer Resin 7.5Toluene 40Methyl Ethyl Ketone 10______________________________________
After dispersing each of liquid A and liquid B described above in a ball mill for 5 hours, 1 part of liquid A, 4 parts of liquid B, 1.6 parts of toluene, and 0.4 part of methyl ethyl ketone were sufficiently mixed to obtain a coating liquid. The coating liquid was coated on a white polyester film having a thickness of 75 μm using a wire bar at a coating amount of 5 g/m 2 (dry thickness) to form a recording layer, thereby obtaining a reversible heat-sensitive recording sheet.
EXAMPLE 2
______________________________________ Amount (parts)______________________________________Liquid A:2-Anilino-3-methyl-6-dibutylaminofluoran 10 ##STR4##Polyvinyl alcohol 3Phosphoric Acid Ester Surfactant 1Water 40Isopropyl Alcohol 10Liquid B:4-Pyridone 10Polyvinyl Alcohol 10Water 40Isopropyl Alcohol 10______________________________________
After dispersing each of liquid A and liquid B described above in a ball mill for 5 hours, 1 part of liquid A, 6 parts of liquid B, 1.6 parts of water, and 0.4 part of isopropyl alcohol were sufficiently mixed to obtain a coating liquid. The coating liquid was coated on a wood free paper having a basis weight of 60 g/m 2 using a wire bar at a coating amount of 5 g/m 2 (dry thickness) to form a recording layer, thereby obtaining a reversible heat-sensitive recording sheet.
EXAMPLE 3
______________________________________ Amount (parts)______________________________________Liquid A:6-Diethylamino-benzo[a]-fluoran 10 ##STR5##Saturated Polyester Resin 7Toluene 40Methyl Ethyl Ketone 10Liquid B:2,4-Pyridinediol 10Saturated Polyester Resin 5Toluene 40Methyl Ethyl Ketone 10______________________________________
After dispersing each of liquid A and liquid B described above in a ball mill for 5 hours, 1 part of liquid A, 2 parts of liquid B, 1.6 parts of toluene, and 0.4 part of methyl ethyl ketone were sufficiently mixed to obtain a coating liquid. The coating liquid was coated on a polypropylene synthetic paper having a thickness of 150 μm using a wire bar at a coating amount of 5 g/m 2 (dry thickness) to form a recording layer, thereby obtaining a reversible heat-sensitive recording sheet.
COMPARATIVE EXAMPLE 1
By following the same procedure as in Example 1 except that liquid B having the following composition was used as the liquid B in Example 1, a reversible heat-sensitive recording sheet was prepared.
______________________________________ Amount (parts)______________________________________Liquid B:Compound having the following structure 10 ##STR6##Vinyl Chloride-Vinyl Acetate Copolymer Resin 7.5Toluene 40Methyl Ethyl Ketone 10______________________________________
COMPARATIVE EXAMPLE 2
By following the same procedure as in Example 2 except that liquid B having the following composition was used as the liquid B in Example 2, a reversible heat-sensitive recording sheet was prepared.
______________________________________Liquid B: Amount (parts)______________________________________p-Aminobenzoic Acid 10Polyvinyl Alcohol 10Water 40Isopropyl Alcohol 10______________________________________
When each of the reversible heat-sensitive recording sheets prepared in Examples 1 to 3 and Comparative Examples 1 and 2 was printed by a thermal head (printing electric power 0.5 watt/dot, pulse width 2 milli-seconds), a clear image was obtained in each case. When these printed samples were stored a whole day and night at room temperature, the image only of the sample prepared in Comparative Example 1 was faded.
Furthermore, when these printed samples were placed in a hot blast dryer kept at 110° C. for few seconds, the images of the printed samples prepared in Examples 1 to 3 were completely eliminated. On the other hand, the image of the printed sample in Comparative Example 2 was not completely eliminated.
When the same printing and eliminating operations were repeatedly applied to the reversible heat-sensitive recording sheets prepared in Examples 1 to 3, it was confirmed that they had a reproducibility and were excellent as reversible heat-sensitive recording sheets.
As described above, the composition for a reversible heat-sensitive recording medium of the present invention is such that a colored image obtained shows small decoloring with the passage of time and on the other hand, at eliminating the image, the image can be completely eliminated without almost leaving color residues. Accordingly, use of the composition of the present invention makes it possible to conduct coloring and decoloring repeatedly.
The composition can be utilized for the visualization of an invisible information by coating the same on the surface of a credit card, a prepaid card, etc., as a heat-sensitive recording sheet. The composition of the present invention can also be used as an output paper for an electronic information by coating the same on a paper or a plastic sheet.
While the invention has been described in detail and with reference to specific embodiments thereof, it will be apparent to one skilled in the art that various changes and modifications can be made therein without departing from the spirits and scope thereof. | A reversible heat-sensitive recording composition capable of repeatedly writing or erasing, and a reversible heat-sensitive recording sheet using the composition are disclosed. The reversible heat-sentitive recording composition comprising a leuco compound as a coloring agent and a pyridine derivative having at least one substituent selected from the group consisting of a carboxyl group and a phenolic hydroxyl group. | 1 |
RELATED APPLICATION
[0001] This application is related to a U.S. provisional application titled “Positive Indication System for Well Annulus Cement Displacement” filed on Apr. 24, 2001, Ser. No. 60/286,100, and from which priority is claimed for the present application.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0002] 1. Field of the Invention
[0003] The present invention relates to the tools and methods for earth boring and deep well completion. In particular, the invention relates to tools, materials and operational methods for placing an annulus of cement around a pipe or tube along a defined length of well bore.
[0004] 2. Description of the Related Art
[0005] A well annulus is that generally annular space within a wellbore that may be between the raw borehole wall and the outside of a casing pipe suspended within the borehole. The term may also be applied to the annular space between the raw borehole wall and the outside surface of a fluid production tube. The well annulus may also be that annular space between the casing inside surface and the outer surfaces of a pipe or tube that is suspended within the casing.
[0006] Packers are well completion tools that are used to segregate axially adjacent sections of the well annulus to prevent the transfer of fluids, liquid or gas, from flowing along the length of an annulus from one section to another or migrating from one earth strata to another. More generally, the packer is a structural barrier across an annulus section that usually extends along a short length of the annulus.
[0007] Characteristically, inflatable packers comprise an elastomer or rubber sleeve element around the outer perimeter of a tubular mandrel. Opposite ends of the elastomer sleeve are secured to the mandrel. The tubular mandrel wall provides structural strength to physically link elements of a tubular work string above and below the packer. Additionally, the open bore along the mandrel center provides working fluid (hydraulic oil, etc.) flow continuity from surface located pumps to other tools below the packer.
[0008] The opposing ends of a packer sleeve may be overlaid by collar elements. One or both collars may include valve devices to admit pressurized fluid from the mandrel flow bore into the interface between the elastomer sleeve and the outer surface elements of the mandrel. Sufficient pressure within the interface expands the elastomer radially from the mandrel surface out to a tight, pressure seal against the internal walls of the annulus to prevent fluid flow in either direction along the annulus past the packer.
[0009] A wellbore zone to be produced through the flow bore of a production tube or casing liner is often isolated by an annular collar that is cast in cement around the production tube or casing liner. The cement collar is also cast in intimate contact with the surrounding borehole wall or inside surface of the casing bore. This collar seals the wellbore annulus around the casing liner and also secures the casing liner within the wellbore.
[0010] A prior art procedure for placement of the uncured collar cement within the well annulus includes placement of form packers in the well annulus above and below the collar segment. For downhole placement, the packers are tool segments of the well casing liner that are secured within the casing liner pipe string at positions of axial separation corresponding to the desired length of the cement collar. Between the packers, the casing liner (or production tube) may also include a pair of selectively opened and closed cement valve elements for providing respective cement flow paths between the flow bore of the casing liner and the surrounding annulus. By means of a cementing tool, a cement flow path between one of the cement valves and the tubular flow bore of the cement tool is isolated. Cement is pumped from the surface, along the cementing tool flow bore, through transverse flow ports in the cement tool, and into the annulus around the casing liner. The other cement valve in the casing liner string receives the material in the collar annulus that is displaced by the uncured cement. This displaced material is received into an inner annulus between the cementing tool and the interior of the casing liner.
[0011] A raw borehole profile often is irregular. Although the exact dimension of the outside casing liner dimensions are known, the unknown volume within the borehole prevents a precise determination of the annulus volume between the collar packers. Consequently, a considerable excess of cement is pumped into the collar annulus simply to assure that the collar annulus is filled. Any excess cement flows through the second cement valve into the inner annulus between the casing liner interior and the cementing tool exterior. Removal of the cementing tool swabs the casing liner bore of the excess cement.
[0012] A major difficulty of the foregoing prior art process is the unknown. Notwithstanding delivery of volumetrically excessive cement, there is no certainty that the collar annulus is completely filled. It is therefor, an objective of the present invention to provide equipment and procedures to positively conclude a volumetric filling of a collar annulus.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0013] This and other objects of the invention as will become apparent from the following detailed description are obtained by a procedure that includes a shrouding screen over the cement return (ingress) valve. The cement egress valve is positioned along the casing liner or production string, as the case may be, between the pair of collar delineating packers but closely proximate of one. The screen shrouded return valve is also positioned between the packers but closely proximate of the other packer.
[0014] In cooperation with a liner casing or production tube having a shrouding screen over the cement ingress valve, the cement injected into the collar annulus is blended with a particulate or compatible thixotropic material that is matched to the mesh or slot opening of the shrouding screen.
[0015] Fluids within the collar annulus that are volumetrically displaced by a pressure driven influx of cement have a traditional drain route through the cement ingress valve and covering screen. However, when the particulate blended cement reaches the screen element over the cement ingress valve, the particulates will not pass through the screen openings. In due time, most of the screen mesh or slot opening will be bridged over by the cement borne particulates. A well working crew at the surface will recognize the condition by an increase in the cement pump discharge pressure as a consequence.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0016] The advantages and further aspects of the invention will be readily appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art as the same becomes better understood by reference to the following detailed description when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which like reference characters designate like or similar elements throughout the several figures of the drawing and wherein:
[0017] [0017]FIG. 1 is a partial section view of a well casing liner suspended within an uncased wellbore.
[0018] [0018]FIG. 2 is a line schematic of the invention in operation.
[0019] [0019]FIG. 3 is a partial section view of a well casing liner suspended within a cement collar.
[0020] [0020]FIG. 4 is a partial section view of a single acting, egress cementing valve.
[0021] [0021]FIG. 5 is a detailed enlargement of the egress cementing valve illustrated by FIG. 4.
[0022] [0022]FIG. 6 is a partial section view of the double-acting ingress cementing valve.
[0023] [0023]FIG. 7 is a partial section view of the cementing and shifting tool.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
[0024] A representative application of the invention is illustrated by FIG. 1 to include an open bore hole 10 having a casing liner 12 suspended therein. The casing liner may be a continuous pipe string that is supported at or near the surface, or, alternatively, may be concentrically sleeved within a larger diameter casing and suspended from an intermediate depth. An internal flow bore 13 of the casing liner is accessible at the surface as a conduit for well working fluids or as a mechanical guide channel for other tools and instruments suspended from the surface into and along the casing liner flow bore. Other applications of the invention may include, for example, a production tube within a cased and perforated bore hole.
[0025] The lower end of the casing liner may include an upper packer 14 and a lower packer 16 . Although fluid inflatable packers are preferred, it should be understood that the term “packer” is merely a convenience reference to any form of selectively engaged annulus barrier that obstructs the continuity of the annulus 18 . The packers 14 and 16 are separated by a distance D corresponding to the desired length of an annulus production collar 20 and linked by a casing liner subsection 22 . The packers 14 and 16 are located, for example, along the length of the borehole 10 in relation to a particular well fluid production zone.
[0026] Within the casing liner subsection 22 , and preferably adjacent to the lowermost packer 16 , is an egress cementing valve 24 for channeling a discharge flow of uncured, fluidized cement from a cementing tool into the collar annulus 20 . The material described herein as “cement” may also be or include other phase changing materials such as epoxies, polyesters, etc. An ingress cementing valve 26 for the return of fluid and other matter displaced by the cement occupation of the collar 20 annulus volume is preferably provided in the subsection 22 adjacent to the uppermost packer 14 .
[0027] Although the preferred sequence and order of the cementing valves is to locate the egress valve 24 in the proximity of the lower packer 16 and to locate the ingress valve 26 in the proximity of the uppermost packer 14 , those skilled in the art will understand and appreciate the fact that the sequence and order may be reversed.
[0028] With respect to FIGS. 4 and 5, the egress cementing valve 24 comprises a tubular housing 30 subtended at opposite ends by threaded connecting subs 32 and 34 . Near the upper connecting sub 32 , the housing 30 is perforated by one or more orifices 35 . The orifices are initially sealed by respective rupture discs 36 . Internally of the housing 30 , a closing sleeve 38 is provided with a close sliding fit against the inside wall surface of the tubular housing 30 . The closing sleeve has a limited freedom of axial translation in opposite directions along the housing for opening and closing the orifice 35 to fluid flow after the rupture discs 36 are discharged and the orifice 35 opened. A circumferential rib 40 flanked by glide ramps 42 around the inside circumference of the closing sleeve provides an operational connection to a shifting tool 106 that will be described subsequently.
[0029] Integral with and positioned between the closing sleeve 38 and the guide sleeve 46 are a plurality of axially extended, resilient collet reeds 44 . The outside perimeter of the collet reeds carries a latching shoulder 45 .
[0030] A locking piston 47 displaced by internal bore pressure is secured against axial translation by a calibrated shear pin 48 . A displacement space 49 is provided to receive the piston 47 . A radially biased piston skirt 50 closes against the end surface 52 of the guide sleeve 46 . However, the locking piston 47 will not secure the closed position of the closing sleeve 38 over the orifice 35 until the locking piston is translated into the displacement space 49 . Such translation is selectively actuated by sufficient fluid pressure within the internal flow bore 13 bearing on the end of the locking piston to shear the pin 48 . The actuation pressure is normally imposed by surface pumps not illustrated. The outer perimeter of the guide sleeve 46 carries a latching shoulder 54 that cooperates with the end of the biased skirt 50 to prevent reopening of the orifices 35 once the closing sleeve 38 has been translated to the closed position and the locking sleeve 47 has been translated into the displacement space 49 .
[0031] The ingress cementing valve 26 is described by reference to FIG. 6 which illustrates an upper connecting sub 62 and a lower connecting sub 64 . In threaded assembly between the two connecting subs is a tubular housing 60 . The housing 60 is perforated by orifices 66 . For downhole run-in, the orifices are closed by pressure rupture discs 67 . Internally, the housing 60 confines a closing sleeve 68 . The sleeve 68 is assembled to the internal bore of the housing 60 with a close sliding fit that overlies the orifices 66 . Collet reeds 70 carry a detent ridge 72 . The collet reeds resiliently bias the ridge into a circumferential detent channel 74 to releasably restrain the collet and closing sleeve at the open orifice position illustrated. The internal bore of the closing sleeve may include a circumferential tool rib 76 flanked by guide ramps 78 . The outer perimeter of the closing sleeve includes a radially expansible lock ring 80 .
[0032] Between the ingress valve upper sub 62 and the housing 60 is a lock piston 82 that is axially secured by a calibrated shear pin 83 . Predetermined fluid pressure within the flow bore 13 applied to the inside cross-section of the bore shears the lock pins 83 . Upon failure of the lock pins 83 , the lock piston 82 shifts into the displacement space 84 and removes the piston skirt 86 from the housing counterbore shoulder 88 . When the counterbore shoulder 88 is exposed and the closing sleeve 68 is shifted to the orifice 66 closure position, the lock ring 80 expands into the channel between the counterbore shoulder 88 and the end of the lock piston skirt 86 . This meshing of the lock ring 80 against the counterbore shoulder 88 secures the sleeve 68 from subsequent opening.
[0033] Secured around the external perimeter of the housing 60 is a calibrated screen 90 . The term screen is used herein to include all forms of sized flow paths which, for examples, may include meshed wire, parallel slots and drilled or punched orifices. Orifice or mesh opening dimensions or gage is highly dependent upon the material to be used with the collar forming cement. If the material blended with the cement is particulate, the orifices are sized to barely but confidently retain the particulate in a bridged position across the mesh or slot opening. An objective is to close the cement ingress path through the orifices 66 when the collar annulus is packed with cement. As a consequence of the operative cooperation between the screen mesh size and the cement blended particulate size, the collar annulus 20 must be filled with cement before all openings in the screen 90 are closed.
[0034] A specific example of the foregoing might include a 12 ga. meshed or slotted screen around the ingress orifices 66 to receive a collar annulus cement blended with resieved 20/40 U.S. Mesh Gravel. Appropriate particulates may include sand or ground glass. However, non-particulate cement additives may also be used to exploit flow properties such jelling or congealing under dynamic conditions.
[0035] With respect to FIG. 7, the cementing tool 100 comprises a threaded assembly of three sectors including upper sealing elements 102 and lower sealing elements 104 . Between the sealing elements is a shifting tool 106 . The sealing elements may be substantially passive swab seals. The shifting tool 106 comprises a plurality of cylindrically distributed collet reeds 108 having symmetric ramp faces 110 flanking a tool ridge engagement slot 112 .
[0036] The reed base sleeve 114 is secured to an upper collar 116 having a concentrically sliding fit about an outer mandrel 118 . A lower collar 120 is threadably assembled with the outer mandrel but loosely overlies free tips 122 of the collet reeds 108 . An annular, spring compliance space 124 spans beneath the collet reeds.
[0037] The outer mandrel 118 is a static, threaded assembly of tube between an upper collar 126 and a lower collar 128 . The upper collar 126 assembles with the terminal end of a cement delivery conduit not illustrated. The cement delivery conduit extends to the wellbore surface and is connected at the surface to a pumped delivery system.
[0038] Between the upper and lower collars 126 and 128 is a cooperative box joint 130 and pin joint 132 . The box joint is penetrated by an inner cement discharge orifice 134 . An inner mandrel 136 extends from the upper collar 126 to the lower collar 128 . An inner cement discharge orifice 138 aligns with the outer discharge orifice 134 . Below the inner discharge orifice 138 is a bore plug seat 140 adapted to receive a surface launched bore sealing element 142 such as a ball, rod or dart.
[0039] The invention method sequence is most conveniently understood from the schematic of FIG. 2 which illustrates a raw borehole wall 10 having a collar annulus 20 between a casing liner 12 and the borehole wall 10 . The collar annulus extends along the borehole length between the upper packer 14 and the lower packer 16 . Between the packers 14 and 16 is the egress cementing valve 24 and the ingress cementing valve 26 . The flow orifice 66 of the ingress valve 26 is shielded by a calibrated mesh screen 90 .
[0040] The cementing tool 100 is suspended within the internal bore of the casing liner 12 thereby providing an internal annulus 13 . This internal annulus 13 is internal of the collar annulus 20 . The cementing tool is positioned along the borehole length relative to the egress valve 35 . The sealing elements 102 and 104 are located on opposite sides of the egress valve 35 and expanded to isolate the inner annulus section 92 . This isolated inner annulus 92 provides a channel for the cement flow down the cementing tool flow bore from the orifices 138 to the orifices 35 of the egress valve 24 . The annulus 92 between the cementing tool 100 and the casing liner 12 is isolated between the sealing elements 102 and 104 . Consequently, the forced flow of cement is routed further through the egress valve 35 into the collar annulus 20 .
[0041] When the tool 100 is positioned as required and the inner annulus sealing elements 102 and 104 are expanded, the dart 142 is deposited in the tool flow bore to seal the tube bore at the seat 140 . Pump pressure within the flow bore may thereafter be increased to open the rapture disc in the egress valve 35 .
[0042] The ingress valve rupture disc 67 may also be opened at this time and the collar annulus 20 proceed to receive cement.
[0043] As the collar annulus fills with cement from the egress valve 35 , downhole formation fluids, drilling fluids and other debris is forced from the collar annulus 20 through the screen 90 and into the ingress orifice 66 until the cement reaches the screen 90 . Fluids and other materials passing through the ingress orifice 66 are channeled uphole along the annulus 13 between the cementing tool 100 and the casing liner 12 . As the aggregate laden cement attempts to penetrate the screen 90 , the particulates correspondingly plug the protective mesh thereby effectively closing the ingress valve 26 . The fact that the screen 90 enclosing the ingress valve 26 has plugged is objectively reported at the well surface by the discharge pressure in the cement displacement pump. The pump discharge pressure against the fluid column bearing on the cement abruptly rises. That fluid column is carried in the tubing bore of cementing tool 100 .
[0044] With the cement collar 20 in place, the orifice 35 of egress valve 24 is closed by a translated shift of the sleeve 38 . The cementing tool sealing elements 102 and 104 are retracted and the shifting tool 106 is manipulated to engage the shifting tool engagement slot 112 with the sleeve 38 rib 40 . When engaged, the sleeve 38 is shifted to underlie the orifice 35 and thereby isolate it from the interior bore.
[0045] When the sleeve 38 shifts, the radially inward spring bias of the locking piston 47 skirt 50 contracts the locking piston radially to present an abuttment obstacle to the sleeve 38 latching shoulder 54 thereby caging the sleeve at the orifice closed position.
[0046] If desired, the orifice 55 may be reopened once by the shifting tool 106 . Again the tool slots 112 engage the ribs 40 of the ingress valve sleeve 38 . Force is applied on the tool 100 to shear the retaining pin 48 and displace the locking piston into the space 49 .
[0047] After the ingress orifice 38 is closed, the shifting tool 106 is manipulated to engage the ingress valve 26 sleeve ridge 76 . The closing sleeve 68 is shifted to underlie and close the orifice 66 . The closing sleeve 68 is held at the open position by the collet reed detent ridge 72 resting in the housing detent channel 74 . When shifting force is applied to the sleeve 68 , the detent ridge 72 resiliently yields from the channel 74 , but expands to abut the housing shoulder 75 .
[0048] Shifting of the sleeve 68 to the orifice closure position also places the sleeve lock ring 80 contiguously within the piston skirt 86 of the lock piston 82 . Opening and closing of the egress orifice 66 by reverse shifting of the sleeve 68 is optional until the lock piston 82 is shifted by fluid pressure within the internal flow bore 13 . Sufficient flow bore pressure on the interior end of the lock piston 82 shears the retaining pin 84 to allow translation of the lock piston into the displacement space 84 . Such translation extracts the piston skirt from around the resiliently biased lock ring 80 which consequently expands into the circumferential channel evacuated by the piston skirt 86 .
[0049] Although the invention has been described in terms of specified embodiments which are set forth in detail, it should be understood that this is by illustration only and that the invention is not necessarily limited thereto. Alternative embodiments and operating techniques will become apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art in view of the present disclosure. Accordingly, modifications of the invention are contemplated which may be made without departing from the spirit of the claimed invention. | An annulus collar around a well production tube is cast in cement by a procedure that axially delineates the collar between two expandable well packers in the production tube string. Between the packers are a pair of cementing valves. An ingress valve is most proximate to the lower packer whereas an egress valve is most proximate to the upper packer. Additionally, the egress valve is modified to enclose the egress valve with a screen having mesh or slot openings that correspond with a screen plugging material that is mixed with the cement. | 4 |
REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION
This case is a continuation-in-part of application Ser. No. 09/546,918, filed Apr. 11, 2000 entitled Constructional Brick, which is a continuation-in-part of application Ser. No. 08/924,517, filed Sep. 5, 1997, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,105,330.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to interlocking building blocks for the construction of a building or wall structure.
It is common construction practice to erect building walls, as well as certain categories of free-standing walls, using concrete blocks of a solid rectangular configuration in which each block exhibits a plurality of cavities and external planes at all six sides thereof. Such blocks are, as is well known, laid-up in courses, typically by placing mortar, by trowel, on the top of the blocks and then positioning the blocks of the next course upon the lower course. However, as described below, some systems of inter-locking blocks exist which reduce or eliminate the need for such mortar. The instant invention particularly addresses the need for building blocks useful components of an interlocking building block system capable of resisting high lateral loads, of a both uniform and cyclical nature.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The prior art has recognized the need for, and value of, a building block system having interlocking elements at the horizontal interface between courses of the building blocks. The rationale for the use of such interlocking between horizontal planes of building blocks has, typically, been to eliminate or minimize the need for mortar between the courses thereof.
Such structures and systems appear in the prior art as U.S. Pat. No. 4,186,540 (1980) to Mullins, entitled Interlocking Cementitious Building Blocks and U.S. Pat. No. 3,325,956 (1967) to Moraetes, entitled Key Element for Concrete Blocks.
All building blocks of the instant type include a solid volume, also known as a web, which separate two vertical cavities. In the instant invention, this solid volume or web narrows in the negative (downward vertical) direction. No such narrowing of the web or partition exists in the reference to Mullins. Rather, it is only the upper mouth, known as a corbel, which slopes in a negative z-direction. More particularly, the teaching of Mullins is limited to that of a shape of the mouth of the vertical cavities which assists in the removal of retractable cores therefrom after the molding of such a block has occurred. Accordingly, to the extent that any narrowing of the web or partition Mullins occurs in the negative direction, such narrowing plays no role in the functionality of any wall system formed of blocks thereof.
With respect to Moraetes cited above, the teaching thereof is that of core openings which are tapered to permit ready extraction of the cores of molds thereof during manufacture of the block. That is, the vertical cavities of Moraetes do not bear any particular relationship to the structure of the webs or partition separating the vertical cavities thereof. Rather, the teaching of Moraetes relates only to its use of so-called key sections, which use is facilitated by the core openings shown therein. As such, the system of Moraetes is one is which a separate key or lock element, having completely different mechanical principles from that of Applicant's system, is used to achieve some of the objectives of vertical and horizontal stability set forth herein. It is therefore to be appreciated that a system of the type of Applicant's cannot be achieved by Moraetes, either alone or in combination with any other art known to the within inventor. Further, the art of record does not suggest the particular location of the interior cavity ledges of the component block structure of this invention. Without the particular geometry of the ledge structure of the vertical cavity walls of the inventor's constructional components it is not possible to achieve wall structures which are structural or functional equivalents of those that can be constructed with inventor's constructional components, this as is more particularly set forth below.
The inventor is also aware of United Kingdom Patent No. 550,745 (1941) to Rigby which teaches a proportionality of interlock elements which is completely different from that of the present invention. More particularly, Rigby, as is the case in essentially all prior art known to the inventor, is lacking in the deep key interlock features of the invention which are set forth herein.
The prior art is also reflected in United Kingdom Patent No. 176,031 (1922) to Deyes which shows the use of rebars in combination with horizontal plane key interlocks of brick components.
More recent art in this field is represented by U.S. Pat. No. 5,899,040 (1999) to Cerrato and U.S. Pat. No. 5,930,958 to Stanley. These references do not disclose construction blocks interlocking in three dimensions as is taught by my invention.
It is further noted that little of the above prior art fully addresses or suggests the need or value of a building block interlock structure between the vertical surfaces of building blocks within courses or rows, apparently because of a lack of recognition of the need for structures that could provide resistance against unusual lateral loads that might be encountered by a wall structure formed of building blocks. However, the extent to which the forces of nature can impact upon the integrity of apparently massive structures, such as building blocks/masonry wall structures, as been long know to architects and structural engineers that have been active in geographical areas prone to high velocity winds and earthquakes. High lateral loads may, as well, result from the horizontal component of truss-type loading upon a wall which is in truss-like communication with roof-beams and other transverse members of a given mechanical system.
The instant invention, accordingly, addresses the long-felt need in the art for a constructional component adapted for use in a wall system capable of resisting such high lateral loads, regardless of the origin thereof.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
A constructional component for a wall system definable in an xyz Cartesian coordinate system capable of resisting high gravity and lateral loads, both uniform and cyclical. The component comprises a solid building block, formed of a constructional material, having a generally rectangular exterior configuration definable in said xyz Cartesian coordinate system, an x-axis thereof defining a width axis of said wall structure, a y-axis thereof defining the directionality of said wall structure, and a z-axis thereof defining a vertical axis of the wall structure, in which one xz end surface of each building block comprises a positive y-axis deep key geometry and each opposing xz end surface thereof comprises a negative y-axis deep key geometry complementally interlockable to said positive geometry of an opposite xz surface, in which a ratio of the x-axis width of a base of each positive and negative deep key geometry of each opposing xz end surface comprises at least twenty percent of the entire y-axis width of each block, in which each y-axis deep key dimension of said respective deep key geometries also comprises a range of about eight to about twenty five percent of the x-axis dimension of said block, in which said block includes a plurality of vertical cavities extending through the entire z-axis length thereof, said cavities separated by a web portion, said cavities each including (i) a rectilinear recess at an upper xy surface of said block, said recess defining, in a xz plane cross section, a shallow U-shaped negative sub-platform, homologous with said recess, beneath and co-parallel with an xy top surface of said block, in which a vertical z-axis of said web begins at said negative sub-platform, and (ii) an opposite and lower xy surface of said block, at an opposite end z-axis end of said web, having a projecting positive sub-platform co-parallel with said negative sub-platform and complementally interlockable into adjoining negative sub-platforms of like blocks of vertically adjacent courses of blocks within said wall structure, each of said sub-platforms having a z-axis dimension in a range of about five to about twenty five percent of the x-axis dimension of said block, whereby a substantially rigid and load-resistant interlock between horizontally and vertically contiguous blocks, when joined as a component of a wall system, is resultant therefrom.
It is accordingly an object of the invention to provide a building block suitable for use as a constructional component of the wall structure adapted for resistance to high lateral loads, both uniform and cyclical.
It is another object to provide a constructional component of a wall system particularly adapted to resist lateral loads resultant from earthquakes, hurricanes, or pre-defined lateral loads within a truss system.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a constructional component providing enhanced resistance to high lateral loads in both the vertical and horizontal planes of interlock between such constructional components.
It is a yet further object to provide a constructional component of the above type wherein the topmost course of a wall thereof may be readily secured to the roof of a building.
It is a still further object of the invention to provide a constructional component of the above type having a substantially reduced mortar requirement between the horizontal interlock surface thereof.
The above and yet other objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the hereinafter set forth Brief Description of the Drawings, Detailed Description of the Invention, and Claims appended herewith.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a first embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a vertical cross-sectional view thereof taken along Line 2 — 2 of FIG. 1 .
FIG. 3 is a horizontal cross-sectional view taken along Line 3 — 3 of FIG. 1 .
FIG. 4 is a perspective view of a first variation of the embodiment of FIGS.
FIG. 5 is a vertical cross-sectional view taken through Line 5 — 5 of FIG. 4 .
FIG. 6 is a horizontal cross-sectional view taken through Line 6 — 6 of FIG. 4 .
FIG. 7 is a perspective view of a second variation of the embodiment of FIGS. 1-3.
FIG. 8 is a vertical cross-sectional view taken through Line 8 — 8 of FIG. 7 .
FIG. 9 is a horizontal cross-sectional view through Line 9 — 9 of FIG. 7 .
FIG. 10 is a perspective view of a second embodiment of the instant invention.
FIG. 10A is a top view of the embodiment of FIG. 10 .
FIG. 11 is a vertical cross-sectional view taken through Line 11 — 11 of FIG. 10 .
FIG. 12 is a horizontal cross-sectional view taken through Line 12 — 12 of FIG. 10 .
FIG. 13 is a perspective view of a second embodiment of the instant invention.
FIGS. 10B and 13A to 13 C are views of a further variation of the embodiment of FIGS. 10-12.
FIG. 14 is a vertical cross-sectional view taken through Line 14 — 14 of FIG. 13 .
FIG. 15 is a horizontal cross-sectional view taken through Line 15 — 15 of FIG. 13 .
FIG. 16 is a perspective view of a third embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 17 is a vertical cross-sectional view taken through Line 17 — 17 of FIG. 16 .
FIG. 18 is a horizontal cross-sectional view taken through Line 18 — 18 of FIG. 16 .
FIG. 19 is a perspective view of a variation of the embodiment of FIGS. 16-18.
FIG. 20 is a vertical cross-sectional view taken through Line 20 — 20 of FIG. 19 .
FIG. 21 is a horizontal cross-sectional view taken through Line 21 - 21 of FIG. 19 .
FIGS. 22 and 23 are respective top and bottom plan views showing complemental horizontal interlock of constructional blocks of one embodiment of the invention with constructional blocks of another embodiment of the invention.
FIG. 24 is a perspective view of a fourth embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 25 is a vertical cross-sectional view taken through Line 25 — 25 of FIG. 24 .
FIG. 26 is a horizontal cross-sectional view through Line 26 — 26 of FIGS. 24-26.
FIG. 27 is a perspective view of a variation of the embodiment of FIG. 24 .
FIG. 28 is a vertical cross-sectional view taken through Line 28 — 28 of FIG. 27 .
FIG. 29 is a horizontal cross-sectional view taken through Line 29 — 29 of FIG. 27 .
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
Shown in FIGS. 1 to 3 is a first embodiment of the inventive constructional component for a wall system capable of resisting high gravity and lateral loads, both uniform and cyclical. As may be noted in the legend to the left of FIG. 1, the constructional component is definable in terms of a xyz Cartesian coordinate system, this as is more fully set forth below. The inventive block 100 is formed of a constructional material and having a generally rectangular configuration definable in said xyz coordinate system. An x-axis thereof defines the width axis of the block and thereby of the wall structure of which the blocks will become a component. A y-axis thereof defines the directionality of the wall structure, and a z-axis defines a vertical axis of the block and therefore of the wall structure.
It is to be understood that one xz end surface of each building block comprises a positive xz axis deep key geometry 120 and at each opposing xz end surface thereof comprises a negative y-axis deep key geometry 118 that is complementally interlockable with a horizontally contiguous like block within a wall system formed of such blocks. It is to be noted that a ratio of the x-axis base, that is, (see FIG. 3) the base in the xz plane of each positive and negative deep key geometry 118 and 120 respectively, comprises at least twenty percent of the entire x-axis width of each block, and the y-axis deep key dimension, that is, the depth 119 (see FIG. 2) of each respective deep key geometry, comprises a range of about eight to about twenty five percent of the x-axis dimension of the entire block.
As may be further noted with reference to FIGS. 1 thru 3 , the block further includes a plurality of vertical cavities 112 and 114 extending through the entire z-axis length thereof, in which said cavities are separated by a web 132 . Each cavity includes a rectilinear recess 122 at an upper xy surface 124 of the block, said recess defining, in xz plane cross-section, a shallow U-shaped negative sub-platform, homologous with said recess 122 , beneath and co-parallel with said xy top surface 126 of the block 100 in which a vertical z-axis of said web 132 begins at top 134 thereof. An opposite and lower xy surface 126 of the block (see FIG. 2) includes an integrally projecting positive sub platform 123 which is co-parallel with said negative sub-platform 122 of the upper xy surface 124 of the structure. Said positive sub-platform is complementally interlockable with vertically contiguous like blocks within a resultant wall system. As may be noted, said vertical z-axis of web 132 ends at edge 135 and is within a central x-axis bottom recess 25 of the block 100 . It is further noted that each of said sub-platforms 122 and 123 exhibit a z-axis dimension which is in a range of about five to about twenty-five percent of the x-axis dimension of the block. In a preferred embodiment of the invention web 132 will taper downwardly from a greater to a lesser y-axis width (see FIG. 3 ).
In FIGS. 4 to 6 is shown a variation of the embodiment of FIGS. 1-3, in which an x-axis deep key geometry 121 projects from at least one yz wall 140 of block 150 . In all other respects this embodiment is identical to that of FIGS. 1 to 3 .
With reference to FIGS. 7 thru 9 is shown a second variation 180 of the above embodiments in which, relative to the embodiment of FIGS. 4 to 6 , the only change is that deep key geometry 118 has been eliminated in favor of a flat xz end wall 119 . All other respects of the embodiment of FIGS. 7 through 9 are identical to that of FIGS. 4 to 6 as described above.
With reference to the embodiment FIGS. 10-12, constructional component 200 thereof is characterized by a web 232 which is diagonal relative to y-axis edges 211 of the structure. Further, the embodiment of FIGS. 10 through 12 is characterized by a negative deep key geometry 218 which extends through the entire y-axis of the width of wall 231 of the block. Thereby, the interlock between contiguous y-axis blocks within a resulting wall structure will be that of positive deep key geometries 220 complementally interlocking with negative geometries 118 of other blocks in the manner shown in FIG. 10A herewith. Thereby, the y-axis interlock between contiguous blocks of a wall structure will be deeper and stronger than that resultant from such interlocks achieved in the above embodiments of FIGS. 1 through 9. Also, enhanced resistance and compressibility of the structure relative to lateral, that is, x-axis loads, both uniform and cyclical, may be achieved through the embodiments of FIGS. 10 thru 12 . This embodiment, in other aspects, is similar to that of the above embodiments, namely, there is provided a positive y-axis geometry, recesses 222 in vertical cavities 212 and 214 , as well as x-axis projections 223 proportioned for complemental z-axis interlock with contiguous like blocks of the resultant wall system.
In FIGS. 13 through 15 is shown a variation of the embodiment of FIGS. 10 through 12 in which there is additionally provided a positive deep key geometry 221 which projects in the positive x-direction off of lateral yz wall 240 of block 250 , thereby enabling the formation of a right angle of a resultant wall structure.
In FIGS. 13A to 13 C is shown a further variation of the embodiment of FIGS. 10-12 in which diagonal web 232 of block 200 is replaced by rectilinear web 233 of block 260 . As is shown in FIG. 13B, web 233 will preferably taper to a smaller y-axis width at the lower end of the z-axis of the block.
With reference to the embodiment of FIGS. 16 thru 18 , a constructional component 300 is generally similar to the embodiment of FIGS. 1 to 3 described above, this with the exception of the vertical cavities which, in the embodiment of FIGS. 16 through 18, take the form of cylindrical or elliptical cavities 312 and 314 which include, at the upper z-axis entrances thereof, circumferential ledges 322 , and at the negative z-axis entrance thereof projecting positive circumferential ledges 323 . This structure may be more fully seen with reference to vertical cross-sectional view of FIG. 17 and the horizontal cross-sectional view of FIG. 18 . Said positive circumferential ledge 323 is proportioned for complemental interlock with negative circumferential ledges 322 of contiguous z-axis blocks within a resulting wall structure.
In FIGS. 19 to 21 is shown a variation of the embodiment of FIGS. 16 through 18 which differs therefrom only in the elimination of negative y-axis geometry 318 of the block 300 in favor of positive x-axis geometry 321 of block 350 . That is, block 350 , at one xz surface thereof 319 is entirely flat while, at one yz surface 340 thereof exhibits said projecting positive x-axis deep key geometry 321 .
In the top and bottom plan views of FIGS. 22 and 23 respectively are shown the manner in which different embodiments of the invention, for example, the embodiment of FIGS. 1 to 3 may be employed within a resultant wall structure in combination with other embodiments. At the upper left corner of FIGS. 22 and 23 is shown a use of the present invention representing an integration of the embodiment of FIGS. 1 to 3 with a version of the embodiment of FIGS. 19 thru 22 , this is, rectilinear, cylindrical or elliptical vertical cavities, for example, 414 and 412 may be integrated within a single block 400 and may include a positive x-axis interlock 421 for purposes of interlock with a negative axis geometry 118 of a block of the embodiments of FIGS. 1 to 3 .
With reference to FIGS. 24 through 26, there is shown a variation of the embodiment of FIGS. 1 to 3 in which the web thereof is replaced by a diagonal web portion 532 in block 500 to provide a greater x-axis durability. A variation thereof is shown in FIGS. 27 through 29 which, generally, correspond to the embodiment of FIGS. 4 thru 6 . That is, vertical web portion 532 is again substituted for vertical web portion 132 . With respect to positive deep key geometries 520 and 521 , negative upper ledges 522 , and complemental positive lower projections 523 .
In view of the above, it is to be appreciated that there exist a number of variables which, through different permutations thereof, can produce any of the embodiments above-described, that is, through variation of the position of the respective positive and negative interlocks, the geometry of the vertical web, and a determination of whether a negative deep key interlock of the type of 118 (see FIG. 1) or 318 (see FIG. 16) is used in lieu of a negative deep key interlock of the type of 218 of block 200 or 250 (see FIGS. 10 thru 15 ). As above noted, a negative deep key interlock of the type of FIGS. 10 thru 15 is one which extends through the entire y-axis of one xz wall of the block 200 or 250 thereby enabling a deeper and closer engagement of contiguous blocks when interlocked within the y-axis of a resulting wall system. Further, each of the above embodiments also provides for z-axis interlock while providing for a substantial rigid interlock between both horizontally and vertically contiguous blocks when joined as components of a wall system.
While there has been shown and described the preferred embodiment of the instant invention it is to be appreciated that the invention may be embodied otherwise than is herein specifically shown and described and that, within said embodiment, certain changes may be made in the form and arrangement of the parts without departing from the underlying ideas or principles of this invention as set forth in the Claims appended herewith. | A constructional component for a wall structure capable of resisting high gravity and lateral loads, both uniform and cyclical, is defined by a partially hollow building block having a generally solid rectangular exterior configuration in which one entire end surface of the building block exhibits a positive deep key geometry and the opposing end surface exhibits a negative deep key geometry, complemental to the positive geometry of the opposite end. Deep key interlocks also exist between opposing horizontal block surface. As partition between vertical cavities of the block may define a Z-shape in horizontal cross-section. There is resultingly created a substantially rigid and load-resilient interlock between vertical and horizontal complemental surfaces when joined as components of a wall structure. | 4 |
BACKGROUND OF INVENTION
The invention is related to providing a pilot burner safety device of a gas combustion apparatus for shutting down a gas supply valve automatically at poor oxygen condition, particularly to providing a pilot burner safety device for enhancing reliability during initial ignition operation, in which this safety device has means of automatically controlling the air volume taken in through an intaking hole preventing the occurrence of a flame lifting phenomena, which that at initialized firing excessive air volume adversely influences the mixed gas intended to be at a certain theoretical concentration rate, so that it diminishes the speed of a combustion process to below that of a mixed gas flow.
Nowadays, houses tend to be sealed with the result that indoor ventilation has deteriorated unless there is forced ventilation. Nevertheless, if an open-type instant heater and an indoor convection type heater, etc. are used indoors, it induces a poor oxygen environment, which could cause a person inside to be poisoned by carbon monoxide.
Japan Laid Open Patent Publication No. Sho 57-60113 describes a safety device, preventing accidents caused by a long operation. This device detects the state of a flame heat generated by a flame lifting at poor oxygen conditions during the combustion operation of a main burner. If the detected heat is below the predetermined temperature, it cuts off the electromagnetic force at a gas supply valve through a control circuit to stop the gas supply.
In other words, the flame is formed away from the flame nozzle in a pilot burner, or spaced away in a predetermined distance from the thermocouple adjacent to the flame nozzle, so that the thermocouple is not heated and shuts off the electromagnetic force at the electromagnetic gas supply valve stopping the gas supply, and thereby extinguishing the main burner.
As described below in detail, a pilot burner includes the body, which is perforated through the inner center portion thereof to form a gas supplying passage. Into the gas supplying passage there is a nozzle fitted for jetting gas supplied from a storage vessel. An air supply hole is pierced at a predetermined position along the way of the gas supplying passage of a pilot burner. Therefore, gas from the nozzle is mixed at the predetermined rate with air taken in from the air intaking hole, and the mixed gas is jetted at the flame nozzle located at the front end of a pilot burner to generate the flame at firing.
However, in the pilot burner, the size of the air supply hole is determined to supply necessary air for a normal combustion condition, and through the hole, air is fed in excess over the air volume required for initialized firing. At this time the speed of a mixed gas flow is greater than that of a combustion process, after which a flame is formed away from the flame nozzle of a pilot burner, or a flame lifting phenomena such as that which occurs in a poor oxygen condition happens. Therefore, the heat of a flame is not transferred to the thermocouple adjacent to the flame nozzle, with the result that the electromagnetic force at the valve is shut off. Whereby the electromagnetic gas supply valve is closed when it should be opened. This occurs frequently. The nonignition phenomena cause the user to go through the ignition step several times. Due to it, it may inconvenience a user with unsatisfactory results. The nonignition phenomena occurring at initial firing may result from excess air volume over the desired air volume at initiation
So, the air intaking hole is sized to intake an air volume, rendering the safety device inoperative and not preventing an accident that could result from a poor carbon environment.
In view of the foregoing, it is the object of this invention to provide a pilot burner safety device of a gas combustion apparatus having a safety aspect of automatically, controlling the intaking air volume required for firing in accordance with the initial ignition or normal combustion operation automatically and then stopping supply gas at poor oxygen condition, and preventing the nonignition phenomena at initial ignition, to achive a firing at the first ignition operation.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF INVENTION
In the first preferred embodiment of the present invention, the safety device comprises an air intaking air means for intaking into a gas supplying passage, a heat detecting means mounted adjacent to the flame nozzle, and an air intaking control means mounted adjacent to the flame nozzle for controlling an air volume through the air intaking means by detecting flame temperature at the flame nozzle, and an air intaking control means including a shape memory alloy which closes the air intaking means to air flow as a first step, and then opens the air intaking means air hole at a heated condition.
In the second preferred embodiment of the present invention, the safety device comprises an air intaking means for inhaling air into a gas supply passage, a heat detecting means mounted adjacent to the flame nozzle, a temperature detecting means for detecting temperature at the combustion portion or the gas exhaust portion and an air intaking control means mounted on the bottom portion of the flame nozzle to control an air volume of the air intaking means by detecting the temperature at the combustion portion or the gas exhaust portion. The air taking control means includes a bellows shape changing its length by an expansion or contraction of material in the temperature detecting means the, by which means air intaking means is closed by half at a first step and is opened wholly at a heated condition.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS
The present invention will be described in detail by reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:
FIG. 1 is a plan view of one example of the pilot burner with an air intaking apparatus in the first preferred embodiment.
FIG. 2 (A) is a cross section taken on line A--A' in FIG. 1 at initial firing.
FIG. 2 (B) is a cross section taken on line A--A' in FIG. 1 at normal firing.
FIG. 3 is a plan view of another example of the pilot burner with an air intaking apparatus in the second preferred embodiment at initial firing.
FIG. 4 is a plan view of another example of the pilot burner with air intaking apparatus in the second preferred embodiment at normal firing.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
FIG. 1 and FIG. 2 are views illustrating the first preferred embodiment.
Body 1 of a pilot burner is provided with gas supplying passage 11 perforated at the inner center thereof throughout its longitudinal length. At the front end of body 1 there is flame nozzle 11A installed, and at the rear end of body 1 there is gas supplying tube 12 connected. Air supplying hole 11B is pierced on gas supplying passage 11 of body 1.
Heat detecting means 13 is mounted at the one end of body 1 close to the front of flame nozzle 11A in a position reaching the flame, so that it opens or closes an electromagnetic gas supplying valve 20 operated by an electromagnetic operator 21. The electromagnetic gas supplying valve 20 receives a signal corresponding to the complete or incomplete combustion of flame at flame nozzle 11A, resulting in flow or flow cut off of gas supply with respect to the main burner. Fittings 22, 24 couple valve 20 to a supply of fuel gas 26.
An air intaking control means 2 is installed in body 1 for adjusting an air intaking volume according to opening or closing air supplying hole 11B mentioned above. Air intaking control means 2 is made of a shape memory alloy of two metal pieces being attached face to face to each other, in which two metal pieces are different in expansion coefficient according to their own temperature change from each other. The body of air intaking control means 2 is in the form of a cross, so that fixed strips 21A and 21B are horizontally mounted on both sides and opening/closing portion 22 of the opening/closing air intaking hole 11B is placed on one side of the remainder acrossing the line of fixed strips. Fixed strip 21A and 21B is fixed to surrounding plate 3 with screws 4A, 4B acrossing the longitudinal direction of body 1. A proper size of air intaking hole 11B is formed at an initial firing by the opening/closing portion 22. The heat corresponding to the complete or incomplete combustion of flame from flame nozzle 11A is transferred to air intaking control means 2. Air intaking control means 2 closed halves of air intaking hole 11B as illustrated in FIG. 2A at an initial firing. Air intaking control means 2 opens air intaking hole 11B as illustrated in FIG. 2B during a normal combustion operation as the opening/closing portion 22 is deflected upward by a flame heat from nozzle 11A.
In other words, air intaking hole 11B is half closed by opening/closing portion 22 at initial firing, so that air less volume is inhaled than that of air available during a normal combustion operation as illustrated in FIG. 2A.
While an ignition device (not shown) is being operated, the flame generated near the pilot burner (not shown) ignites flame nozzle 11A at an initial firing and then a firing starts. At this time, since air is fed in a small volume dependent upon maintaining a greater speed of mixed gas flow than that during a combustion process, it completely prevents the flame lifting phenomena or a flame forming away from flame nozzle 11A. Heat detecting means 13 exposed to heat, will cause a gas supplying valve to open (not shown) wholly. This control action enhances reliability as it can completely prevent nonignition due to a discontinuance of gas.
At normal combustion, opening/closing portion 22, described in FIG. 2B in part, is bent upwards resulting in intaking hole 11B being wide open and allowing an air volume required for a normal firing.
Moreover, owing to the influence applied from the external environment or the stopping operation associated therewith, the firing of the combustion portion is stopped, while opening/closing portion 22 in the air intaking control means comes back in the former state and waits for the following ignition step.
As set forth hereinabove, the first preferred embodiment of present invention provides a pilot burner safety device. It operates with the air intaking control means to change its own configuration by a detecting means detecting a firing and extinguishing state, and controls variably air intaking volume through an air intaking hole of the pilot burner according to initial or normal firing. Particularly at initial firing, it prevents the flame from spacing away from the flame nozzle of the pilot burner, detects the firing at a thermocouple with certainty, and supplies a gas steadily to prevent completely a nonignition phenomena. It enhances the reliability to ignite with a first time ignition operation.
FIG. 3 and FIG. 4 are views illustrating the second preferred embodiment.
The second embodiment is provided with body 1 having air supplying hole 11B that is the same as above first preferred embodiment, heat detecting means 13 that is the same as above first preferred embodiment, and air intaking control means 3 that controls a volume of intaking air fed through an air intaking hole according to a supply nozzle's longitudinal movement.
The body of air intaking control means 3 is made in the form of a bellows, in which material 8A filled in heat detecting means 8, which will be described later, expands and contracts in its length in accordance with an expansion and contraction of the body. The front end of the air intaking control means is fixed with thread member 5A, 5B. The rear end contacts with fixing component 6 which is threadedly coupled at the end of gas supplying nozzle 10 which moves through gas supplying passage 11 of body 1, with result that gas supplying nozzle 10 cooperates with air intaking control means 3 in harmony.
Heat detecting means 8 is provided with a hollow tube type closure body, in which material 8A filled therein, expands and contacts in its length in according with the heat change. The material is made of solid and liquid having an excellent characteristic to expands and contract as it is converted into the gas phase when heated. Also heat detecting means 8 is installed near a passage of the combustion portion and exhaust portion exhausting a combustion gas to detect the operating situation for a combustor so, that the extinguishing and firing conditions for the combustion portion are detected at extinguishing or firing. Therefore, connecting member 7 in the form of the capillary tube is connected between heat detecting means 8 and air intaking control means 3.
As material 8A in heat detecting means 8 is gets hot, material 8A expands so that material 8A is fed through connecting member 7 into air intaking control means 3, whereby air intaking control means 3 expands in its length.
On the contrary, as heat detecting means 8 gets cold, material 8A having been fed into air intaking control means 3 by the heat-expansion is contracted, with the result that material 8A is returned to heat detecting means 8 through connecting member 7 and air intaking control means 3 comes back in the former state. In other words, air intake hole 11B is closed in part by opening/closing portion 22 at an initial firing, so that less volume of air than that of air available during a normal combustion operation is inhaled therethrough as illustrated in FIG. 3. It enhances the reliability to completely prevent the nonignition due to a flame lifting phenomena.
Also at normal combustion, gas supplying nozzle 10 comes backward like shown in FIG. 4, with the result that it opens intaking hole 11B completely and feeds an air volume required for normal firing. Moreover, owing to the influence applied from the external environment or the stopping operation associated therewith, the firing of the combustion portion is stopped, while gas supplying nozzle 10 in air intaking control means 3 comes back in the former state and waits for the following ignition step.
As set forth hereinabove, the second preferred embodiment of present invention provides a pilot burner safety device. Gas supplying nozzle 10 moves backward/forward with the air intaking control means in harmony to change its own configuration by a detecting means detecting a firing and extinguishing state, from which an effect is taken in connection with the first preferred embodiment. | A pilot burner safety device of a gas combustion apparatus for shutting down a gas supply valve automatically at poor oxygen condition, includes an air intaking air means for intaking into a gas supplying passage, a heat detecting means mounted adjacent to the flame nozzle and an intaking control means mounted adjacent to the flame nozzle for controlling an air volume through the air intaking means by detecting flame temperature at the flame nozzle, and an air control means including a shape memory alloy which closes the halves of the air intaking means as a first step and opens the whole of the air intaking means at a heated condition, thereby avoiding nonignition phenomena at the initial ignition, and achieving a firing in one ignition operation. | 5 |
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0001] The present invention relates to plastics made of polymeric compositions and additives, and, in particular, to plastics which have an antimicrobial characteristic.
[0002] Modern plastic materials have been in use since the 1930s. Plastics are made of polymers and usually additives. Typical polymers include: synthetic resins, styrenes, polyolefins, polyamides, fluoropolymers, vinyls, acrylics, polyurethanes, cellulosics, imides, acetals, polycarbonates, and polysulfphones. Lacking nutrients required for microbial growth, most pure synthetic polymers have a natural resistance to microbes. However, in order to improve, among other things, physical characteristics of polymers, additives such as plasticizers are often used which serve as a source of nutrients for microorganisms.
[0003] Modern plasticizers include phthalates, adipates, and other esters. In the case of PVC, for example, the addition of plasticizers allows for production of clothing, upholstery, flexible hoses, tubing, flooring, roofing membranes, and electrical cable insulation.
[0004] Plasticizers are particularly susceptible to bacteria and fungi, especially in high moisture areas. Without the addition of antimicrobial agents, plastic materials experience microbial surface growth and development of spores. Microbial growth can result in allergic reactions, unpleasant odors, staining, embrittlement of the plastic, and premature product failure.
[0005] Thus, antimicrobials can be used to impart protection against mold, mildew, fungi and bacterial growth. Antimicrobials have been used in commercial products ranging from food to paint to plastic. Several antimicrobial formulations are used within the plastics industry. One of the major biocides used commercially is 10,10-oxybisphenoxarsine (OBPA) in a phthalate carrier. OBPA, an arsenic containing biocide, has been used in plastic resins, fibers, tapes, and other plastics. See U.S. Pat. No. 3,624,062 to Dunbar, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,086,297 to Rei, et al. And U.S. Pat. No. 4,663,077, to Rei, et al., also describes the use of OBPA to impart microbiocide properties to polymer compositions.
[0006] The use of OBPA has raised concerns regarding its environmental and human health impact. According to a Kline & Company study of the biocides industry in 2004 and 2005, the U.S. and European markets for biocides are very mature; however the EU's Biocidal Products Directive may convince consumers to reduce the role of OBPA as a biocide. If OBPA is banned, other antimicrobial products will be required to replace it.
[0007] There are certain other antimicrobial compounds in use. U.S. Pat. No. 3,755,224 to Lutz discloses a polymer containing the biocide 3-isothiazolones. For antimicrobial use in plastic, Minieri in U.S. Pat. 3,890,270 discloses N-(2,6-di-substituted-phenyl)maleimides. U.S. Pat. No. 6,495,613 to Gangus discloses an antimicrobial agent that releases silver, copper, zinc, or ions thereof, incorporated into dental plastics. The antimicrobial agent is preferably copper oxide or zinc silicate.
[0008] Dehydroacetic acid (DHA) has been used as a preservative for cosmetics and food products. It is approved by the FDA (21 CFR 172.130) as a food preservative and is a known antimicrobial, biocide and fungicide. U.S. Pat. No. 5,654,330, to Oppong, et al., discloses use of organic acids, and salts thereof, in combination with 2-bromo-4-hydroxyacteophenone (BHAP). However, the low boiling point of BHAP and its high toxicity, especially when inhaled, make it unsuitable for use at high temperatures, such as those required for processing polyvinyl, polyolefins, and polyurethanes. Therefore, the composition of Oppong, et al., is unsuitable for use in high temperature processes.
[0009] U.S. Pat. No. 4,348,308 to Minagawa, et al. also discloses using a salt of DHA in plastics as one component of an additive composition for improving the color stability of plastic. The composition disclosed by Minagawa, et al., contains an ortho-tertiary-alkyl substituted phenyl phosphite. According to Minagawa, et al., the ortho-tertiary-alkyl substituted phenyl phosphite reacts synergistically with the DHA compound.
[0010] U.S. Pat. No. 4,252,698 to Ito, et al. discloses an anti-yellowing composition for PVC wherein an overbased sulfonate or phenolate is combined with a cyclic or open-chained 1,3-diketone, or a metal salt thereof. Ito, et al. require the addition of a co-agent, specifically an overbased sulfonate or phenolate, to achieve anti-yellowing.
[0011] U.S. Pat. No. 5,147,917 to Sugawara, et al., discloses a halogen resin composition composed of an overbased alkaline earth metal carboylate/carbonate complex together with a β-diketone compound or a metal salt of a β-diketone. While DHA is listed as a β-diketone, the disclosure again requires a co-agent, in this case, an overbased alkaline earth metal carboxylate/carbonate.
[0012] Unfortunately, many antimicrobial compounds are not heat stable and degrade at the high temperatures required for molding of plastics. One reason the arsenic-containing antimicrobial OBPA is still one of the major biocides in plastics is its stability in the presence of heat in the range of processing flexible PVC, polyolefins and urethane compounds.
[0013] More environmentally-acceptable antimicrobial chemicals are desired to replace highly toxic material. For use in plastic, the antimicrobial should be stable at high temperatures. There are ongoing needs for effective antimicrobial protection, which also maintains surface appearance, prevents contamination, withstands the weathering of time, and extends the life of the plastic materials.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0014] The present invention is a plastic and a method for making the same, which includes a heat stable combination of at least one polymer, capable of forming a plastic, and a salt of dehydroacetic acid (DHA). The salt of DHA is present in the absence of a required co-agent and in an amount sufficient to provide antimicrobial properties to a plastic resulting therefrom.
[0015] The polymer, which is capable of forming a plastic, is selected from the group including: styrenes, polyolefins, polyamides, fluoropolymers, vinyls, acrylics, polyurethanes, cellulosics, imides, acetals, polycarbonates, polysulfones, polymeric resins, and combinations and co-polymers and inter-polymers thereof. The polymer is preferably a vinyl polymer and more preferably a polyvinyl chloride.
[0016] In another embodiment, the vinyl polymer is polyethylene, polypropylene, polybutadiene, polytetrafluoroethylene, polystyrene, polyacrylate, polymethacrylate, polyvinyl alcohol, polyvinyl acetate, polyvinyl chloride, or polyacrylonitrile.
[0017] The salt of DHA is a monovalent or divalent salt. It is preferably selected from the group including sodium, potassium, lithium, magnesium, zinc, copper, barium, calcium, strontium or tin and combinations thereof. Most preferably, the salt of DHA is a zinc salt.
[0018] The salt of DHA is present in an amount sufficient to provide antimicrobial properties to a plastic. Preferably the amount of a salt of DHA is from about 5 ppm to about 10,000 ppm, more preferably from about 50 ppm to about 8,500 ppm. The salt of DHA is most preferably present in an amount of from about 100 ppm to about 5,000 ppm. The ranges can also be any combination of the minimum and maximum amounts set forth above.
[0019] The ability to achieve antimicrobial properties while processing at elevated temperatures does not depend on a co-agent to be included with the DHA salt. No other chemical ingredient is required, and, in a preferred embodiment, additional chemical ingredient(s) used to augment, modify, enhance, or otherwise effect the salt of DHA, are not included.
[0020] The heat stable salt of DHA is stable at a temperature of at least about 170° C. and preferably from about 170° C. to 275° C.
[0021] The plastic can also contain a co-antimicrobial agent. The co-antimicrobial agent is preferably selected from the group consisting of Zn-pyrithione, isothiazolones, or tebuconozole (and combinations thereof). The co-antimicrobial agent is preferably present in an amount from about 5 ppm to about 10,000 ppm, more preferably from about 50 ppm to about 8,500 ppm. The co-antimicrobial agent is most preferably in an amount from about 100 ppm to about 5,000 ppm. The ranges can also be any combination of the minimum and maximum amounts set forth above.
[0022] The method can include polymer processing and then further processing. The processing (and further processing) is selected from: blending, extruding, fiber spinning, film blowing, filament winding, spin coating, molding, blow molding, injection molding, reaction injection molding, transfer molding, or a combination thereof.
[0023] The polymer processing (and further processing) can have a temperature profile which, for a significant portion of the processing, is not less than 170° C. Another preferred embodiment has a temperature profile which is predominantly over 170° C.
[0024] As a result of the present invention, the polymer can be used to make any product ranging from common building and domestic items to sterile laboratory equipment and medical instruments. The major applications include: flexible roofing membrane, pool liners, shower curtains, electrical appliances, food contact packaging, and automotive parts and accessories. The omission of arsenic containing antimicrobials reduces safety concerns.
[0025] The heat stability of a salt of DHA allows the compound to be added to the polymer prior to processing. By permeating the polymer with the salt of DHA, the antimicrobial nature can be maintained even, for example, if internal layers of the plastic become exposed to the environment via erosion of the outer layer, accidental puncture, or incidental wear and tear common due to the many rugged uses of plastics.
[0026] Furthermore, melding the salt of DHA with the polymer, can decrease the risk inherent in antimicrobial coatings, that of dissolution of the antimicrobial into the surrounding media.
[0027] Another advantage of the present invention is that salts of DHA could replace antimicrobials currently used in manufacturing of plastics, which rely on arsenic-containing antimicrobials. The omission of arsenic-containing antimicrobials can be better for the environment.
[0028] Since salts of DHA can be used at high temperatures in the absence of a co-agent, antimicrobial properties can be achieved in polymers that require high heat processing.
[0029] For a better understanding of the present invention, together with other and further objects, reference is made to the following description, taken in conjunction with the examples, and its scope will be pointed out in the appended claims.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0030] FIG A is the untreated control for Example 2 Zone of Inhibition Test;
[0031] FIG B is the zinc dehydroacetic acid (Zn-DHA) result for Example 2 Zone of Inhibition Test;
[0032] FIG C is the Zn-DHA with octylisothiazolinone result for Example 2 Zone of Inhibition Test; and
[0033] FIG D is the Zn-DHA with zinc pyrithione result for Example 2 Zone of Inhibition Test.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
[0034] The invention is a plastic and method of making the same, which includes combination of a heat stable salt of DHA and a polymer capable of forming a plastic. The plastic can be thermoplastic, thermoset, or elastomeric.
[0035] The polymer can be natural, synthetic, or semi-synthetic, and can, for example, be a polystyrene, polyolefin, polyamide, polyethylene, polypropylene, fluoropolymer, vinyl polymer, acrylic polymer, polyurethane, cellulosic, polyimide, polyacetal, polycarbonate, polysulfone, and all polymeric resins. The polymer can also be a combination of polymers, a copolymer, or an inter-polymer. The polymer is preferably a vinyl polymer, more preferably polyvinyl chloride. The polymer capable of forming a plastic also includes commercial forms of polymers provided to industry for further processing. This includes, for example, flexible polymers and polymer resins. The plastic is preferably a polyurethane, polyvinyl chloride, polyolefin, or polypropylene plastic. It is most preferably a polyvinyl chloride plastic.
[0036] The polymer capable of forming a plastic is preferably a vinyl polymer. The vinyl polymer can be a polyethylene, polypropylene, polybutadiene, polytetrafluoroethylene, polystyrene, polyacrylate, polymethacrylate, polyvinyl alcohol, polyvinyl acetate, polyvinyl chloride or polyacrylonitrile.
[0037] The plastic includes a heat stable salt of dehydroacetic acid. Dehydroactic acid (DHA) degrades only at high temperatures thereby permitting inclusion in processing of polyvinyl chloride, polyurethane and polyolefin plastics. Whereas DHA degrades at about 169° C., a heat stable salt of DHA remains stable at temperatures of at least about 170° C. and above. The present invention includes all heat stable salts of DHA. These salts are preferably monovalent or divalent salts. They can include, for example, sodium, potassium, lithium, magnesium, zinc, copper, barium, calcium, strontium, or tin and combinations thereof. The most preferable salt of the present invention is the zinc salt of DHA. The zinc salt of DHA, for example, is stable up to temperatures of about 275° C.
[0038] The salt of DHA provides antimicrobial properties to the plastic in the absence of a required co-agent. No other agent, especially a chemical agent (e.g., compound, composition, etc.), is required, and preferably, not present to co-act, modify, or otherwise effect the antimicrobial potential of the DHA salt. Antimicrobial properties include any biocidal, fungicidal, pesticidal, sporicidal and virucidal activity. The antimicrobial property can also, for example, include biostatic properties.
[0039] The salt of DHA is present in an amount sufficient to provide antimicrobial properties to a plastic resulting therefrom. Thus, a preferred embodiment of the invention would use about 5 ppm to abut 10,000 ppm of DHA salt, preferably from about 50 ppm to about 8,500 ppm, and more preferably from about 100 ppm to about 5,000 ppm. Any minimum and any maximum amount of DHA salt can be combined to form a suitable range.
[0040] The plastic can further comprise a co-antimicrobial agent. This co-antimicrobial agent can be any heat stable antimicrobial agent suitable for use in plastics. The co-antimicrobial agent can be any heat stable biostatic, biocidal, fungicidal, pesticidal, sporicidal or viricidal agent. A preferred embodiment of the invention would include Zn-pyrithione, isothiazolone, or tebuconazole. This embodiment of the invention would use at least about 5 ppm to about 10,000 ppm of co-antimicrobial agent, preferably from about 50 ppm to about 8,500 ppm, and more preferably from about 100 ppm to about 5,000 ppm. Suitable ranges of co-antimicrobial agent can be formed by combining any minimum and any maximum amount.
[0041] The invention also provides a method of providing a plastic with antimicrobial properties. This is achieved in the absence of a required co-agent, by combining at least one polymer with at least a heat stable salt of DHA. The salt of DHA is present in an amount sufficient to imbue the polymeric product with antimicrobial characteristics.
[0042] The method provides for polymer processing and further processing. The processing can be any type of processing to which a plastic can be subject. It can, for example, be blended, extruded, subjected to fiber spinning, film blowing, filament winding, or applied as a spin coating. It can also be molded in many ways, for example, such as blow molding, injection molding, reaction injection molding, or transfer molding.
[0043] The temperature profile for the polymer processing (and further processing) can include a temperature of not less than 170° C. The temperature profile can also be predominantly over 170° C.
[0044] The present invention can be better understood by reference to the following examples. The following examples illustrate the present invention and are not intended to limit the invention or its scope in any manner.
EXAMPLES
Antimicrobial Treated Plastic Sample Preparation for all Examples
[0045] The antimicrobial component containing salts of dehydroacetic acid, with or without additional antimicrobial components, were mixed with commercial flexible PVC (FPVC) compound. The mixtures were extruded on an intermeshing modular co-rotating twin screw extruder, and pelletized after cooling. The temperature profiles, from feed zone to die zone on the extruder are 140° C., 170° C., 175° C., 175° C., 175° C., and 175° C. The antimicrobial treated FPVC compounds were then cast on a press at 185° C. to form plastic sheets. Three 2″×2″ square samples were cut from each plastic sheet as test samples.
[0046] An untreated control sample of flexible PVC was manufactured without antimicrobial components.
Example 1
Fungal Resistance Test (ASTM G21)
[0047] A fungal inoculum was prepared. The fungal inoculum consisted of five species (test organisms): Aspergillus niger ATCC 9642, Aureobasidium pullulans ATCC 15233, Chaetomium globosum ATCC 6205, Penicillium funiculosum ATCC 11797, and Trichoderma virens ATCC 9645.
[0048] Test samples, in triplicate, were placed in Petri dishes on mineral salts agar and inoculated with the fungal inoculum. A Petri dish of mineral salts agar inoculated with the fungal inoculum served as the positive control. The untreated control was also inoculated. The samples were then incubated at 28° C. for 4 weeks and examined weekly for the growth of the test organisms.
[0049] For evaluation of relative resistance of synthetic polymeric materials, a rating scheme as set forth in footnote 1 of Table 1 was used:
[0000]
TABLE 1
Fungal Resistance Test - ASTM G21 results
Fungal
Growth
Concen-
Reading 1
Formu-
tration
(ASTM
Sample
lation
Controls
(ppm)
G21)
Number
Number
Positive Control
N/A
4
Untreated Control
0
4
NB 5794-109 A
UTC
Concen-
Fungal
Formu-
tration
Growth
Sample
lation
Samples
(ppm)
Reading 1
Number
Number
Zn-DHA
2500
0
NB 5794-109 S
S-12
Zn-DHA/n-OIT
1250/1250
0
NB 5794-110 Q
S-15
Zn-DHA/Zn—P
1250/1250
0
NB 5794-109 U
S-14
Zn-DHA/
1250/1250
0
NB 5794-109 V
S-17
Tebuconazole
1 Rating Scheme
None
0
Traces of growth (less than 10%)
1
Light growth (10-30%)
2
Medium growth (30-60%)
3
Heavy growth (60% to complete coverage)
4
Example 1
Fungal Resistance Discussion
[0050] The fungal resistance test results are listed in Table 1. While the Untreated Control showed maximum fungal growth (fungal growth rating of 4), Zn-DHA, and its blends: Zn-DHA/n-OIT (octylisothiazolinone), Zn-DHA/Zn-P (Zinc-Pyrithione), and Zn-DHA/Tebuconazole, demonstrate total fungal resistance (fungal growth rating of 0).
[0051] Consequently, flexible PVC without Zn-DHA (e.g., the “Untreated Control” of Example 1) is subject to fungi and other microbial attack. These fungi and other microbes can generate odors, cause pitting and discoloration, and lead to loss of mechanical properties. In contrast, the plastic of the invention (e.g., the “Samples” of Example 1), display total resistance to the fungal growth, avoiding such detrimental effects.
Example 2
Zone of Inhibition Test (Modified ASTM G21)
[0052] A fungal inoculum was prepared. The fungal inoculum consisted of five species (test organisms): Aspergillus niger ATCC 9642, Aureobasidium pullulans ATCC 15233, Chaetomium globosum ATCC 6205, Penicillium funiculosum ATCC 11797, and Trichoderma virens ATCC 9645.
[0053] Test samples, in triplicate, were placed in Petri dishes on Potato Dextrose Agar, and inoculated with the fungal inoculum. A positive control consisting of Potato Dextrose Agar and an untreated control consisting of untreated flexible PVC on Potato Dextrose Agar were also inoculated.
[0054] The samples and controls were incubated at 28° C. for 4 weeks and the Zone of Inhibition (ZOI) for each sample was examined. For evaluation of the ZOI a scheme as set forth in footnote 1 of Table 2 was used. Photos displaying the ZOI are contained in figures A through D.
Zone of Inhibition Test Results
[0055]
[0000]
TABLE 2
Zone of Inhibition - Modified ASTM G21 results
Zone of
Inhibition 1
Concen-
(Modified
Formu-
tration
ASTM
Sample
lation
Controls
(ppm)
G21)
Number
Number
Positive Control
N/A
−
Untreated
0
−
NB-5794-109 A
UTC
Control
Concen-
Zone of
Formu-
tration
Inhibition 1
Sample
lation
Samples
(ppm)
(ZOI)
Number
Number
Zn-DHA
2500
+
NB-5794-109 S
S-12
Zn-DHA/n-OIT
1250/1250
++
NB-5794-110 Q
S-15
Zn-DHA/Zn—P
1250/1250
++
NB-5794-109 U
S-14
Zn-DHA/
1250/1250
−
NB-5794-109 V
S-17
Tebuconazole
1 Zone of Inhibition Legend
None
−
Small
+
Large
++
Example 2
Zone of Inhibition Test Discussion
[0056] While the Untreated Control does not provide any Zone of Inhibition (ZOI), Zn-DHA treated flexible PVC provides a small ZOI, a blend of Zn-DHA and n-OIT and a blend of the Zn-DHA and Zn-P treated flexible PVC have a large ZOIs.
[0057] In contrast to the Fungal Resistance Test of Example 1, the Zone of Inhibition Test of Example 2 provides a range of results using various embodiments of the invention. Thus, while not shown in the drawings, the combination of Zn-DHA and Tebuconazole provided antimicrobial activity without registering a “+” ZOI around the plastic. Consequently, combinations within the parameters of the invention can be engineered and/or formulated to provide various unique efficacies, e.g., antimicrobial-on-plastic in combination with an antimicrobial-free zone thereabout.
[0058] Thus, while there have been described what are presently believed to be the preferred embodiments of the present invention, those skilled in the art will appreciate other and further changes and modifications thereto, and it is intended to include such other changes as come with the scope of the invention as set forth in the following claims. | A plastic material having an antimicrobial characteristic and the method for making the plastic material is provided. The method includes blending and/or extruding a polymeric composition in a process which includes a temperature of at least about 170° C. The method also includes adding an antimicrobial component to the polymeric composition prior to or during the blending and/or extruding. The antimicrobial component includes a salt of a dehydroacetic acid (DHA) in an amount sufficient to provide the resulting plastic material with an effective antimicrobial characteristic. The antimicrobial component including a salt of DHA is stable at temperatures required for processing polymeric compositions. | 2 |
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a light radiator for effectively diffusing and radiating light rays, which have been transmitted through an optical cable or the like outside of said optical conductor cable.
The present applicant has previously proposed various ways to focus solar rays or artificial light rays by use of lenses or the like, to guide the same into an optical conductor cable, and thereby to transmit them onto an optional desired place through the optical conductor cable. The solar rays or artificial light rays transmitted and emitted in such a way are employed for photo-synthesis and for use in illuminating or for other like purposes, for example, to promote the cultivation of plants.
However, in the case of utilizing the light energy for cultivating plants as mentioned above, the light rays transmitted through the optical conductor cable has directional characteristics. Supposing that the end portion of the optical conductor cable is cut off and the light rays are emitted therefrom, the radiation angle for the focused light rays is, in general, equal to approximately 46°. That is quite a narrow field. In the case of utilizing the light energy as described above, it is impossible to perform a desirable amount of illumination by simply cutting off the end portion of the optical conductor cable and by letting the light rays emit therefrom.
Therefore, the present applicant has already proposed various kinds of light radiators capable of effectively diffusing the light rays which have been transmitted through an optical conductor cable and radiating the same for illumination over a desired area. The present invention was made forming a link in the chain thereof. In particular, the inventor aims at applying intensified light rays to a desired position of the plants by keeping the light source at a distance to the plants and by moving the light source back and forth in order to supply the light rays over a wider area.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the present invention to provide a light radiator capable of effectively emitting the solar rays or the artificial light rays transmitted through an optical conductor cable outside the same for preferably nurturing the plants.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a light radiator suitable for nurturing the tall trees grown as plant for appreciation in a building or the plants set in a row or a circle on a plane in a building.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a light radiator suitable for use as a light source performing a photo synthesis-reaction effectively.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a light radiator capable of supplying light rays to the tall tree from the lower portion to the upper portion thereof.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a light radiator moving up and down rotatingly or performing a gooseneck movement.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a light radiator having an optical means which can be moved up and down, and rotated in a cylinder.
The above-mentioned features and other advantages of the present invention will be apparent from the following detailed description which goes to with the accompanying drawings.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional construction view for explaining an embodiment of a light radiator according to the present invention;
FIGS. 2 and 3 are views showing examples of a method of arranging magnetic substance 12;
FIG. 4 is a cross-sectional construction view for explaining another embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 5 is a cross-sectional view taken along the section line A--A of FIG. 4;
FIG. 6 is a plan view showing an example of a holder for holding a photo sensor;
FIG. 7 is a cross-sectional construction view for explaining still another embodiment constructed in a state of loop; and
FIG. 8 is a perspective view showing still another embodiment the single-leaf screen constructed with a large number of light radiators according to the present invention.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional construction view for explaining an embodiment of a light radiator according to the present invention. In FIG. 1, 10 is a transparent cylinder, 20 optical conductor, 30 optical means, 40 a liquid pump, and 50 a foundation. A light-emitting edge of the optical conductor 20 is installed at the lower end portion of the cylinder. The light rays transmitted through the optical conductor 20 are emitted into the cylinder 10 from the light-emitting edge of the optical conductor 20, and transmitted upward by reflecting the inner and outer wall surfaces of the cylinder 10.
In the cylinder 10 is slidably inserted the transparent optical means 30 of elliptic glove shape having a short diameter approximately equal to the inner diameter of the cylinder 10. The lower end side of the optical means, that is, the side thereof for receiving the light rays transmitted is constructed with a transparent body 31 having an inclined surface 31a formed by cutting the same at an angle of about 45° in respect to the long axis of the transparent body formed in an elliptic glove, while the upper end side of the optical means is constructed with a hollow transparent member 32 of elliptic glove shape for supplementing the cut-off portion of the afore-mentioned transparent body of elliptic glove shape, in which an air chamber 33 is formed.
Therefore, the light rays guided into the cylinder 10 in such a manner as mentioned above enter the optical means 30 from the transparent elliptic glove 31 of the optical means 30. And then, the light rays are reflected on the inclined surface 31a and emitted outside the cylinder 10. Plants or the like are cultivated outside the cylinder 10. The light rays emitted from the cylinder 10 as mentioned above are supplied to the plants as a light source performing a photo synthesis reaction.
A pipe 41 is connected with the lower end portion of the cylinder 10 and a pipe 42 is connected with the upper end portion of the same. The optical oil 45 is supplied into the cylinder 10 through those pipes 41 and 42. A differential pressure is applied between the lower side and the upper side of the optical means 30 through the optical oil 45 by use of the liquid pump 40. The optical means 30 can be moved up and down in the cylinder 10 by the action of the afore-mentioned differential pressure and the empty weight of the optical means 30. In such manner, the light rays can be supplied to the trees from the lower portion to the upper portion thereof.
The numerals 61 and 62 represent photo sensors mounted on the outer circumferential surface of the cylinder 10 at the side through which the light rays reflected by the optical means 30 pass. The photo sensor 61 detects an arrival of the optical means 30 at the lower end of the cylinder 10, and the detection signal generated therefrom controls the liquid pump 40 so as to supply the differential pressure to the optical means 30 and move it upward. On the other hand, the photo sensor 62 detects and arrival of the optical means 30 at the upper end of the cylinder 10, and the detection signal generated therefrom controls the liquid pump so as to supply the differential pressure to the optical means 30 and move it upward.
Those photo sensors 61 and 62 are constructed in such a manner that the sensors can be removed from the cylinder 10 and moved along the same. Such a construction enables that, when the trees are small, the photo sensor 62 is installed at the lower portion thereof, and when the trees grow up, it is moved upward. Therefore, the light rays transmitted from the optical conductor 20 can be effectively supplied to the trees.
The numeral 11 represents a reflection surface formed at the upper end side of the above-mentioned cylinder 10. The light rays passing through the optical means 30 and leaking upward from the cylinder 10 are reflected on the reflection surface 11 and emitted outside the cylinder 10. In such a manner, the surface of the ceiling is illuminated. The numeral 34 represents a permanent magnet installed at a position where the light rays reflected on the reflection surface 31a of the outer circumferential surface of the optical means 30 are not prevented from passing therethrough. When such a permanent magnet 34 is unitarily mounted on the optical means 30, the location of the optical can be detected by detecting that of the permanent magnet 34. On that occasion, magnetic sensors 63 and 64 are employed instead of the photo sensors 61 and 62.
Moreover, the position signal detected by the magnetic sensors 63 and 64 is employed in order to control the liquid pump 40 as is the case of the afore-mentioned photo sensor, and thereby the optical means 30 is moved up and down. The numeral 12 represents a permanent magnet or magnetic substance installed so as to elongate along the axis of the cylinder 10. The optical means 30 is so regulated as to turn to a desired direction by use of the permanent magnet or magnetic substance 12.
Namely, a magnetic attraction force acts between the permanent magnet 34 mounted on the optical means 30 and the permanent magnet or magnetic substance 12 mounted on the cylinder 10. The optical means 30 is moved up and down by the action of the magnetic attraction force in the state that the permanent magnet 34 opposes to the permanent magnet or magnetic substance 12. On the occasion as shown in FIG. 1, since the permanent magnet or magnetic substance 12 is installed in a state of a linear line, the optical means 30 is moved up and down linearly, namely, without accompanying any revolutional movement. However, in case that the permanent magnet or magnetic substance 12 is spirally arranged around the cylinder 10, the optical means 30 is moved up and down accompanying revolutional movement. When it is arranged zigzag as shown in FIG. 2, the optical means 30 is moved up and down rotatingly, in other words, performing a gooseneck movement to the right and left directions.
In general, the trees have widely-spread branches at the lower portion thereof and the extent of branch-spreading becomes small at the upper portion thereof. Therefore, the angle of the gooseneck movement is set large at the lower portion and it turns out to be small at the upper portion in order to effectively supply the light rays to the plant. For this reason, the width of the zigzag line as mentioned above may be widened at the lower portion and narrowed at the upper portion. Furthermore, the movement speed in the up and down directions may be high at the lower portion and the same may be low at the upper portion.
Several cases in which the magnetic substance 12 is installed continuously has been described heretofore. However, as shown in FIG. 3, it may be possible to install discontinuously two raws of the magnetic substances 12a and 12b zigzag in parallel with each other. Even on that occasion, the distance d at the lower portion of the plant is widened, while the same at the upper portion thereof is narrowed and only one row of the magnetic substance 12c is installed at the uppermost portion for example. When the optical means 30 moves up and down at the lower position, it performs the gooseneck movement between 12a and 12b. On the contrary, at the upper portion it moves up and down linearly without performing the gooseneck movement. In such a manner, the light rays can be effectively supplied to the trees.
An optical fiber diverging from the optical conductor 20 and taken outside therefrom is represented by 21. A photo sensor 22 is mounted on the tip end portion of the optical fiber 21. By means of the photo sensor 22, the light rays supplied in the optical conductor 20 are detected. At the time of detecting the light rays the pump 40 is driven, while at the time of non-detection it is stopped.
Moreover, in addition to the above-mentioned detection of the light rays, the light rays supplied from the optical conductor 20 is detected, for example, by the photo sensor 23 installed in the cylinder 10, and the pump 40 is controlled by the detection signal. There are various detection methods as mentioned heretofore.
A gear mounted on the circumferential portion of the foundation 50 is represented by 51. For instance, a motive power is transmitted to the foundation 50 by means of a motor not shown in the drawing through the medium of the gear 51 in order to rotate or rotatably move the foundation 50. At this time, the cylinder 10 rotates together with the foundation 50. In consequence, the direction of the light rays emission from the cylinder 10 changes. Therefore, the illuminating direction of the light rays can be changed not only up and down but in the direction of the rotation angle so that the light rays can illuminate an area over a wider range.
FIG. 4 is a cross-sectional construction view for explaining other embodiment of the present invention. In this embodiment, the cylinder 10 and the optical oil supplying pipes 41 and 42 as shown in FIG. 1 are unitarily constructed previously so as to facilitate the handling thereof. The operational principle of such construction is quite same as that of the embodiment shown in FIG. 1.
FIG. 5 is a cross-sectional view taken along the section line A--A of FIG. 4. In this embodiment, the above-mentioned permanent magnets or magnetic substances 12 divided into the portions, 12a and 12b,are arranged in a state of zigzag at the side of the optical oil supplying pipe 42 so as to hold it therebetween, as shown in FIG. 3. In such a manner, the optical means 30 is guided as is the case of FIG. 3.
FIG. 6 is a cross-sectional view showing a holder 65 for holding a photo sensor 61 or 62. The holder 65 is a band for unitarily surrouding the cylinder 10 and the optical oil supplying pipe 42. The photo sensor 61 or 62 is installed at the position corresponding to the emission side of the light rays in the cylinder 10. The holder 65 can be fastened at the opposite side that is the portion surrounding the optical oil supplying pipe.
In consequence, in order to adjust the position for mounting the photo sensor, the holder can be moved along the cylinder 10 and fixed at the desired position. Therefore, the movement range of the optical means can be easily adjusted.
As described before, according to the present invention, the optical means 30 is constructed with a transparent member of elliptic globe shape having a short diameter approximately equal to the inner diameter of the cylinder 10. Therefore, the optical means 30 can be moved in the cylinder 10 in the axis direction thereof, in the case of employing the cylinder 10 constructed along a linear line as a matter of course and in the case of employing the same constructed in a circular arc shape.
Consequently, as shown in FIG. 4, it is possible that the tip end portion of the cylinder 10 is constructed in a circular arc shape. By use of such a construction as mentioned above, the light rays can be supplied horizontally to the tree at the lower portion of the tree and the same can be supplied from right overhead to the tree at the upper portion thereof. Otherwise, the cylinder 10 can be constructed in a state of spiral so that the optical means 30 moves in the spiral cylinder, or the cylinder 10 can be constructed in a state of circular arch so as to supply the light rays to the plants inside or outside the arch-shaped cylinder. Since the cylinder 10 can be constructed in a state of the optional desired shape, it is possible to construct a light radiator suitable for the purpose of usage.
FIG. 7 is a construction view showing an embodiment in which the cylinder 10 is constructed in a state of loop utilizing the characteristics of the present invention as mentioned above. The cylinder 10 is constructed in a state of loop as shown in FIG. 7, and a partition plate 70 divides the inner space of the cylinder at an optional position thereof. The optical oil 45 is supplied into the cylinder 10 by means of the liquid pump 40 from both end portions of the cylinder 10 divided by the partition plate 70. The optical means 30 is moved by the action of the differential pressure applied to both end portions of the optical means 30 as is the case of the other embodiments described before. The direction of its movement is detected by use of the photo sensors 61 and 62 or the magnetic sensors 63 and 64, and the detection signal generated therefrom controls the movement of the optical means 30. The operational theory mentioned above is quite same as that of the other previous embodiments. On that occasion as shown in FIG. 7, the light rays radiated from the optical means are radiated to the internal side of the loop. However, the same can be radiated to the external side of the loop. Otherwise, the light rays to be radiated (or the optical means 30) can be rotated or rotatingly moved in the cylinder 10.
FIG. 8 is a perspective view showing an embodiment of a single-leaf screen of the light radiators constructed by utilizing the characteristics of the present invention as mentioned above. This embodiment shows a construction formed by setting up in parallel a plurality of light radiators as shown in FIG. 4. In such a manner, it follows that only one liquid pump is employed and all of the light radiators can be controlled by the photo sensor or the magnetic sensor installed at an optional desired cylinder. In consequence, such a construction enables a wide range of illumination at a small expense.
On the contary, in the case of controlling the movement of the optical means per the respective cylinders, the expense for illumination turns out to be large. However, in such a manner, the optical means can be set at an optional desired position per the respective cylinders. Therefore, the light source is located at random so that it turns out to be preferable for cultivating the plants or the like.
Moreover, although the embodiment of setting up a large number of light radiators in a state of a single-leaf screen is shown in FIG. 8, it may be easily understood that a large number of light radiators can be preferably combined with each other so as to form in an optional desire shape depending upon the necessity thereof.
As is apparent from the foregoing description, according to the present invention, it is possible to provide a light radiator in which the solar rays or the artificial light rays transmitted through the optical conductor can be effectively diffused and illuminate the area over a wider range. In particular, the light radiator according to the present invention is preferable for supplying the light rays to the tall plants, the circularly or linearly distributed plants, etc. from the light source for use in the photo-synthesis in the most preferable status in accordance with the condition of the plants. And further, since the light source moves, the bright and dark light rays can be repeatedly supplied to the plants suitably and thereby promote the photo synthesizing action performed by the plants. | A light radiator for effectively diffusing and radiating light rays which have been transmitted through an optical conductor. The light radiator comprises a transparent cylinder, optical means movably accommodated in the cylinder for reflecting light rays guided into the cylinder from the optical conductor and radiating the light rays outside the cylinder, and driving means for moving the optical means along an axis direction of the cylinder. The optical means being constructed with elliptic globe having a short diameter approximately equal to the inner diameter of the cylinder and comprising an air chamber having a reflection surface for reflecting light rays guided into the cylinder and radiating the same outside the cylinder in the inner space thereof. The driving means comprises optical oil filled in the cylinder and a liquid pump having an end portion communicating with the end portion of the cylinder and another end portion communicating with the other end portion of the same. The optical means being moved in the cylinder by use of the liquid pump. | 8 |
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
[0001] This application is a divisional of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/002773, filed Dec. 1, 2004, entitled Safe, Secure Resource Editing For Application Localization, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
TECHNICAL FIELD
[0002] The invention relates generally to the field of computer software products. More particularly, the invention relates to methods and systems for producing language specific versions of a software product.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0003] Software products of all types, whether operating systems or various types of application programs, are frequently provided in multiple “localized”, language specific versions. For instance, a software product may initially be developed in a specific language such as English. Once this original, or “base” product has been developed and tested, localized versions, in a language appropriate to the market for which the product is intended, may be developed. For example, a product originally developed in English in the United States may be localized to produce a Japanese language version for sale in Japan. The process of creating a localized version, or translation, is herein referred to as “localization.”
[0004] A common method of localization is known as internal localization. Internal localization typically involves changing the resources of the original software product to produce the localized version. For example, all of the elements of the user interface, messages, help information, and other language specific parts of the software product are translated and re-built. Since the resources of the software product are revised and rebuilt, testing is required for each internally localized version generated, in addition to the base product. The building of the dynamic link libraries (DLLs) correctly is a complex process for many applications, and the tools involved are often proprietary or secret. Since testing is labor intensive, this method can be extremely expensive. In addition to being expensive, internal localization, due to the long time required to test a software product, results in a very slow delivery of localized versions of software products. This is known as the multiple language user interface (MUI) approach where all of the resources for each language are grouped into resource files. These files are usually stored in a folder named after the language.
[0005] It is with respect to these needs that the present invention has been developed.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0006] An embodiment of the present invention is a system and method for providing translation, or localization, of a software product that, after the application is loaded in its base language, transparently examines each call for a resource to be loaded from a multiple language user interface dynamic linked library (MUI DLL), checks whether the particular called resource is in a predetermined resource list, preferably a secure list, and, if it is in the predetermined resource list, loads that resource from an alternative location (without the knowledge of the application). If the resource is not in the predetermined resource list, then the resource simply is not loaded.
[0007] The requested resource call is checked against the resource list. If the resource is in the resource list, the rules associated with that resource are retrieved (also from the secure resource list). The translated, i.e. localized, resource itself is retrieved from a “Language Pack” or Glossary for the requested language. The resource rules are then verified with the translated resource, and, if necessary, the dialogs associated with the resource are padded to accommodate the anticipated size of the localized language dialog. The localized resource loaded is then passed to the application, or calling operating system, for processing. In this way, the application operates in its base language with selected localization taking place in accordance with the predefined resource rules.
[0008] In accordance with other aspects, the present invention relates to a system for localization, i.e. translation, of a software product that has a processor and a memory coupled with and readable by the processor. The memory contains a series of instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to load an application to an operating system wherein one of the application or the operating system places one or more calls to a resource loader to load a resource, intercept the call in the resource loader after the called resource has been retrieved to the loader, convert the resource to a language specific localized resource and transmit the localized resource to the operating system if the called resource matches one or more predetermined resource rules. If the translated resource does not match the rules, i.e. rule compliance cannot be verified, the called resource is not translated but is transmitted in its original form to the operating system via the resource loader
[0009] The invention may be implemented as a computer process, a computing system or as an article of manufacture such as a computer program product or computer readable media. The computer program product may be a computer storage media readable by a computer system and encoding a computer program of instructions for executing a computer process. The computer program product may also be a propagated signal on a carrier readable by a computing system and encoding a computer program of instructions for executing a computer process.
[0010] These and various other features as well as advantages, which characterize the present invention, will be apparent from a reading of the following detailed description and a review of the associated drawings.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0011] FIG. 1 illustrates, conceptually, a safe, secure localization environment according to one embodiment of the present invention.
[0012] FIG. 2 illustrates an example of a suitable computing system environment on which embodiments of the invention may be implemented.
[0013] FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating load time operations in a software product utilizing safe, secure localization according to one embodiment of the present invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
[0014] FIG. 1 illustrates, conceptually, a secure resource (hereinafter SURE) localization system 100 according to one embodiment of the present invention. In an application such as a Microsoft® Windows operating system or Office® application, when the application 102 is loaded into the computer operating system, a call is made to a resource loader module 104 . It is to be understood throughout this detailed description that the application 102 is exemplary only. The call may be made by an application, data including various data structures, Application Program Interface (API) or operating system. The resource loader module 104 checks to see what language is called for by the application 102 and goes to the appropriate language folder. From this language folder, the loader 104 retrieves the called resource preferably from a multiple language user interface dynamic link library (MUI DLL) 110 . The resource called is then loaded and transferred to the operating system. The notion of storing the resources in a MUI DLL 110 is also only exemplary. The resources can be stored in any format range from files to databases (or even remote locations such as locations accessible via the internet).
[0015] However, in embodiments of the present invention, an interception of the resource is made in the resource loader 104 before transfer to the calling application.
[0016] The system 100 utilizes a SURE localization module 105 that draws from a secure code signed DLL 114 and a user developed SURE language pack 116 described in further detail below. The localization module 105 includes a call intercept module 108 , a resource check module 112 , a language pack load module 115 , a resource rule check module 118 , and a dialog pad module 122 .
[0017] Intercept module 108 , in embodiments of the present invention, intercepts the resource after the resource is loaded by the resource loader module 104 from the MUI DLL 110 . Any of a number of known methods may be used to intercept the resource loading functions (or API's). A number of intercept methods are well known. Examples include overwriting the start of the function itself in memory, known as installing a detour, or detouring. Another exemplary method overwrites the import address table. Further examples of interception methods are described in an overview article on patching by Yariv Kaplan. One preferred method of detouring is one in which binary functions are intercepted by rewriting one or more target function images. Detouring replaces the first few instructions of the target function with an unconditional jump to a user-provided detour function and preserves the target function instructions in a trampoline function. The detour function can either replace the target function or extend its semantics by invoking the target function as a subroutine through the trampoline. The detour is preferably inserted at execution time such that the procedures in a DLL can be detoured in one execution of an application, while the original procedures are not detoured in another execution running at the same time.
[0018] Once an intercepted call is received, the call intercept module 108 communicates with the resource check 112 . This module queries whether the resource transferred from the MUI DLL 110 into the resource loader module 104 has an identifier that matches one of the identifiers in code signed SURE dynamic link libraries or databases (SURE DLL's) 114 . The identifiers in the code signed DLL 114 signify those resources that the application developer gives permission for a user to translate, i.e. for which authorization is given for translations to be generated. This is done by checking the resource identifier against a list inside the code signed SURE DLL 114 . The code signed DLL (or database) 114 cannot be modified by a user. The code signing itself also prevents anyone from adding additional resources to the files in this library. The SURE DLL 114 contains a list of the resource identifiers for all of the resources that are authorized to be translated. For each one of these it also has a list of verification rules. This file is the same for any SURE language.
[0019] It is to be understood that throughout this specification the code signed DLL 114 is simply one type of secure data structure that can be used. Any database, file, file set, or DLL can perform this function so long as it cannot be modified in any way by an unauthorized user. Authorization is preferably limited to the originator/developer of the calling application or operating system itself. In this way, the code signed DLL 114 is predetermined and not modifiable by a third party user. If the resource has a matching resource identifier, a translation of the resource, i.e. a localized resource or translation is loaded from a SURE language pack library or glossary file 116 . The Language Pack library file 116 can be anything from an XML file through to a database. Translations could come from internet services or from machine translation tools rather than physical files.
[0020] Language packs 116 contain the language specific translations and differ from one language to the next. Typically these files are created by human translators (i.e., people who will provide a list of translations for their language). A fast lookup format development or SURE build tool could also be optionally provided to speed up runtime performance. The SURE Build Tools (which could be part of a SURE Kit) take the editable format of the translations (i.e., XML or text files) and convert them to a format that can be loaded quicker at runtime (e.g., a database)—this database is what is called the Language Pack.
[0021] An example of an XML file (that a build tool would take as input) might look as follows:
<resNode name=“Dialogs”> <resource id=“string1”> <text>This is the text to translate</text> <reftext>This is reference text, such as the translation in another language</reftext> <rules>These are the verification rules. Examples: <maximumlength> 5</maximumlength> </rules> </resource> </resNode>
[0022] Users can translate this in any simple editor (e.g., the “Notepad” accessory application included in Microsoft Windows® operating system). A more advanced editor preferably is also provided (as part of the SURE language pack creation kit) that, for example, would color-code the bits that need to be edited, and check the verification rules as the user edits.
[0023] Another kit tool preferably would convert the edited text/xml file to a faster runtime format such as an Access Database or other fast binary format (i.e., the language pack 116 .)
[0024] One exemplary verification rule is Maximum Length (which could appear in the editable file as “<maximumlength>5</maximumlength>”. This rule verifies that the translated resource, or string is not longer than an allowable limit. For example, if the maximum length is 5 , the string “Hello” would be passed, but the string “Bonjour” would fail.
[0025] Another exemplary verification rule is a required placeholder, i.e. a case where a portion of a string must remain present. For example, a string like “Hello % s” might need to be translated. The translator would be allowed to move the “% s” portion around in the string, because it is replaced by another value at runtime (e.g. by a person's name). However, the verification rule would not allow removal of the “% s” substring. If it were removed (by the user creating a language pack, for example) then the verification would fail.
[0026] The format of the language pack databases will most likely be published so that users could write their own tools to create them independently. Note that this will not be the case for the code signed resource list files (i.e., the SURE DLL 114 ), where every effort is taken to protect the format and content from hacking or reverse engineering by closely controlled access authorization. Thus the code signed dynamic link library 114 is a library that cannot be modified by a user, i.e. anyone other than one authorized by the original owner/developer of the calling application or operating system.
[0027] Unlike MUI files, the language pack files do not have to be stored in a folder that is dependant on the target language. For instance, Microsoft's Office® German MUI files are stored in a “1031” folder (which happens to be the LCID or Language Code for German). In contrast, a German SURE language pack could be in “\program files\SURE\German” or “\program files\SURE\1031” or “\mymachine\mylanguages\myGerman”. In other words, this can be a location chosen by the user, and the SURE tools can easily be configured to point to any location (local machine, remote server or even internet).
[0028] The language pack load module 115 receives instruction from the resource check module 112 , that the called resource is matched in the SURE DLL. The language pack load module 115 then retrieves the required language pack 116 . The resource string or file is checked for compliance with key restrictions and rules contained in the code signed SURE DLL 114 in the resource rule check module 118 The SURE DLL's contain both the allowable resource identifiers and a list of rules to go with each of these resource identifiers. These restrictions are preferably stored in a format that is quick to parse and validate. Modifications are made to the resource string to ensure that the base (or source) language hotkey remains in the resource. This is because translators cannot adjust hotkeys, as such adjustment would impact functionality of the underlying application and/or operating system.
[0029] If the translation loaded in the load module 115 from the language pack 116 complies with all the verification rules in the code signed SURE DLL 114 as determined in the check module 118 , the translated dialogs, if any, are padded in the pad dialog module 122 as called for by the resource rules. In module 122 , the sizes of controls in dialogs may need to be padded to accommodate long translated strings. If they are not padded the translated text will not fit in the available space and will be truncated or cut. The translated resources are then passed through the resource loader 104 to the calling application 102 or data structure, or, if it were the operating system itself that made the call, to the operating system.
[0030] The application 102 represents any of a wide variety of possible software products including but not limited to a word processor, spreadsheet, Internet browser, database, operating system, and others. The base application may be developed in and for a specific language. For example, a product developed in the United States may be developed in English. Alternatively, the base product may be language neutral. That is, the base product may be developed in such a manner as to have no reference in its user interface or other elements written to a specific language. The MUI DLL 110 provides full translations for multiple languages that have been fully tested and provide full functionality to the application. In other cases, the base application may be written with only minimal reference to a specific language to facilitate testing of the base product during development.
[0031] Again, the MUI DLL 110 provides the translations for a number of specific languages. In contrast, the user defined language packs and the use of a secure data store such as a code signed SURE DLL 114 permits virtually any language to be utilized in an application and accommodates thousands of languages or dialects that are non-mainstream languages. The user defined language packs require no interaction with the software developer (original application owner of application 102 ) to use and thus these language packs can be freely developed and disseminated via the internet and other media, without compromising the functionality of the underlying application 102 .
[0032] In embodiments of the present invention, because critical resources are not translated, non-translated resources remain in the base language thus ensuring security of the underlying program. The SURE language packs are language neutral. They are just collections of glossary files that have a one to one correspondence with resources that can be translated. There is no enabling function with embodiments in accordance with the present invention. SURE functions purely as a translation layer.
[0033] FIG. 2 illustrates an example of a suitable computing system environment on which embodiments of the invention may be implemented. This system 200 is representative of one that may be used as a stand-alone computer or to serve as a redirector and/or servers in a website service. In its most basic configuration, system 200 typically includes at least one processing unit 202 and memory 204 . Depending on the exact configuration and type of computing device, memory 204 may be volatile (such as RAM), non-volatile (such as ROM, flash memory, etc.) or some combination of the two. This most basic configuration is illustrated in FIG. 2 by dashed line 206 . Additionally, system 200 may also have additional features/functionality. For example, device 200 may also include additional storage (removable and/or non-removable) including, but not limited to, magnetic or optical disks or tape. Such additional storage is illustrated in FIG. 2 by removable storage 208 and non-removable storage 210 . Computer storage media includes volatile and nonvolatile, removable and non-removable media implemented in any method or technology for storage of information such as computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data. Memory 204 , removable storage 208 and non-removable storage 210 are all examples of computer storage media. Computer storage media includes, but is not limited to, RAM, ROM, EEPROM, flash memory or other memory technology, CD-ROM, digital versatile disks (DVD) or other optical storage, magnetic cassettes, magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, or any other medium which can be used to store the desired information and which can accessed by system 200 . Any such computer storage media may be part of system 200 .
[0034] System 200 may also contain communications connection(s) 212 that allow the system to communicate with other devices. Communications connection(s) 212 is an example of communication media. Communication media typically embodies computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data in a modulated data signal such as a carrier wave or other transport mechanism and includes any information delivery media. The term “modulated data signal” means a signal that has one or more of its characteristics set or changed in such a manner as to encode information in the signal. By way of example, and not limitation, communication media includes wired media such as a wired network or direct-wired connection, and wireless media such as acoustic, RF, infrared and other wireless media. The term computer readable media as used herein includes both storage media and communication media.
[0035] System 200 may also have input device(s) 214 such as keyboard, mouse, pen, voice input device, touch input device, etc. Output device(s) 216 such as a display, speakers, printer, etc. may also be included. All these devices are well know in the art and need not be discussed at length here.
[0036] A computing device, such as system 200 , typically includes at least some form of computer-readable media. Computer readable media can be any available media that can be accessed by the system 200 . By way of example, and not limitation, computer-readable media might comprise computer storage media and communication media.
[0037] The logical operations of the various embodiments of the present invention are implemented (1) as a sequence of computer implemented acts or program modules running on a computing system and/or (2) as interconnected machine logic circuits or circuit modules within the computing system. The implementation is a matter of choice dependent on the performance requirements of the computing system implementing the invention. Accordingly, the logical operations making up the embodiments of the present invention described herein are referred to variously as operations, structural devices, acts or modules. It will be recognized by one skilled in the art that these operations, structural devices, acts and modules may be implemented in software, in firmware, in special purpose digital logic, and any combination thereof without deviating from the spirit and scope of the present invention as recited within the claims attached hereto.
[0038] FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating operational flow 300 of the translation system and method according to one embodiment of the present invention. In this example, operation begins with application loading operation 302 . In operation 302 the application load is commenced onto the operating system of the computing device 200 . During this loading operation a call may be made to the resource loader 104 . Control then passes to operation 304 where the application calls the resource loader. The resource loader in turn queries the MUI DLL 110 (i.e., resources). Control then transfers to operation 306 .
[0039] In operation 306 the MUI DLL 110 is searched until a match is found and the called resource is identified. The called resource is retrieved and sent to the resource loader 104 . Control then transfers to operation 308 where the application call is intercepted via the call intercept module 108 . Control then transfers to operation 310 .
[0040] Operation 310 examines the retrieved resource to obtain its identifier(s). Control then passes to query operation 312 in resource check module 112 which determine if it has an identifier that matches one of the identifiers stored in the code signed SURE DLL 114 . If there is a match, then control passes to operation 318 . If there is no match, then control passes to operation 314 . In operation 314 , the resource loaded from the MUI DLL 110 is passed to the operating system without modification in any way.
[0041] On the other hand, if there is a match, and control passes to operation 318 , the code signed SURE DLL 114 is queried to retrieve all resource rules pertaining to the called resource. Control then passes to operation 320 . In operation 320 , a translation of the called resource is loaded in the load module 115 from the appropriate language pack 116 for the resource. This translation, i.e., the localized resource, is loaded and then compared, in check module 118 , to the rules pertaining to that resource in operation 322 . The applicable rules found in the SURE DLL 114 are then applied to the resource to verify that the translation complies with all applicable rules. Control then passes to query operation 324 .
[0042] In query operation 324 , the query is made by the check module 118 , whether the localized resource complies with the applicable rules. If so, control passes to operation 328 . If the resource does not comply with the applicable rules, the resource is not translated, but is passed to operation 314 , where the resource is passed through the resource loader 104 to the calling application or operating system without translation. No modifications are made to the original loaded resource if the new translations fail on any of the rules. On the other hand, if the resource complies with all the applicable rules, i.e. verification is successful, then control passes to operation 326 , where, in module 122 , applicable translated or localized resource dialogs are padded in accordance with instructions provided by the language pack. At this stage modifications may also be made to the hotkeys where necessary. Control then passes to operation 328 .
[0043] In operation 328 , the localized resource has now been translated and therefore is passed or loaded back to the calling application and loaded on the operating system. Control then passes to query operation 330 . Query operation 330 asks whether there are any further resource load requests in the resource loader 104 . If so, control passes to operation 332 where the next resource load request is received from the calling application into the resource loader 104 . If there is no further resource load request from the application or operating system, control returns to the resource loader 104 to await another request, in operation 334 .
[0044] Although the invention has been described in language specific to computer structural features, methodological acts and by computer readable media, it is to be understood that the invention defined in the appended claims is not necessarily limited to the specific structures, acts or media described. As an example, other types of data may be included in the language map in place of the string data discussed herein. Additionally, different manners of referencing the language specific data of the language map from the system calls in base product may be used. Therefore, the specific structural features, acts and mediums are disclosed as exemplary embodiments implementing the claimed invention.
[0045] The various embodiments described above are provided by way of illustration only and should not be construed to limit the invention. Those skilled in the art will readily recognize various modifications and changes that may be made to the present invention without following the example embodiments and applications illustrated and described herein, and without departing from the true spirit and scope of the present invention, which is set forth in the following claims. | Embodiments of the present invention relate to methods, systems and computer-readable media for external localization of a software product. This external localization involves loading a base product having one or more calls to an operating system (or an API) to load language specific data. The calls are intercepted after the resource is loaded into a Resource loader, and queried whether the resource is identified in a restricted resource list such as a code signed dynamic linked library. If so, the translated resource is loaded from a specified language package. The loaded, and translated, resource is then checked against validation rules (which are also protected in a code signed resource list) to see if it is safe to use. If the resource is not on the list or the translated resource is not safe to use, the original resource is simply transferred to the application without modification from the resource loader, i.e., loaded from the base language file. This generates a localized product using a limited set of language specific data covering most situations and falls back to the base language automatically when no specific translated resource is available. | 6 |
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention.
This invention relates to an electrically-conductive aramid pulp composition that has high surface area, a high concentration of fibrils and increases strength and high modulus as polymeric reinforcement.
2. Description of Related Art.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,788,897 and 5,882,566, issued Aug. 4, 1998 and Mar. 16, 1999, respectively, disclose fibers having a continuous phase of para-aramid and a discontinuous phase of electrically-conductive sulfonated polyaniline.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,094,913, issued Mar. 10, 1992, discloses a pulp refined from fibers having a continuous phase of para-aramid and a discontinuous phase of meta-aramid.
Japanese Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 59/163418, published Sep. 14, 1984, discloses pulp beaten from fibers of a blend of para-aramid and aliphatic polyamide.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
This invention includes a composition in the form of a pulp comprising a blend of 65 to 95 weight percent of para-aramid and 5 to 35 weight percent of sulfonated polyaniline (SPA) wherein the para-aramid is present in the composition as a continuous phase and the SPA is dispersed throughout the para-aramid. Pulp particles in the composition generally have a specific surface area of greater than 7.5 m 2 /g and a Canadian Standard Freeness of less than 150 milliliters.
Paper made from the pulp of this invention exhibits a charge decay rate of less than 5 seconds.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
Electrically conductive pulp is a very desirable product for use in reinforcement of packaging films and polymers, generally, and especially where there is a need to drain or dissipate electrical charges. Electrically conductive pulp finds use in applications where handling dielectric pulp, in dry form, results in charged particles that are difficult to handle or are dangerous due to a threat of sparking on discharge.
This invention utilizes an intimate blend of two polymeric materials to provide a pulp that is not only a good reinforcement for other polymers but is, also, electrically conductive to impart electrical conductivity to normally dielectric materials into which it is added for reinforcement. Fibers of combined polymers are known. Particularly fibers of para-aramid combined with other polymers—and even polyaniline polymers—are known. However, there has been, up to now, no suggestion that such fibers might be refined to make conductive pulp materials.
This invention provides a pulp product that is not only an excellent reinforcement material, is also extremely effective for electric charge dissipation. Moreover, the very material good for such charge dissipation is the material that creates ease in pulp manufacture and excellence in pulp quality.
The materials of this pulp product are para-aramid and SPA and the SPA component provides a dual function with the purposes widely divergent and largely unrelated. First, the polyaniline, as a secondary component in the blend, provides points of fracture for refining and pulping forces to achieve efficient and effective manufacture of high quality pulp with fine, long, fibrils. Second, the polyaniline, as a component effectively on the surface of the pulp particles, provides an electrical conductivity that is effective in dissipating electrical charge by contact of the fibrils on adjacent pulp particles.
By “aramid” is meant a polyamide wherein at least 85% of the amide (—CO—NH—) linkages are attached directly to two aromatic rings. Aramid fibers are described in Man-Made Fibers—Science and Technology, Volume 2, Section titled Fiber-Forming Aromatic Polyamides, page 297, W. Black et al., Interscience Publishers, 1968. Aramid fibers are, also, disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,172,938; 3,869,429; 3,819,587; 3,673,143; 3,354,127; and 3,094,511.
Para-aramids are the primary polymers of this invention for blending with polyaniline; and poly(p-phenylene terephthalamide) is the preferred para-aramid. By para-aramid is meant the homopolymer resulting from mole-for-mole polymerization of para-phenylene diamine and terephthaloyl chloride and, also, copolymers resulting from incorporation of small amounts of other diamines with the para-phenylene diamine and of small amounts of other diacid chlorides with the terephthaloyl chloride. As a general rule, other diamines and other diacid chlorides can be used in amounts up to as much as about 30 mole percent of the para-phenylene diamine or the terephthaloyl chloride, or perhaps slightly higher, provided only that the other diamines and diacid chlorides have no reactive groups that interfere with the polymerization reaction. Para-aramid, also, means copolymers resulting from incorporation of other aromatic diamines and other aromatic diacid chlorides such as, for example, 2,6-naphthaloyl chloride or chloro- or dichloroterephthaloyl chloride; provided, only that the other aromatic diamines and aromatic diacid chlorides be present in amounts which permit preparation of anisotropic spin dopes. Preparation of para-aramids and processes for spinning fibers from the para-aramids are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,869,429; 4,308,374; 4,698,414; and 5,459,231.
Sulfonated polyaniline of the present invention can be made by in-situ ring-sulfonation. The term “insitu ring-sulfonation” means that the polyaniline is sulfonated during the polymer solutioning process and not isolated from the sulfuric acid solution before the solution is spun into a fiber. Of course, the sulfonation can, also, be achieved in any other way to make sulfonated polyaniline leading to a conductive pulp.
To be effective in practice of this invention, the sulfonated polyaniline must be sulfonated to a degree that will provide adequate conductivity to drain electrical charges. It has been found that sulfonation is required to a sulfur content of at least 8.5 percent, based on total weight of the sulfonated polyaniline. Sulfonation of less than that amount, results in generally inadequate fiber conductivity. It has, also, been found that increased sulfonation yields improved performance up to a sulfonation level of about 15 weight percent sulfur, based on total weight of the sulfonated polyaniline. Sulfonation to a greater degree has been found to be of little additional benefit. It is noted that sulfonation of polyaniline, to a degree of 8.5 to 15 weight percent, corresponds to a mol percent sulfonation of about 30 to 70 percent of the polyaniline repeat units.
The pulp of this invention can be made by so-called air gap spinning of anisotropic spin dope including the para-aramid and the sulfonated polyaniline. Preparation of such spin dope and spinning of fibers to serve as the basis for the pulp used in this invention, can be found in aforementioned U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,788,897 and 5,882,566.
The molecular weight of the polyaniline employed in the pulp of this invention is not critical. Polyaniline of low molecular weight may result in lower solution viscosity and easier processing, however, it might be more readily removed from the fiber in processing or use.
High molecular weight para-aramid is used—having an inherent viscosity of at least 5. In order to obtain pulp of the desirable high strength and modulus, a spin dope concentration of the para-aramid is employed that results in an anisotropic dope as discussed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,767,756. Spin dopes containing at least 13% by wt. of total polymer content, that is, sulfonated polyaniline plus the p-aramid, meet this requirement. Otherwise the mechanical properties of the spun fiber will not be acceptable for preparation of the pulp to provide antistatic properties.
The concentration of sulfonated polyaniline in para-aramid in the spin solution, and ultimately in the spun fiber and the pulp product, has an important influence on properties. As the content of sulfonated polyaniline increases to and exceeds 40 wt % of the polymer mixture, the tensile strength of the fiber becomes undesirably reduced with no concomitant increase in electrical conductivity. Also, in washing fibers with such a high concentration of polyaniline, some of the insitu ring-sulfonated polyaniline may be extracted.
The ring-sulfonated polyaniline should constitute at least 3 weight percent and preferably more than 5 weight percent of the pulp product to provide a charge decay rate of less than about 5 seconds. The ring-sulfonated polyaniline should constitute from 3 to 40 weight percent and preferably from 5 to 30 weight percent of the fibers, based on the polymer mixture with calculations using unsulfonated polyaniline.
To make the pulp of this invention, fibers that have been spun as described above, are cut into uniform lengths of 0.5 to 2.5 cm and are suspended in water to form a floc that is subjected to high shear conditions to produce pulp. Equipment useful for refining cellulosic fibers, such as refiners having abrading elements that rotate relative to one another, is useful for this purpose. In pulping in accordance with this invention, shearing along boundaries between the para-aramid and polyaniline phases results readily in the formation of high quality pulp particles with excellent pulp length and high degree of fibrillation. The presence of the polyaniline domains provides fracture points in the chopped fiber and leads to ready and more complete fibrillation at reduced energy consumption, wherein pulp particle surfaces are, at least in part, defined by the location of polyaniline domains running through the fibers. As a result of that definition, at least some of the outer surfaces of the pulp have a relatively high concentration of polyaniline and an unexpectedly high electrical conductivity.
One reliable indicator of the degree of fibrillation and the level of surface area of a pulp product is known as “Canadian Standard Freeness” (CSF). The CSF of a pulp is reported as a volume of drained water determined as a result of a specified testing procedure explained herein below. Pulp eligible for use in the instant invention generally exhibits a CSF of 0 to 150 ml and preferably 20 to 100 ml. Lower CSF is generally some indication of higher surface area.
The composition of this invention may include a pulp blend combination of the two-component pulp and pulp made from other material. In that case, the composition need only contain as much of the two-component pulp as is required to achieve the desired charge decay rate. Compositions exhibiting a charge decay rate of less than five seconds are within the bounds of this invention. The amount of two-component pulp required to achieve such a charge decay rate varies depending on the amount of sulfur in the sulfonated polyaniline and the amount of sulfonated polyaniline in the two-component pulp. As a general matter, pulp blend compositions must have at least 5 weight percent two-component pulp and less than 95 weight percent of the other pulp material, based on the total weight of the composition.
The pulp component made from other material can be made from any other pulpable material including, for example, cellulosic material, acrylics, para-aramids, and the like. The preferred other pulp material is the para-aramid material, poly(p-phenylene terephthalamide).
TEST METHODS
Electric Charge Dissipation
The static decay or electric charge dissipation test measures the ability of a material, when grounded, to dissipate a known charge that has been induced on the surface of the material. To test electric charge dissipation of the pulps made in these examples, pulp was made into paper sheets and charge dissipation tests were conducted on the sheets.
Five grams of a pulp were dispersed for five minutes in 1.5 liters of water in a TMI disperser (Testing Machines, Inc., Islandia, N.Y.). The resulting slurry was poured into the head box of a laboratory handsheet machine containing 25 liters of water. A handsheet 30×30 cm was formed, dewatered, and dried.
Static Decay Rate test specimens, 9×14 cm, were cut from the handsheets, equilibrated for at least 24 hours at 30% relative humidity, and tested using an ETS Static Decay Meter, Model 406C (Electro-Tech Systems, Inc.).
In conduct of the test, the test specimens are mounted between electrodes of the Meter, a charge of 5000 volts is applied, and, on grounding the electrodes, the time is measured for the charge to drain to 500 volts. This test is Federal Test Method Standard 101B, Method 4046, known as the Static Decay Test. Test results are set out in Table IV.
Sulfur Content
A pulp sample of known weight is combusted with oxygen in a flask; and the generated SO 2 and SO 3 gases are absorbed in water. Hydrogen peroxide is added to the water to insure that all sulfur is converted to sulfate; and the water is boiled with platinum black to remove any excess H 2 O 2 . The resulting solution is combined with an equal volume of isopropanol and titrated with a standardized BaCl 2 solution for determination of sulfate concentration. The amount of sulfur is determined based on the sulfate concentration.
Pulp Length
Pulp fiber length is measured using a Kajaani FS-200 instrument (Kajaani Electronics, Kajaani, Finland). An aqueous slurry of pulp fibers is prepared at a concentration adequate for a rate of analysis of 40˜60 fibers per second. The slurry is passed through the capillary of the instrument for exposure to a laser beam and a detector to determine the fiber length. The instrument performs calculations from the detector output and reports three different lengths;—the arithmetic average length, the length-weighted average length; and the weight-weighted average length.
Tensile Properties
Filaments tested for tensile properties are, first, conditioned at 25° C., 55% relative humidity for a minimum of 14 hours; and the tensile tests are conducted at those conditions. Tenacity (breaking tenacity), elongation (breaking elongation), and modulus are determined by breaking test filaments on an Instron tester (Instron Engineering Corp., Canton, Mass.).
Tenacity, elongation, and initial modulus, as defined in ASTM D2101-1985, are determined using filament gage lengths of 2.54 cm. Tenacity is reported in grams per denier. The modulus is calculated from the slope of the stress-strain curve at 1% strain and is equal to the stress in grams at 1% strain (absolute) times 100, divided by the test filament denier. Filament denier is determined according to ASTM D1577 using a vibrascope.
Specific Surface Area
Surface areas are determined utilizing a single point BET nitrogen absorption method using a Strohlein surface area meter (Standard Instrumentation, Inc., Charleston, W.Va.). Washed samples of pulp are dried in a tared sample flask, weighed and placed on the apparatus. Nitrogen is adsorbed at liquid nitrogen temperature. Adsorption is measured by the pressure difference between sample and reference flasks (manometer readings) and specific surface area is calculated from the manometer readings, the barometric pressure, and the sample weight.
Canadian Standard Freeness
This is a measure of the drainage of a suspension of 3 grams of fibrous material in 1 liter of water. Measurement and apparatus are according to TAPPI Standard T227 om-94. The fibrous material is dispersed for five minutes in a TMI disperser. Results are reported as volume (ml) of water drained under standard conditions. The measured value is affected by the fineness and flexibility of the fibers and by their degree of fibrillation.
EXAMPLES
Fiber preparation
In the examples that follow, the pulp composition of this invention was made with a variety of polyaniline concentrations.
Generally, a spin dope was prepared as follows: A double helix mixer (Atlantic) was heated to 800° C. under nitrogen purge and was charged with concentrated sulfuric acid (100.1%) and polyaniline while maintaining mild agitation and the nitrogen purge. Material amounts are show in Table I. (The polyaniline was dried in a vacuum oven at about 180° C. overnight.)
TABLE I
% SPA
H 2 SO 4 g
PA g
PPDT g
% solids
5
145.4
1.75
33.2
19.4
10
166.2
4.0
36.0
19.4
20
153.2
7.0
28.0
18.6
The mixture was agitated for one hour at 52° C.; and was then chilled to −42° C. using a dry ice/acetone bath before adding the poly(p-phenylene terephthalamide) (PPDT). (The PPDT was dried in a vacuum oven at about 840° C. overnight.) The dry ice/acetone bath was removed and agitation of the resulting spin dope was continued for an additional hour under nitrogen at about 70° C. To deaerate the dope, it was agitated under vacuum at a temperature of about 80° C. for an additional hour, and the dope was transferred to a spin cell at 80° C.
The spin cell was set up for air gap spinning and fitted with a 10-hole spinneret with capillaries having 0.076 mm diameter and 0.23 mm length. The cell and the spinneret were maintained at 80° C. and fibers were spun through a 1 cm air gap into a water bath at about 1° C. The throughput was adjusted to achieve a jet velocity of 20.8 meters/minute and the fiber was wound at 145 meters/minute with a spin-stretch factor of 7.0. Characteristics of the resulting fiber are shown in Table II.
TABLE II
% SPA
Dpf
Tensile
% Elonga
Modulus
5
2.4
23.6
6.4
358
10
2.3
22.6
5.9
417
20
2.5
17.5
6.4
272
Dpf = Denier per filament
Tensile = tenacity
% Elonga = percent elongation to break
Modulus = Tensile modulus
Pulp Preparation
Fibers from the preceding were cut to floc with a length of 0.64 to 0.95 and the floc was refined using a 30 cm laboratory atmospheric refiner in batch mode having refiner plates from Andritz-Sprout Bauer coded “D2A501”. A slurry of about 20 g floc in 700 ml water was fed to the refiner by means of a screw feeder and collected at the discharge zone of the refiner. The feeder was flushed with a small amount of water and the washings were, also, collected. The material from the first pass was fed back through the refiner and again collected. This was repeated for a total of three passes through the refiner to produce the product of this invention. Pulp characteristics for each of the several flocs are set out in Table III.
TABLE III
Kajaani length
% SPA
CSF
SSA
% Sul
Ar
Lwt
Wwt
5
95
12.9
11.7-12.6
0.24
0.86
1.88
10
92, 92
12.1
12.0-12/6
N/a
N/a
N/a
10
32, 35
14.6
12.0-12.6
0.35
0.94
1.81
20
60
11.9
10.6-10.7
0.35
0.99
1.80
CSF = Canadian Standard Freeness
SSA = Specific Surface Area in square meters per gram
% Sul = Percent sulfur based on sulfonated polyaniline
Ar = Arithmetic Average Length
Lwt = Length-Weighted Average Length
Wwt = Weight-Weighted Average Length
Papers were made using this pulp and, in selected cases, this pulp combined with pulp of para-aramid. The para-aramid was poly(p-phenylene terephthalamide) and the para-aramid pulp had a CSF of 155 ml and a specific surface area of 8.5-9.5 m 2 /g. The Static Decay Rate was determined on these papers. Test results are set out in Table IV.
TABLE IV
% SPA*
Pulp Blend
Decay Time (sec)
InPulp
CSF
SSA
SPA/Aramid
Ave.
Range
5
95
12.9
100/0
1.0
0.6-2.0
10
92
12.1
100/0
2.7
1.5-3.3
20
60
11.9
100/0
0.01
0-0.01
20
60
11.9
60/40
0.01
0.01-0.01
20
60
11.9
30/70
0.01
0.01-0.02
20
60
11.9
20/80
0.11
0.08-0.17
20
60
11.9
10/90
2.7
1.9-3.7
0
155
8.9
0/100
>30**
>30->60**
*Calculation based on unsulfonated polyaniline
**Behavior typical of a non-antistatic material. The sample would not accept a full 5000 volt charge. The partial charge that was accepted was not readily dissipated. Tests were terminated after 30 or 60 seconds. In the Pulp Blends, the Aramid pulp was commercial poly (p-phenylene terephthalamide) pulp available from E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company under the product designation, “merge 1F361”. | The present invention relates to electrically-conductive pulp of sulfonated polyaniline blended with para-aramid wherein the para-aramid is a continuous phase in the pulp and the sulfonated polyaniline is a discontinuous phase. | 3 |
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
[0001] This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/237,309 filed 5 Feb. 2014, which is a National Phase entry of International Patent Application No. PCT/US2012/052120 filed on 23 Aug. 2012, which claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/527,006 filed 24 Aug. 2011, hereby incorporated by reference for all purposes.
TECHNICAL FIELD
[0002] The present invention relates to displays systems and, more particularly, to novel display systems having wide color gamut performance, high-to-infinite contrast and/or high energy efficiency.
BACKGROUND
[0003] In the field of high contrast, energy efficient, wide color gamut displays, it is known to create displays comprising a backlight of discrete independently controllable emitters (e.g. LEDs—both inorganic and organic) and a high resolution LCD panel. The combination of a low resolution backlight and a high resolution LCD panel (i.e. “dual modulator displays”) is disclosed further in co-owned: (1) U.S. Pat. no. 7,753,530 entitled “HDR DISPLAYS AND CONTROL SYSTEMS THEREFOR”; (2) United States Patent Application Publication Number 2009322800 entitled “METHOD AND APPARATUS IN VARIOUS EMBODIMENTS FOR HDR IMPLEMENTATION IN DISPLAY DEVICES”; (3) United States Patent Application Publication Number 2009284459 entitled “ARRAY SCALING FOR HIGH DYNAMIC RANGE BACKLIGHT DISPLAYS AND OTHER DEVICES”; (4) United States Patent Application Publication Number 2008018985 entitled “HDR DISPLAYS HAVING LIGHT ESTIMATING CONTROLLERS”; (5) United States Patent Application Publication Number 20070268224 entitled “HDR DISPLAYS WITH DUAL MODULATORS HAVING DIFFERENT RESOLUTIONS”; (6) United States Patent Application Publication Number 20070268211 entitled “HDR DISPLAYS WITH INDIVIDUALLY-CONTROLLABLE COLOR BACKLIGHTS”; (7) United States Patent Application Publication Number 20100214282 entitled “APPARATUS FOR PROVIDING LIGHT SOURCE MODULATION IN DUAL MODULATOR DISPLAYS”; (8) United States Patent Application Publication Number 20090201320 entitled “TEMPORAL FILTERING OF VIDEO SIGNALS”; (8) United States Patent Application Publication Number 20070268695 (“the '695 application”) entitled “WIDE COLOR GAMUT DISPLAYS”—all of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety.
SUMMARY
[0004] Several embodiments of display systems and methods of their manufacture and use are herein disclosed.
[0005] In one embodiment, a display system comprises a one or more emitters, said one or more emitters emanating light into an optical path; a first modulator, said first modulator comprising a plurality of colored subpixels and wherein said first modulator transmitting light emanating from said emitters in said optical path; and a color notch filter, said color notch filter placed in said optical path for conditioning light transmitted by said plurality of said colored subpixels.
[0006] In yet another embodiment, the display system comprises an array of discrete, individually controllable emitters and the emitters may either be colored emitters or full spectrum (white) emitters. Such emitters may be OLED elements, quantum dots excitation or any other known nano-structure capable of producing white light.
[0007] In yet another embodiment, the OLED elements may comprise a UV emitter and a photoluminescent material or combination thereof that converts the UV light to visible light. In one embodiment, the visible light is full spectrum (white) light that illuminates the LCD modulator comprising itself of colored subpixels. A color notch filter is provided within the optical path and/or stack such that the color notch filter mitigates any crosstalk between signals of different color bands that may emit through a colored subpixel—e.g. designated as a different color. Such conditioning of the light (either before or after the LCD modulator) may allow the display system to render highly saturated images with better fidelity.
[0008] Other features and advantages of the present system are presented below in the Detailed Description when read in connection with the drawings presented within this application.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0009] Exemplary embodiments are illustrated in referenced figures of the drawings. It is intended that the embodiments and figures disclosed herein are to be considered illustrative rather than restrictive.
[0010] FIG. 1 shows an embodiment of a display made for high dynamic range comprising a white backlight and two LCD modulators.
[0011] FIG. 2 shows the point spread function of light from a white backlight as transmitted through one exemplary LCD comprising colored subpixels.
[0012] FIG. 3 shows the color gamut of a display as made in accordance with architecture of FIG. 1 .
[0013] FIG. 4 shows one embodiment of a display system having wide color gamut performance.
[0014] FIG. 5 illustrates color performance 500 of a display system.
[0015] FIG. 6 shows another embodiment of display system having a wide color gamut performance and high energy efficiency.
[0016] FIG. 7 illustrates the various stages 700 of the modulation of light through the optical stack of a display system.
[0017] FIG. 8 illustrates another embodiment 800 of the display system wherein the pass bands of the color notch filter are suitably adjusted in order to affect a display system with different gamut performance.
[0018] FIG. 9 shows one possible embodiment of a white OLED element that may be suitable in a display system, such as in FIG. 6 .
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
[0019] Throughout the following description, specific details are set forth in order to provide a more thorough understanding to persons skilled in the art. However, well known elements may not have been shown or described in detail to avoid unnecessarily obscuring the disclosure. Accordingly, the description and drawings are to be regarded in an illustrative, rather than a restrictive, sense.
[0020] Many display system configurations have attempted to affect high dynamic range. One such configuration is shown in FIG. 1 of the '695 application noted above. That configuration is a low resolution array of colored LED backlights that illuminates one side of a higher resolution LCD panel. The combination of separately modulated LED backlights, together with a separately modulated LCD panel, produces a display of very high dynamic range. The cost of such a display is driven in part by the cost of the LED backlights and the processing requirements needed to implement the dual modulated display. The processing requirements of such a system also depend upon the number of different LEDs whose light may transmit through any given subpixel of the LCD panel. As a rule of thumb, the more LEDs illuminating a LCD subpixel, the more processing is required to accurately and faithfully reproduce a rendered image thereon.
[0021] To produce a display that exhibits a similar high dynamic range; but without the cost of a backlight comprising an array of colored LEDs, various configurations are possible. FIG. 1 is one such embodiment of a display system 100 that achieves high dynamic range without a separately modulated backlight. Display system 100 comprises a white light source 102 that receives power and/or control signals with controller 104 . White light emitted from light source 102 may enter an optical stack, such as diffuser 106 , polarizer 108 , first LCD panel 110 , polarizer 112 , diffuser 114 (which may be a holographic diffuser, bulk diffuser or otherwise), polarizer 116 , second LCD panel 118 and finishing high contrast polarizer 119 and an optional front surface for possible matte finish, scratch resistance, wider viewing angle, among other aspects. In some embodiment, diffuser 106 may also comprise other collimating films, such as BEF or prismatic light collimating films, as is known in the art.
[0022] First LCD panel 110 and second LCD panel 118 may be driven by control signals from controller 120 based on image data 122 that is desired to be rendered coming out from second LCD 118 . Optionally, light source 102 may be also controlled by controller 120 to affect some type of known dimming scheme (i.e. local or global).
[0023] Many possible variations of this configuration are possible. For example, first LCD panel may comprise monochrome or colored subpixels and second LCD panel may comprise colored or monochrome subpixels respectively. It is possible that both first and second LCD panels may comprise colored subpixels; but that, given the low transmissivity rates of colored LCD panels in the first place, a combination of two such colored LCD panels may make a resulting display of low peak luminosity—which might be solved by employing an extremely bright (and expensive) white backlight.
[0024] For examples of such high dynamic range displays that comprises at least two LCD panels, the following commonly-owned applications: (1) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/780,740 filed on May 14, 2010 entitled “HIGH DYNAMIC RANGE DISPLAYS USING FILTERLESS LCD(s) FOR INCREASING CONTRAST AND RESOLUTION” (Attorney Docket No. D10026US01); (2) Provisional U.S. Patent Application No. 61/479,966 filed on Apr. 28, 2011, entitled “DUAL PANEL DISPLAY WITH CROSS BEF COLLIMATOR AND POLARIZATION-PRESERVING DIFFUSER” (Attorney Docket No. D11006USP1); (3) Provisional U.S. Patent Application No. 61/450,802 filed on Mar. 9, 2011, entitled “HIGH CONTRAST GRAYSCALE AND COLOR DISPLAYS” (Attorney Docket No. D11011USP1); (4) Provisional U.S. Patent Application No. 61486,160 filed on May 13, 2011 entitled “TECHNIQUES FOR QUANTUM DOTS”(Attorney Docket No. D11041USP1); (5) Provisional U.S. Patent Application No. 61/486,171 filed on May 13, 2011 entitled “QUANTUM DOTS FOR DISPLAY PANELS” (Attorney Docket No. D11043USP1).—which are all hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety—describe systems and methods of employing more than one LCD modulators comprising a high dynamic display system.
[0025] In the case where first LCD panel comprises monochrome subpixels, second LCD panel comprises colored subpixels, and further where first LCD panel is of lower resolution than second LCD panel, the resulting luminosity is not so compromised; but there may be other effects that may be addressed. One such effect may be the resulting color gamut of the display.
[0026] In this embodiment, it may be the case that the light reaching any given colored subpixel in the second LCD panel is a combination of light from a plurality of subpixels of neighboring subpixels in the first LCD panel. This effect may be controllable by constructing an optical stack whereby the distance between the first LCD panel and the second LCD panel is diminished. However, if first LCD panel comprises a monochrome panel, the white light emitted from first LCD panel, composed of different colors, illuminates the colored subpixels of the second LCD panel. The result may compromise the color gamut of the resulting display system.
[0027] For example, FIG. 2 shows a mapping of the spectrum of the white light (here composed of three primary colors, blue, green and red) illuminating an exemplary green subpixel of the second LCD panel. As colored subpixels are constructed, each colored subpixel comprises a color band pass (as shown in FIG. 2 for the exemplary green subpixel). A smaller band pass may tend to compromise luminosity of the display system; while a larger band pass may tend to compromise the color gamut of the display system. As shown in FIG. 2 , if the band pass is wide in the green subpixels, a certain amount of both blue and red light may come through the green subpixel—affecting a compromise on the color gamut of the display system.
[0028] FIG. 3 shows one exemplary color gamut of such a display system. Color envelope 302 is the familiar shape of the CIE 1931 chromaticity chart—whereby the inverted U-shape is a curve of monochrome color points. Triangular color gamut 304 is representational of many possible gamuts that display systems may produce—e.g. Rec 709, P3 color space, Adobe RGB or the like. P3 color space and Adobe RGB are two such color gamuts that are currently employed for high definition image data format. It is noticed that P3 comprises three primary points, vertices of the triangle, in green (G), blue (B) and red (R) parts of the color gamut.
[0029] Due to the color crosstalk between filters—e.g. parts of the blue and red spectrum from the backlight bleeding into the green pass band of the green colored subpixels of the LCD, the actual color gamut of a display made in accordance with FIG. 1 is reduced, as shown in the dotted triangular gamut region 306 . As a result, there may be a noticeable reduction in the color fidelity reproduction in some image scenes that have highly saturated colors to render.
First Embodiment
[0030] FIG. 4 is one embodiment of a display system ( 400 ) having an improved color gamut. Display system 400 may be constructed substantially similar to the display system of
[0031] FIG. 1 —with the addition of color notch filter 402 interspersed in the optical path between diffuser/light shaper 106 and first polarizer 108 . This location for the color notch filter may be desirable as this is the part of the optical path where the light is most collimated. It will be appreciated that the color notch filter may be placed in other parts of the optical path for the purposes of this application.
[0032] FIG. 5 represents the application of color notch filter to display system 400 . In FIG. 5, 510 corresponds to LCD Color Filters and represents the light reaching the colored subpixels of a LCD (e.g. second LCD 118 ). The crosstalk of the three colors through one respective colored subpixel may lead to desaturation of certain colors within images on occasion. Color notch filter 402 has the effect of a pass band filter—as represented by 520 (e.g., Color Notch Filter)—that has the tendency to reduce the aforementioned crosstalk. As the light passes through notch filter 402 and onto colored subpixels of LCD 118 , the resulting light as represented by 530 (e.g., Resulting Color Output). This distinct separation of the colors, without the aforementioned crosstalk, has the effect of keeping highly saturated colors within images truer.
[0033] In general, the placement of a color notch filter and one or more modulators (e.g. LCDs) and other optical elements performs a convolution upon the light emitted from the backlight. The resulting convolution may determine, as noted above, in a desired color gamut of the display system. It will be appreciated that the location of color notch filter 402 may vary and still have similar effect. Notch filter 402 may be placed in other locations of the optical stack. It suffices that the placement of notch filter 402 be such that the resulting light affords a degree of abatement of the crosstalk mentioned above.
Second Embodiment
[0034] Apart from the improvement of the color gamut of the display system as shown in FIG. 1 with the addition of a color notch filter, it may be desirable to have the same improvement with other display systems that have different, perhaps more energy efficient designs.
[0035] FIG. 6 is a cross-sectional view of one embodiment of a display system ( 600 ) comprising a highly efficient backlight (e.g. OLED or high resolution LED array) 606 and a LCD panel 614 . In one embodiment, display system 600 may further comprise a substrate back 602 , reflective film 604 (such as ESR film), backlight 606 (e.g. OLED or high resolution LED array), UV light reflector 608 (which may be optionally included, if backlight is of the photoluminescent and/or fluorescent type), reflective polarizer 610 , a high contrast polarizer 612 , first LCD panel 614 , finishing high contrast polarizer 616 , color notch filter 618 , and an optional front surface 620 for possible matte finish, scratch resistance, wider viewing angle, among other aspects.
[0036] In the embodiment comprising OLED backlight, the light emitted directly from such OLED backlight may be diffuse and not highly collimated. As light transmits through optical stack, light at shallow angles (as opposed light at normal incidence to the display) are more likely to be absorbed, as they have the longest distance to travels out of the display. Thus, it may be desired to place color notch filter 618 just before the final finishing film 620 , as light here is better collimated and yet it is in front of any diffuser films 620 . It will be appreciated; however, that the color notch filter may be placed in any other part of the optical stack for purposes of this application.
[0037] In some embodiments, it is possible to construct the backlight with a combination of light-emitting elements and light converting elements—e.g., quantum dot, fluorescent or other photoluminescent technology. For examples of quantum dot systems and illumination, the following commonly-owned applications: (1) Provisional U.S. Patent Application No. 61/486,166 filed on May 13, 2011 entitled “TECHNIQUES FOR QUANTUM DOT ILLUMINATION” (Attorney Docket No. D11042USP1); (2) Provisional U.S. Patent Application No. 61/424,199 filed on Dec. 17, 2010, entitled “QUANTUM DOT MODULATION FOR DISPLAYS” (Attorney Docket No. D10043USP1); (3) Provisional U.S. Patent Application No. 61/448,599 filed on Mar. 2, 2011, entitled “N-MODULATION FOR WIDE COLOR GAMUT AND HIGH BRIGHTNESS”(Attorney Docket No. D10040USP1); (4) Provisional U.S. Patent Application No. 61486,160 filed on May 13, 2011 entitled “TECHNIQUES FOR QUANTUM DOTS”(Attorney Docket No. D11041USP1); (5) Provisional U.S. Patent Application No. 61/486, 171 filed on May 13, 2011 entitled “QUANTUM DOTS FOR DISPLAY PANELS”(Attorney Docket No. D11043USP1)—which are all hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety—describe systems and methods of employing quantum dots backlights and illumination.
[0038] Controller 622 takes image data 624 to be rendered on display system 600 and sends control and data signals to LCD panel 614 —as well as to backlight 606 , if the backlight is separately controllable. As emissive cells of highly efficient OLED or quantum dots are known in the art, it is possible to construct backlight 606 as an array of such independently controllable cells. As an alternative embodiment, backlight 606 may not be independently controllable. Instead, backlight 606 may be a uniform white background light produced by known light source—e.g. CCFL, LEDs, halogen, arc lamps or the like. In this embodiment, there need not be a separate control/data line connecting controller 622 and backlight 606 .
[0039] In one embodiment, it is possible to make this display system is a thin configuration—whereby each of the optical elements are of a quarter of an inch thickness or less. Having a thin construction may be desirable as the amount of processing may be reduced if a smaller number of neighboring emissive cells transmit light through subpixels of the LCD panel. In such a case, the display system need not consider or concern itself with emitters having large point spread functions, as mentioned in the '695 application incorporated by reference above. In one embodiment, the display system may be constructed substantially without any air gaps, which makes sealing the entire display from dust possible. Laminating some or all of the layers together may prevent wetting, and tends to eliminate air-gap light losses. This may also give the display system additional structural rigidity.
[0040] While one embodiment may comprise multi-colored emitters, in another embodiment, the display system may be constructed more cost effectively if the emissive cells comprise white OLED or LED arrays, as are known in the art. Using white emitters, there is a reduction in the number of control lines and processing for tightly packed multi-colored packages of LEDs—whose light may combine to render a white light. In one embodiment, white OLED cells may have approximately 3× larger light emitting area per pixel than a design using multi-colored OLED cells. In addition, there may be a reduction of the number of control elements (approximately ⅓ the number when compared to multi-colored cell structure). With increased die sizes for each OLED element, it is possible to have greater brightness levels over a design using individual multi-colored OLED elements.
[0041] In this embodiment, white emitting elements (e.g. LED, OLED or the like) could be placed on a one-to-one aspect with each subpixel of the LCD modulator or, alternatively, one white emitting element could supply the illumination to a small number of subpixels. In this design, the display system may be capable of substantially infinite contrast, as different regions of the screen could present brightness levels of very bright (e.g. white emitting element modulated fully on, LCD modulated fully open) to absolutely black (e.g. white emitting element off, LCD modulated closed). This may have the added benefit of enhanced efficiency over existing displays, as only the lit areas of the screen would be drawing power.
[0042] In some embodiments, white emitting elements may be constructed with a combination of light-emitting and light-converting elements, in which first light spectra—e.g. blue, UV or the like—is converted to white light. In such embodiments, the optical stack (for example, as shown in FIG. 6 ) may have increased brightness by the use of a UV reflector, if the light-converting elements are reactive in UV light, to produce a white color.
[0043] As with the first embodiment noted above, if the display system of FIG. 6 employs a color notch filter, then this design would be capable of very wide color gamut (e.g. P3 or AdobeRGB color spaces), as each color filter would be acting completely independent of the adjacent color filters (e.g. in spectrum space) without any color overlap due to the finishing color notch filter. As also noted above, there is a degree of freedom in the placement of the color notch filter—e.g. the notch filter either in front of, or behind the LCD panel. In addition, there may be an opportunity to place the notch filter in different places within the optical stack to affect similar color performance.
[0044] In FIG. 7, 710-760 show the various stages of the modulation of light through the optical stack of the display system as shown in FIG. 6 . Assuming that the display system in question employs white OLED elements, 710 (Color From OLED) shows the spectral output of a blue and/or UV emitter that emits blue and/or ultraviolet light to be absorbed in a photoluminescent layer that converts blue and/or UV light to a full spectrum white light. Efficiency of this OLED elements/layer may be increased by employing a full spectral reflector 604 and UV reflector 608 (i.e. a layer that passes full visible spectral light; but reflects UV light back down onto the photoluminescent layer of the OLED).
[0045] In FIG. 7, 720 (Color From Fluorescence) shows the full spectral light that emanates from the OLED element/layer, prior to hitting the aforementioned UV reflector. In FIG. 7, 730 (After UV Filter), shows the full spectral visible light (i.e. minus the reflected UV light, plus the re-converter visible light) going to the LCD color filtered subpixels. In FIG. 7, 740 (LCD Color Filters) shows the light as transmitted through the color subpixels of the LCD display. As discussed above, there is some crosstalk between light of other regions of the spectrum that pass through a given colored subpixel (for example, some portions of blue and red light passing through a green colored subpixel, as part of the green filters band pass characteristics).
[0046] Color notch filter has the band pass characteristics as shown in FIG. 7, 750 (Color Notch Filter). After the notch filter conditions the light, the resulting color output is shown in FIG. 7, 760 (Resulting Color Output). As discussed above, the resulting color output gives a higher fidelity reproduction of highly saturated images, resulting in a display system that delivers substantially good color gamut performance.
[0047] An alternative embodiment for a display system employing a slightly different color notch filter is shown in FIG. 8 . In this embodiment, a different color notch filter may shift, narrow, broaden or likewise change the various pass bands to affect a display system with a desired color gamut performance. FIG. 8, 810 is similar to that of FIG. 5, 510 —color transmitted through LCD colored subpixels may have significant cross-talk between different colored subpixels, as discussed above. FIG. 8,820 depicts the band pass structure of the color notch filter in this embodiment. In comparison to FIG. 5, 520 , the pass band for Green may be both shifted towards the blue part of the spectra—and, at the same time, narrowed to provide a color point that is more highly saturated in the blue-green (or cyan) part of the spectrum. The resulting color output is thus shown in FIG. 8, 830 .
[0048] With the construction of different band pass structure for a color notch filter, it is possible to determine the overall color gamut performance of the display system. For example, it is possible to construct display systems with a desired overall gamut—e.g. P3, Adobe RGB or a brightened Rec 709. In order to perfect color balance and luminance in a rendered image, it will be appreciated that a suitable gamut mapping algorithm (GMA) and/or subpixel rendering (SPR) algorithm (as are known in the art) may be desired to be functioning within the controller (e.g. controller 120 ). The controller should have knowledge (for example, in the form of matrix coefficients in lookup tables or the like) of the selection of the color notch filter and its effect on the light in the optical stack with the other elements (such as one or more LCD modulators—either monochrome or colored subpixels). Taking input image data and running it through such an image processing pipeline (e.g. with GMA and/or SPR) would balance both chrominance and luminance data for the proper fidelity of the rendered image. One desirable aspect of such a system is the possibility of constructing display systems with lower cost LCDs (e.g. with conventional color filters) or other components—and, together with a suitable notch filter, have a display system with better color gamut performance (particularly on scenes, images, movies and the like having saturated colors therein).
[0049] FIG. 9 shows one possible embodiment of an OLED element 900 that may be suitable for the above display system embodiment. OLED element 900 comprises UV emitter 902 , which may be activated by control line 904 (which, in turn, could be activated by the controller in FIG. 6 ). UV light emitted by emitter 902 excites fluorescent layer 906 (as is known in the art) to create a substantially white light emission. OLED element may be constructed above reflective layer 908 (e.g. ESR layer) to reflect full spectrum light. Light emanating from OLED element may be conditioned further by UV reflector 910 to increase the efficiency of OLED element.
[0050] As mentioned, the backlight of the display system could be constructed in a number of different ways. One embodiment is to construct the backlight as an array of discrete, individually controlled OLED elements (either in a one-to-one manner with the LCD subpixels, or in a lower resolution, one-to-many, configurations). In another embodiment, the OLED backlight could be constructed in a single, controllable layer, emitting a white light back illumination for the LCD panel. Also, as mentioned above, the display system may employ other backlights as is known in the art. For example, the backlight may be constructed as an array of light emitters, exciting quantum dots or other nano-material structures to affect a similar form of controllable backlight illumination.
[0051] A detailed description of one or more embodiments of the invention, read along with accompanying figures, that illustrate the principles of the invention has now been given. It is to be appreciated that the invention is described in connection with such embodiments, but the invention is not limited to any embodiment. The scope of the invention is limited only by the claims and the invention encompasses numerous alternatives, modifications and equivalents. Numerous specific details have been set forth in this description in order to provide a thorough understanding of the invention. These details are provided for the purpose of example and the invention may be practiced according to the claims without some or all of these specific details. For the purpose of clarity, technical material that is known in the technical fields related to the invention has not been described in detail so that the invention is not unnecessarily obscured. | Several embodiments of display systems that have wide color gamut performance are disclosed herein. In one embodiment, a display system comprises a plurality of emitters, said emitters emanating light into an optical path; a first modulator, said first modulator comprising a plurality of colored subpixels and wherein said first modulator transmitting light emanating from said emitters in said optical path; and a color notch filter, said color notch filter placed in said optical path for conditioning or convolving light together with said first modulator. | 6 |
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION
This application is a 35 USC 371 application of PCT/EP 2006/062128 filed on May 8, 2006.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an improved tool for electrochemical machining of a fuel injection device.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Fuel injection devices are components of fuel injection systems. With these systems, fuel can be delivered from a tank to the combustion chambers of an internal combustion engine. Pumps, in particular high-pressure pumps, can be used, which subject the fuel to pressure and deliver it to the fuel injection devices. The fuel injection devices typically have a housing in which a plurality of chambers are provided for carrying and/or holding fuel. Between these chambers, sharp-edged transition regions may be embodied, especially whenever the individual chambers are made by metal-cutting machining. In the regions of the sharp-edged transitions, burrs can be formed, which have to be removed before the fuel injection device is put into operation.
In addition to mechanical methods, the possibility exists of removing these burrs by way of electrochemical machining. Such a method provides that an electrode, connected as a cathode, is brought to a machining region of a fuel injection device that is to be deburred, the latter being connected as an anode. An electrolyte fluid can be delivered to the machining region, and as a result, electrochemical reactions take place at the electrode connected as a cathode and at the workpiece connected as an anode. At the anode, positively charged cations are removed, which together with hydroxide ions react to form a metal hydroxide and settle out as sludge. At the cathode, various chemical reduction reactions take place.
The method described is quite suitable for enabling a defined quantity of material to be removed from the housing of a fuel injection device. However, especially in undercut regions of the housing, it can be difficult to position the electrode in the fuel injection device in such a way that an optimal work gap is formed between the electrode and the work region.
With this as the point of departure, the object of the present invention is to further develop a tool for electrochemical machining of a fuel injection device such that deburring, with good material removal rates, is made possible even in undercut regions of the fuel injection device.
SUMMARY AND ADVANTAGES OF THE INVENTION
Because the electrode element is disposed movably relative to the electrode holder, the electrode element can be moved independently of the electrode holder. Thus the electrode holder can be introduced into the fuel injection device, and the electrode element can be adjusted independently of the electrode holder in its position relative to the machining region, for instance with the aid of an actuating element. Thus via the actuating element, the width in particular of the work gap between the electrode element and the machining region can be adjusted. Thus even machining regions that are very difficult to access can be machined with high material removal rates. Because of the good removal of material, it is also attained that work steps beforehand and afterward that must sometimes be done manually can be omitted. This contributes to making the fuel injection device capable of being produced in great numbers with high quality.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
Especially preferred exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in further detail below in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:
FIG. 1 is a sectional view of a tool in a first embodiment of the invention, in which an electrode element occupies a first position;
FIG. 2 shows a view corresponding to FIG. 1 , in which the electrode element occupies a second position;
FIG. 3 is a sectional view of a tool in a second embodiment of the invention, in which an electrode element occupies a first position; and
FIG. 4 is a view corresponding to FIG. 3 , in which the electrode element occupies a second position.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
In FIG. 1 , the housing of a fuel injection device is identified by reference numeral 10 , and a tool for machining the injection device is identified by reference numeral 12 .
In the injection device 10 , a bore 14 is provided, which is shown in different portions in the sectional planes selected in FIGS. 1 and 2 . The bore 14 discharges into a substantially rotationally symmetrical chamber 16 , in which the tool 12 is partially received. The and bore 14 and chamber 16 adjoin one another and there form a machining region 18 , from which burr material is to be removed with the aid of the tool 12 .
The machining region 18 is provided adjacent to a protrusion 20 , which extends into the chamber 16 , so that from the standpoint of the tool 12 , the machining region 18 is located in an undercut region and is therefore poorly accessible.
The tool 12 has an electrode holder 22 of electrically insulating material, which is received entirely in the chamber 16 in the injection device 10 ; an electrode element 24 , which is supported pivotably on the electrode holder 22 ; and an actuating element 26 , which is embodied in elongated form and protrudes out of the chamber 16 in the injection device 10 .
The actuating element 26 is embodied substantially cylindrically and is supported displaceably in a receiving element 28 . With the aid of a locking screw 30 that is supported in the receiving element 28 and extends radially to the actuating element 26 , the actuating element can be fixed in a defined position inside the receiving element 28 .
The receiving element 28 has a radially outward-pointing protrusion 32 , which adjoins a collar 34 that is embodied on a guide element 36 . The actuating element 26 is guided in the guide element 36 . The protrusion 32 of the receiving element 28 and the collar 34 of the guide element 36 are received in an inner chamber 38 in a clamping element 40 . The clamping element 40 defines the inner chamber 38 with a female threaded surface 42 . Via a head 44 that engages the collar 34 of the guide element 36 from behind, the clamping element 40 and thus the receiving element 28 as well as the guide element 36 can be firmly clamped on a machine, not shown, so that the tool 12 can be supplied with electrical energy and with electrolyte fluid. The inner chamber 38 in the clamping element 40 is sealed off from the machine, not shown, with the aid of a seal 46 . The receiving element 28 , on its end remote from the injection device 10 , has a pin 48 with which the radial position of the tool 12 relative to the machine is defined.
The receiving element 28 moreover, on its end remote from the injection device, has a guide pin 50 , which engages a groove 51 in the actuating element 26 , so that the rotary position of the actuating element 26 relative to the receiving element 28 is defined.
In its interior, the actuating element 26 has a line 52 , which on the end toward the injection device 10 discharges at a bore 54 . The bore 54 leads to a fluid chamber 56 , which is defined by a sleeve 58 that is embodied in one piece with the guide element 36 .
The electrode holder 22 plunges with a wall portion 60 into the sleeve 58 , and with this wall portion 60 , it defines an electrode chamber 62 .
The electrode holder 22 has a bolt 64 on which the electrode element 24 is pivotably supported. The electrode element 24 moreover has a slot 66 , in which a sliding-block pin 68 is received that is part of the actuating element 26 .
A contact spring 70 is disposed between the actuating element 26 and the electrode element 24 . This spring is anchored firmly by one end in the material comprising the actuating element 26 , and with its other end it presses against the electrode element 24 , so that by way of the contact spring 70 , an electrical connection is made between the actuating element and the electrode element 24 .
Adjacent to the electrode holder 22 , a compression spring 72 is provided, which is braced by one end on the end face of the wall portion 60 of the electrode holder 22 . On its other end, the compression spring 72 is braced on a shoulder 74 that is embodied in the guide element 36 .
In FIG. 1 , the electrode element 24 is shown in its retracted position. To put the electrode element 24 in the projected position shown in FIG. 2 , the receiving element 28 and the clamping element 40 are moved, via a drive mechanism not shown, in the direction of the injection device 10 . As a result of the connection between the receiving element 28 and the actuating element 26 , the actuating element 26 is moved into the electrode chamber 62 , counter to the action of the compression spring 72 . In the process, the sliding-block pin 68 slides inside the slot of the electrode element 24 , so that the electrode element 24 is pivoted, in the pivoting direction marked 76 , in the direction toward the machining region 18 . Thus a work gap 78 between the electrode element 24 and the machining region 18 can be optimally adjusted.
In the position of the electrode element 24 shown in FIG. 2 , the contact spring 70 is compressed compared to the position of the electrode element 24 shown in FIG. 1 . Thus in any position of the electrode element 24 , it can assure the electrical contacting between the actuating element 26 and the electrode element 24 .
The embodiment of the invention shown in FIGS. 3 and 4 differs from the embodiment shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 in the embodiment of the electrical contacting of the electrode element. In FIG. 3 , an injection device 110 is provided into which a tool 112 plunges in some portions. The tool 112 is equivalent in its essential construction to that of the tool 12 of FIGS. 1 and 2 . The tool 112 likewise has an electrode holder 122 , an electrode element 124 , and an actuating element 126 . The actuating element 126 is received in a receiving element 128 , guided in a guide element 136 and can be fastened with the aid of a clamping element 140 on a machine, not shown. The actuating element 126 , on its end toward the electrode element 124 , has a displaceably supported bolt element 180 , which is in contact with the electrode element 124 . The bolt element 180 , on its end remote from the electrode element 124 , has a bolt head 182 , which is subjected to pressure by a spring 184 in order to press the bolt element 180 against the electrode element 124 for the sake of electrical contacting.
In FIG. 3 , the tool 112 is shown in the retracted state of the electrode element 124 . As the tool 112 is moved into the injection device 110 , a spring 172 is compressed. The actuating element 126 with its sliding-block pin 168 is moved into the injection device, so that the electrode element reaches its projected position (see FIG. 4 ). In the position of the electrode element 124 shown in FIG. 4 , the bolt element 180 has been shifted by some distance from the position shown in FIG. 3 , and as a result the spring 184 is compressed. The spring 184 assures the electrical contacting of the electrode element 124 in every position of the electrode element.
The foregoing relates to a preferred exemplary embodiment of the invention, it being understood that other variants and embodiments thereof are possible within the spirit and scope of the invention, the latter being defined by the appended claims. | The invention relates to a tool for the electrochemical machining of a fuel injection device, the tool having an electrode holder and an electrode element which forms a cathode during the machining operation in order to be able to electrochemically remove material from the fuel injection device in a machining region. The electrode element is arranged in such a way that it can be displaced in relation to the electrode holder. | 5 |
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to the control of bearing load in assemblies incorporating shafts mounted in bearings. The invention is especially, but by no means exclusively, applicable in relation to compressor and turbine shaft bearings in gas turbine engines.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Mechanical bearings incorporating bearing elements such as balls or rollers contained in bearing races have optimum performance and hence minimum wear when operating under the loading conditions for which they are designed. At loads other than the optimum loading, and particularly at loads approaching zero, slippage of the bearing races can occur. This in turn can give rise to overheating and/or damage to components of the bearing resulting in reduced bearing life.
Gas turbine aircraft engines are generally mounted on aircraft at a small inclination to the horizontal. When the aircraft is at rest there is therefore a loading in one direction on the bearings in which the main compressor and turbine shafts are mounted. When the engine starts, air is drawn into the engine and loads the shaft bearings in the opposite direction. As a result the bearings pass through a zero load condition during start up. This zero load point can also be reached during transient manoeuvres. It is an object of the present invention to provide a method and means whereby this condition is maintained for as short a time as possible.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
According to one aspect of the invention there is provided a method of controlling bearing load comprising sensing the approach of a no-load condition in a bearing, generating a signal in response thereto, and applying a load to the bearing in an appropriate direction in response to said signal.
Preferably the approach of the no-load condition is sensed by sensing the relative speed of a bearing race and rolling elements of the bearing. We have found that such changes in relative speed result in changes in electrostatic charges at opposite sides of the rolling elements of a bearing, hence signalling the approach of a no-load condition. Accordingly said sensing is preferably effected by sensing changes in electrostatic charges in the bearing.
Thus according to a further aspect of the invention there is provided a method of sensing the approach of a no-load condition in a bearing comprising sensing changes in electrostatic charges in the bearing generated on the approach of the said condition. Advantageously the method may be employed in a method of controlling bearing load by generating a signal in response to said changes and applying a load to the bearing in an appropriate direction in response to said signal.
The direction of said applied load may correspond to the direction of loading of the bearing before the approach to said no-load condition to restore the original loading condition. Alternatively, the direction of the applied load may be opposite to the direction of loading before the approach of said no-load condition, whereby to move the bearing quickly through the no-load condition to a condition in which it is loaded in the opposite direction.
Preferably said applied load is produced by an electromagnetic actuator operated in response to said signal.
The invention also provides apparatus for controlling bearing load comprising sensing means for sensing the approach of a no-load condition in the bearing, means for generating a signal in response thereto, and means for applying a load to the bearing in an appropriate direction in response to said signal.
Preferably, said sensing means comprises means for sensing changes in the relative speed of a bearing race and rolling elements of the bearing. Advantageously said sensing means comprises means for sensing changes in electrostatic charges in the bearing resulting from said changes in relative speed.
Said sensing means is preferably a non-contact sensor. The sensing means may comprise a proximity sensor, a radioactive tracer or, preferably, an electrostatic sensor. The invention also provides apparatus for sensing the approach of a no-load condition in a bearing including means for sensing changes in electrostatic charges in the bearing generated on the approach of the said condition. Advantageously the apparatus may include means for generating a signal in response to said changes and means for applying a load to the bearing in response to said signal.
The direction of said applied load may correspond to the direction of loading of the bearing before the approach to said no-load condition to restore the original loading condition. Alternatively, the direction of the applied load may be opposite to the direction of loading before the approach of said no-load condition whereby to take the bearing quickly through the no-load condition to a condition in which it is loaded in the opposite direction.
Preferably said means for applying said load comprises an electromagnetic actuator. Preferably said actuator comprises a variable or ‘active’ electromagnetic bearing surrounding said shaft. Preferably said electromagnetic bearing has both radial and axial thrust capabilities.
As applied to the main shaft bearings of a gas turbine engine, said load is preferably applied in the opposite direction to the initial direction of loading, whereby to take the shaft bearings through the no-load condition generated on start-up in a rapid and controlled manner.
The invention also includes a gas turbine engine including apparatus for controlling bearing load as aforesaid.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
Embodiments of the invention will now be described, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:
FIG. 1 is a diagrammatic cross section through a gas turbine aircraft engine incorporating apparatus for controlling bearing load according to the invention; and
FIG. 2 is a diagrammatic cross-section showing an embodiment of the invention applied to a ship's propeller.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
Referring to FIG. 1, there is shown a gas turbine aircraft engine including a casing 4 in which a shaft 5 is mounted on front, intermediate and rear bearings 6 , 7 and 8 . A low pressure compressor 9 is mounted on the forward end of the shaft 5 and a low pressure turbine 10 is mounted on the rear end of the shaft 5 . A further shaft 12 surrounds a portion of the shaft 5 and is supported in the casing 4 by front, intermediate and rear bearings 13 , 14 and 15 . A high pressure compressor 16 and a high pressure turbine 17 are mounted on the forward and rear ends respectively of the shaft 12 . In the embodiment the forward and intermediate bearings 6 , 7 , 13 and 14 are mechanical bearings incorporating balls or other rolling members retained between bearing races, and the rear journal bearings 8 and 15 are electromagnetic bearings.
Due to the manner of mounting of the engine on an aircraft, the shafts 5 and 12 are normally inclined at around three degrees to the horizontal. As a result there is a static axial load on the bearings 6 - 8 and 13 - 15 in the direction of the arrow ‘L’ in the drawing. When the engine starts, thrust generated by the action of drawing air into the front of the compressor (from the left in the drawing), applies an axial force to the shafts 5 and 12 in the opposite direction. Consequently, during start-up, the bearings on which the shafts are mounted pass through a zero load condition when the thrust generated is equal and opposite to the axial component of the weight of the engine. This can result in bearing slippage and resultant wear and damage to conventional mechanical bearings as referred to above.
In order to control the load on the forward and intermediate bearings 6 , 7 , 13 and 14 and thereby reduce wear and damage, electrostatic sensors 15 A to 15 D are mounted adjacent the respective bearings and are connected by an electrical circuit to the electromagnetic bearings 8 and 15 . Signals generated by the sensors control the electromagnetic bearings 8 and 15 which serve as electromagnetic actuators to apply loads to the respective shafts 5 and 12 through collars 5 A and 12 A in a direction opposite to the initial axial load to thereby take the mechanical bearings 6 , 7 , 13 and 14 through the no-load condition to a more stable condition in which they remain during running of the engine.
Each electrostatic sensor 15 A to 15 D is mounted in a position adjacent to an associated one of the bearings 6 , 7 , 13 and 14 in which it can sense changes in static charges between the components of the bearing. By use of an appropriate electrostatic sensor, the relevant changes can be sensed from a position adjacent the bearing without interfering with the integrity of the races or other components of the bearing. Each sensor generates a signal in response to changes in electrostatic charge on either side of the balls, rollers or other rolling elements of the bearing which arise when the speed and/or direction of movement of the rolling elements relative to the bearing races in which they run occur as a no-load condition is approached. The sensors thus generate a signal before the no-load condition is reached.
The signals from the sensors 15 A to 15 D are processed in a digital controller 20 and transmitted through a power amplifier 21 to the respective active electromagnetic bearings 8 and 15 . Although shown separately in FIG. 1, the digital controller 20 and power amplifier 21 may be located in the same housing. The digital controller incorporates independent control circuits one associated with each pair of sensors 15 A, 15 D and 15 B, 15 C and the associated electromagnetic bearings 8 and 15 . Each of the electromagnetic bearings incorporates a plurality of electromagnets associated with the respective shaft 5 or 12 and operable to generate both radial forces operable to support the shaft for rotation about its longitudinal axis, and axial forces which are applied to the associated shaft through the collars 5 A or 12 A. The flux density in the electromagnetic coils is varied in response to the signals derived from the sensors 15 A to 15 D through the associated circuits in the controller 20 and amplifier 21 . The direction of the generated force is arranged to apply an axial load to the associated shaft in the direction opposite to the initial loading, that is in the direction of the arrow ‘A’ in the drawing. This load takes the forward and intermediate bearings through the unstable no-load condition in a rapid but controlled manner to a stable condition in which they operate during running of the engine. The digital controller determines the coil current required and hence the flux density generated to apply the desired axial force to the shaft.
The electromagnetic bearings 8 and 15 serve the dual function of supporting the rear ends of the associated shafts 5 and 12 and of enabling control of the axial loading applied to the forward and intermediate bearings 6 , 7 , 13 and 14 on the approach of an unstable no-load condition as described above. In this way the period of time during which the mechanical bearing assemblies are in an unstable no-load condition is minimised, wear and damage are reduced and hence bearing life increased. Alternatively, the arrangement enables smaller or lighter bearings to be employed with a similar working life at lower cost due to removal of the need for pre-loading devices conventionally employed.
Similar conditions can arise in ships due to inclination of the ship's propeller shaft. A no-load condition therefore arises on start-up and also when changing from forward to reverse or vice versa. FIG. 2 shows part 25 of a ship's hull housing an engine 26 driving a propeller shaft 27 mounted in a main mechanical thrust bearing 28 and a pair of electromagnetic bearings 29 and 30 . An electrostatic sensor 35 is mounted adjacent the bearing 28 and generates a signal in response to changes in electrostatic charges in the bearing on the approach of a no-load condition. The signal is processed in the manner of the signal generated in the FIG. 1 embodiment and controls the electromagnetic bearings 29 and 30 to apply an axial load to the propeller shaft 27 to move it in a rapid but controlled manner through the no-load condition.
Various modifications may be made without departing from the invention. For example, while in the embodiment, control of the loading applied to the mechanical bearings on the approach of a no-load condition is effected by electromagnetic bearings which support the rear ends of the associated shafts, loading could be controlled by separate electromagnetic or other actuators located adjacent to the respective bearings or elsewhere along the associated shafts. The shafts may be supported solely by mechanical bearings any one or more of which may be provided with an associated sensor connected to an electromagnetic or other actuator in the manner described. Moreover, while the invention has been described primarily with reference to gas turbine aircraft engines and ship propellers, it is equally applicable to industrial gas turbine engines and more widely in any case in which bearings are employed in situations in which a no-load condition may occur during operation.
It should also be appreciated that while reference has been made herein to generation of a corrective axial load, the invention may equally be employed to vary radial or other loading. Radial bearings may also experience zero load conditions as temperature effects change mass distribution and shaft balance. Thus, the electromagnetic bearings in the embodiment may be provided with additional electromagnetic coils adapted to apply a radial load to the associated shafts at a controllable angular position to counteract bending stresses or reduce vibration when energised by associated load, position or vibration sensors. A further example of such a case is a car axle undergoing a hard manoeuvre or running on a slippery surface. Other known types of sensing means may also be employed, including capacitive sensors, ferromagnetic sensors, and optical or other sensors.
The invention may also be employed to avoid a no-load or other unstable condition by applying a load to restore the initial loading condition following sensing of the approach of an undesirable condition. Moreover in its wider aspects, the signal generated on the approach of a no-load condition may be employed for other purposes, for example to shut down equipment to prevent instability or failure.
Whilst endeavouring in the foregoing specification to draw attention to those features of the invention believed to be of particular importance it should be understood that the Applicant claims protection in respect of any patentable feature or combination of features hereinbefore referred to and/or shown in the drawings whether or not particular emphasis has been placed thereon. | A method of controlling bearing load comprises sensing the approach of a no-load condition in a bearing, generating a single in response thereto and applying a load to the bearing in a direction opposite to the direction of loading before the approach of said no-load condition whereby to take the bearing through the no-load condition in a rapid and controlled manner to a condition in which it is loaded in the opposite direction. Preferably the load is applied to the bearing by an electrostatic actuator in the form of a separate electromagnetic bearing surrounding the shaft. | 5 |
TECHNICAL FIELD
Applicants' invention relates generally to the field of weld controllers and more particularly to a weld controller system which automatically compensates for the effects of line impedance, which cause variations in the input line voltage, to maintain a constant output RMS current to a workpiece being welded by the weld controller.
BACKGROUND ART
Resistance welding is now widely used in most applications requiring the joining of metals, such as the steel used in the manufacturing of automobiles. With the advent of the microprocessor, weld controllers have become more sophisticated and use a variety of control techniques to ensure the quality of welds throughout the life of the contact tips as they wear out. Regardless of the process or control technique used, most weld controllers consist of several basic components. These include a weld control module, a power module, a weld transformer and the contact tips. The power module usually consists of power semiconductors such as silicon controlled rectifiers (SCRs) that switch incoming power to the weld transformer according to a preset weld program as generated by the control module. The weld transformer will transform the incoming power to a high current pulse that is coupled to the contact tips to create a weld to a workpiece that is between the contact tips.
A weld program will use phase angle control to switch the power modules. In order to maintain the desired level of heat delivered to the weld, the proper phase angle to fire the SCRs will be a function of the condition of the power source delivering power to the weld control and subsequently through the weld control to the weld transformer.
An early type of a voltage compensated welder control is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,289,948 which describes an approach for developing timing signals based on measuring the line voltage and determining its nominal value. This nominal value is compared with an expected or desirable voltage level. The difference is used in an empirically developed equation to determine a new firing angle which will be necessary to raise or lower the effective voltage applied to the weld transformer and the contact tips in order to keep the welding current constant and independent of line voltage variations. Under the assumption that the load magnitude and power factor are accurately known, and that an infinitely stiff source of voltage appears at the input to the weld controller, firing the SCRs will keep the weld current constant. However, since load impedance varies from part to part and the signature of the contact tips change due to wear, the actual line voltage is rarely the nominal design voltage.
In general, the actual line voltage is a function not only of the source voltage but also of line impedance. The line voltage can differ from the nominal designed voltage since the voltage source is a real voltage source generated by a power company and subject to a power distribution system and hence may not be at the nominal design voltage of the weld control. The presence of line impedance causes a voltage drop proportional to the current flowing into the weld. Comparing the actual weld current to a targeted load current, it is proportional to the ratio of the actual line voltage to the nominal line voltage and it is reduced by a factor that is a function of the ratio of the nominal load current to the total available nominal short circuit current of the weld.
The prior art assumes that the voltage source is stiff with no line impedance. The premise is that the weld controller is capable of measuring the line voltage of the weld controller from a present weld pulse and can correct the next weld pulse based on this measurement. In the steady state, this provides the desired result. However, there is a transient response associated with this approach which limits its effectiveness. In the steady state, the actual weld load current will be the nominal load current. However, the first two cycles of weld current are significantly lower than the nominal desired current for power distribution systems that are very stiff since the initial load current does not deviate significantly from the nominal desired current. The prior art, while providing excellent steady state response, has a transient characteristic which is undesirable in welding applications, particularly where a small number of cycles are used to create the weld, such as in aluminum welding. A weld pulse comprising only 3-6 cycles of relatively high current is very common in modern applications, so an improvement in the transient response of the weld control would be most beneficial.
It would be desirable to develop a system or method whereby this transient characteristic is reduced and the effect of line impedance can be compensated, resulting in a marked improvement in the transient performance of the the present weld controller over prior art controls.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Accordingly, the principal object of the present invention is to provide a phase controlled weld controller system that uses an internal model of weld line and load impedance and of open circuit weld input voltage to develop a nominal firing angle sequence to maintain a desired weld current or conduction angle sequence.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a phase controlled weld controller system that estimates an expected weld line and load impedance and open circuit line voltage to develop the internal model.
A further objective of the invention is to provide a method and apparatus to accurately measure the weld line and load impedance and line voltage during a weld sequence.
Yet another objective of the invention is to provide a method and apparatus for utilizing the measured and estimated weld line and load impedance to determine an expected line voltage if the desired weld sequence is maintained.
In the preferred embodiment of the invention, the invention is comprised of a system of essential elements including, but not limited to, a weld control module, a power module, a weld transformer and contact tips operating from a single phase power source. The power module consists of power semiconductors such as silicon controlled rectifiers (SCRs) or thyristors that switch incoming power to the weld transformer according to a preset program to maintain the desired weld sequence as generated by the control module. The weld transformer will transform the incoming power to a high current pulse that is coupled to the contact tips to create a weld to a workpiece that is between the contact tips.
In the phase controlled weld controller of the present invention, one control variable relates to the timing of the firing pulses to the SCRs relative to the input line voltage. As such, the weld controller is treated as a discrete time system, with the inputs, outputs and state variables represented as mathematical sequences, rather than as continuously time varying quantities, with the smallest unit in a sequence representing a half-cycle of the AC power source in time. In most resistance welding applications, and in particular the application of resistance weld controls to the fabrication of automobiles, there is usually little part to part variation in the load impedance unless there is a serious process problem, such as a tooling failure or a serious part fit-up issue. The present invention creates an internal lumped parameter model of the weld power source comprising an ideal voltage source and lumped line impedance and internal lumped parameter model of the load impedance in the form of a relation between expected load current and conduction angle. The weld controller computes a nominal firing angle sequence based on estimated models of line impedance, open circuit line voltage, and estimated relation between the load current and conduction angle and the mathematical relation between firing angle, conduction angle and load circuit power factor that will achieve the desired weld sequence if the models are accurate. This process of using such a model developed a-priori to compute nominal control signals is commonly known as a feedforward control. The weld controller subsequently uses measured values received in real time while the weld sequence is being executed to modify the nominal firing angle to better achieve the desired objective. This process of adjusting a control parameter in real time in response to an error between the target and observed parametric value is referred to as closed loop feedback control. This approach allows the weld controller to quickly achieve the desired weld sequence with the actual load, while permitting low feedback gains, resulting in a system that is quick and accurate in response without being overly sensitive.
Other features and advantages of the invention, which are believed to be novel and nonobvious, will be apparent from the following specification taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which there is shown a preferred embodiment of the invention. Reference is made to the claims for interpreting the full scope of the invention which is not necessarily represented by such embodiment.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 shows an overview block diagram of a basic weld controller 10 according to the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a simplified lumped parameter circuit model of the weld controller of FIG. 1, with an associated power distribution system and weld load.
FIG. 3 shows a graphical curve relating actual weld current to conduction angle for a power factor of 30% and a maximum current of 4000 Amperes.
FIG. 4 is a detailed block diagram of the weld regulator shown in FIG. 1.
FIG. 5 provides details of the nominal firing angle generator shown in FIG. 1.
FIG. 6 shows an expanded block diagram of the firing angle compensator shown in FIG. 1.
FIG. 7 expands the feedback compensator function of FIG. 6 in a % I welding mode.
FIG. 8 expands the feedback compensator function of FIG. 6 in a Constant Current welding mode.
FIG. 9 expands the dynamic I-g estimator function of the weld regulator shown in FIG. 1.
FIG. 10 shows a process for computing a new estimate of line impedance used by the dynamic estimator shown in FIG. 4.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
Although this invention is susceptible to embodiments of many different forms, a preferred embodiment will be described and illustrated in detail herein. The present disclosure exemplifies the principles of the invention and is not to be considered a limit to the broader aspects of the invention to the particular embodiment as described.
FIG. 1 shows an overview block diagram of a basic weld controller 10. A source of weld power is connected to the weld controller via the input lines L1 and L2. The weld controller is programmed via a serial communication link 12 tied to a weld programmer 14, external to the weld controller 10. Once a program is entered via the Weld Programmer, execution of the weld program is initiated via external equipment program down into one or more weld command pulses 19. The output of the weld controller 10 is wired to a weld transformer 20 and gun 22, which passes current through a workpiece comprising two or more pieces of metal that are to be joined.
The weld controller 10 also includes a weld regulator 24, a firing control module 26, and a phase reference clock 28. Digital voltage meter 30 is used to measure various parameters of the input line voltage L1-L2, such as volt-time area, and polarity. A current sensor 32 generates a current signal H1, H2 proportional to the current flowing in the primary of the weld transformer 20. A digital current meter 34 is used to measure various parameters of the primary load current, such as current-time area, polarity, and conduction time.
The weld regulator 24 consists of a microprocessor, associated program and data memory, and a time base reference source such as a crystal controlled clock. The weld regulator 24 is the functional brain of the weld controller 10 and interacts with all of the other functions to generate the appropriate timing signals to fire a solid state weld contactor 36 through the firing control module 26, which is synchronized with the phase reference clock 28 under software control. The solid state weld contactor 36 switches line voltage upon command in the form of firing pulses from the firing controller. This contactor generally comprises a pair of back to back thyristors with associated snubbing, level shifting and pulse shaping circuits required to accept the firing pulses. The weld sequence I/O 18 comprises a hardware interface to external equipment 16 which may take the form of hard-wired digital inputs and outputs, or one of several serial communication interfaces per various commercial standards, and software that upon initiation of a weld program generates one or more weld command pulses 19 to the weld regulator.
The phase reference clock 28 is a free-running clock which operates independent of software delays. The phase reference clock provides an internal time base for the solid state contactor firing pulses based on an estimate of the frequency and phase of the incoming line voltage L1 and L2. The period of the phase reference clock can be set and modified under software control. In the preferred embodiment, the phase reference clock is implemented in hardware external to the weld regulator 24, utilizing a commonly available programmable counter. In operation, the counter is programmed to generate a square wave which becomes an interrupt sequence used by the weld regulator 24. The period of the counter is programmed by the weld regulator 24, which sets the period of the clock to track the input line voltage. Details of the phase reference clock 28, the digital voltmeter 30, and the digital current meter 34 are disclosed in commonly assigned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/866,829, filed May 30, 1997, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,869,800, and entitled "Phase Distortion Compensated Time Base for a Weld Controller", the details of which are incorporated herein by reference.
The weld controller 10 supports two weld control types: A Percent Current ( % I) weld which adjusts thyristor firing angles to regulate a voltage and line impedance compensated conduction angle representing a percentage of maximum weld current into an assumed load impedance, and a Constant Current weld which adjusts the thyristor firing angles to achieve a target current directly. The general form of % I Weld commands indicate a percentage of the maximum controllable current as determined from an estimated relation between the solid state contactor conduction angle and expected weld current as stored in a I-γ table. The term maximum controllable current will be defined subsequently. The first form of the % I command is intended to deliver a constant weld pulse of XX cycles at YY percent of maximum controllable current. The second form is intended to ramp the weld current from Y1 to Y2 percent of maximum controllable current linearly over XX cycles of weld.
The general forms of Constant Current weld commands in the weld controller 10 include a first form that attempts to deliver a weld current of YY Amperes RMS to the primary of the weld transformer over a period of XX cycles. The second form allows a user to program a desired secondary current, which the weld controller 10 subsequently converts to primary amperes from a knowledge of the weld transformer turns ratio. Similarly, the third form of the weld command attempts to create a linear ramp of weld current from Y1 Amperes to Y2 Amperes over a period of XX cycles, and the forth command allows the user to specify the weld current targets for the linear ramp in secondary kilo-Amperes, which are subsequently converted by the weld controller 10 to primary amperes.
FIG. 2 is a simplified lumped parameter circuit model 40 for the resistance weld controller 10, and associated power distribution system and weld load which will be used to derive mathematics of the weld controller 10. The lumped parameter model 40 comprises a weld power source 42, the weld controller 10 and a weld load impedance 44. The weld power source 42 is modeled as two circuit elements, a voltage source 46, which is assumed to be an ideal voltage source having no series impedance and a serially connected lumped line impedance, Z line , which is assumed to be ideal and linear and which generates a voltage drop between the ideal voltage source and the weld control proportional to the weld load current. The weld controller 10 is capable of observing the load current I load and the voltage applied at its input terminals, V Wc . Utilizing thyristor based phase control, the weld controller generates a weld voltage V load at its output terminals, with a corresponding weld current load. The weld load impedance 44 comprises the weld transformer 20, workpiece, tooling 22, fixtures and other sources of impedance. To simplify the mathematics, the impedance of all these elements are lumped into a single impedance quantity reflected at the output terminals of the weld control as Z load . When the weld control applies the voltage V load upon the load impedance, the resulting current is I load .
The relationship between Thyristor voltage and current when conducting into an inductive load, as in the case in a normal resistance weld application, is well known. In order to maintain independence of frequency in the discussion that follows, the sinusoidal voltage source is scaled in degrees instead of time. With the sinusoid defined in degrees, the thyristor is fired at an angle α with respect to the phase reference clock which nominally tracks the zero crossings of the sinusoidal voltage source, at which time the thyristor begins to conduct current. The relationship between the line voltage and line current while conducting is proportional to: ##EQU1## where φ is the angle of observation, α is the angle with respect to the zero crossing of the line voltage at which the Thyristor is fired, θ is the lag angle of the load and γ is the conduction angle of the Thyristor, the smallest angle for which ##EQU2## is satisfied. The lag angle of the load impedance, θ in Equation (1), is related to the circuit power factor, pf, by:
θ=arccos(pf) (3)
Assuming the lumped parameter model 40 of FIG. 2, for a normalized ideal source of weld voltage 46 containing no line impedance (48) and a normalized welding load impedance 44 that is inductive in nature, the RMS current that results from a half-cycle of conduction of the Thyristor as a function of the weld conduction angle and the power factor can be shown graphically. In the lumped parameter model 40, the load can be completely characterized by an I-g curve. To do so, it is sufficient to have a knowledge of the circuit power factor, which uniquely dictates the "shape" of the load impedance characteristic and the weld current at one conduction angle and at a known voltage. The maximum current that can be generated at full 180 degree conduction and at nominal line voltage is henceforth referred to as I 180 and is related to the nominal load impedance Z load by: ##EQU3## Given the value of I 180 and the normalized I-γ curve for the load impedance, the curve relating the actual weld current to the conduction angle can be constructed. FIG. 3 shows such a curve for a power factor of 30% and a maximum current, I 180 of 4000 Amperes. Given FIG. 3, and a desired weld current, the conduction angle required to achieve the desired current can be determined from the graph. Furthermore, Equations (3) and (4) above relate the firing angle, conduction angle and load power factor. As such, a table-lookup scheme with linear interpolation in both the firing angle and conduction angle directions is employed to determine the circuit power factor and firing angle. This becomes a Dynamic I-γ curve (DIG) model, maintained within the weld controller 10 and provides an expected relationship between the conduction angle and expected resulting weld current at nominal line voltage, V nom . This information is used as the basis for computing a feedforward term in a weld controller weld regulator control strategy.
The objective of the feedforward term in the weld controller regulator strategy is to create a line voltage sequence of the form:
V.sub.load (n)=V.sub.nom *% I.sub.max (n) (5)
where V nom is the value of the power source to which the controller was designed, for example 480 VAC in the United States, and % I max (n) is the percentage of maximum controllable weld current represented by the target weld current and as determined from the DIG model. In the present invention, the maximum controllable weld current, I max , is defined as that current given by the Dynamic I-γ curve at 170 degrees conduction angle, allowing for a 10 degree correction in conduction angle target to compensate for the effects of line voltage variation and line impedance at the highest % I values. When a % I weld is programmed, the target current is the percentage of I max indicated. Similarly, the % I corresponding to a target current in a constant current weld is determined by dividing the target current by I max .
Variations in the actual current observed at the given conduction angle are due to two sources. The line voltage is not the nominal line voltage on which the DIG model is based or the DIG model is not an accurate representation of the load impedance. Using Eq. 4, and defining a sequence of line voltages appearing at the input of the weld control as V wc (n), and assuming that the internal model of the load impedance matches the actual load impedance, based on the interpretation of the pth weld command by the weld controller 10, a target current sequence, I t (n) and the resulting firing angle sequence, α(n). the actual resulting load voltage generated by the weld controller will be
V.sub.load (n)=V.sub.wc (n)*% I.sub.max (n) (6)
The feedforward path of the weld controller will generate a firing angle that attempts to apply this percentage of the nominal weld voltage to the load.
The present invention estimates a line that will result when the SCRs are fired. This estimated line voltage sequence is defined as V est (n) and a new target current sequence, I tc (n) can be estimated using ##EQU4## Substituting this new target current in (5), and rearranging terms, the resulting voltage can be shown to be: ##EQU5## Comparing (8) and (6) it is seen that if the system can accurately estimate the resulting line voltage sequence, such that V wc (n) and V est (n) are equal, the expression in parentheses in (8) will be unity and the weld control will generate the appropriate target line voltage sequence, V t (n) according to (6).
FIG. 4 shows a block diagram of the weld regulator 24 of FIG. 1. It is the central element of the weld controller 10 and interacts with all of the other functions to determine and generate the appropriate timing signals to fire the thyristors through the firing controller module 26. Its function is to develop a nominal firing angle sequence that would develop a correct weld sequence, assuming that the load impedance, line impedance and line voltage can be estimated exactly, then make minor adjustments to the nominal sequence based on the actual observed behavior of the system while in operation. The two main blocks of the weld regulator 24 are a compensated firing angle generator 50 which modifies the nominal sequence, and a nominal firing angle generator 52.
To generate the nominal firing angle and target conduction angle and current sequences, the nominal firing angle generator 52 needs several inputs. First, a weld command preprocessor function 56 derives information from the pth weld pulse command as programmed by an operator, including a starting target value, StartI(p), of primary current for this pth pulse, an ending target value, EndI(p), of primary current for this pth pulse, the number of cycles Cycles(p) of weld in the pth pulse, and the weld type (% I or CCWELD), labeled Type(p).
In the case of a Constant Current weld, preprocessing involves converting any secondary current values entered into primary currents (using the specified transformer turns ratio) and extracting the information above. In the case of a % I weld, the programmed percentages are converted into target primary currents by multiplying the user programmed percentage by I max , the current from the DIG that would be supplied by the weld control into the nominal estimated load at nominal designed voltage at a conduction angle of 170 degrees as described above. StartI(p), EndI(p), Cycles(p) and Type(p) are all inputs to the nominal firing angle generator 52, and Type(p) is also an input to the compensated firing angle generator.
A line impedance estimator function 58 provides an estimate of the line impedance Z* line to the nominal firing angle generator 52. A dynamic I-γ estimator function 54 maintains an a-priori estimate of the load power factor, PF(p), and a table of estimated I-γ values, DIG(p), both derived from previous welds using a method to be described subsequently. The digital voltmeter function 30 furnishes an estimate V - (n) of the RMS line voltage for the negative half cycle of each cycle of line voltage to the nominal firing angle generator 52. The digital current meter function 34 furnishes an estimated sequence I - (n) of the RMS current for each negative half cycle, to both the nominal firing angle generator 52 and compensated firing angle generator 50, as well as furnishing the sequence of estimated positive half-cycle current, I + (n-1), the negative conduction angle sequence, γ - (n) and positive conduction angle sequence γ + (n-1) to the compensated firing angle generator 50.
With the inputs as given above, the nominal firing angle generator 52 provides a sequence of nominal firing angles, α nom (n+1), a compensated target conduction angle sequence, γ.sub.τ (n+1) and a target current sequence, I t (n+1) to the compensated firing angle generator 50. The compensated firing angle generator 50 provides a sequence of positive half-cycle firing angles, α + (n+1) and a sequence of negative half-cycle firing angle values α - (n+1) to the firing controller 26, which outputs of the sequence of electrical impulses that trigger the thyristor, causing weld current to flow.
FIG. 5 provides details of the nominal firing angle generator 52. A weld trajectory generator 60 generates a sequence, I t (n+1), of nominal target currents, with the index "n+1" denoting that the output of the trajectory generator is the value of the nominal current for the next cycle of weld. The sequence generated by the weld trajectory generator 60 is given by: ##EQU6##
A line impedance compensator function 62 adjusts the nominal current trajectory computed by the weld trajectory generator 60 for the effects of line impedance and voltage variations according to the mathematics above. The estimate of line impedance Z line *(p) for the pth weld pulse, generated by the line impedance estimator function 58 is one input to the line impedance compensator 62, as well as the cycle number. The line voltage estimate from the previous weld cycle, V - (n-1) is furnished to the line impedance compensator 62 from the digital voltmeter 30. Also furnished is the nominal line voltage, V nom , a design parameter dependent on the application of the control. The output I tc (n+1), of the line impedance compensator 62, is given by: ##EQU7## in the % I mode, and ##EQU8## in the Constant Current mode, where V s *(p) is computed using the line voltage and line current from the half-cycle just prior to initiation of the present weld pulse using:
V.sub.s *(p)=V.sub.- (0)+I.sub.- (0)Z*.sub.line (p) (12)
The voltage compensated target current sequence I tc (n+1) is implemented in the weld control software and a new value of I tc (n+1) is computed for every cycle.
The sequence of line impedance compensated target currents, I tc (n+1), is subsequently fed to a target conduction angle generator 64, which utilizes the Dynamic I-γ curve sequence DIG(p) generated by the dynamic I-γ estimator function 54 to compute a sequence of target conduction angles, γ t (n+1) for the next pulse. This target conduction angle sequence, along with the estimate of the system power factor, PF(p), also furnished by the dynamic I-γ estimator 54, is fed to a nominal firing angle generator 66, which utilizes a digitized version of a surface relating firing angle, conduction angle and power factor and a combination of a table-lookup scheme and linear interpolation in two dimensions to compute a nominal firing angle sequence α nom (n+1). The output sequence α nom (n+1) becomes the feedforward firing angle sequence in the weld controller 10 strategy and is one input to the firing angle compensator 50, the internal operational details of which take different forms dependent upon the weld type (% I or Constant Current).
Other inputs to the firing angle compensator 50 are the measured positive and negative conduction angle sequences γ + (n-1) and γ - (n), the measured positive and negative current sequences, I + (n-1) and I - (n), all of which are furnished by the digital current meter 34, and the weld type (Constant Current or % I). The outputs of the firing angle compensator are two sequences of firing angles, α - (n+1) and α + (n+1).
FIG. 6 shows an expanded block diagram of the firing angle compensator 50. The weld type, nominal firing angle, target conduction angle sequence, target current sequence and the measured currents and conduction angles from the previous positive and negative half cycles are inputs to a feedback compensator function 70. The output of the feedback compensator 70 is the sequence of compensated firing angles, α c (n+1), and represent the system's best guess of the correct firing angles to employ on the next full cycle of welding. This sequence of firing angles α c (n+1) is subsequently passed through a delayed firing compensator function 72, which applies a lower limit to the first and last half cycle of a weld pulse under certain circumstances.
The outputs of the delayed firing generator 72 are the respective target firing angles for the next cycle of weld, α df- (n+1) and α df+ (n+1).
One final check on the computed firing angles is performed prior to converting them to timing signals and applying firing pulses to the thyristors. A dynamic firing angle limit function 74 is applied to the firing pulse based on the previous negative half cycle firing angle α df- (n) and the resulting observed conduction angle γ - (n) to ensure that the firing angles do not cause a half-cycling condition. These values are converted to timer counts and subsequently feed a firing angle timer.
FIG. 7 expands the feedback compensator 70 of FIG. 6 in the % I mode. This system block is implemented in system software and is conditionally executed on each cycle of weld based on the test:
I.sub.- (n-1)>(1-δ)I.sub.t (n-1) (13)
The weld controller 10 tests the previous weld current to ensure that it lies within a percentage of its target value. This condition would be violated if, for instance, insufficient pressure were applied to the weld gun so that it did not close, or if there was an insulating substance between the weld electrode(s) and the workpiece such as a sticker. If the weld current from the previous negative half cycle is not greater than the expected minimum current as given by (12), the weld controller 10 freezes the closed loop feedback control for that cycle, using the previous firing angle until either the programmed number of cycles is complete, a more serious error condition is detected or the current falls within the range prescribed by (12). In the present implementation, 6 is set at 0.25, which means that the measured weld current needs to be within 75% of the expected value for the compensation algorithm to be executed. Given that the condition described in (12) is satisfied, in the % I mode the weld controller computes the value of the state variable x1(n) given by:
x1(n)=x1(n-1)+(γ,(n)-( γ.sub.- (n))+K.sub.g (γ.sub.- (n-1)-γ.sub.+ (n-1)) (14)
and the next target firing angles, α(n+1) by
α.sub.c (n+1)=α.sub.nom (n+1)+K.sub.Ipct *x1(n)(15)
where, K g is the imbalance gain of the control loop, and K ipct is the integral gain term. In the present weld controller 10, K g and K ipct are set to 0.5 each.
FIG. 8 shows the feedback compensator function 70 in the Constant Current welding mode. Again, the compensator is executed conditionally according to Equation (12) above. In this case, the nominal firing angle is adjusted based on a direct comparison of the nominal weld current against the observed weld current. Two state variables, labeled x1(n) and x2(n) are shown in FIG. 8. The sequence relating each of these is given by:
x1(x1)=(I.sub.nom (n)-I.sub.- (n))+K.sub.g (I.sub.- (n-1)-I.sub.+ (n-1)) (16)
and
x2(n)=x2(n-1)+x1(n) (17)
and the sequence generating α(n+1) is given by:
α.sub.c (n+1)=α.sub.nom (n+1)-IK1*x1(n)-IK2*x2(n) (18)
where IK1 and IK2 are constants. In the weld controller, values of IK1 and IK2 are presently 100/I 180 and 100/I 180 respectively.
FIG. 9 expands the dynamic I-g estimator 54 of the weld regulator 50. In the preferred embodiment, the firing angle α upd (P), resulting conduction angle γ upd (p), measured line voltage V upd (p) and measured load current I upd (P) corresponding to the last negative half cycle of weld pulse p are used to compute a new estimate of the load impedance power factor and corresponding I-γ curve. α upd (p) and γ upd (p) are inputs to a routine shown in the block diagram as Compute Pulse Power Factor (PE1). This function utilizes the digitized relation between firing angle, conduction angle and power factor described previously in a table lookup scheme with interpolation to compute the weld load power factor from a knowledge of the firing angle and conduction angle. The output of this function is a scalar quantity labeled PF p (p). This scalar power factor forms the input to a digital filter (PE2), which computes an estimated system PF(p+1), reducing weld to weld fluctuations in estimated system power factor. The filter used in the weld controller takes the form:
x(n+1)=k.sub.fr u(n)+(1-k.sub.fr)x(n) (19)
where x(n+1) denotes the output of the filter, u(n) denotes the input to the filter, x(n) denotes the filter output value prior to the update and k fr is a constant ranging between 0 and 1. In the present weld controller 10, k fr is presently set to a value of 0.25. The initial value of the filter in the weld controller 10 is 30%, which represents the lowest value of power factor likely to be seen in the resistance welding application.
In the weld controller 10, the DIG for a given weld schedule is represented by a vector of 19 points corresponding to increments of 10 degrees of conduction angle between the ranges of 0 to 180 degrees inclusive. A digitized representation of the surface in FIG. 7 is stored in the microprocessor's memory. The estimated power factor pf(p+1) is input to a software function that uses a combination of a table lookup and linear interpolation to compute a vector of normalized I-g values as a function of the power factor (PE3). The output of this function is labeled I-γ norm (p+1,γ). The normalized I-g table is subsequently evaluated at the update conduction angle, γ upd (PE4) to determine the percentage of maximum current represented by the conduction angle. This value is denoted % I abs (p+1).
The estimated current available at 180 degrees conduction angle, I 180m (p+1) is determined by dividing (PE5) the actual measured update current, I upd (p) by % I abs (p+1). I 180m (p+1) is an estimate of the maximum current attainable by the weld controller at full conduction, assuming the voltage source is stiff and at the line voltage measured, V upd (p). Since the Dynamic I-γ table is defined as the operating characteristic of the weld control at nominal line voltage, I 180m (p+1) is adjusted for the line voltage by multiplying by the ratio of the nominal line voltage to the measured line voltage, V upd (p) (PE6). The output of this voltage compensator is I 180vc (p+1). This value is subsequently passed through a digital filter (PE7) in a manner identical to that of the pulse power factor to obtain the maximum current estimate I 180 (p+1). By multiplying each element of the normalized I-γ table, I-γ norm (p+1) by the maximum current estimate I max (p+1) (PE8), an estimate of the I-γ characteristic for the weld control DIG(p+1) is obtained.
It is to be noted that the DIG estimate could be made in several other ways without violating the spirit of the present invention. One implementation that has been successfully demonstrated uses the average weld voltage and weld current for the pth weld pulse as the update value.
The line impedance estimator 58 uses measured line voltages and currents from previous welds to develop estimates of the magnitude of line impedance. It is assumed that the line impedance varies slowly with respect to the weld pulse. For instance, while a resistance weld control may be called upon to make several welds in a minute, it is assumed that changes in line impedance are detectable over time periods considerably larger. No such assumption is made regarding changes in the Thevenin equivalent voltage of the lumped parameter block diagram of FIG. 1, so that some care is required in the estimation process as described below.
FIG. 10 shows the process of computing a new estimate of line impedance. This estimate is computed after each "normally completed" weld pulse, subject to validation of the data. In FIG. 10, the quantity V oc (p) is the last known open circuit voltage, i.e. the line voltage of the last half cycle for which it is known that no weld current flowed. It is assumed that V oc (p) accurately represents the value of the Thevenin equivalent voltage source V s in the lumped parameter model of FIG. 3, and that value does not change appreciably during the weld pulse. It is recognized in the design that this is not always an accurate assumption, so as an initial test, the open circuit voltage, V oc (p) is first compared PE10 against the update voltage, V upd (p), which is the same line voltage associated with the last negative half cycle of weld current used to update the DIG as described above. If the update voltage, V upd (P) is greater than or equal to V oc (p), then clearly the value of the Thevenin equivalent voltage source V s in FIG. 3 has changed considerably and no update of the line impedance estimate is made.
Assuming the open circuit voltage is greater than the update voltage, an estimate of the line impedance for the pulse, Z nlp (P) is computed PE11 using ##EQU9## This value is filtered through a digital filter PE12 in a manner identical to above to achieve the estimate of line impedance Z line *(p+1) used in the line impedance compensation calculations.
It is noted that the estimate of line impedance could be made in several other ways without violating the spirit of the invention. One implementation that has been successfully demonstrated uses the average weld voltage and weld current for the pth weld pulse. A second implementation that has been successully demonstrated uses voltage and current data from the first half cycle of the weld pulse as the update cycle.
While the specific embodiments have been illustrated and described, numerous modifications are possible without departing from the scope or spirit of the invention. The above description refers to a weld controller application. However, the principles described are readily applicable to any type of control system using voltage phase control, including motor controls such as AC or DC drives, inverters, power supplies, and the like. | A phase controlled weld controller system uses an internal model of weld line and load impedance and of open circuit weld input voltage to develop a nominal firing angle sequence to maintain a desired weld current sequence. The weld controller computes a nominal firing angle sequence based on estimated models of line impedance, open circuit line voltage, and an estimated relation between the load current and conduction angle and the mathematical relation between firing angle, conduction angle and load circuit power that will achieve a desired weld sequence if the models are accurate. The weld controller subsequently uses measured values received in real time while the weld sequence is being executed to modify the nominal firing angle to better achieve the desired objective. This approach allows the weld controller to quickly achieve the desired weld sequence with the actual load, while permitting low feedback gains, resulting in a system that is quick and accurate in response without being overly sensitive. | 1 |
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
This application is a continuation of U.S. Ser. No. 13/009,001, filed Jan. 19, 2011, which is a continuation of U.S. Ser. No. 12/434,259, filed May 1, 2009, (now U.S. Pat. No. 7,883,787), which is a continuation of U.S. Ser. No. 11/879,379 filed Jul. 16, 2007, (now U.S. Pat. No. 7,537,844), which is a continuation of U.S. Ser. No. 11/233,605, filed Sep. 22, 2005 (now U.S. Pat. No. 7,291,406) which is a continuation of U.S. Ser. No. 10/870,788, filed Jun. 16, 2004 (now U.S. Pat. No. 7,001,536) which is a divisional of U.S. Ser. No. 10/171,235, filed Jun. 13, 2002 (now U.S. Pat. No. 6,902,830), and a continuation of U.S. Ser. No. 09/883,734, filed Jun. 18, 2001, (now U.S. Pat. No. 6,830,828), which is a continuation-in-part of application Ser. No. 09/452,346, filed Dec. 1, 1999, now abandoned, the contents of each of which are incorporated by reference in their entirety.
GOVERNMENT RIGHTS
This invention was made with Government support under Contract No. F49620-00-1-0065, awarded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. The government has certain rights in this invention.
RESEARCH AGREEMENTS
The claimed invention was made by, on behalf of, and/or in connection with one or more of the following parties to a joint university-corporation research agreement: Princeton University, The University of Southern California, and Universal Display Corporation. The agreement was in effect on and before the date the claimed invention was made, and the claimed invention was made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of the agreement.
FIELD OF INVENTION
The present invention is directed to organic light emitting devices (OLEDs) comprised of emissive layers that contain an organometallic phosphorescent compound.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Organic light emitting devices (OLEDs) are comprised of several organic layers in which one of the layers is comprised of an organic material that can be made to electroluminesce by applying a voltage across the device, C. W. Tang et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 1987, 51, 913. Certain OLEDs have been shown to have sufficient brightness, range of color and operating lifetimes for use as a practical alternative technology to LCD-based full color flat-panel displays (S. R. Forrest, P. E. Burrows and M. E. Thompson, Laser Focus World, February 1995). Since many of the thin organic films used in such devices are transparent in the visible spectral region, they allow for the realization of a completely new type of display pixel in which red (R), green (G), and blue (B) emitting OLEDs are placed in a vertically stacked geometry to provide a simple fabrication process, a small R-G-B pixel size, and a large fill factor, International Patent Application No. PCT/US95/15790.
A transparent OLED (TOLED), which represents a significant step toward realizing high resolution, independently addressable stacked R-G-B pixels, was reported in International Patent Application No. PCT/US97/02681 in which the TOLED had greater than 71% transparency when turned off and emitted light from both top and bottom device surfaces with high efficiency (approaching 1% quantum efficiency) when the device was turned on. The TOLED used transparent indium tin oxide (ITO) as the hole-injecting electrode and a Mg—Ag-ITO electrode layer for electron-injection. A device was disclosed in which the ITO side of the Mg—Ag-ITO electrode layer was used as a hole-injecting contact for a second, different color-emitting OLED stacked on top of the TOLED. Each layer in the stacked OLED (SOLED) was independently addressable and emitted its own characteristic color. This colored emission could be transmitted through the adjacently stacked, transparent, independently addressable, organic layer or layers, the transparent contacts and the glass substrate, thus allowing the device to emit any color that could be produced by varying the relative output of the red and blue color-emitting layers.
The PCT/US95/15790 application disclosed an integrated SOLED for which both intensity and color could be independently varied and controlled with external power supplies in a color tunable display device. The PCT/US95/15790 application, thus, illustrates a principle for achieving integrated, full color pixels that provide high image resolution, which is made possible by the compact pixel size. Furthermore, relatively low cost fabrication techniques, as compared with prior art methods, may be utilized for making such devices.
Because light is generated in organic materials from the decay of molecular excited states or excitons, understanding their properties and interactions is crucial to the design of efficient light emitting devices currently of significant interest due to their potential uses in displays, lasers, and other illumination applications. For example, if the symmetry of an exciton is different from that of the ground state, then the radiative relaxation of the exciton is disallowed and luminescence will be slow and inefficient. Because the ground state is usually anti-symmetric under exchange of spins of electrons comprising the exciton, the decay of a symmetric exciton breaks symmetry. Such excitons are known as triplets, the term reflecting the degeneracy of the state. For every three triplet excitons that are formed by electrical excitation in an OLED, only one symmetric state (or singlet) exciton is created. (M. A. Baldo, D. F. O'Brien, M. E. Thompson and S. R. Forrest, Very high-efficiency green organic light-emitting devices based on electrophosphorescence, Applied Physics Letters, 1999, 75, 4-6.) Luminescence from a symmetry-disallowed process is known as phosphorescence. Characteristically, phosphorescence may persist for up to several seconds after excitation due to the low probability of the transition. In contrast, fluorescence originates in the rapid decay of a singlet exciton. Since this process occurs between states of like symmetry, it may be very efficient.
Many organic materials exhibit fluorescence from singlet excitons. However, only a very few have been identified which are also capable of efficient room temperature phosphorescence from triplets. Thus, in most fluorescent dyes, the energy contained in the triplet states is wasted. However, if the triplet excited state is perturbed, for example, through spin-orbit coupling (typically introduced by the presence of a heavy metal atom), then efficient phosphoresence is more likely. In this case, the triplet exciton assumes some singlet character and it has a higher probability of radiative decay to the ground state. Indeed, phosphorescent dyes with these properties have demonstrated high efficiency electroluminescence.
Only a few organic materials have been identified which show efficient room temperature phosphorescence from triplets. In contrast, many fluorescent dyes are known (C. H. Chen, J. Shi, and C. W. Tang, “Recent developments in molecular organic electroluminescent materials,” Macromolecular Symposia, 1997, 125, 1-48; U. Brackmann, Lambdachrome Laser Dyes (Lambda Physik, Gottingen, 1997)) and fluorescent efficiencies in solution approaching 100% are not uncommon. (C. H. Chen, 1997, op. cit.) Fluorescence is also not affected by triplet-triplet annihilation, which degrades phosphorescent emission at high excitation densities. (M. A. Baldo, et al., “High efficiency phosphorescent emission from organic electroluminescent devices,” Nature, 1998, 395, 151-154; M. A. Baldo, M. E. Thompson, and S. R. Forrest, “An analytic model of triplet-triplet annihilation in electrophosphorescent devices,” 1999). Consequently, fluorescent materials are suited to many electroluminescent applications, particularly passive matrix displays.
To understand the different embodiments of this invention, it is useful to discuss the underlying mechanistic theory of energy transfer. There are two mechanisms commonly discussed for the transfer of energy to an acceptor molecule. In the first mechanism of Dexter transport (D. L. Dexter, “A theory of sensitized luminescence in solids,” J. Chem. Phys., 1953, 21, 836-850), the exciton may hop directly from one molecule to the next. This is a short-range process dependent on the overlap of molecular orbitals of neighboring molecules. It also preserves the symmetry of the donor and acceptor pair (E. Wigner and E. W. Wittmer, Uber die Struktur der zweiatomigen Molekelspektren nach der Quantenmechanik, Zeitschrift fur Physik, 1928, 51, 859-886; M. Klessiager and J. Michl, Excited states and photochemistry of organic molecules (VCH Publishers, New York, 1995)). Thus, the energy transfer of Eq. (1) is not possible via Dexter mechanism. In the second mechanism of Förster transfer (T. Förster, Zwischenmolekulare Energiewanderung and Fluoreszenz, Annalen der Physik, 1948, 2, 55-75; T. Förster, Fluoreszenz organischer Verbindugen (Vandenhoek and Ruprecht, Gottinghen, 1951), the energy transfer of Eq. (1) is possible. In Förster transfer, similar to a transmitter and an antenna, dipoles on the donor and acceptor molecules couple and energy may be transferred. Dipoles are generated from allowed transitions in both donor and acceptor molecules. This typically restricts the Förster mechanism to transfers between singlet states.
Nevertheless, as long as the phosphor can emit light due to some perturbation of the state such as due to spin-orbit coupling introduced by a heavy metal atom, it may participate as the donor in Förster transfer. The efficiency of the process is determined by the luminescent efficiency of the phosphor (F Wilkinson, in Advances in Photochemistry (eds. W. A. Noyes, G. Hammond, and J. N. Pitts), pp. 241-268, John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1964), i.e., if a radiative transition is more probable than a non-radiative decay, then energy transfer will be efficient. Such triplet-singlet transfers were predicted by Förster (T. Förster, “Transfer mechanisms of electronic excitation,” Discussions of the Faraday Society, 1959, 27; 7-17) and confirmed by Ermolaev and Sveshnikova (V. L. Ermolaev and E. B. Sveshnikova, “Inductive-resonance transfer of energy from aromatic molecules in the triplet state,” Doklady Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1963, 149, 1295-1298), who detected the energy transfer using a range of phosphorescent donors and fluorescent acceptors in rigid media at 77 K or 90 K. Large transfer distances are observed; for example, with triphenylamine as the donor and chrysoidine as the acceptor, the interaction range is 52 Å.
The remaining condition for Förster transfer is that the absorption spectrum should overlap the emission spectrum of the donor assuming the energy levels between the excited and ground state molecular pair are in resonance. In one example of this application, we use the green phosphor fac tris(2-phenylpyridine) iridium (Ir(ppy) 3 ; M. A. Baldo, et al., Appl. Phys. Lett., 1999, 75, 4-6) and the red fluorescent dye [2-methyl-6-[2-(2,3,6,7-tetrahydro-1H-5H-benzo[ij]quinolizin-9-yl)ethenyl]-4H-pyran-ylidene]propane-dinitrile] (DCM2″; C. W. Tang, S. A. VanSlyke, and C. H. Chen, “Electroluminescence of doped organic films,” J. Appl. Phys., 1989, 65, 3610-3616). DCM2 absorbs in the green, and, depending on the local polarization field (V. Bulovic, et al., “Bright, saturated, red-to-yellow organic light-emitting devices based on polarization-induced spectral shifts,” Chem. Phys. Lett., 1998, 287, 455-460), it emits at wavelengths between λ=570 nm and λ=650 nm.
It is possible to implement Förster energy transfer from a triplet state by doping a fluorescent guest into a phosphorescent host material. Unfortunately, such systems are affected by competitive energy transfer mechanisms that degrade the overall efficiency. In particular, the close proximity of the host and guest increase the likelihood of Dexter transfer between the host to the guest triplets. Once excitons reach the guest triplet state, they are effectively lost since these fluorescent dyes typically exhibit extremely inefficient phosphorescence.
To maximize the transfer of host triplets to fluorescent dye singlets, it is desirable to maximize Dexter transfer into the triplet state of the phosphor while also minimizing transfer into the triplet state of the fluorescent dye. Since the Dexter mechanism transfers energy between neighboring molecules, reducing the concentration of the fluorescent dye decreases the probability of triplet-triplet transfer to the dye. On the other hand, long range Förster transfer to the singlet state is unaffected. In contrast, transfer into the triplet state of the phosphor is necessary to harness host triplets, and may be improved by increasing the concentration of the phosphor.
Devices whose structure is based upon the use of layers of organic optoelectronic materials generally rely on a common mechanism leading to optical emission. Typically, this mechanism is based upon the radiative recombination of a trapped charge. Specifically, OLEDs are comprised of at least two thin organic layers separating the anode and cathode of the device. The material of one of these layers is specifically chosen based on the material's ability to transport holes, a “hole transporting layer” (HTL), and the material of the other layer is specifically selected according to its ability to transport electrons, an “electron transporting layer” (ETL). With such a construction, the device can be viewed as a diode with a forward bias when the potential applied to the anode is higher than the potential applied to the cathode. Under these bias conditions, the anode injects holes (positive charge carriers) into the hole transporting layer, while the cathode injects electrons into the electron transporting layer. The portion of the luminescent medium adjacent to the anode thus forms a hole injecting and transporting zone while the portion of the luminescent medium adjacent to the cathode forms an electron injecting and transporting zone. The injected holes and electrons each migrate toward the oppositely charged electrode. When an electron and hole localize on the same molecule, a Frenkel exciton is formed. Recombination of this short-lived state may be visualized as an electron dropping from its conduction potential to a valence band, with relaxation occurring, under certain conditions, preferentially via a photoemissive mechanism. Under this view of the mechanism of operation of typical thin-layer organic devices, the electroluminescent layer comprises a luminescence zone receiving mobile charge carriers (electrons and holes) from each electrode.
As noted above, light emission from OLEDs is typically via fluorescence or phosphorescence. There are issues with the use of phosphorescence. It has been noted that phosphorescent efficiency decreases rapidly at high current densities. It may be that long phosphorescent lifetimes cause saturation of emissive sites, and triplet-triplet annihilation may produce efficiency losses. Another difference between fluorescence and phosphorescence is that energy transfer of triplets from a conductive host to a luminescent guest molecule is typically slower than that of singlets; the long range dipole-dipole coupling (Förster transfer) which dominates energy transfer of singlets is (theoretically) forbidden for triplets by the principle of spin symmetry conservation. Thus, for triplets, energy transfer typically occurs by diffusion of excitons to neighboring molecules (Dexter transfer); significant overlap of donor and acceptor excitonic wavefunctions is critical to energy transfer. Another issue is that triplet diffusion lengths are typically long (e.g., >1400 Å) compared with typical singlet diffusion lengths of about 200 Å. Thus, if phosphorescent devices are to achieve their potential, device structures need to be optimized for triplet properties. In this invention, we exploit the property of long triplet diffusion lengths to improve external quantum efficiency.
Successful utilization of phosphorescence holds enormous promise for organic electroluminescent devices. For example, an advantage of phosphorescence is that all excitons (formed by the recombination of holes and electrons in an EL), which are (in part) triplet-based in phosphorescent devices, may participate in energy transfer and luminescence in certain electroluminescent materials. In contrast, only a small percentage of excitons in fluorescent devices, which are singlet-based, result in fluorescent luminescence.
An alternative is to use phosphorescence processes to improve the efficiency of fluorescence processes. Fluorescence is in principle 75% less efficient due to the three times higher number of symmetric excited states.
Because one typically has at least one electron transporting layer and at least one hole transporting layer, one has layers of different materials, forming a heterostructure. The materials that produce the electroluminescent emission are frequently the same materials that function either as the electron transporting layer or as the hole transporting layer. Such devices in which the electron transporting layer or the hole transporting layer also functions as the emissive layer are referred to as having a single heterostructure. Alternatively, the electroluminescent material may be present in a separate emissive layer between the hole transporting layer and the electron transporting layer in what is referred to as a double heterostructure. The separate emissive layer may contain the emissive molecule doped into a host or the emissive layer may consist essentially of the emissive molecule.
That is, in addition to emissive materials that are present as the predominant component in the charge carrier layer, that is, either in the hole transporting layer or in the electron transporting layer, and that function both as the charge carrier material as well as the emissive material, the emissive material may be present in relatively low concentrations as a dopant in the charge carrier layer. Whenever a dopant is present, the predominant material in the charge carrier layer may be referred to as a host compound or as a receiving compound. Materials that are present as host and dopant are selected so as to have a high level of energy transfer from the host to the dopant material. In addition, these materials need to be capable of producing acceptable electrical properties for the OLED. Furthermore, such host and dopant materials are preferably capable of being incorporated into the OLED using starting materials that can be readily incorporated into the OLED by using convenient fabrication techniques, in particular, by using vacuum-deposition techniques.
The exciton blocking layer used in the devices of the present invention (and previously disclosed in U.S. application Ser. No. 09/153,144, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,097,147 substantially blocks the diffusion of excitons, thus substantially keeping the excitons within the emission layer to enhance device efficiency. The material of blocking layer of the present invention is characterized by an energy difference (“band gap”) between its lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) and its highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO). In accordance with the present invention, this band gap substantially prevents the diffusion of excitons through the blocking layer, yet has only a minimal effect on the turn-on voltage of a completed electroluminescent device. The band gap is thus preferably greater than the energy level of excitons produced in an emission layer, such that such excitons are not able to exist in the blocking layer. Specifically, the band gap of the blocking layer is at least as great as the difference in energy between the triplet state and the ground state of the host.
It is desirable for OLEDs to be fabricated using materials that provide electroluminescent emission in a relatively narrow band centered near selected spectral regions, which correspond to one of the three primary colors, red, green and blue so that they may be used as a colored layer in an OLED or SOLED. It is also desirable that such compounds be capable of being readily deposited as a thin layer using vacuum deposition techniques so that they may be readily incorporated into an OLED that is prepared entirely from vacuum-deposited organic materials.
Co-pending application U.S. Ser. No. 08/774,087, filed Dec. 23, 1996, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,048,630, is directed to OLEDs containing emitting compounds that produce a saturated red emission.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is directed to organic light emitting devices wherein the emissive layer comprises an emissive molecule, optionally with a host material (wherein the emissive molecule is present as a dopant in said host material), which molecule is adapted to luminesce when a voltage is applied across the heterostructure, wherein the emissive molecule is selected from the group of phosphorescent organometallic complexes. The emissive molecule may be further selected from the group of phosphorescent organometallic platinum, iridium or osmium complexes and may be still further selected from the group of phosphorescent cyclometallated platinum, iridium or osmium complexes. A specific example of the emissive molecule is fac tris(2-phenylpyridine) iridium, denoted (Ir(ppy) 3 ) of formula
[In this, and later figures herein, we depict the dative bond from nitrogen to metal (here, Ir) as a straight line.]
The general arrangement of the layers is hole transporting layer, emissive layer, and electron transporting layer. For a hole conducting emissive layer, one may have an exciton blocking layer between the emissive layer and the electron transporting layer. For an electron conducting emissive layer, one may have an exciton blocking layer between the emissive layer and the hole transporting layer. The emissive layer may be equal to the hole transporting layer (in which case the exciton blocking layer is near or at the anode) or to the electron transporting layer (in which case the exciton blocking layer is near or at the cathode).
The emissive layer may be formed with a host material in which the emissive molecule resides as a guest or the emissive layer may be formed of the emissive molecule itself. In the former case, the host material may be a hole-transporting material selected from the group of substituted tri-aryl amines. The host material may be an electron-transporting material selected from the group of metal quinoxolates, oxadiazoles and triazoles. An example of a host material is 4,4′-N,N′-dicarbazole-biphenyl (CBP), which has the formula:
The emissive layer may also contain a polarization molecule, present as a dopant in said host material and having a dipole moment, that affects the wavelength of light emitted when said emissive dopant molecule luminesces.
A layer formed of an electron transporting material is used to transport electrons into the emissive layer comprising the emissive molecule and the (optional) host material. The electron transporting material may be an electron-transporting matrix selected from the group of metal quinoxolates, oxadiazoles and triazoles. An example of an electron transporting material is tris-(8-hydroxyquinoline) aluminum (Alq 3 ).
A layer formed of a hole transporting material is used to transport holes into the emissive layer comprising the emissive molecule and the (optional) host material. An example of a hole transporting material is 4,4′-bis[N-(1-naphthyl)-N-phenyl-amino]biphenyl [“α-NPD”].
The use of an exciton blocking layer (“barrier layer”) to confine excitons within the luminescent layer (“luminescent zone”) is greatly preferred. For a hole-transporting host, the blocking layer may be placed between the luminescent layer and the electron transport layer. An example of a material for such a barrier layer is 2,9-dimethyl-4,7-diphenyl-1,10-phenanthroline (also called bathocuproine or BCP), which has the formula:
For a situation with a blocking layer between a hole-conducting host and the electron transporting layer (as is the case in Example 2 below), one seeks the following characteristics, which are listed in order of relative importance.
1. The difference in energy between the LUMO and HOMO of the blocking layer is greater than the difference in energy between the triplet and ground state singlet of the host material. 2. Triplets in the host material are not quenched by the blocking layer. 3. The ionization potential (IP) of the blocking layer is greater than the ionization potential of the host. (Meaning that holes are held in the host.) 4. The energy level of the LUMO of the blocking layer and the energy level of the LUMO of the host are sufficiently close in energy such that there is less than 50% change in the overall conductivity of the device. 5. The blocking layer is as thin as possible subject to having a thickness of the layer that is sufficient to effectively block the transport of excitons from the emissive layer into the adjacent layer.
That is, to block excitons and holes, the ionization potential of the blocking layer should be greater than that of the HTL, while the electron affinity of the blocking layer should be approximately equal to that of the ETL to allow for facile transport of electrons.
[For a situation in which the emissive (“emitting”) molecule is used without a hole transporting host, the above rules for selection of the blocking layer are modified by replacement of the word “host” by “emitting molecule.”]
For the complementary situation with a blocking layer between a electron-conducting host and the hole-transporting layer one seeks characteristics (listed in order of importance):
1. The difference in energy between the LUMO and HOMO of the blocking layer is greater than the difference in energy between the triplet and ground state singlet of the host material. 2. Triplets in the host material are not quenched by the blocking layer. 3. The energy of the LUMO of the blocking layer is greater than the energy of the LUMO of the (electron-transporting) host. (Meaning that electrons are held in the host.) 4. The ionization potential of the blocking layer and the ionization potential of the host are such that holes are readily injected from the blocker into the host and there is less than a 50% change in the overall conductivity of the device. 5. The blocking layer is as thin as possible subject to having a thickness of the layer that is sufficient to effectively block the transport of excitons from the emissive layer into the adjacent layer.
[For a situation in which the emissive (“emitting”) molecule is used without an electron transporting host, the above rules for selection of the blocking layer are modified by replacement of the word “host” by “emitting molecule.”]
The present invention covers articles of manufacture comprising OLEDs comprising a new family of phosphorescent materials, which can be used as dopants in OLEDs, and methods of manufacturing the articles. These phosphorescent materials are cyclometallated platinum, iridium or osmium complexes, which provide electroluminiscent emission at a wavelength between 400 nm and 700 nm. The present invention is further directed to OLEDs that are capable of producing an emission that will appear blue, that will appear green, and that will appear red.
More specifically, OLEDs of the present invention comprise, for example, an emissive layer comprised of platinum (II) complexed with Bis[2-(2-phenyl)pyridinato-N,C2], Bis[2-(T-thienyl)pyridinato-N,C3], and Bis[benzo(h)quinolinato-N,C]. The compound cis-Bis[2-(2′-thienyl)pyridinato-N,C3] Pt(II) gives a strong orange to yellow emission.
The invention is further directed to emissive layers wherein the emissive molecule is selected from the group of phosphorescent organometallic complexes, wherein the emissive molecule contains substituents selected from the class of electron donors and electron acceptors. The emissive molecule may be further selected from the group of phosphorescent organometallic platinum, iridium or osmium complexes and may be still further selected from the group of phosphorescent cyclometallated platinum, iridium or osmium complexes, wherein the organic molecule contains substituents selected from the class of electron donors and electron acceptors.
The invention is further directed to an organic light emitting device comprising a heterostructure for producing luminescence, wherein the emissive layer comprises a host material, an emissive molecule, present as a dopant in said host material, adapted to luminesce when a voltage is applied across the heterostructure, wherein the emissive molecule is selected from the group consisting of cyclometallated platinum, iridium or osmium complexes and wherein there is a polarization molecule, present as a dopant in the host material, which polarization molecule has a dipole moment and which polarization molecule alters the wavelength of the luminescent light emitted by the emissive dopant molecule. The polarization molecule may be an aromatic molecule substituted by electron donors and electron acceptors.
The present invention is directed to OLEDs, and a method of fabricating OLEDs, in which emission from the device is obtained via a phosphorescent decay process wherein the phosphorescent decay rate is rapid enough to meet the requirements of a display device. More specifically, the present invention is directed to OLEDs comprised of a material that is capable of receiving the energy from an exciton singlet or triplet state and emitting that energy as phosphorescent radiation.
The OLEDs of the present invention may be used in substantially any type of device which is comprised of an OLED, for example, in OLEDs that are incorporated into a larger display, a vehicle, a computer, a television, a printer, a large area wall, theater or stadium screen, a billboard or a sign.
The present invention is also directed to complexes of formula L L′ L″ M, wherein L, L′, and L″ are distinct bidentate ligands and M is a metal of atomic number greater than 40 which forms an octahedral complex with the three bidentate ligands and is preferably a member of the third row (of the transition series of the periodic table) transition metals, most preferably Ir and Pt. Alternatively, M can be a member of the second row transition metals, or of the main group metals, such as Zr and Sb. Some of such organometallic complexes electroluminesce, with emission coming from the lowest energy ligand or MLCT state. Such electroluminescent compounds can be used in the emitter layer of organic light emitting diodes, for example, as dopants in a host layer of an emitter layer in organic light emitting diodes. This invention is further directed to organometallic complexes of formula L L′ L″ M, wherein L, L′, and L″ are the same (represented by L 3 M) or different (represented by L L′ L″ M), wherein L, L′, and L″ are bidentate, monoanionic ligands, wherein M is a metal which forms octahedral complexes, is preferably a member of the third row of transition metals, more preferably Ir or Pt, and wherein the coordinating atoms of the ligands comprise sp 2 hybridized carbon and a heteroatom. The invention is further directed to compounds of formula L 2 MX, wherein L and X are distinct bidentate ligands, wherein X is a monoanionic bidentate ligand, wherein L coordinates to M via atoms of L comprising sp 2 hybridized carbon and heteroatoms, and wherein M is a metal forming an octahedral complex, preferably iridium or platinum. It is generally expected that the ligand L participates more in the emission process than does X. The invention is directed to meridianal isomers of L 3 M wherein the heteroatoms (such as nitrogen) of two ligands L are in a trans configuration. In the embodiment in which M is coordinated with an sp 2 hybridized carbon and a heteroatom of the ligand, it is preferred that the ring comprising the metal M, the sp 2 hybridized carbon and the heteroatom contains 5 or 6 atoms. These compounds can serve as dopants in a host layer which functions as a emitter layer in organic light emitting diodes.
Furthermore, the present invention is directed to the use of complexes of transition metal species M with bidentate ligands L and X in compounds of formula L 2 MX in the emitter layer of organic light emitting diodes. A preferred embodiment is compounds of formula L 2 IrX, wherein L and X are distinct bidentate ligands, as dopants in a host layer functioning as an emitter layer in organic light emitting diodes.
The present invention is also directed to an improved synthesis of organometallic molecules which function as emitters in light emitting devices. These compounds of this invention can be made according to the reaction:
L 2 M(μ-Cl) 2 ML 2 +XH→L 2 MX+HCl
wherein L 2 M(μ-Cl) 2 ML 2 is a chloride bridged dimer with L a bidentate ligand, and M a metal such as Ir; XH is a Bronsted acid which reacts with bridging chloride and serves to introduce a bidentate ligand X, where XH can be, for example, acetylacetone, 2-picolinic acid, or N-methylsalicyclanilide, and H represents hydrogen. The method involves combining the L 2 M(μ-Cl) 2 ML 2 chloride bridged dimer with the XH entity. The resultant product of the form L 2 MX has approximate octahedral disposition of the bidentate ligands L, L, and X about M.
The resultant compounds of formula L 2 MX can be used as phosphorescent emitters in organic light emitting devices. For example, the compound wherein L=(2-phenylbenzothiazole), X=acetylacetonate, and M=Ir (the compound abbreviated as BTIr) when used as a dopant in 4,4′-N,N′-dicarbazole-biphenyl (CBP) (at a level 12% by mass) to form an emitter layer in an OLED shows a quantum efficiency of 12%. For reference, the formula for CBP is:
The synthetic process to make L 2 MX compounds of the present invention may be used advantageously in a situation in which L, by itself, is fluorescent but the resultant L 2 MX is phosphorescent. One specific example of this is where L=coumarin-6.
The synthetic process of the present invention facilitates the combination of L and X pairs of certain desirable characteristics. For example, the present invention is further directed to the appropriate selection of L and X to allow color tuning of the complex L 2 MX relative to L 3 M. For example, Ir(ppy) 3 and (ppy) 2 Ir(acac) both give strong green emission with a λ max of 510 nm (ppy denotes phenyl pyridine). However, if the X ligand is formed from picolinic acid instead of from acetylacetone, there is a small blue shift of about 15 nm.
Furthermore, the present invention is also directed to a selection of X such that it has a certain HOMO level relative to the L 3 M complex so that carriers (holes or electrons might be trapped on X (or on L) without a deterioration of emission quality. In this way, carriers (holes or electrons) which might otherwise contribute to deleterious oxidation or reduction of the phosphor would be impeded. The carrier that is remotely trapped could readily recombine with the opposite carrier either intramolecularly or with the carrier from an adjacent molecule.
The present invention, and its various embodiments, are discussed in more detail in the examples below. However, the embodiments may operate by different mechanisms. Without limitation and without limiting the scope of the invention, we discuss the different mechanisms by which various embodiments of the invention may operate.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 . Electronic absorbance spectra of Pt(thpy) 2 , Pt(thq) 2 , and Pt(bph)(bpy).
FIG. 2 . Emission spectra of Pt(thpy) 2 , Pt(thq) 2 , and Pt(bph)(bpy).
FIG. 3 . Energy transfer from polyvinylcarbazole (PVK) to Pt(thpy) 2 in the solid film.
FIG. 4 . Characteristics of OLED with Pt(thpy) 2 dopant: (a) I-V characteristic; (b) Light output curve.
FIG. 5 . Quantum efficiency dependence on applied voltage for OLED with Pt(thpy) 2 dopant.
FIG. 6 . Characteristics of the OLED device with Pt(thpy) 2 dopant: (a) normalized electroluminescence (EL) spectrum of the device at 22 V (b) CIE diagram based on normalized EL spectrum.
FIG. 7 . Proposed energy level structure of the electrophosphorescent device of Example 2. The highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) energy and the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) energy are shown (see I. G. Hill and A. Kahn, J. Appl. Physics (1999)). Note that the HOMO and LUMO levels for Ir(ppy) 3 are not known. The bottom portion of FIG. 7 shows structural chemical formulae for: (a) Ir(ppy) 3 ; (b) CBP; and (c) BCP.
FIG. 8 . The external quantum efficiency of OLEDs using Ir(ppy) 3 :CBP luminescent layers. Peak efficiencies are observed for a mass ratio of 6% Ir(ppy) 3 to CBP. The 100% Ir(ppy) 3 device has a slightly different structure than shown in FIG. 7 . In it, the Ir(ppy) 3 layer is 300 A thick and there is no BCP blocking layer. The efficiency of a 6% Ir(ppy) 3 :CBP device grown without a BCP layer is also shown.
FIG. 9 . The power efficiency and luminance of the 6% Ir(ppy) 3 :CBP device. At 100 cd/m 2 , the device requires 4.3 V and its power efficiency is 19 lm/W.
FIG. 10 . The electroluminescent spectrum of 6% Ir(ppy) 3 :CBP. Inset: The Commission Internationale de L'Eclairage (CIE) chromaticity coordinates of Ir(ppy) 3 in CBP are shown relative to fluorescent green emitters Alq 3 and poly(p-phenylenevinylene) (PPV).
FIG. 11 . Expected structure of L 2 IrX complexes along with the structure expected for PPIr. Four examples of X ligands used for these complexes are also shown. The structure shown is for an acac derivative. For the other X type ligands, the O—O ligand would be replaced with an N—O ligand.
FIG. 12 . Comparison of facial and meridianal isomers of L 3 M.
FIG. 13 . Molecular formulae of mer-isomers disclosed herewith: mer-Ir(ppy) 3 and mer-Ir(bq) 3 . PPY (or ppy) denotes phenyl pyridyl and BQ (or bq) denotes 7,8-benzoquinoline.
FIG. 14 . Models of mer-Ir(ppy) 3 (left) and (ppy) 2 Ir(acac) (right).
FIG. 15 . (a) Electroluminescent device data (quantum efficiency vs. current density) for 12% by mass “BTIr” in CBP. BTIr stands for bis(2-phenylbenzothiazole) iridium acetylacetonate; (b) Emission spectrum from same device
FIG. 16 . Representative molecule to trap holes (L 2 IrX complex).
FIG. 17 . Emission spectrum of Ir(3-MeOppy) 3 .
FIG. 18 . Emission spectrum of tpyIrsd.
FIG. 19 . Proton NMR spectrum of tpyIrsd (=typIrsd).
FIG. 20 . Emission spectrum of thpyIrsd.
FIG. 21 . Proton NMR spectrum of thpyIrsd.
FIG. 22 . Emission spectrum of btIrsd.
FIG. 23 . Proton NMR spectrum of btIrsd.
FIG. 24 . Emission spectrum of BQIr.
FIG. 25 . Proton NMR spectrum of BQIr.
FIG. 26 . Emission spectrum of BQIrFA.
FIG. 27 . Emission spectrum of THIr (=thpy; THPIr).
FIG. 28 . Proton NMR spectrum of THPIr.
FIG. 29 . Emission spectra of PPIr.
FIG. 30 . Proton NMR spectrum of PPIr.
FIG. 31 . Emission spectrum of BTHPIr (=BTPIr).
FIG. 32 . Emission spectrum of tpyIr.
FIG. 33 . Crystal structure of tpyIr showing trans arrangement of nitrogen.
FIG. 34 . Emission spectrum of C6.
FIG. 35 . Emission spectrum of C6Ir.
FIG. 36 . Emission spectrum of PZIrP.
FIG. 37 . Emission spectrum of BONIr.
FIG. 38 . Proton NMR spectrum of BONIr.
FIG. 39 . Emission spectrum of BTIr.
FIG. 40 . Proton NMR spectrum of BTIr.
FIG. 41 . Emission spectrum of BOIr.
FIG. 42 . Proton NMR spectrum of BOIr.
FIG. 43 . Emission spectrum of BTIrQ.
FIG. 44 . Proton NMR spectrum of BTIrQ.
FIG. 45 . Emission spectrum of BTIrP.
FIG. 46 . Emission spectrum of BOIrP.
FIG. 47 . Emission spectrum of btIr-type complexes with different ligands.
FIG. 48 . Proton NMR spectrum of mer-Irbq.
FIG. 49 . Other suitable L and X ligands for L 2 MX compounds. In all of these ligands listed, one can easily substitute S for O and still have a good ligand.
FIG. 50 . Examples of L L′ L″ M compounds. In the listed examples of L L′ L″ M and L L′ M X compounds, the compounds would be expected to emit from the lowest energy ligand or the MLCT state, involving the bq or thpy ligands. In the listed example of an L M X X′ compound, emission therefrom is expected from the ppy ligand. The X and X′ ligands will modify the physical properties (for example, a hole trapping group could be added to either ligand).
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is generally directed to emissive molecules, which luminesce when a voltage is applied across a heterostructure of an organic light-emitting device and which molecules are selected from the group of phosphorescent organometallic complexes, and to structures, and correlative molecules of the structures, that optimize the emission of the light-emitting device. The term “organometallic” is as generally understood by one of ordinary skill, as given, for example, in “Inorganic Chemistry” (2nd edition) by Gary L. Miessler and Donald A. Tarr, Prentice-Hall (1998). The invention is further directed to emissive molecules within the emissive layer of an organic light-emitting device which molecules are comprised of phosphorescent cyclometallated platinum, iridium or osmium complexes. On electroluminescence, molecules in this class may produce emission which appears red, blue, or green. Discussions of the appearance of color, including descriptions of CIE charts, may be found in H. Zollinger, Color Chemistry, VCH Publishers, 1991 and H. J. A. Dartnall, J. K. Bowmaker, and J. D. Mollon, Proc. Roy. Soc. B (London), 1983, 220, 115-130.
The present invention will now be described in detail for specific preferred embodiments of the invention, it being understood that these embodiments are intended only as illustrative examples and the invention is not to be limited thereto.
Synthesis of the Cyclometallated Platinum Complexes
We have synthesized a number of different Pt cyclometallated complexes.
Numerous publications, reviews and books are dedicated to the chemistry of cyclometallated compounds, which also are called intramolecular-coordination compounds. (I. Omae, Organometallic Intramolecular-coordination compounds. N.Y. 1986. G. R. Newkome, W. E. Puckett, V. K. Gupta, G. E. Kiefer, Chem. Rev. 1986, 86, 451. A. D. Ryabov, Chem. Rev. 1990, 90, 403). Most of the publications depict mechanistical aspects of the subject and primarily on the cyclometallated compounds with one bi- or tri-dentate ligand bonded to metal by C-M single bond and having cycle closed with one or two other X-M bonds where X may be N, S, P, As, O, Not so much literature was devoted to bis- or tris-cyclometallated complexes, which do not possess any other ligands but C,N type bi-dentate ones. Some of the subject of this invention is in these compounds because they are not only expected to have interesting photochemical properties as most cyclometallated complexes do, but also should exhibit increased stability in comparison with their monocyclometallated analogues. Most of the work on bis-cyclopaladated and bis-cycloplatinated compounds was performed by von Zelewsky et al. (For a review see: M. Maestri, V. Balzani, Ch. Deuschel-Cornioley, A. von Zelewsky, Adv. Photochem. 1992 17, 1. L. Chassot, A. Von Zelewsky, Helv. Chim. Acta 1983, 66, 243. L. Chassot, E. Muler, A. von Zelewsky, Inorg. Chem. 1984, 23, 4249. S Bonafede, M. Ciano, F. Boletta, V. Balzani, L. Chassot, A. von Zelewsky, J. Phys. Chem. 1986, 90, 3836. L. Chassot, Axon Zelewsky, D. Sandrini, M. Maestri, V. Balzani, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1986, 108, 6084. Ch. Cornioley-Deuschel, Avon Zelewsky, Inorg. Chem. 1987, 26, 3354. L. Chassot, A. von Zelewsky, Inorg. Chem. 1987, 26, 2814. A. von Zelewsky, A. P. Suckling, H. Stoeckii-Evans, Inorg. Chem. 1993, 32, 4585. A. von Zelewsky, P. Belser, P. Hayoz, R. Dux, X. Hua, A. Suckling, H. Stoeckii-Evans, Coord. Chem. Rev. 1994, 132, 75. P. Jolliet, M. Gianini, A. von Zelewsky, G. Bernardinelli, H. Stoeckii-Evans, Inorg. Chem. 1996, 35, 4883. H. Wiedenhofer, S. Schutzenmeier, A. von Zelewsky, H. Yersin, J. Phys. Chem. 1995, 99, 13385. M. Gianini, A. von Zelewsky, H. Stoeckii-Evans, Inorg. Chem. 1997, 36, 6094.) In one of their early works, (M. Maestri, D. Sandrini, V. Balzani, L. Chassot, P. Jolliet, A. von Zelewsky, Chem. Phys. Lett. 1985, 122, 375) luminescent properties of three bis-cycloplatinated complexes were investigated in detail. The summary of the previously reported results on Pt bis-cyclometallated complexes important for our current research is as follows:
i. in general, cyclometallated complexes having a 5-membered ring formed between the metal atom and C,X ligand are more stable. ii. from the point of view of stability of resulting compounds, complexes not containing anionic ligands are preferred; thus, bis-cyclometallated complexes are preferred to mono-cyclometallated ones. iii. a variety of Pt(Pd) cyclometallated complexes were synthesized, homoleptic (containing similar C,X ligands), heteroleptic (containing two different cyclometallating C,X ligands) and complexes with one C,C cyclometallating ligand and one N,N coordinating ligand. iv. most bis-cyclometallated complexes show M + ions upon electron impact ionization in their mass spectra; this can be a base for our assumption on their stability upon vacuum deposition. v. on the other hand, some of the complexes are found not to be stable in certain solvents; they undergo oxidative addition reactions leading to Pt(IV) or Pd(IV) octahedral complexes. vi. optical properties are reported only for some of the complexes; mostly absorption data is presented. Low-energy electron transitions observed in both their absorption and emission spectra are assigned to MLCT transitions. vii. reported luminescent properties are summarized in Table 1. Used abbreviations are explained in Scheme 1. Upon transition from bis-cyclometalated complexes with two C,N ligands to the complexes with one C,C and one N,N ligand batochromic shift in emission was observed. (M. Maestri, D. Sandrini, V. Balzani, A. von Zelewsky, C. Deuschel-Cornioley, P. Jolliet, Helv. Chim. Acta 1988, 71, 1053.
TABLE 1
Absorption and emission properties of
several cycloplatinated complexes.
Reproduced from A.von Zelewsky et. al
(Chem. Phys. Lett., 1985, 122, 375 and
Helv. Chim. Acta 1988, 17, 1053).
Abbreviation explanations are given in Scheme 1.
emission spectra
absorption
77K
293K
solvent
λmax(ε)
λmax(τ)
λmax(τ)
Pt(Phpy) 2 (1)
CH 3 CN
402(12800)
491(4.0)
—
291(27700)
Pt(Thpy) 2 (2)
CH 3 CN
418(10500)
570(12.0)
578(2.2)
303(26100)
Pt(Bhq) 2 (3)
CH 3 CN
421(9200)
492(6.5)
—
367(12500)
307(15000)
Pt(bph)(bpy)(4)
Scheme 1: Explanations for abbreviations used in table 1.
We synthesized different bis-cycloplatinated complexes in order to investigate their optical properties in different hosts, both polymeric and molecular, and utilize them as dopants in corresponding hosts for organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). Usage of the complexes in molecular hosts in OLEDs prepared in the vacuum deposition process requires several conditions to be satisfied. The complexes should be sublimable and stable at the standard deposition conditions (vacuum ˜10 −6 torr). They should show emission properties interesting for OLED applications and be able to accept energy from host materials used, such as Alq 3 or NPD. On the other hand, in order to be useful in OLEDs prepared by wet techniques, the complexes should form true solutions in conventional solvents (e.g., CHCl 3 ) with a wide range of concentrations and exhibit both emission and efficient energy transfer from polymeric hosts (e.g., PVK). All these properties of cycloplatinated complexes were tested. In polymeric hosts we observe efficient luminescence from some of the materials.
Syntheses Proceeded as Follows:
2-(2-thienyl)pyridine. Synthesis is shown in Scheme 2, and was performed according to procedure dose to the published one (T. Kauffmann, A. Mitschker, A. Woltermann, Chem. Ber. 1983, 116, 992). For purification of the product, instead of recommended distillation, zonal sublimation was used (145-145-125° C., 2-3 hours). Light brownish white solid (yield 69%). Mass-spec: m/z: 237 (18%), 161 (100%, M + ), 91 (71%). 1 H NMR (250 MHZ, DMSO-d 6 ) δ, ppm: 6.22-6.28 (d. of d., 1H), 6.70-6.80 (d. of d., 1H), 6.86-7.03 (m, 3H), 7.60-7.65 (m, 1H). 13 C NMR (250 MHZ, DMSO-d 6 ): 118.6, 122.3, 125.2, 128.3, 128.4, 137.1, 144.6, 149.4, 151.9.
2-(2-thienyl)quinoline. Synthesis is displayed in Scheme 3, and was made according to published procedure (K. E. Chippendale, B. Iddon, H. Suschitzky, J. Chem. Soc. 1949, 90, 1871). Purification was made exactly following the literature as neither sublimation nor column chromatography did not give as good results as recrystallizations from (a) petroleum ether, and (b) EtOH—H 2 O (1:1) mixture. Pale yellow solid, gets more yellow with time (yield 84%). Mass-spec: m/z: 217 (32%), 216 (77%), 215 (83%), 214 (78%), 213 (77%), 212 (79%), 211 (100%, Mt), 210 (93%), 209 (46%). 1 H NMR (250 MHZ, DMSO-d 6 ) δ, ppm: 7.18-7.24 (d. of d., 1H), 7.48-7.58 (d. of d. of d., 1H), 7.67-7.78 (m, 2H), 7.91-7.97 (m, 3H), 8.08-8.11 (d, 1H), 8.36-8.39 (d, 1H).
2-(2′-bromophenyl)pyridine. Synthesis was performed according to literature (D. H. Hey, C. J. M. Stirling, G. H. Williams, J. Chem. Soc. 1955, 3963; R. A. Abramovich, J. G. Saha, J. Chem. Soc. 1964, 2175). It is outlined in Scheme 4. Literature on the subject was dedicated to the study of aromatic substitution in different systems, including pyridine, and study of isomeric ratios in the resulting product. Thus in order to resolve isomer mixtures of different substituted phenylpyridines, not 2-(2′-bromophenyl)pyridine, the authors utilized 8 ft.×¼ in. column packed with ethylene glycol succinate (10%) on Chromosorb W at 155° C. and some certain helium inlet pressure. For resolving the reaction mixture we obtained, we used column chromatography with hexanes:THF (1:1) and haxanes:THF:PrOH-1 (4:4:1) mixtures as eluents on silica gel because this solvent mixture gave best results in TLC (three well resolved spots). Only the first spot in the column gave mass spec major peak corresponding to n-(T-bromophenyl)pyridines (m/z: 233, 235), in the remaining spots this peak was minor. Mass spec of the first fraction: m/z: 235 (97%), 233 (100%, M + ), 154 (86%), 127 (74%). 1 H NMR of the first fraction (250 MHZ, DMSO-d6) δ, ppm: 7.27-7.51 (m, 4H), 7.59-7.96 (m, 2H), 8.57-8.78 (m, 2H).
Sublimation of the 1 st fraction product after column did not lead to disappearance of the peaks of contaminants in 1 H NMR spectrum, and we do not expect the sublimation to lead to resolving the isomers if present.
2-phenylpyridine. Was synthesized by literature procedure (J. C. W. Evans, C. F. H. Allen, Org. Synth. Cell. 1943, 2, 517) and is displayed in Scheme 5. Pale yellow oil darkening in the air (yield 48%). 1 H NMR (250 MHZ, DMSO-d 6 ) of the product after vacuum distillation: δ, ppm: 6.70-6.76 (m, 1H), 6.92-7.10 (m, 3H), 7.27-7.30 (m, 1H), 7.36-7.39 (q, 1H), 7.60-7.68 (m, 2H), 8.16-8.23 (m, 1H)).
2,2′-diaminobiphenyl. Was prepared by literature method (R. E. Moore, A. Furst, J. Org. Chem. 1958, 23, 1504) (Scheme 6). Pale pink solid (yield 69%). 1 H NMR (250 MHZ, DMSO-d 6 ) δ, ppm: 5.72-5.80 (t. of d., 2H), 5.87-5.93 (d. of d., 2H), 6.03-6.09 (d. of d., 2H), 6.13-6.23 (t. of d., 2H). Mass spec: m/z: 185 (40%), 184 (100%, M + ), 183 (73%), 168 (69%), 167 (87%), 166 (62%), 139 (27%).
2,2′-dibromobiphenyl. (Scheme 6) (A. Uehara, J. C. Bailar, Jr., J. Organomet. Chem. 1982, 239, 1).
2,2′-dibromo-1,1′-binaphthyl. Was synthesized according to literature (H. Takaya, S. Akutagawa, R. Noyori, Org. Synth. 1989, 67, 20) (Scheme 7).
trans-Dichloro-bis-(diethyl sulfide) platinum (II). Prepared by a published procedure (G. B. Kauffman, D. O. Cowan, Inorg. Synth. 1953, 6, 211) (Scheme 8). Bright yellow solid (yield 78%).
cis-Dichloro-bis-(diethyl sulfide) platinum (II). Prepared by a published procedure (G. B. Kauffman, D. O. Cowan, Inorg. Synth. 1953, 6, 211). (Scheme 8). Yellow solid (63%).
cis-Bis[2-(2′-thienyl)pyridinato-N,C 5′ platinum (II). Was synthesized according to literature methods (L. Chassot, A. von Zelewsky, Inorg. Chem. 1993, 32, 4585). (Scheme 9). Bright red crystals (yield 39%). Mass spec: m/z: 518 (25%), 517 (20%), 516 (81%), 513 (100%, M + ), 514 (87%), 481 (15%), 354 (23%).
cis-Bis[2-(2′-thienyl)quinolinato-N,C 3 ) platinum (II). Was prepared following published procedures (P. Jolliet, M. Gianini, A. von Zelewsky, G. Bernardinelli, H. Stoeckii-Evans, Inorg. Chem. 1996, 35, 4883). (Scheme 10). Dark red solid (yield 21%).
Absorption spectra were recorded on AVIV Model 14DS-UV-Vis-IR spectrophotometer and corrected for background due to solvent absorption. Emission spectra were recorded on PTI QuantaMaster Model C-60SE spectrometer with 1527 PMT detector and corrected for detector sensitivity inhomogeneity.
Vacuum deposition experiments were performed using standard high vacuum system (Kurt J. Lesker vacuum chamber) with vacuum ˜10 torr. Quartz plates (ChemGlass Inc.) or borosilicate glass-Indium Tin Oxide plates (ITO, Delta Technologies, Lmtd.), if used as substrates for deposition, were pre-cleaned according to the published procedure for the later (A. Shoustikov, Y. You, P. E. Burrows, M. E. Thomspon, S. R. Forrest, Synth. Met. 1997, 91, 217).
Thin film spin coating experiments were done with standard spin coater (Specialty Coating Systems, Inc.) with regulatable speed, acceleration speed, and deceleration speed. Most films were spun coat with 4000 RPM speed and maximum acceleration and deceleration for 40 seconds.
Optical properties of the Pt cyclometallated complexes are shown above in Table 1.
Optical Properties in Solution:
Absorbance spectra of the complexes Pt(thpy) 2 , Pt(thq) 2 and Pt(bph)(bpy) in solution (CHCl 3 or CH 2 Cl 2 ) were normalized and are presented in FIG. 1 . Absorption maximum for Pt(phpy) 2 showed a maximum at ca. 400 nm, but because the complex apparently requires further purification, the spectrum is not presented.
Normalized emission spectra are shown in FIG. 2 . Excitation wavelengths for Pt(thpy) 2 , Pt(thq) 2 and Pt(bph)(bpy) are correspondingly 430 nm, 450 nm, and 449 nm (determined by maximum values in their excitation spectra). Pt(thpy) 2 gives strong orange to yellow emission, while Pt(thq) 2 gives two lines at 500 and 620 nm. The emission form these materials is due to efficient phosphorescence. Pt(bph)(bpy) gives blue emission, centered at 470 nm. The emission observed for Pt(bph)(bpy) is most likely due to fluorescence and not phosphorescence.
Emission Lifetimes and Quantum Yields in Solution:
Pt(thPy) 2 : 3.7 μs (CHC1 3 , deoxygenated for 10 Min) 0.27 Pt(thq) 2 : 2.6 μs (CHC1 3 , deoxygenated for 10 min) not measured Pt(bph)(bpy): not in μs region (CH 2 O 2 , deoxygenated not measured for 10 min)
Optical Properties in PS Solid Matrix:
Pt(thpy) 2 : Emission maximum is at 580 nm (lifetime 6.5 μs) upon excitation at 400 nm. Based on the increased lifetime for the sample in polystyrene we estimate a quantum efficiency in polystyrene for Pt(thpy) 2 of 0.47.
Pt(thq) 2 : Emission maximum at 608 nm (lifetime 7.44 μs) upon excitation at 450 nm.
Optical Properties of the Complexes in PVK Film:
These measurements were made for Pt(thpy) 2 only. Polyvinylcarbazole (PVK) was excited at 250 nm and energy transfer from PVK to Pt(thpy) 2 was observed ( FIG. 3 ). The best weight PVK:Pt(thpy) 2 ratio for the energy transfer was found to be ca. 100:6.3.
EXAMPLES OF LIGHT EMITTING DIODES
Example 1
ITO/INK:PBD. Pt(thpy) 2 (100:40:2)/Ag:Mg/Ag
Pt(thpy) 2 does not appear to be stable toward sublimation. In order to test it in an OLED we have fabricated a polymer blended OLED with Pt(thpy) 2 dopant. The optimal doping level was determined by the photoluminescence study described above. The emission from this device comes exclusively from the Pt(thpy) 2 dopant. Typical current-voltage characteristic and light output curve of the device are shown in FIG. 4 . Quantum efficiency dependence on applied voltage is demonstrated in FIG. 5 . Thus, at 22 V quantum efficiency is ca. 0.11%. The high voltage required to drive this device is a result of the polymer blend OLED structure and not the dopant. Similar device properties were observed for a polymer blend device made with a coumarin dopant in place of Pt(thpy) 2 . In addition, electroluminescence spectrum and CIE diagram are shown in FIG. 6 .
Example 2
In this example, we describe OLEDs employing the green, electrophosphorescent material fac tris(2-phenylpyridine) iridium (Ir(ppy) 3 ). This compound has the following formulaic representation:
The coincidence of a short triplet lifetime and reasonable photoluminescent efficiency allows Ir(ppy) 3 -based OLEDs to achieve peak quantum and power efficiencies of 8.0% (28 cd/A) and ˜30 lm/W respectively. At an applied bias of 4.3V, the luminance reaches 100 cd/m 2 and the quantum and power efficiencies are 7.5% (26 cd/A) and 19 lm/W, respectively.
Organic layers were deposited by high vacuum (10 −6 Torr) thermal evaporation onto a cleaned glass substrate precoated with transparent, conductive indium tin oxide. A 400 A thick layer of 4,4′-bis(N-(1-naphthyl)-N-phenyl-amino) biphenyl (α-NPD) is used to transport holes to the luminescent layer consisting of Ir(ppy) 3 in CBP. A 200 A thick layer of the electron transport material tris-(8-hydroxyquinoline) aluminum (Alq 3 ) is used to transport electrons into the Ir(ppy) 3 :CBP layer, and to reduce Ir(ppy) 3 luminescence absorption at the cathode. A shadow mask with 1 mm diameter openings was used to define the cathode consisting of a 1000 A thick layer of 25:1 Mg:Ag, with a 500 A thick Ag cap. As previously (O'Brien, et al., App. Phys. Lett. 1999, 74, 442-444), we found that a thin (60 A) barrier layer of 2,9-dimethyl-4,7-diphenyl-1,10-phenanthroline (bathocuproine, or BCP) inserted between the CBP and the Alq 3 was necessary to confine excitons within the luminescent zone and hence maintain high efficiencies. In O'Brien et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 1999, 74, 442-444, it was argued that this layer prevents triplets from diffusing outside of the doped region. It was also suggested that CBP may readily transport holes and that BCP may be required to force exciton formation within the luminescent layer. In either case, the use of BCP clearly serves to trap excitons within the luminescent region. The molecular structural formulae of some of the materials used in the OLEDs, along with a proposed energy level diagram, is shown in FIG. 7 .
FIG. 8 shows the external quantum efficiencies of several Ir(ppy) 3 -based OLEDs. The doped structures exhibit a slow decrease in quantum efficiency with increasing current. Similar to the results for the Alq 3 :PtOEP system the doped devices achieve a maximum efficiency (˜8%) for mass ratios of Ir(ppy) 3 :CBP of approximately 6-8%. Thus, the energy transfer pathway in Ir(ppy) 3 :CBP is likely to be similar to that in PtOEP:Alq 3 (Baldo, et al., Nature, 1998, 395, 151; O'Brien, 1999, op. cit.) i.e. via short range Dexter transfer of triplets from the host. At low Ir(ppy) 3 concentrations, the lumophores often lie beyond the Dexter transfer radius of an excited Alq 3 molecule, while at high concentrations, aggregate quenching is increased. Note that dipole-dipole (Förster) transfer is forbidden for triplet transfer, and in the PtOEP:Alq 3 system direct charge trapping was not found to be significant.
Example 3
In addition to the doped device, we fabricated a heterostructure where the luminescent region was a homogeneous film of Ir(ppy) 3 . The reduction in efficiency (to ˜0.8%) of neat Ir(ppy) 3 is reflected in the transient decay, which has a lifetime of only ˜100 ns, and deviates significantly from mono-exponential behavior. A 6% Ir(ppy) 3 :CBP device without a BCP barrier layer is also shown together with a 6% Ir(ppy) 3 :Alq 3 device with a BCP barrier layer. Here, very low quantum efficiencies are observed to increase with current. This behavior suggests a saturation of nonradiative sites as excitons migrate into the Alq 3 , either in the luminescent region or adjacent to the cathode.
Example 4
In FIG. 9 we plot luminance and power efficiency as a function of voltage for the device of Example 2. The peak power efficiency is ˜30 lm/W with a quantum efficiency of 8%, (28 cd/A). At 100 cd/m 2 , a power efficiency of 19 μm/W with a quantum efficiency of 7.5% (26 cd/A) is obtained at a voltage of 4.3V. The transient response of Ir(ppy) 3 in CBP is a mono-exponential phosphorescent decay of ˜500 ns, compared with a measured lifetime (e.g., King, et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc., 1985, 107, 1431-1432) of 2 μs in degassed toluene at room temperature. These lifetimes are short and indicative of strong spin-orbit coupling, and together with the absence of Ir(ppy) 3 fluorescence in the transient response, we expect that Ir(ppy) 3 possesses strong intersystem crossing from the singlet to the triplet state. Thus all emission originates from the long lived triplet state. Unfortunately, slow triplet relaxation can form a bottleneck in electrophosphorescence and one principal advantage of Ir(ppy) 3 is that it possesses a short triplet lifetime. The phosphorescent bottleneck is thereby substantially loosened. This results in only a gradual decrease in efficiency with increasing current, leading to a maximum luminance of ˜100,000 cd/m 2 .
Example 5
In FIG. 10 , the emission spectrum and Commission Internationale de L'Eclairage (CIE) coordinates of Ir(ppy) 3 are shown for the highest efficiency device. The peak wavelength is λ=510 nm and the full width at half maximum is 70 nm. The spectrum and CIE coordinates (x=0.27,y=0.63) are independent of current. Even at very high current densities (˜100 mA/cm 2 ) blue emission from CBP is negligible—an indication of complete energy transfer.
Other techniques known to one of ordinary skill may be used in conjunction with the present invention. For example, the use of LiF cathodes (Hung, et al., Appl. Phys. Lett., 1997, 70, 152-154), shaped substrates (G. Gu, et al., Optics Letters, 1997, 22, 396-398), and novel hole transport materials that result in a reduction in operating voltage or increased quantum efficiency (B. Kippelen, et al., MRS (San Francisco, Spring, 1999) are also applicable to this work. These methods have yielded power efficiencies of ˜20 lm/W in fluorescent small molecule devices (Kippelen, Id.). The quantum efficiency in these devices (Kilo and Iizumi, App. Phys. Lett., 1998, 73, 2721) at 100 cd/m 2 is typically ≦4.6% (lower than that of the present invention), and hence green-emitting electrophosphorescent devices with power efficiencies of >40 lm/W can be expected. Purely organic materials (Hoshino and Suzuki, Appl. Phys. Lett., 1996, 69, 224-226) may sometimes possess insufficient spin orbit coupling to show strong phosphorescence at room temperature. While one should not rule out the potential of purely organic phosphors, the preferred compounds may be transition metal complexes with aromatic ligands. The transition metal mixes singlet and triplet states, thereby enhancing intersystem crossing and reducing the lifetime of the triplet excited state.
The present invention is not limited to the emissive molecule of the examples. One of ordinary skill may modify the organic component of the Ir(ppy) 3 (directly below) to obtain desirable properties.
One may have alkyl substituents or alteration of the atoms of the aromatic structure.
These molecules, related to Ir(ppy) 3 , can be formed from commercially available ligands. The R groups can be alkyl or aryl and are preferably in the 3, 4, 7 and/or 8 positions on the ligand (for steric reasons). The compounds should give different color emission and may have different carrier transport rates. Thus, the modifications to the basic Ir(ppy) 3 structure in the three molecules can alter emissive properties in desirable ways.
Other possible emitters are illustrated below, by way of example.
This molecule is expected to have a blue-shifted emission compared to Ir(ppy) 3 . R and R′ can independently be alkyl or aryl.
Organometallic compounds of osmium may also be used in this invention. Examples include the following.
These osmium complexes will be octahedral with 6d electrons (isoelectronic with the Ir analogs) and may have good intersystem crossing efficiency. R and R′ are independently selected from the group consisting of alkyl and aryl. They are believed woe unreported in the literature.
Herein, X can be selected from the group consisting of N or P. R and R′ are independently selected from the group alkyl and aryl.
The molecule of the hole-transporting layer of Example 2 is depicted below.
The present invention will work with other hole-transporting molecules known by one of ordinary skill to work in hole transporting layers of OLEDs.
The molecule used as the host in the emissive layer of Example 2 is depicted below.
The present invention will work with other molecules known by one of ordinary skill to work as hosts of emissive layers of OLEDs. For example, the host material could be a hole-transporting matrix and could be selected from the group consisting of substituted tri-aryl amines and polyvinylcarbazoles.
The molecule used as the exciton blocking layer of Example 2 is depicted below. The invention will work with other molecules used for the exciton blocking layer, provided they meet the requirements listed in the summary of the invention.
Molecules which are suitable as components for an exciton blocking layer are not necessarily the same as molecules which are suitable for a hole blocking layer. For example, the ability of a molecule to function as a hole blocker depends on the applied voltage, the higher the applied voltage, the less the hole blocking ability. The ability to block excitons is roughly independent of the applied voltage.
This invention is further directed to the synthesis and use of certain organometallic molecules of formula L 2 MX which may be doped into a host phase in an emitter layer of an organic light emitting diode. Optionally, the molecules of formula L 2 MX may be used at elevated concentrations or neat in the emitter layer. This invention is further directed to an organic light emitting device comprising an emitter layer comprising a molecule of the formula L 2 MX wherein L and X are inequivalent, bidentate ligands and M is a metal, preferably selected from the third row of the transition elements of the periodic table, and most preferably Ir or Pt, which forms octahedral complexes, and wherein the emitter layer produces an emission which has a maximum at a certain wavelength λ max . The general chemical formula for these molecules which are doped into the host phase is L 2 MX, wherein M is a transition metal ion which forms octahedral complexes, L is a bidentate ligand, and X is a distinct bidentate ligand. Examples of L are 2-(1-naphthyl)benzoxazole)), (2-phenylbenzoxazole), (2-phenylbenzothiazole), (2-phenylbenzothiazole), (7,8-benzoquinoline), coumarin, (thienylpyridine), phenylpyridine, benzothienylpyridine, 3-methoxy-2-phenylpyridine, thienylpyridine, and tolylpyridine. Examples of X are acetylacetonate (“acac”), hexafluoroacetylacetonate, salicylidene, picolinate, and 8-hydroxyquinolinate. Further examples of L and X are given in FIG. 49 and still further examples of L and X may be found in Comprehensive Coordination Chemistry, Volume 2, G. Wilkinson (editor-in-chief), Pergamon Press, especially in chapter 20.1 (beginning at page 715) by M. Calligaris and L. Randaccio and in chapter 20.4 (beginning at page 793) by R. S. Vagg.
Synthesis of Molecules of Formula L 2 MX
The compounds of formula L 2 MX can be made according to the reaction:
L 2 M(μ-Cl) 2 ML 2 +XH→L 2 MX+HCl
wherein L 2 M(μ-Cl) 2 ML 2 is a chloride bridged dimer with L a bidentate ligand, and M a metal such as Ir; XH is a Bronsted acid which reacts with bridging chloride and serves to introduce a bidentate ligand X, wherein XH can be, for example, acetylacetone, hexafluoroacetylacetone, 2-picolinic acid, or N-methylsalicyclanilide; and L 2 MX has approximate octahedral disposition of the bidentate ligands L, L, and X about M.
L 2 Ir(μ-Cl) 2 IrL 2 complexes were prepared from IrCl 3 .nH 2 O and the appropriate ligand by literature procedures (S. Sprouse, K. A. King, P. J. Spellane, R. J. Watts, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 1984, 106, 6647-6653; for general reference: G. A. Carlson, et al., Inorg. Chem., 1993, 32, 4483; B. Schmid, et al., Inorg. Chem., 1993, 33, 9; F. Games, et al.; Inorg. Chem., 1988, 27, 3464; M. G. Colombo, et al., Inorg. Chem., 1993, 32, 3088; A. Mamo, et al., Inorg. Chem., 1997, 36, 5947; S. Serroni, et al.; J. Am. Chem. Soc., 1994, 116, 9086; A. P. Wilde, et al., J. Phys. Chem., 1991, 95, 629; J. H. van Diemen, et al., Inorg. Chem., 1992, 31, 3518; M. G. Colombo, et al., Inorg. Chem., 1994, 33, 545), as described below.
Ir(3-MeOppy) 3 . Ir(acac) 3 (0.57 g, 1.17 mmol) and 3-methoxy-2-phenylpyridine (1.3 g, 7.02 mmol) were mixed in 30 ml of glycerol and heated to 200° C. for 24 hrs under N 2 . The resulting mixture was added to 100 ml of 1 M HCl. The precipitate was collected by filtration and purified by column chromatography using CH 2 Cl 2 as the eluent to yield the product as bright yellow solids (0.35 g, 40%). MS (EI): (relative intensity) 745 (M + , 100), 561 (30), 372 (35). Emission spectrum in FIG. 17 .
tpyIrsd. The chloride bridge dimer (tpyIrCl) 2 (0.07 g, 0.06 mmol), salicylidene (0.022 g, 0.16 mmol) and Na 2 CO 3 (0.02 g, 0.09 mmol) were mixed in 10 ml of 1,2-dichloroethane and 2 ml of ethanol. The mixture was refluxed under N 2 for 6 hrs or until no dimer was revealed by TLC. The reaction was then cooled and the solvent evaporated. The excess salicylidene was removed by gentle heating under vacuum. The residual solid was redissolved in CH 2 Cl 2 and the insoluble inorganic materials were removed by filtration. The filtrate was concentrated and column chromatographed using CH 2 Cl 2 as the eluent to yield the product as bright yellow solids (0.07 g, 85%). MS (EI): m/z (relative intensity) 663 (M + , 75), 529 (100), 332 (35). The emission spectrum is in FIG. 18 and the proton NMR spectrum is in FIG. 19 .
thpyIrsd. The chloride bridge dimer (thpyIrCl) 2 (0.21 g, 0.19 mmol) was treated the same way as (tpyIrCl) 2 . Yield: 0.21 g, 84%. MS (EI): m/z (relative intensity) 647 (M + , 100), 513 (30), 486 (15), 434 (20), 324 (25). The emission spectrum is in FIG. 20 and the proton NMR spectrum is in FIG. 21 .
btIrsd. The chloride bridge dimer (btIrCl) 2 (0.05 g, 0.039 mmol) was treated the same way as (tpyIrCl) 2 . Yield: 0.05 g, 86%. MS (EI): m/z (relative intensity) 747 (M + , 100), 613 (100), 476 (30), 374 (25), 286 (32). The emission spectrum is in FIG. 22 and the proton NMR spectrum is in FIG. 23 .
Ir(bq) 2 (acac), BQIr. The chloride bridged dimer (Ir(bq) 2 Cl) 2 (0.091 g, 0.078 mmol), acetylacetone (0.021 g) and sodium carbonate (0.083 g) were mixed in 10 ml of 2-ethoxyethanol. The mixture was refluxed under N, for 10 hrs or until no dimer was revealed by TLC. The reaction was then cooled and the yellow precipitate filtered. The product was purified by flash chromatography using dichloromethane. Product: bright yellow solids (yield 91%). 1 H NMR (360 MHz, acetone-d 6 ), ppm: 8.93 (d, 2H), 8.47 (d, 2H), 7.78 (m, 4H), 7.25 (d, 2H), 7.15 (d, 2H), 6.87 (d, 2H), 6.21 (d, 2H), 5.70 (s, 1H), 1.63 (s, 6H). MS, e/z: 648 (M+, 80%), 549 (100%). The emission spectrum is in FIG. 24 and the proton NMR spectrum is in FIG. 25 .
Ir(bq) 2 (Facac), BQIrFA. The chloride bridged dimer (Ir(bq) 2 Cl) 2 (0.091 g, 0.078 mmol), hexafluoroacetylacetone (0.025 g) and sodium carbonate (0.083 g) were mixed in 10 ml of 2-ethoxyethanol. The mixture was refluxed under N 2 for 10 hrs or until no dimer was revealed by TLC. The reaction was then cooled and the yellow precipitate filtered. The product was purified by flash chromatography using dichloromethane. Product: yellow solids (yield 69%). 1 H NMR (360 MHz, acetone-d 6 ), ppm: 8.99 (d, 2H), 8.55 (d, 2H), 7.86 (m, 4H), 7.30 (d, 2H), 7.14 (d, 2H), 6.97 (d, 2H), 6.13 (d, 2H), 5.75 (s, 1H). MS, e/z: 684 (M+, 59%), 549 (100%). Emission spectrum in FIG. 26 .
Ir(thpy) 2 (acac), THPIr. The chloride bridged dimer (Ir(thpy) 2 Cl) 2 (0.082 g, 0.078 mmol), acetylacetone (0.025 g) and sodium carbonate (0.083 g) were mixed in 10 ml of 2-ethoxyethanol. The mixture was refluxed under N 2 for 10 hrs or until no dimer was revealed by TLC. The reaction was then cooled and the yellow precipitate filtered. The product was purified by flash chromatography using dichloromethane. Product: yellow-orange solid (yield 80%). 1 H NMR (360 MHz, acetone-d 6 ), ppm: 8.34 (d, 2H), 7.79 (m, 2H), 7.58 (d, 2H), 7.21 (d, 2H), 7.15 (d, 2H), 6.07 (d, 2H), 5.28 (s, 1H), 1.70 (s, 6H). MS, e/z: 612 (M+, 89%), 513 (100%). The emission spectrum is in FIG. 27 (noted “THIr”) and the proton NMR spectrum is in FIG. 28 .
Ir(ppy) 2 (acac), PPIr. The chloride bridged dimer (Ir(ppy) 2 Cl) 2 (0.080 g, 0.078 mmol), acetylacetone (0.025 g) and sodium carbonate (0.083 g) were mixed in 10 ml of 2-ethoxyethanol. The mixture was refluxed under N 2 for 10 hrs or until no dimer was revealed by TLC. The reaction was then cooled and the yellow precipitate filtered. The product was purified by flash chromatography using dichloromethane. Product: yellow solid (yield 87%). 1 H NMR (360 MHz, acetone-d 6 ), ppm: 8.54 (d, 2H), 8.06 (d, 2H), 7.92 (m, 2H), 7.81 (d, 2H), 7.35 (d, 2H), 6.78 (m, 2H), 6.69 (m, 2H), 6.20 (d, 2H), 5.12 (s, 1H), 1.62 (s, 6H). MS, e/z: 600 (M+, 75%), 501 (100%). The emission spectrum is in FIG. 29 and the proton NMR spectrum is in FIG. 30 .
Ir(bthpy) 2 (acac), BTPIr. The chloride bridged dimer (Ir(bthpy) 2 Cl) 2 (0.103 g, 0.078 mmol), acetylacetone (0.025 g) and sodium carbonate (0.083 g) were mixed in 10 ml of 2-ethoxyethanol. The mixture was refluxed under N 2 for 10 hrs or until no dimer was revealed by TLC. The reaction was then cooled and the yellow precipitate filtered. The product was purified by flash chromatography using dichloromethane. Product: yellow solid (yield 49%). MS, e/z: 712 (M+, 66%), 613 (100%). Emission spectrum is in FIG. 31 .
[Ir(ptpy) 2 Cl] 2 . A solution of IrCl 3 .xH 2 O (1.506 g, 5.030 mmol) and 2-(p-tolyl)pyridine (3.509 g, 20.74 mmol) in 2-ethoxyethanol (30 mL) was refluxed for 25 hours. The yellow-green mixture was cooled to room temperature and 20 mL of 1.0 M HCl was added to precipitate the product. The mixture was filtered and washed with 100 mL of 1.0 M HCl followed by 50 mL of methanol then dried. The product was obtained as a yellow powder (1.850 g, 65%).
[Ir(ppz) 2 Cl] 2 . A solution of IrCl 3 .xH 2 O (0.904 g, 3.027 mmol) and 1-phenylpyrazole (1.725 g, 11.96 mmol) in 2-ethoxyethanol (30 mL) was refluxed for 21 hours. The gray-green mixture was cooled to room temperature and 20 mL of 1.0 M HCl was added to precipitate the product. The mixture was filtered and washed with 100 mL of 1.0 M HCl followed by 50 mL of methanol then dried. The product was obtained as a light gray powder (1.133 g, 73%).
[Ir(C6) 2 Cl] 2 . A solution of IrCl 3 .xH 2 O (0.075 g, 0.251 mmol) and coumarin C6 [3-(2-benzothiazolyl)-7-(diethyl)coumarin] (Aldrich) (0.350 g, 1.00 mmol) in 2-ethoxyethanol (15 mL) was refluxed for 22 hours. The dark red mixture was cooled to room temperature and 20 mL of 1.0 M HCl was added to precipitate the product. The mixture was filtered and washed with 100 mL of 1.0 M HCl followed by 50 mL of methanol. The product was dissolved in and precipitated with methanol. The solid was filtered and washed with methanol until no green emission was observed in the filtrate. The product was obtained as an orange powder (0.0657 g, 28%).
Ir(ptpy) 2 (acac) (tpyIr). A solution of [Ir(ptpy) 2 Cl] 2 (1.705 g, 1.511 mmol), 2,4-pentanedione (3.013 g, 30.08 mmol) and (1.802 g, 17.04 mmol) in 1,2-dichloroethane (60 mL) was refluxed for 40 hours. The yellow-green mixture was cooled to room temperature and the solvent was removed under reduced pressure. The product was taken up in 50 mL of CH 2 Cl 2 and filtered through Celite. The solvent was removed under reduced pressure to yield orange crystals of the product (1.696 g, 89%). The emission spectrum is given in FIG. 32 . The results of an x-ray diffraction study of the structure are given in FIG. 33 . One sees that the nitrogen atoms of the tpy (“tolyl pyridyl”) groups are in a trans configuration. For the x-ray study, the number of reflections was 4663 and the R factor was 5.4%.
Ir(C6) 2 (acac) (C6Ir). Two drops of 2,4-pentanedione and an excess of Na 2 CO 3 was added to solution of [Ir(C6) 2 Cl] 2 in CDCl 3 . The tube was heated for 48 hours at 50° C. and then filtered through a short plug of Celite in a Pasteur pipet. The solvent and excess 2,4-pentanedione were removed under reduced pressure to yield the product as an orange solid. Emission of C6 in FIG. 34 and of C6Ir in FIG. 35 .
Ir(ppz) 2 picolinate (PZIrp). A solution of [Ir(ppz) 2 Cl] 2 (0.0545 g, 0.0530 mmol) and picolinic acid (0.0525 g, 0.426 mmol) in CH 2 Cl 2 (15 mL) was refluxed for 16 hours. The light green mixture was cooled to room temperature and the solvent was removed under reduced pressure. The resultant solid was taken up in 10 mL of methanol and a light green solid precipitated from the solution. The supernatant liquid was decanted off and the solid was dissolved in CH 2 Cl 2 and filtered through a short plug of silica. The solvent was removed under reduced pressure to yield light green crystals of the product (0.0075 g, 12%). Emission in FIG. 36 .
2-(1-naphthyl)benzoxazole, (BZO-Naph). (11.06 g, 101 mmol) of 2-aminophenol was mixed with (15.867 g, 92.2 mmol) of 1-naphthoic acid in the presence of polyphosphoric acid. The mixture was heated and stirred at 240° C. under N 2 for 8 hrs. The mixture was allowed to cool to 100° C., this was followed by addition of water. The insoluble residue was collected by filtration, washed with water then reslurried in an excess of 10% Na 2 CO 3 . The alkaline slurry was filtered and the product washed thoroughly with water and dried under vacuum. The product was purified by vacuum distillation. BP 140° C./0.3 mmHg. Yield 4.8 g (21%).
Tetrakis(2-(1-naphthyl)benzoxazoleC 2 ,N′)(μ-dichloro)diiridium. ((Ir 2 (BZO-Naph) 4 Cl) 2 ). Iridium trichloride hydrate (0.388 g) was combined with 2-(1-naphthyl)benzoxazole (1.2 g, 4.88 mmol). The mixture was dissolved in 2-ethoxyethanol (30 mL) then refluxed for 24 hrs. The solution was cooled to room temperature, the resulting orange solid product was collected in a centrifuge tube. The dimer was washed with methanol followed by chloroform through four cycles of centrifuge/redispersion cycles. Yield 0.66 g.
Bis(2-(1-naphthyl)benzoxazole) acetylacetonate, Ir(BZO-Naph) 2 (acac), (BONIr). The chloride bridged dimer (Ir 2 (BZO-Naph) 4 Cl) 2 (0.66 g, 0.46 mmol), acetylacetone (0.185 g) and sodium carbonate (0.2 g) were mixed in 20 ml of dichloroethane. The mixture was refluxed under N 2 for 60 hrs. The reaction was then cooled and the orange/red precipitate was collected in centrifuge tube. The product was washed with water/methanol (1:1) mixture followed by methanol wash through four cycles of centrifuge/redispersion cycles. The orange/red solid product was purified by sublimation. SP 250° C./2×10 −5 torr, yield 0.57 g (80%). The emission spectrum is in FIG. 37 and the proton NMR spectrum is in FIG. 38 .
Bis(2-phenylbenzothiazole) Iridium acetylacetonate (BTIr). 9.8 mmol (0.98 g, 1.0 mL) of 2,4-pentanedione was added to a room-temperature solution of 2.1 mmol 2-phenylbenzothiazole Iridium chloride dimer (2.7 g) in 120 mL of 2-ethoxyethanol. Approximately 1 g of sodium carbonate was added, and the mixture was heated to reflux under nitrogen in an oil bath for several hours. Reaction mixture was cooled to room temperature, and the orange precipitate was filtered off via vacuum. The filtrate was concentrated and methanol was added to precipitate more product. Successive filtrations and precipitations afforded a 75% yield. The emission spectrum is in FIG. 39 and the proton NMR spectrum is in FIG. 40 .
Bis(2-phenylbenzooxazole) Iridium acac (BOIr). 9.8 mmol (0.98 g, 1.0 mL) of 2,4-pentanedione was added to a room-temperature solution of 2.4 mmol 2-phenylbenzoxazole Iridium chloride dimer (3.0 g) in 120 mL of 2-ethoxyethanol. Approximately 1 g of sodium carbonate was added, and the mixture was heated to reflux under nitrogen in an oil bath overnight (˜16 hrs.). Reaction mixture was cooled to room temperature, and the yellow precipitate was filtered off via vacuum. The filtrate was concentrated and methanol was added to precipitate more product. Successive filtrations and precipitations afforded a 60% yield. The emission spectrum is in FIG. 41 and the proton NMR spectrum is in FIG. 42 .
Bis(2-phenylbenzothiazole) Iridium (8-hydroxyquinolate) (BTIrQ). 4.7 mmol (0.68 g) of 8-hydroxyquinoline was added to a room-temperature solution of 0.14 mmol 2-phenylbenzothiazole Iridium chloride dimer (0.19 g) in 20 mL of 2-ethoxyethanol. Approximately 700 mg of sodium carbonate was added, and the mixture was heated to reflux under nitrogen in an oil bath overnight (23 hrs.). Reaction mixture was cooled to room temperature, and the red precipitate was filtered off via vacuum. The filtrate was concentrated and methanol was added to precipitate more product. Successive filtrations and precipitations afforded a 57% yield. The emission spectrum is in FIG. 43 and the proton NMR spectrum is in FIG. 44 .
Bis(2-phenylbenzothiazole) Iridium picolinate (BTIrP). 2.14 mmol (0.26 g) of picolinic acid was added to a room-temperature solution of 0.80 mmol 2-phenylbenzothiazole Iridium chloride dimer (1.0 g) in 60 mL of dichloromethane. The mixture was heated to reflux under nitrogen in an oil bath for 8.5 hours. The reaction mixture was cooled to room temperature, and the yellow precipitate was filtered off via vacuum. The filtrate was concentrated and methanol was added to precipitate more product. Successive filtrations and precipitations yielded about 900 mg of impure product. Emission spectrum is in FIG. 45 .
Bis(2-phenylbenzooxazole) Iridium picolinate (BOIrP). 0.52 mmol (0.064 g) of picolinic acid was added to a room-temperature solution of 0.14 mmol 2-phenylbenzoxazole Iridium chloride dimer (0.18 g) in 20 mL of dichloromethane. The mixture was heated to reflux under nitrogen in an oil bath overnight (17.5 hrs.). Reaction mixture was cooled to room temperature, and the yellow precipitate was filtered off via vacuum. The precipitate was dissolved in dichloromethane and transferred to a vial, and the solvent was removed. Emission spectrum is in FIG. 46 .
Comparative emission spectra for different L′ in btIr complexes are shown in FIG. 47 .
These syntheses just discussed have certain advantages over the prior art. Compounds of formula PtL 3 cannot be sublimed without decomposition. Obtaining compounds of formula IrL 3 can be problematic. Some ligands react cleanly with Ir(acac) 3 to give the tris complex, but more than half of the ligands we have studied do not react cleanly in the reaction:
3L+Ir( acac ) 3 →L 3 Ir+( acac )H;
typically 30% yield, L=2-phenylpyridine, benzoquinoline, 2-thienylpyridine. A preferred route to Ir complexes can be through the chloride-bridged dimer L 2 M(μ-Cl) 2 ML 2 via the reaction:
4L+IrCl 3 .n H 2 O→L 2 M(μ-Cl) 2 ML 2 +4HCl
Although fewer than 10% of the ligands we have studied failed to give the Ir dimer cleanly and in high yield, the conversion of the dimer into the tris complex IrL 3 is problematic working for only a few ligands. L 2 M(μ-Cl) 2 ML 2 +2Ag + +2L→L 3 Ir+2AgCl.
We have discovered that a far more fruitful approach to preparing phosphorescent complexes is to use chloride bridged dimers to create emitters. The dimer itself does not emit strongly, presumably because of strong self quenching by the adjacent metal (e.g., iridium) atoms. We have found that the chloride ligands can be replaced by a chelating ligand to give a stable, octahedral metal complex through the chemistry:
L 2 M(μ-Cl) 2 ML 2 +XH→L 2 MX+HCl
We have extensively studied the system wherein M=iridium. The resultant iridium complexes emit strongly, in most cases with lifetimes of 1-3 microseconds (“μsec”). Such a lifetime is indicative of phosphorescence (see Charles Kittel, Introduction to Solid State Physics). The transition in these materials is a metal ligand charge transfer (“MLCT”).
In the discussion that follows below, we analyze data of emission spectra and lifetimes of a number of different complexes, all of which can be characterized as L 2 MX (M=Ir), where L is a cyclometallated (bidentate) ligand and X is a bidentate ligand. In nearly every case, the emission in these complexes is based on an MLCT transition between Ir and the L ligand or a mixture of that transition and an intraligand transition. Specific examples are described below. Based on theoretical and spectroscopic studies, the complexes have an octahedral coordination about the metal (for example, for the nitrogen heterocycles of the L ligand, there is a trans disposition in the Ir octahedron). Specifically, in FIG. 11 , we give the structure for L 2 IrX, wherein L 2-phenyl pyridine and X=acac, picolinate (from picolinic acid), salicylanilide, or 8-hydroxyquinolinate.
A slight variation of the synthetic route to make L 2 IrX allows formation of meridianal isomers of formula L 3 Ir. The L 3 Ir complexes that have been disclosed previously all have a facial disposition of the chelating ligands. Herewith, we disclose the formation and use of meridianal L 3 Ir complexes as phosphors in OLEDs. The two structures are shown in FIG. 12 .
The facial L 3 Ir isomers have been prepared by the reaction of L with Ir(acac) 3 in refluxing glycerol as described in equation 2 (below). A preferred route into L 3 Ir complexes is through the chloride bridged dimer (L 2 Ir(μ-Cl) 2 IrL 2 ), equation 3+4 (below). The product of equation 4 is a facial isomer, identical to the one formed from Ir(acac) 3 . The benefit of the latter prep is a better yield of facial-L 3 Ir. If the third ligand is added to the dimer in the presence of base and acetylacetone (no Ag + ), a good yield of the meridianal isomer is obtained. The meridianal isomer does not convert to the facial one on recrystallization, refluxing in coordinating solvents or on sublimation. Two examples of these meridianal complexes have been formed, mer-Irppy and mer-Irbq ( FIG. 13 ); however, we believe that any ligand that gives a stable facial-L 3 Ir can be made into a meridianal form as well.
3L+Ir( acac ) 3 →facial-L 3 Ir+ acac H (2)
typically 30% yield, L=2-phenylpyridine, bezoquinoline, 2-thienylpyridine
4L+IrCl 3 .n H 2 O→L 2 Ir(μ-Cl) 2 IrL 2 +4HCl (3)
typically >90% yield, see attached spectra for examples of L, also works well for all ligands that work in equation (2)
L 2 Ir(μ-Cl) 2 IrL 2 +2Ag + +2L→2 facial-L 3 Ir+2AgCl (4)
typically 30% yield, only works well for the same ligands that work well for equation (2)
L 2 Ir(μ-Cl) 2 IrL 2 +XH+Na 2 CO 3 +L→merdianal-L 3 Ir (5)
typically >80% yield, XH=acetylacetone
Surprisingly, the photophysics of the meridianal isomers is different from that of the facial forms. This can be seen in the details of the spectra discussed below, which show a marked red shift and broadening in the meridianal isomer relative to its facial counterpart. The emission lines appear as if a red band has been added to the band characteristic of the facial-L 3 Ir. The structure of the meridianal isomer is similar to those of L 2 IrX complexes, with respect, for example, to the arrangement of the N atoms of the ligands about Ir. Specifically, for L=ppy ligands, the nitrogen of the L ligand is trans in both mer-Ir(ppy) 3 and in (ppy) 2 Ir(acac) Further, one of the L ligands for the mer-L 3 Ir complexes has the same coordination as the X ligand of L 2 IrX complexes. In order to illustrate this point a model of mer-Ir(ppy) 3 is shown next to (ppy) 2 Ir(acac) in FIG. 14 . One of the ppy ligands of mer-Ir(ppy) 3 is coordinated to the Ir center in the same geometry as the acac ligand of (ppy) 2 Ir(acac).
The HOMO and LUMO energies of these L 3 Ir molecules are clearly affected by the choice of isomer. These energies are very important is controlling the current-voltage characteristics and lifetimes of OLEDs prepared with these phosphors. The syntheses for the two isomers depicted in FIG. 13 are as follows.
Syntheses of Meridianal Isomers
mer-Irbq: 91 mg (0.078 mmol) of [Ir(bq) 2 Cl] 2 dimer, 35.8 mg (0.2 mmol) of 7,8-benzoquinoline, 0.02 ml of acetylacetone (ca. 0.2 mmol) and 83 mg (0.78 mmol) of sodium carbonate were boiled in 12 ml of 2-ethoxyethanol (used as received) for 14 hours in inert atmosphere. Upon cooling yellow-orange precipitate forms and is isolated by filtration and flash chromatography (silica gel, CH 2 Cl 2 ) (yield 72%). 1H NMR (360 MHz, dichloromethane-d2), ppm: 8.31 (q, 1H), 8.18 (q, 1H), 8.12 (q, 1H), 8.03 (m, 2H), 7.82 (m, 3H), 7.59 (m, 2H), 7.47 (m, 2H), 7.40 (d, 1H), 7.17 (m, 9H), 6.81 (d, 1H), 6.57 (d, 1H). MS, e/z: 727 (100%, M+). NMR spectrum in FIG. 48 .
mer-Ir(tpy) 3 : A solution of IrCl 3 .xH 2 O (0.301 g, 1.01 mmol), 2-(p-tolyl)pyridine (1.027 g, 6.069 mmol), 2,4-pentanedione (0.208 g, 2.08 mmol) and Na 2 CO 3 (0.350 g, 3.30 mmol) in 2-ethoxyethanol (3.0 mL) was refluxed for 65 hours. The yellow-green mixture was cooled to room temperature and 20 mL of 1.0 M HCl was added to precipitate the product. The mixture was filtered and washed with 100 mL of 1.0 M HCl followed by 50 mL of methanol then dried and the solid was dissolved in CH 2 Cl 2 and filtered through a short plug of silica. The solvent was removed under reduced pressure to yield the product as a yellow-orange powder (0.265 g, 38%).
This invention is further directed toward the use of the above-noted dopants in a host phase. This host phase may be comprised of molecules comprising a carbazole moiety. Molecules which fall within the scope of the invention are included in the following.
[A line segment denotes possible substitution at any available carbon atom or atoms of the indicated ring by alkyl or aryl groups]
An additional preferred molecule with a carbazole functionality is 4,4′-N,N′-dicarbazole-biphenyl (CBP), which has the formula:
The light emitting device structure that we chose to use is very similar to the standard vacuum deposited one. As an overview, a hole transporting layer (“HTL”) is first deposited onto the ITO (indium tin c aide) coated glass substrate. For the device yielding 12% quantum efficiency, the HTL consisted of 30 nm (300 Å) of NPD. Onto the NPD a thin film of the organometallic compound doped into a host matrix is deposited to form an emitter layer. In the example, the emitter layer was CBP with 12% by weight bis(2-phenylbenzothiazole) iridium acetylacetonate (termed “BTIr”), and the layer thickness was 30 nm (300 Å). A blocking layer is deposited onto the emitter layer. The blocking layer consisted of bathcuproine (“BCP”), and the thickness was 20 nm (200 Å). An electron transport layer is deposited onto the blocking layer. The electron transport layer consisted of Alq 3 of thickness 20 nm. The device is finished by depositing a Mg—Ag electrode onto the electron transporting layer. This was of thickness 100 nm. All of the depositions were carried out at a vacuum less than 5×10 −5 Torr. The devices were tested in air, without packaging.
When we apply a voltage between the cathode and the anode, holes are injected from ITO to NPD and transported by the NPD layer, while electrons are injected from MgAg to Alq and transported through Alq and BCP. Then holes and electrons are injected into EML and carrier recombination occurs in CBP, the excited states were formed, energy transfer to BTIr occurs, and finally BTIr molecules are excited and decay radiatively.
As illustrated in FIG. 15 , the quantum efficiency of this device is 12% at a current density of about 0.01 mA/cm 2 . Pertinent terms are as follows: ITO is a transparent conducting phase of indium tin oxide which functions as an anode; ITO is a degenerate semiconductor formed by doping a wide band semiconductor; the carrier concentration of the ITO is in excess of 10 19 /cm 3 ; BCP is an exciton blocking and electron transport layer; Alq 3 is an electron injection layer; other hole transport layer materials could be used, for example, TPD, a hole transport layer, can be used.
BCP functions as an electron transport layer and as an exciton blocking layer, which layer has a thickness of about 10 nm (100 Å). BCP is. 2,9-dimethyl-4,7-diphenyl-1,10-phenanthroline (also called bathocuproine) which has the formula:
The Alq 3 , which functions as an electron injection/electron transport layer has the following formula:
In general, the doping level is varied to establish the optimum doping level.
As noted above, fluorescent materials have certain advantages as emitters in devices. If the L ligand that is used in making the L 2 MX (for example, M=Ir) complex has a high fluorescent quantum efficiency, it is possible to use the strong spin orbit coupling of the Ir metal to efficiently intersystem cross in and out of the triplet states of the ligands. The concept is that the Ir makes the L ligand an efficient phosphorescent center. Using this approach, it is possible to take any fluorescent dye and make an efficient phosphorescent molecule from it (that is, L fluorescent but L 2 MX (M=Ir) phosphorescent).
As an example, we prepared a L 2 IrX wherein L=coumarin and X=acac. We refer to this as coumarin-6 [“C6Ir”]. The complex gives intense orange emission, whereas coumarin by itself emits green. Both coumarin and C6Ir spectra are given in the Figures.
Other fluorescent dyes would be expected to show similar spectral shifts. Since the number of fluorescent dyes that have been developed for dye lasers and other applications is quite large, we expect that this approach would lead to a wide range of phosphorescent materials.
One needs a fluorescent dye with suitable functionality such that it can be metallated by the metal (for example, iridium) to make a 5- or 6-membered metallocycle. All of the L ligands we have studied to date have se hybridized carbons and heterocyclic N atoms in the ligands, such that one can form a five membered ring on reacting with Ir.
Potential degradation reactions, involving holes or electrons, can occur in the emitter layer. The resultant oxidation or reduction can alter the emitter, and degrade performance. In order to get the maximum efficiency for phosphor doped OLEDs, it is important to control the holes or electrons which lead to undesirable oxidation or reduction reactions. One way to do this is to trap carriers (holes or electrons) at the phosphorescent dopant. It may be beneficial to trap the carrier at a position remote from the atoms or ligands responsible for the phosphorescence. The carrier that is thus remotely trapped could readily recombine with the opposite carrier either intramolecularly or with the carrier from an adjacent molecule.
An example of a phosphor designed to trap holes is shown in FIG. 16 . The diarylamine group on the salicylanlide group is expected to have a HOMO level 200-300 mV above that of the Ir complex (based on electrochemical measurements), leading to the holes being trapped exclusively at the amine groups. Holes will be readily trapped at the amine, but the emission from this molecule will come from MLCT and intraligand transitions from the Ir(phenylpyridine) system. An electron trapped on this molecule will most likely be in one of the pyridyl ligands. Intramolecular recombination will lead to the formation of an exciton, largely in the Ir(phenylpyridine) system. Since the trapping site is on the X ligand, which is typically not involved extensively in the luminescent process, the presence of the trapping site will not greatly affect the emission energy for the complex. Related molecules can be designed in which electron carriers are trapped remoted to the L 2 Ir system.
As found in the IrL 3 system, the emission color is strongly affected by the L ligand. This is consistent with the emission involving either MLCT or intraligand transitions. In all of the cases that we have been able to make both the tris complex (i.e., IrL 3 ) and the L 2 IrX complex, the emission spectra are very similar. For example Ir(ppy) 3 and (ppy) 2 Ir(acac) (acronym=PPIr) give strong green emission with a λ max of 510 nm. A similar trend is seen in comparing Ir(BQ) 3 and Ir(thpy) 3 to their L 2 Ir(acac) derivatives, i.e., in some cases, no significant shift in emission between the two complexes.
However, in other cases, the choice of X ligand affects both the energy of emission and efficiency. Acac and salicylanilide L 2 IrX complexes give very similar spectra. The picolinic acid derivatives that we have prepared thus far show a small blue shift (15 nm) in their emission spectra relative to the acac and salicylanilide complexes of the same ligands. This can be seen in the spectra for BTIr, BTIrsd and BTIrpic. In all three of these complexes we expect that the emission becomes principally form MLCT and Intra-L transitions and the picolinic acid ligands are changing the energies of the metal orbitals and thus affecting the MLCT bands.
If an X ligand is used whose triplet levels fall lower in energy than the “L 2 Ir” framework, emission from the X ligand can be observed. This is the case for the BTIRQ complex. In this complex the emission intensity is very weak and centered at 650 nm. This was surprising since the emission for the BT ligand based systems are all near 550 nm. The emission in this case is almost completely from Q based transitions. The phosphorescence spectra for heavy metal quinolates (e.g., IrQ 3 or PtQ 2 ) are centered at 650 nm. The complexes themselves emit with very low efficiency, <0.01. Both the energy and efficiency of the L 2 IrQ material is consistent “X” based emission. If the emission from the X ligand or the “IrX” system were efficient this could have been a good red emitter. It is important to note that while all of the examples listed here are strong “L” emitters, this does not preclude a good phosphor from being formed from “X” based emission.
The wrong choice of X ligand can also severally quench the emission from L 2 IrX complexes. Both hexafluoro-acac and diphenyl-acac complexes give either very weak emission of no emission at all when used as the X ligand in L 2 IrX complexes. The reasons why these ligands quench emission so strong are not at all clear, one of these ligands is more electron withdrawing than acac and the other more electron donating. We give the spectrum for BQIrFA in the Figures. The emission spectrum for this complex is slightly shifted from BQIr, as expected for the much stronger electron withdrawing nature of the hexafluoroacac ligand. The emission intensity from BQIrFA is at least 2 orders of magnitude weaker than BQIr. We have not explored the complexes of these ligands due to this severe quenching problem.
CBP was used in the device described herein. The invention will work with other hole-transporting molecules known by one of ordinary skill to work in hole transporting layers of OLEDs. Specifically, the invention will work with other molecules comprising a carbazole functionality, or an analogous aryl amine functionality.
The OLED of the present invention may be used in substantially any type of device which is comprised of an OLED, for example, in OLEDs that are incorporated into a larger display, a vehicle, a computer, a television, a printer, a large area wall, theater or stadium screen, a billboard or a sign. | Organic light emitting devices are described wherein the emissive layer comprises a host material containing an emissive molecule, which molecule is adapted to luminesce when a voltage is applied across the heterostructure, and the emissive molecule is selected from the group of phosphorescent organometallic complexes, including cyclometallated platinum, iridium and osmium complexes. The organic light emitting devices optionally contain an exciton blocking layer. Furthermore, improved electroluminescent efficiency in organic light emitting devices is obtained with an emitter layer comprising organometallic complexes of transition metals of formula L 2 MX, wherein L and X are distinct bidentate ligands. Compounds of this formula can be synthesized more facilely than in previous approaches and synthetic options allow insertion of fluorescent molecules into a phosphorescent complex, ligands to fine tune the color of emission, and ligands to trap carriers. | 8 |
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0001] As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 , a reed is mounted to a magnetic circuit by compression. As temperature changes the much-thicker magnetic circuit component, it deforms the reed into a novel shape, which causes the paddle to deflect. Additionally, any slip of the mounting points causes error.
[0002] The slip potential increases at high temperature, as the clamping force decreases and shear stress between the reed and the magnetic circuit increases.
[0003] The coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) (a) of the excitation ring 13 is higher than a of the attached reed 16 . As the excitation ring 13 is also considerably stronger, it will pull mounting points 18 radially, which will also cause a compression or tensile stress as the excitation ring 13 attempts to move the mounting points 18 to a smaller or larger radius.
[0004] Because the fused silica (commonly referred to as quartz) of the reed 16 is a highly elastic material, the reed 16 does not plastically deform to accommodate the metal of the excitation ring 13 . Instead, some other mechanism of stress accommodation occurs. Possibilities are: a) slip of the mounting points 18 ; b) local yielding of metal part; and c) the rim of the reed 16 becomes an oval shape, which forces the paddle 19 out of plane. Any one of these, or a combination thereof, will cause sensor error that is made worse by temperature extremes.
[0005] FIGS. 1 and 2 illustrate an accelerometer that includes the asymmetric flexure arrangement of the present invention. The accelerometer measures acceleration along sensing axis SA, and includes stator, reed, and mounting members 18 . The reed is held between mounting member 18 and stator, and has a coil positioned on its upper surface. The excitation ring (e-ring) comprises stator 13 , magnet and pole piece. The e-ring is shaped so that the coil occupies a comparatively narrow gap between pole piece and stator 13 , to provide the force balancing function well known to those skilled in the art.
[0006] The reed has an overall disk-like shape, and includes annular support ring and paddle connected to one another via a pair of flexures between which an opening is formed. For most of its perimeter, the paddle is separated from the support ring by a circular gap. Raised mounting pads 18 are located at approximately equally spaced positions around support ring.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0007] The present invention reduces stress on the sensor resulting from temperature extremes and multiple coefficients of thermal expansion and also to assist in maintaining co-axiality between sense elements and the return path. The present invention is particularly useful for down hole use where the environment requires use of materials with non-ideal coefficient of thermal expansion match. The present invention reduces the stress on the sense element, increasing accuracy over temperature by including flexure(s) for the mounting points between the sense element and the return path of a quartz flexure accelerometer. The arrangement of the flexures not only reduces stress but assists in maintaining co-axiality between the sense element and the return path.
[0008] An exemplary accelerometer device includes upper and lower stators and a reed. The inwardly facing surface of a least one stator includes a bore within which is positioned a permanent magnet capped by a pole piece. The reed includes a support ring and a paddle that is flexibly connected to the support ring via flexures that are compliant out of plane. The support ring includes a ring section and at least two mounting devices. The mounting devices are at least partially mechanically isolated from the ring section.
[0009] In one aspect of the invention, the mounting devices include a pad area and a neck area that connect the pad area to the ring section. The neck area includes a width dimension that is narrower than a diameter dimension of the pad area.
[0010] In another aspect of the invention, the pad area and the neck area are defined by an outer edge of the reed and a cavity linking the first and second sides.
[0011] In still another aspect of the invention, the pad area and the neck area are defined by an outer edge of the reed, a first cavity linking the first and second sides and a second cavity linking the first and second sides. The first and second cavities are at least partially circular.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0012] Preferred and alternative embodiments of the present invention are described in detail below with reference to the following drawings:
[0013] FIGS. 1 and 2 illustrate cross-sectional views of a paddle-type accelerometer formed in accordance with the prior art;
[0014] FIG. 3 illustrates a blown-up view of an accelerometer that uses the various stress relief components of the present invention;
[0015] FIGS. 4-1 and 4 - 2 illustrate partial cross-sectional views of a stress relief structure formed into a reed of an accelerometer in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention;
[0016] FIG. 5 illustrates thermal expansion induced force vectors experienced by mounting points of the accelerometer shown in FIGS. 4-1 and 4 - 2 ;
[0017] FIGS. 6-1 and 6 - 2 illustrate another isolation structure formed into the reed of an accelerometer in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention;
[0018] FIGS. 7-1 and 7 - 2 illustrate different embodiments for the bottom (6 o'clock) positioned attachment features for the devices shown in FIGS. 4-1 and 6 - 1 ;
[0019] FIG. 8-1 illustrates a partial cross-sectional view of an isolation device formed within a stator of a paddle-type accelerometer;
[0020] FIG. 8-2 illustrates a cross-sectional view along a longitudinal axis of the accelerometer, partially shown in FIG. 8-1 ;
[0021] FIG. 9-1 illustrates a partial cross-sectional view of an isolation device formed within a stator of a paddle-type accelerometer; and
[0022] FIG. 9-2 illustrates a cross-sectional view along a longitudinal axis of the accelerometer, partially shown in FIG. 9-1 .
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
[0023] The present invention provides stress isolation/reduction features for avoiding plastic deformation, slip, or bending of a reed of an accelerometer (e.g., Q-Flex made by Honeywell, Inc.).
[0024] FIG. 3 illustrates a force rebalance accelerometer where the features of the present invention are used. This accelerometer includes an upper stator 20 and a lower stator 22 . The inwardly facing surface of a least one stator includes a bore within which is positioned a permanent magnet capped by a pole piece, as illustrated by pole piece 24 within a bore 26 . Also shown is reed assembly that is mounted between the upper and lower stators. The reed assembly includes a reed that includes an outer annular support ring 32 and a paddle 36 supported from the support ring by flexures. The reed is preferably fabricated from a single piece of fused silica. The support ring 32 includes three mounting locations. When the accelerometer is assembled, the mounting pads contact the upper and lower stators to provide support for the reed assembly.
[0025] A capacitor plate is deposited on the upper surface of the paddle 36 , and a similar capacitor plate (not shown) is deposited on the lower surface of the paddle. The capacitor plates cooperate with the inwardly facing surfaces of upper and lower stators 20 and 22 to provide a capacitive pick-off system. Also mounted on either side of the paddle 36 are coil forms on which force-rebalance coils are mounted. As is well understood in the servoed instrument art, coils cooperate with the permanent magnets in the stators and with a suitable feedback circuit to retain the paddle 36 at a predetermined position with respect to the support ring 32 . Thin film pick-off leads, and similar leads (not shown) on the lower surface of the reed, provide electrical connections to the capacitor pick-off plates and force-rebalance coils.
[0026] In the design of an accelerometer of the type shown in FIG. 3 , it is nearly impossible to use the same material for all of the different components. For example, the reed is preferably composed of fused quartz, the coil is preferably composed of copper, and coil form (if used) is preferably made from aluminum. As a result, there will invariably be mismatches in the coefficients of thermal expansion (CTE) of adjacent components. Such mismatches can deform the components and cause errors in a number of different ways, depending on the type of suspension and displacement pick-off method used.
[0027] The coil forms are typically mounted directly to the paddle 36 with a compliant elastomer. The mismatch in CTE between aluminum and fused quartz is large, and the compliant elastomer layer does not relieve all of the stress at this interface. The remaining stresses that are not cancelled by the opposing coil can deform the capacitor pick-off plates or the flexures. Either of these deformations can cause a bias in the accelerometer's output. In addition, distortions that change the position of the coil windings can cause scale-factor errors. These error sources are even more significant in a design in which only a single force-rebalance coil is used, because of the asymmetry of the resulting stress applied to the paddle.
[0028] As shown in FIG. 4-1 , a support ring 32 - 1 of the reed of an accelerometer includes multiple locations for mounting the support ring 32 - 1 to the other components of the accelerometer (stators). First mounting pads 50 mount to either side of the support ring 32 - 1 . The mounting pads 50 attach to the surface of the upper and lower stators. The mounting pads 50 are located along the support ring 32 - 1 approximately opposite flexures (not shown) for flexibly mounting a paddle proof-mass 36 - 1 to the support ring 32 - 1 .
[0029] Mounting devices 52 and 54 are located along the support ring 32 - 1 approximately equidistant from the first mounting device 50 . FIG. 4-2 illustrates a closer view of one of the mounting devices 54 . The mounting device 54 includes a mounting area 60 . The mounting area 60 (both sides) are raised above the rest of the support ring 32 - 1 . The raised area 60 are attached to the upper and lower stators. The mounting area 60 is formed by a cavity 64 that is etched around the mounting area 60 to isolate the mounting area 60 from the support ring 32 - 1 , except for a neck section 62 that attaches the mounting area 60 to the support ring 32 - 1 . The cavity 64 passes through the entire thickness of the support ring 32 - 1 . The cavity could be at least partially formed by machining or etching.
[0030] As shown in FIG. 5 , the arrows indicate the direction in which stresses are applied to each of the mounting locations of the accelerometer shown in FIG. 4-1 . These forces are due to a stress caused by differential thermal expansion of the parts of the accelerometer. The isolation mounts 52 and 54 (and mount 50 if it includes an isolation feature ( FIGS. 7-1 , 7 - 2 ) mitigate some of the stresses shown by these arrows. The isolation mounts 52 and 54 allow the attached stators to expand or contract, without unduly affecting the support ring 32 - 1 .
[0031] As shown in FIGS. 6-1 and 6 - 2 , in one embodiment, a support ring 32 - 2 includes a first attachment point 50 - 2 , similar to first mounting device 50 , described and shown in FIGS. 4-1 and 5 . The support ring 32 - 2 also includes spiral attachment devices 70 , located equidistant from the first attachment point 50 - 2 . Each of the spiral attachment devices 70 include an attachment area 74 that allows for mounting devices (not shown) to be attached on either side of the mounting area 74 . The mounting pads then attach to the respective upper or lower stator. The spiral attachment device 70 includes a first cavity 80 that passes all the way through the support ring 32 - 2 . The first cavity 80 starts at approximately a first radial projecting from the center of the mounting area 74 . The first cavity 80 curves in a counter-clockwise manner around the attachment area 74 and exits the support ring 32 - 2 at a second radial that is at least 270° from the first radial. A second cavity 78 begins at the edge of the support ring 32 - 2 at a third radial that is somewhere between the first and second radials. The second cavity 78 proceeds in a counterclockwise manner around the attachment area 74 and around the first cavity 80 until it reaches a location at a fourth radial that is between the first and second radials in a direction away from the first attachment point 50 - 2 . The second cavity 78 then straightens out or follows the curvature of the edge of the support ring 32 - 2 . Thus, the second cavity 78 forms a spiral neck 76 that attaches the attachment area 74 to the support ring 32 - 2 . The spiral attachment devices 70 allow for expansion and contraction of the stators while limiting stresses experienced at the support ring 32 - 2 .
[0032] FIG. 7-1 shows an embodiment of a bottom (6 o'clock) positioned attachment point 120 ( 50 or 50 - 2 FIGS. 4-1 , 6 - 1 ). The attachment point 120 includes a cut out 122 that isolates a raised area 124 from the ring.
[0033] FIG. 7-2 shows an embodiment of a bottom (6 o'clock) positioned attachment point 130 ( 50 or 50 - 2 FIGS. 4-1 , 6 - 1 ). The attachment point 130 includes two cut outs 132 , 134 that isolate a raised area 136 and a shaft 138 from the ring. The shaft 138 zigzags in a rounded and/or square pattern. Other shapes for the bottom ( 6 o′clock) positioned attachment point are used provided rotation of the reed is minimal over temperature changes.
[0034] As shown in FIGS. 8-1 and 8 - 2 , a lower stator 90 has been machined to produce a plurality of pillars 92 . In one embodiment, the upper stator includes matching features to those shown on the lower stator 90 . The pillars 92 are located at approximately the circumferential edge of the stator 90 . The pillars 92 attach to opposing raised areas of a support ring 32 - 3 of the accelerometer reed or attach to mounting pads located on the support ring 32 - 3 of the accelerometer reed. The pillars 92 provide stress relief to the metal parts of the accelerometer. The stator 90 is machined away to expose the resulting pillar 92 . The taller the pillar 92 and the smaller the cross section, the greater the compliance of the pillar. An exemplary pillar includes compliance in both the radial and circumferential directions, which could be varied by the shape and cross section of the pillar.
[0035] FIGS. 9-1 and 9 - 2 illustrate an embodiment in which a stator 100 includes a pillar 104 that has been machined from the stator material at the circumference of the stator at a mounting surface. The pillar 104 is defined by a first curved cavity 106 . An exemplary depth of the cavity 106 is 0.1-0.12″. The first curved cavity 106 is machined out of the metal (e.g., Invar) that forms the stator 100 .
[0036] In an alternate embodiment, a second cavity 110 is etched below the pillar 104 from an exterior side of the stator 100 . The second cavity 110 provides more flexibility of the pillar 104 .
[0037] In one embodiment, the pillars 92 , 104 are used at all mounting locations.
[0038] While the preferred embodiment of the invention has been illustrated and described, as noted above, many changes can be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. Accordingly, the scope of the invention is not limited by the disclosure of the preferred embodiment. Instead, the invention should be determined entirely by reference to the claims that follow. | An accelerometer device for reducing stress on the sensor resulting from temperature extremes and multiple coefficients of thermal expansion. An exemplary accelerometer device includes upper and lower stators and a reed. The reed includes a support ring and a paddle that is flexibly connected to the support ring. The support ring includes a ring section and at least two mounting devices. The mounting devices are at least partially mechanically isolated from the ring section. The ring section flexibly receives the paddle. The mounting devices include a pad area and a neck area that connect the pad area to the ring section. The neck area includes a width dimension that is narrower than a diameter dimension of the pad area. | 6 |
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
This invention pertains to a device for storing and retaining a natural tissue heart valve, and, more particularly, to a device for retaining a natural tissue heart valve mounted on a valve stent and ready for implantation.
Heart valves taken from pigs and suitably processed are used for implantation in human patients. These heart valves are mounted on a cloth covered framework known as a stent which includes a cylindrical base with three projecting commissure support struts to hold the margins of the cusps of the heart valve. From the base of the stent includes an exterior a sewing ring for suturing into the annulus of the patient when installing the porcine valve in place of the removed diseased valve.
Prior to implantation, the heart valve is treated with a glutaraldehyde solution to preserve the tissue. After mounting in the stent, the valve is stored in a jar or other container of glutaraldehyde solution until such time as the valve is needed for implantation. To protect the valve during storage, it is generally immobilized by means of a packing of rayon or other fibrous material which may include rayon balls inserted into the cusps of the heart valve, frequently with a gauze wrapping around the valve. When the valve is to be used, it is necessary to remove this packing material and to rinse the valve to remove the glutaraldehyde solution. Despite thorough rinsing and washing there is a possibility that some fiber of the packing may be retained on the valve. The presence of fibers or other foreign materials on the valve at the time of implantation can result in clotting and present a danger to the patient.
It is accordingly an object of the present invention to provide a valve holder and retaining device which assures the safe storage and transportation of the tissue heart valve. It is a further object to provide a storage device in which the valve is protected from foreign material. It is a yet further object of this invention to provide a valve holder and storage device which allows the valve to be rinsed and prepared for implantation with a minimum of handling or manipulation. These and other objects of this invention will be readily apparent from the following description.
SUMMARY
The present invention provides a valve holder for retaining a natural tissue heart valve which as been mounted on a valve stent and is ready for implantation. The holder comprises an open-ended, cylindrical case having internal valve support means intermediate the ends of the case, a valve support ring adapted to circumscribe and grasp the heart valve stent and to be retained on the valve support means of the case, and a retainer to secure the valve support ring and valve within the case. The assembled valve holder is immersed in a preservative fluid within a closed container for storage and transportation.
The valve holder is preferably constructed of polypropylene or other inert material which can be molded or machined to the desired configuration. The container of preservative liquid is sized to accept the assembled valve holder with a minimum of vertical and lateral clearance so that the holder is essentially immobilized within the container. The retainer of the valve holder assembly includes handle means for grasping the holder to facilitate removal from the container and rinsing prior to removing the valve for implantation.
DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 is an exploded view in perspective illustrating the components of the valve holder and their relationship to the heart valve stent.
FIG. 2 is a top plan view of the valve support ring illustrated in FIG. 1.
FIG. 3 is a top plan view of the valve retainer illustrated in FIG. 1.
FIG. 4 is a side view in partial cross section showing the device of FIG. 1 assembled and contained in a storage jar.
DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
Referring now to FIG. 1, the heart valve holder of the present invention consists of an open-ended, cylindrical case 10, a valve support ring 20, and a retainer member 30.
Case 10 comprises an upper cylindrical section 11 of a first diameter, and a lower cylindrical section 12 of a second and smaller diameter joined by annular flange 13. Cylindrical section 11 is provided with open lateral slot 14 and internal screw thread 15, the functions of which are explained below. Cylindrical section 12 is optionally provided with slot 18 which serves as an air vent, and slots 16 and 17 which serve to hold the valve identification tag as described below.
Valve support ring 20 consists of a split cylinder 21 having a wall of short, vertical dimension and having spaced apart annular flanges 22 and 23 extending inward from the base of the cylinder wall as illustrated in FIG. 2. The height of cylinder wall 21 is sufficient to project slightly above the top of the valve stent in the assembled holder as described more fully below. Tabs 24 and 25 extend outward from the wall of the cylinder along the split. Section 26 of the cylinder wall located opposite the split does not support a flange and functions as a hinge to allow the valve support ring to be opened and closed.
The outside diameter of valve support ring 20 corresponds to the inside diameter of cylindrical section 11 of case 10 so that the valve support ring is readily inserted within said case. The diameter of the circular opening inside flanges 22 and 23 of the valve support ring indicated as dimension a in FIG. 2 is sized according to the diameter of the valve to be held by the ring. Valve support rings of a fixed outside diameter are accordingly provided with a range of effective inside diameters by varying the width of flanges 22 and 23 in order to accommodate valve and stent assemblies of different sizes.
Retainer 30 illustrated in FIGS. 1 and 2 consists of a short, cylindrical wall 31 having an outside diameter corresponding to the inside diameter of section 11 of case 10 and provided with an external screw thread 32 adapted to cooperate with internal screw thread 15 of case 10. Retainer 30 is further provided with disc 33 affixed to transverse handle member 34 which spans the inside diameter of cylinder 31 and protects the valve in the assembled holder against the possibility of an instrument being thrust into the valve when handling the valve holder. Handle 34 is inset from the base of cylinder 31 by an amount equal to the thickness of disc 33 so that the lower surface of disc 33 is flush with the base of cylindrical wall 31. Annular opening 35 between cylinder 31 and disc 33 as indicated in FIG. 2 is provided to facilitate immersion of the assembled valve holder in the preservative solution during storage and rinsing when the holder is subsequently removed from the storage solution.
Also included in FIG. 1 is heart valve stent 40 which is shown for purposes of illustrating the relative positioning of the valve and the components of the valve holder. Stent 40 consists of annular ring 41 from which three commissure support struts 42 extend. The porcine tissue valve (not shown) is mounted within the confines of the stent by stitching the valve to the cloth-covered stent with the three cusps of the valve oriented to the three struts of the stent. The stent further includes sewing ring 43 which is conventionally a fabric covered ring of silicone foam or other resilient material sewn to the stent between ring 41 and the inner arches of the commissure support struts. Valve stent 40 also includes valve identification tag 44 attached to the sewing ring of the valve by means of thread 45.
The assembly of the heart valve holder and valve stent of FIG. 1 is illustrated in FIG. 4 which shows the assembled valve immersed in preservative fluid 50 and contained in jar 51 sealed with screw cap 52.
Referring now to FIG. 1 and FIG. 4, the valve holder is assembled by first placing valve stent 40 in valve support ring 20 with the struts of the stent extending through the ring opening formed by the flanges of the support ring. The support ring is opened to receive the valve by flexing at hinge 26, and the valve is inserted through the ring so that sewing ring 43 is resting upon the upper surface of flanges 22 and 23. The support ring is then closed so that the stent is grasped by the inner edges of flanges 22 and 23 around the periferal surface between the sewing ring and the upper arches of the struts. The stent is thereby firmly but gently retained within the valve support ring.
The valve stent and supporting ring are next inserted into cylindrical section 11 of case 10 with tabs 24 and 25 of the ring aligned with slot 14 of the case until the supporting ring rests on annular flange 13. Retainer 30 is next inserted in section 11 of case 10 and secured in place over support ring 20 by means of screw threads 15 and 32. Retainer 30 bears on wall 21 of support ring 20 with disk 33 spaced slightly apart from the upper extremity of the heart valve stent. Stent identification tag 44 affixed to stent 40 is finally attached to case 10 by inserting the ends of the tag through slots 16 and 17 to complete the assembly.
The assembled holder is picked up by grasping handle member 34 of retainer 30 with a forceps and placing the entire assembly in jar 51 which contains liquid preservative 50, and which is subsequently closed by means of screw cap 52. Protective disk 33 guards against the forceps inadvertently slipping into the holder and damaging the valve. Any air trapped under the valve is removed by inverting the closed container to release the air bubble through slot 18.
To remove the valve from the holder for implantation, the valve holder assembly and valve are first removed from jar 50 by grasping handle member 34 of the retainer, and the entire assembly is rinsed in distilled water or saline solution to remove the preservative solution. After rinsing, the retainer is removed from the valve holder and the valve and valve support ring are lifted from the case. The valve is removed from the support ring by spreading tabs 24 and 25 to open the ring at hinge 26 to release the valve. After final rinsing, the identification tag is removed from the valve and the valve is ready for implantation.
While the foregoing has described a preferred embodiment of the valve holder of the present invention, it will be appreciated that several variations in design and construction are possible and within the scope of the present invention. For example, while case 10 is illustrated as a larger and smaller cylinder joined by annular flange 13 which functions as a support for the valve support ring, the case could as readily consist of a single cylinder of uniform diameter with an integral internal flange or other supporting structure functionally equivalent to the flange of 13. The sole requirement is that the cylinder be provided with means to locate and secure the valve and valve support ring within the confines of the cylinder.
Valve support ring 20 may also be modified to include three or more annular flange sections. Optional tabs 24 and 25 may be eliminated without substantially affecting the function of the ring.
In regard to retainer 30, disc 33 may be a solid disc as illustrated or may be provided with small vent openings to facilitate rinsing of the valve before removal from the holder. Screw thread 32 may furthermore be replaced by a bayonnet lock or designed to snap fit with corresponding locking means in case 10. These and other variations which will be apparent to those skilled in the art are encompassed within the scope of the present invention.
The holder of the present invention is preferably molded of a semirigid plastic material such as polypropylene, but other inert plastics or metals may be used. The container for the holder assembly is preferably a glass jar which permits visual inspection of the valve holder and the valve identification tag. The liquid medium in the container is preferably a preserving and sterilizing solution such as 0.2 percent aqueous glutaraldehyde. | A device for retaining a natural tissue heart valve and stent assembly during storage and transportation prior to implantation of the valve. The device consists of an open-ended, cylindrical valve case having an internal support for a valve support ring adapted to grasp the valve stent. A retainer holds the valve support ring in position within the valve case. The assembled device is stored in a jar containing a preserving liquid until the valve is to be implanted. | 0 |
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to digital communication utilizing a communication network, for example a two-way cable television (CATV) network.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Communication networks providing for bi-directional communication are well-known. An example of such a network, embodied in a CATV communication system, is provided in commonly assigned co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 06/373,765, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,533,948, filed April 30, 1982, entitled "CATV Communication System", and incorporated herein by reference.
The pending application referred to discloses a mechanism by which access to CATV communication resources is controlled so that unauthorized users are denied access and authorized users are granted access. The CATV communication network includes an upstream communication path and a downstream communication path. A node originating a message (a source node), which can be located at any respective point in the CATV system, transmits a verification message, referred to as a frame verifier (FV) code, as part of an upstream message. The headend apparatus of the CATV system examines the frame verifier code and rebroadcasts the received upstream message in the downstream portion of the cable spectrum only if the frame verifier code indicates that the source node is an authorized user, thereby granting the user access to the CATV resources. Conversely, the headend apparatus does not rebroadcast the upstream message if the frame verifier code indicates that the source node is not an authorized user, thereby denying the user meaningful access to the CATV resources. Thus, system access control is centralized at the headend.
It would be advantageous to provide for decentralized control over access to a communication network. Such an arrangement would permit a simplified headend apparatus to be a simple digital data repeater which unconditionally rebroadcasts upstream received messages on a downstream channel. By decentralizing access control, the initial cost of a communication network can be substantially reduced since the headend is not required to contain the components for restricting access. Access control can be added to a communication network by the operator as desired after the system is up and running.
It would be further advantageous to provide a communication network which does not rely on the headend equipment for access control because the headend environment is often very harsh. For example, it is not uncommon to place the headend equipment at the top of a mountain. Such environments require the equipment to be ruggedized. It is therefore desirable to keep the amount and complexity of the equipment at such sites to a minimum.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In accordance with the present invention, a communication network is provided which has an upstream communication channel and a downstream communication channel. At least one service node provides services to subscribers using the network. At least one subscriber node includes a secret node key, means for generating a frame verifier code derived through the use of the secret node key, and means for transmitting the frame verifier code on the upstream communication channel of the network. Packet repeater means receives communications on the upstream communication channel and unconditionally retransmits the same on the downstream communication channel. Access restricting apparatus allows only authorized subscriber nodes to establish meaningful communication over the communication network. The access restricting apparatus includes means coupled to the downstream channel for examining the frame verifier code transmitted by the subscriber node for validity, and means for jamming the upstream channel if an invalid frame verifier code is detected.
The access restricting apparatus can be remotely located on the communication network from the packet repeater means. For example, the access restricting apparatus can be located at the service node so that the service provider can be responsible for the security of communications. The access restricting apparatus could alternately be located anywhere else on the network, so that another party, such as the network operator, can operate and maintain the apparatus. Placing the access restricting apparatus in a clean and relatively stable environment obviates the need to ruggedize the equipment, thereby lowering manufacturing and maintenance costs.
A plurality of subscriber nodes, each with a different secret node key, can be coupled to the communication network. A plurality of upstream and downstream channel pairs can be provided, wherein the jamming means jams only a particular upstream channel on which an unauthorized communication is attempted. The jamming means jams an upstream channel on a real time basis only when an unauthorized subscriber node is actively attempting to communicate on the network.
A method is provided for restricting access to a communication network to only authorized subscriber nodes. In accordance with the method, each authorized subscriber node is provided with a unique secret node key. The secret node key is used to enable a succession of frame verifier codes to be computed, which codes are transmitted from a subscriber node seeking access to the communication network. The frame verifier codes are then examined, to determine whether they are valid. If the frame verifier codes are not valid, the communication network is jammed to prevent communication thereon by the subscriber node.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a communication network in accordance with the present invention;
FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a packet repeater used in connection with the communication network of FIG. 1;
FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a distributed access controller for restricting access to the communication network of FIG. 1;
FIG. 4 is a block diagram of one of the distributed access controller ("DAC") channel cards shown in FIG. 3;
FIG. 5 illustrates the packet format used in conjunction with the present invention; and
FIG. 6 is a flow chart illustrating the operation of the distributed access controller.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
In order to achieve a comprehensive understanding of the communication environment in which the present invention is used, the reader is referred to the disclosure in commonly assigned, co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 06/373,765 (hereinafter, "the co-pending application"). Many of the terms used herein are the same as those used in the co-pending application, and the definitions of such terms are the same as in the co-pending application unless stated otherwise herein.
A communication network 10 is shown in FIG. 1, having an upstream communication channel 12 and a downstream communication channel 14. A packet repeater 15 receives communications on upstream channel 12 and unconditionally retransmits the same on downstream channel 14.
Packet repeater 15 is shown in greater detail in FIG. 2. A plurality of channels are provided for as indicated by channel cards 48, 50, and 52. A typical communication network, such as a two-way cable television (CATV) network, generally provides a plurality of channels as described in the co-pending application.
Digital data signals are transmitted in the present example using frequency shift keyed (FSK) modulation. Accordingly, packet repeater 15 includes an FSK demodulator ("receiver") 54 and an FSK modulator ("transmitter") 56 for each different channel. A signal present on upstream channel 12 will be demodulated by FSK receiver 54, transferred to FSK transmitter 56 via path 58, and re-modulated for transmission on downstream channel 14. Thus, packet repeater 15 is a simple digital data repeater which unconditionally rebroadcasts upstream received messages on a downstream channel.
Those skilled in the art will appreciate that upstream channel 12 and downstream channel 14 can be provided on a single coaxial cable. In fact, a single coaxial cable can carry many different upstream/downstream channel pairs at the same time. And, each channel can carry a plurality of different signals through well known channel sharing techniques, such as that known as "CSMA/CD" and described in the co-pending application. Further, various components can be coupled to the communication network using a single coaxial cable.
As shown in FIG. 1, components such as a network resource manager (NRM) 16, a network access controller (NAC) 22, a distributed access controller (DAC) 28, a service node 34, and subscriber node 40 can all be coupled to the communication network. Each of these components is described in greater detail below.
The network resource manager (NRM) 16 is a specially programmed computer. An important function of NRM 16 is to allocate communication resources among various users of the communication network. One way this is achieved is by load leveling, i.e., by changing the channels on which subscriber nodes and service nodes communicate with each other so that the data traffic load is more evenly distributed among the available data channels. NRM 16 communicates with upstream channel 12 via path 18, and downstream channel 14 via path 20. Paths 18 and 20 can comprise a single coaxial cable coupled to the communication network.
Network access controller (NAC) 22 is another specially programmed computer. NAC 22 is used, in conjunction with DAC 28, to grant or deny network access to subscriber nodes. When a subscriber node, such as subscriber node 40 wishes to gain access to the communication network in order to communicate with a service node, the subscriber node sends a message requesting service by NAC 22 via upstream channel 12 (which, in this instance, is a specially allocated unsecured "home" channel reserved for communication between NAC 22 and subscriber nodes requesting initial access to the network). NAC 22 receives the access request via path 26, over which NAC 22 monitors the downstream channel 14. In response to the access request, NAC 22 will transmit an encrypted channel access code (CAC) to the subscriber node 40 via path 24, upstream channel 12, downstream channel 14, and path 44. The CAC is encrypted using a secret node key unique to subscriber node 40, a record of which is stored in NAC 22.
The subscriber node 44 decrypts the CAC, using the secret node key assigned thereto. The decrypted CAC is, in turn, used to generate frame verifier (FV) codes which are required in order to communicate with a service node coupled to the communication network. The subscriber node also generates frame sequence (FS) codes to keep track of successive data packets (with FV codes attached) that are transmitted by the subscriber node.
Once access to communication network 10 is achieved by subscriber node 40, data transfer will proceed in accordance with a packet format such as that shown in FIG. 5. Packet 110 includes a header 112 that commences with a standard flag, the addresses of the source and destination nodes for the packet, and the frame sequence (FS) and frame verifier (FV) codes generated by the subscriber node. The data to be communicated follows header 112, and the packet is ended with a standard flag. Additional data can be included in header 112 if necessary to provide other functions.
In accordance with the present invention, distributed access controller (DAC) 28 continually listens to downstream channel 14 via path 32. DAC 28 is provided with the same CAC transmitted to subscriber node 40 by NAC 22. A direct link 46 (e.g., a standard RS-232 communication path) is provided between NAC 22 and DAC 28 for this purpose. Since a secure direct link is provided, the CAC does not have to be encrypted when it is input to DAC 28. Further, the need for an out of band channel, as described in the co-pending application, is eliminated because DAC 28 and NAC 22 can be situated at the same location, making the direct link 46 possible. The elimination of the need for an out of band channel is a substantial benefit provided by the present invention.
DAC 28 uses the CAC to compute the same FV codes which should be generated by subscriber node 40. As long as the FV codes generated by the subscriber node are valid, DAC 28 stays in its idle state. In the event that DAC 28 detects an invalid FV code, a jamming signal is transmitted via path 30 to upstream channel 12, thereby jamming further communication by obliterating the data which subscriber node 40 is attempting to send.
The operation of DAC 28 is best understood by referring to FIGS. 3 and 4. A coaxial cable 60, over which data to be communicated throughout the communication network travels, is coupled to a splitter 62. Splitter 62 enables a plurality of DAC channel cards 70, 72, 74 to be coupled, via cables 64, 66, and 68 respectively, to cable 60. A backplane 76 provides a means for coupling each of DAC channel cards 70, 72, 74 to a master controller 80. A local control terminal 82 coupled to master controller 80 enables a system operator or a service provider to interface with the system. A NAC 84 is coupled to master controller 80 via an RS-232 interface 86. Power for the system is provided by a power supply 78, coupled to the system through backplane 76.
As shown in FIG. 4, each DAC channel card (e.g., card 70) includes an RF modem 88 for communication with the network. A received, demodulated signal is processed by appropriate logic 90 to detect the header and strip the FS and FV codes therefrom. A look-up table 98 is provided using random access memory (RAM).
In a communication network such as a CATV system, approximately 300 different nodes can communicate on each channel at the same time using standard multiplexing (e.g. CSMA/CD) techniques. Look-up table 98 contains sufficient memory to accomodate FS and FV codes for each such node. As shown in FIG. 4, memory 100, 102, 104, 106 and 108 is provided to accomodate different nodes using the channel.
The necessary information for computing the FS and FV codes (e.g., the CAC) is communicated to master controller 80 via RS-232 interface 86 so that master controller 80 can compute the FS and FV codes. The computed FS and FV codes are then loaded by master controller 80 into the look-up tables 98 in appropriate DAC channel cards 70, 72, 74.
Once the look-up tables are loaded, the incoming FS and FV codes from the communication network (detected by logic 90) are compared using logic 92 to the corresponding FS and FV codes stored in look-up tables 98 using the source address as an index. Comparison logic 92 comprises standard hardware and software well-known in the art. If proper correspondence is not found between a frame verifier code for a given frame transmitted by a subscriber node (as detected by logic 90) and the corresponding FV code stored in look-up tables 98 for the subscriber node, a jammer 94 is actuated to transmit an interfering signal (e.g., a bit stream of all ones, a carrier signal, or the like) to RF modem 88. Modem 88, in turn, transmits the interfering signal on the corresponding upstream channel in the communication network, thereby obliterating the remaining data in the data packet which the unauthorized subscriber node is attempting to transmit through the network. If, on the other hand, comparision logic 92 determines that the FV code sent by the subscriber node matches the corresponding FV code stored in look-up tables 98 for the particular frame and subscriber node, jammer 94 is not actuated, and the data following the header in the data packet transmitted by the subscriber node is allowed to pass through the communication network without interference.
The storage available in the RAM of look-up tables 98 is limited. Therefore, master controller 80 only computes the FS/FV codes for a limited number of frame sequences at a time. This data will be stored into RAM, and when all or a portion of it has been used, a reload request is passed on line 96 from comparison logic 92 to advise master controller 80 that a new set of FS/FV codes must be loaded into the look-up tables. In this manner, the process of comparing FV codes generated by the subscriber node and FV codes computed by the master controller can continue on a real-time basis.
Service node 34 can provide any of a wide variety of consumer or commercial services such as home banking, electronic mail and newspapers, shop at home, and the like. A provider of such services can couple its computers to the upstream channel of the communication network via path 36 and the downstream channel via path 38 of service node 34.
The overall operation of the access restricting apparatus and method of the present invention can be easily understood by referring to the flow chart of FIG. 6. As shown at box 120, a subscriber node desiring to communicate on the network requests access using a special "home"channel which is monitored by the network access controller. The home channel can be provided with minimal security protection to prevent unauthorized users from communicating with each other thereacross. For example, the home channel can require data to be transmitted in a rigid packet format which would make it difficult to use the channel for general data communication. Simple point to point encryption could also be used on the home channel, if desired. Other implementations of a home channel will be apparent to those skilled in the art.
Once a request by a subscriber node for access to the network is detected by the network access controller, the NAC produces a channel access code, as shown at box 122. At box 124, the NAC encrypts the CAC using the secret node key of the subscriber node requesting access. The encrypted CAC is transmitted to the subscriber node on the home channel. At the same time, the NAC transfers the CAC to the master controller (which can be considered to be part of the NAC) on a RS-232 communication line (or other direct link) as shown at box 126. Since a direct link is used between the NAC and the master controller, there is no need to encrypt the CAC. At box 132, the master controller uses the CAC to generate frame verifier codes. At box 136, frame sequence and frame verifier codes computed by the master controller are loaded into the look-up table for the appropriate channel.
At box 128, the subscriber node decrypts the CAC received on the home channel. The subscriber node's secret node key is used for the decryption. Then, at box 130, the decrypted CAC is used by the subscriber node to generate frame verifier codes. All subsequent data transmitted by the subscriber node on the network is in the form of data packets containing the FS/FV codes in the header, as shown at box 134.
The distributed access controller monitors the downstream channel for the FS/FV codes contained in the data packets transmitted by the subscriber node (box 138). At box 140, the DAC compares the FS/FV codes from the subscriber node with the FS/FV codes computed by the master controller and loaded in the look-up table. If, at box 142, the FS/FV codes compared at box 140 do not match, the DAC jams the channel for the remainder of the data packet (box 144). If, on the other hand, the FS/FV codes from the subscriber node and in the look-up table match, control passes to box 146, and the process of comparing subsequent FS/FV codes continues for as long as the subscriber node continues to transmit data on the communication network.
It should be appreciated that after the NAC transmits the encrypted CAC to the subscriber node on the home channel, a different channel can be used for actual data communication between the subscriber node and a desired service node. The mechanism for addressing various nodes in the network and changing channels to establish signal path connections between various nodes is explained fully in the co-pending application.
It should now be appreciated that the present invention provides apparatus and a method for restricting access to a communication network to only authorized subscriber nodes. Access control is provided by a distributed access controller which can be located anywhere on the communication network. The distributed access controller continuously eavesdrops on the downstream communication channel of the communication network. FV codes generated by a subscriber node trying to communicate on the network and contained in a header of a data packet are compared with corresponding FV codes computed by the DAC. If an invalid frame verifier code generated by a subscriber node is detected, a jammer is actuated to place an interfering signal, such as a bit stream of all ones, on the upstream channel of the network. This will effectively prevent the remaining data in the packet sent by the subscriber node from being communicated throughout the network. | Apparatus restricts access to a communication network having at least one service node for providing services to subscribers. A subscriber terminal, coupled to the communication network, includes a secret node key. A succession of frame verifier (FV) codes, derived through the use of the secret node key, is generated and transmitted on the network. A network access controller (NAC), coupled to the network, includes a record of the secret node key and uses the key to encrypt a seed which is transmitted to the subscriber terminal for use in generating the FV codes. The NAC also independently computes the succession of FV codes which should be generated by the subscriber terminal. A distributed access controller (DAC), coupled to the communication network, includes a look-up table for storing the succession of FV codes computed by the NAC. The FV codes transmitted by the subscriber terminal are detected and compared to those stored in the look-up table. If proper correspondence between the detected and stored FV codes is not found to exist, the communication network is jammed. | 7 |
TECHNICAL FIELD
[0001] This invention relates to a method and device for tracking the position of a user's head and a related device. In particular, embodiments of the invention relate to altering a three dimensional display according to the position of a user.
BACKGROUND
[0002] A number of different methods of displaying three dimensional images to a user are known. In a common implementation, used in public cinemas, the left and right eyes of the user are presented with different information at successive time periods. In such an implementation, the user is presented with a movie where alternate frames are intended for alternate eyes. The disadvantage of such implementations is that some way of distinguishing between the information intended for the right eye from the information intended for the left eye is needed. Often this is done with means of a set of glasses worn by the user which distinguish the different information sets through the use of polarisation or alternate occlusion.
[0003] An alternate implementation of 3D display simultaneously transmits different information to the left and right eyes (autostereoscopy). An example of such a system is the use of a lenticular screen overlaid on a display. The display and lenticular screen are arranged so each pixel is either presented to the left or the right eye and this allows the simultaneous projection of different information to the two eyes, resulting in the user experiencing stereoscopic vision.
[0004] The advantages of such systems which are capable of projecting stereoscopic information is that the user does not need to carry glasses which are unwieldy and can become uncomfortable, specifically over long periods of time.
[0005] A growing field for the use of 3D display technology is in the operating theatre. In particular, where a surgeon is engaged in laparoscopy or other surgical techniques where the surgeon is not directly able to view the interaction between the surgical instruments and the patient being operated on. In such applications, a depth of field perception is important for the surgeon as this may assist in helping the surgeon evaluate distances in the area being operated on.
[0006] Furthermore, in surgery, significant disadvantages exist in the use of glasses and, in particular glasses used for 3D displays. Firstly, the surgeon is unable to touch his own glasses due to concerns relating to contact infection (sterility is mandatory). In particular, once the glasses become fogged the surgeon must ask an assistant to clear the glasses as he or she is unable to touch the glasses. Secondly, due to the polarisation employed in many glasses used for 3D display, such glasses cut out a significant portion of the ambient light and therefore the surgeon will require the operating theatre lights to be turned on when viewing anything other than the display (instruments, compress, etc.). Thirdly, as noted, prolonged use of these glasses can become uncomfortable, particularly where the surgeon also requires corrective eye glasses.
[0007] For these reasons a 3D display which does not require glasses is to be preferred in the environment of the operating theatre. However, the problem with a glasses-free implementation such as one using a lenticular overlay is that as the user's head moves relative to the display, the 3D effect is disturbed or lost. In order to solve this problem it is known to switch the left- and right-eye information for the lenticular display to compensate for left and right movement of the user's head. This may be based on a tracked movement of the user's head.
[0008] However, all such head-tracking technologies have been designed to operate at normal working distances between the user and the display (i.e. a distance of about 700 mm away from the display when the user sits in front of the display at a desk). Furthermore, known implementations assume that the ambient light is at normal working levels, whereas in an operating theatre, the ambient light is significantly lower than in other working environments.
[0009] It should also be noted that in the operating theatre environment it is important that the position of the head be tracked reliably. Many prior applications have a relatively large tolerance in discrepancies between the actual and calculated positions of the user's head. However, for a surgeon such lag is unacceptable; any perceived lag could have very serious consequences.
SUMMARY
[0010] A first aspect of the invention relates to a tracking device for tracking a position of a user's head, the device comprising a camera, a radiation source radiating electro-magnetic radiation, and a processor for calculating parameters indicative of the position of the head relative to the camera, wherein the camera is adapted to capture images using illumination provided by the radiation source, wherein the radiation source comprises a source of infrared radiation and the camera comprises a monocular image input, characterised in that
[0011] the tracking device further comprises a display adapter for controlling a three dimensional display, the display adapter being connected to the processor, wherein the display adapter is adapted to control a three dimensional display in dependence on the calculated variables indicative of the position of the head.
[0012] The processor may be adapted to designate an area of a captured image as the head on the basis of recognising one or more eyes of the head.
[0013] The processor may be adapted to designate an area of a captured image as the head on the basis of recognising one or more tracking markers attached to the head.
[0014] The processor may be adapted to recognise a user according to the presence of a recognition marker.
[0015] The processor may be adapted to control the display adapter to display three dimensional information when a user is recognised and display two dimensional information when a user is not recognised.
[0016] The user may be recognised by the recognition marker.
[0017] The tracking marker or the recognition markers may comprise one or more markers adhered to clothing. The markers may be comprised of a material which reflects infra-red light.
[0018] The camera may capture successive images and each image may correspond to an illumination of the head by the radiation source.
[0019] The radiation source may radiate electromagnetic radiation predominantly as infrared radiation.
[0020] The radiation source may comprise two sets of infrared light sources arranged so that a first set is closer to the camera than a second set.
[0021] The radiation source may be adapted to alternate the activation of the first set and the second set. Alternatively, both sets may be activated at the same time.
[0022] Recognition of a user's head may be based on images captured when the first set is illuminated. Tracking of a user's head may be based on images captured when the second set is activated. Each set may comprise two LEDs. Each of the LEDs of the first set may be closer to the camera than each of the LEDs of the second set.
[0023] The processor may be adapted to compare an image captured when the first set is activated, and the second set is not activated, to an image captured when the second set is activated and the first set is not activated. This may be the case when a three-dimensional model of the head is used. Alternately, if the sets are activated simultaneously, the processor may compare two images captured at different times.
[0024] The processor may be adapted to process images captured when the first set of infrared light sources is activated for information relating to the recognition and/or tracking markers.
[0025] The radiation source may radiate radiation with wavelengths between 750 nm and 950 nm.
[0026] The processor may be adapted to generate a model corresponding to the object and evaluate a likelihood that the model represents the object and the processor may be further adapted to perform the evaluation of the likelihood using a threshold conversion of one or more regions of the image.
[0027] The processor may be adapted to designate regions of one or more images captured by the camera as regions corresponding to the eyes and the at least one other characteristic of the head, and perform a threshold conversion on said portions of said images.
[0028] The threshold conversion may comprise identifying a colour value of a central part of a designated region and converting image information of said part on the basis of said identified colour value.
[0029] The threshold conversion may comprise converting to black and white image information.
[0030] The model may comprises a three dimensional model of the head.
[0031] The three dimensional model of the head may comprise three dimensional locations for two eyes and one or more markers. Preferably, the model comprises three markers arranged in a triangular pattern. The markers may be tracking markers or recognition markers.
[0032] The processor may be adapted to produce a plurality of models arranged in a first list, each model being representative of a change in position of the object, and select one or more models from said plurality of models to correspond to a change in position of the object, wherein the processor may be further adapted to select the one or more models on the basis of:
ascribing a weight to each of the plurality of models; creating an indexed list of the first list of the plurality of models by indexing each model in accordance with a weight of each model; and performing a binary search on the indexed list.
[0036] The indexed list may be created by setting the index of a model equal to a sum of weights of the index and all preceding indices in the first list.
[0037] The tracking device may further comprise predicting a change in position of the object in dependence on the calculated variables.
[0038] The prediction may be based on the selected models.
[0039] The camera may capture a single image of the object at a time.
[0040] The camera may have a maximum resolution of 2500 by 1800 pixels with a frame rate of 100 frames per second.
[0041] The radiation source may comprise two sets of infrared light sources arranged so that a first set is closer to the camera than a second set. The radiation source may be adapted to alternate the activation of the first set and the second set, the processor being adapted to compare an image captured when the first set is activated, and the second set is not activated, to an image captured when the second set is activated and the first set is not activated. This may be the case where a three dimensional model is used. Alternatively, both sets are illuminated simultaneously. This may be the case when a two dimensional model is used.
[0042] The model may be a two dimensional model.
[0043] The processor may comprise a central processing unit connected to a memory storing a computer program, the central processing unit being adapted to process the computer program to carry out any of the method claims contained herein.
[0044] A further aspect of the invention extends to a system for displaying three dimensional information comprising a tracking device as described and a three dimensional display wherein the three dimensional display is connected to the display adapter.
[0045] The three dimensional display may be an autostereoscopic display for simultaneously displaying a left-eye image and a right-eye image, wherein the processor may be adapted to swap the left-eye image and the right-eye image in dependence on the location of the user's head relative to the three dimensional display.
[0046] The tracking device may be for detecting the position of a user's head in an operating theatre. In this application, the camera may be a video camera having a frame rate of 100 frames per second where alternate frames are used as on-axis and off-axis images, and the radiation source may comprise IR LEDs which do not emit substantial radiation in the visible spectrum.
[0047] In an embodiment, the tracking device may be adapted to track the position of the heads of two or more users. In this embodiment, the processor may be adapted to recognise a shape of a marker and wherein the users are distinguished by a shape of the corresponding marker worn by each user.
[0048] A further aspect of the invention extends to a method of tracking a position of a user's head comprising:
activating the user's head using radiation emitted by a radiation source; capturing images of the user's head using a camera; wherein the radiation source comprises a source of infrared radiation and the camera comprises a monocular image input, calculating parameters indicative of the position of the head relative to the camera, the method characterised by: controlling a three dimensional display in dependence on the calculated parameters.
[0053] The method may further comprise designating an area of a captured image as the head on the basis of recognising: one or more eyes of the head.
[0054] The head may be recognised on the basis of recognising one or more tracking markers attached to the head.
[0055] The method may further comprise recognising a user according to the presence of a recognition marker.
[0056] The method may further comprise displaying three dimensional information when a user is recognised and displaying two dimensional information when a user is not recognised. The user may be recognised by the recognition marker.
[0057] Further, or alternatively, the display may be switched from displaying three dimensional information to displaying two dimensional information when tracking of the head is lost.
[0058] The tracking markers and/or the recognition markers comprise one or more markers adhered to clothing.
[0059] The method may further comprise capturing successive images wherein each image corresponds to an illumination of the head by the radiation source.
[0060] The radiation source may radiate electromagnetic radiation predominantly as infrared radiation.
[0061] The radiation source may comprise two sets of infrared light sources arranged so that a first set is closer to the camera than a second set, the method comprising alternating the activation of the first set and the second set.
[0062] The method may further comprise comparing an image captured when the first set is activated, and the second set is not activated, to an image captured when the second set is activated and the first set is not activated.
[0063] The method may further comprise processing images captured when the first set of infrared light sources is activated for information relating to the recognition and/or tracking markers.
[0064] The radiation source may radiate radiation with wavelengths between 750 nm and 1 mm.
[0065] The method may further comprise generating a model corresponding to the object and evaluating a likelihood that the model represents the object, wherein the evaluation of the likelihood may involve using a threshold conversion of one or more regions of the image.
[0066] The method may further comprise designating regions of one or more images captured by the camera as regions corresponding to the eyes and the at least one other characteristic of the head, and performing a threshold conversion on said portions of said images.
[0067] The threshold conversion may comprise identifying a colour value of a central part of a designated region and converting image information of said part on the basis of said identified colour value.
[0068] The threshold conversion may comprise converting to black and white image information.
[0069] The model may comprise a three dimensional model of the head.
[0070] The three dimensional model of the head may comprise three dimensional locations for two eyes and one or more markers.
[0071] The method may further comprise producing a plurality of models arranged in a first list, each model being representative of a change in position of the object, and selecting one or more models from said plurality of models to correspond to a change in position of the object, wherein the processor is adapted to select the one or more models on the basis of:
ascribing a weight to each of the plurality of models; creating an indexed list of the first list of the plurality of models by indexing each model in accordance with a weight of each model; and performing a binary search on the indexed list.
[0075] The indexed list may be created by setting the index of a model equal to a sum of weights of the index and all preceding indices in the first list.
[0076] The method may further comprise predicting a change in position of the object in dependence on the calculated variables.
[0077] The prediction may be based on the selected models.
[0078] The method may comprise capturing a single image of the object at a time.
[0079] The radiation source may comprise two sets of infrared light sources arranged so that a first set is closer to the camera than a second set, the radiation source being adapted to alternate the activation of the first set and the second set, the method comprising comparing an image captured when the first set is activated, and the second set is not activated, to an image captured when the second set is activated and the first set is not activated.
[0080] A further aspect of the invention comprises determining a region corresponding to a marker by performing a threshold conversion on a pixel representation of that region. The pixel representation may be coded in a greyscale colour scale. In this case, the method may comprise determining a greyscale colour value of a central pixel of the region and designating this as c. The method may further comprise converting all pixels with a colour value less than c−1 to a first colour and all pixels with a colour value more than c−1 to a second colour. The first colour may be white and the second colour may be black. Alternatively, the first colour may be black and the second colour may be white.
[0081] A further aspect of the invention extends to evaluating a plurality of models which involves calculating a weighting for each model, generating a list of all of the models designated by their respective weightings, generating an indexed list wherein each index of the indexed list corresponds to a sum of all preceding weights, and wherein the indexed list is sorted by a binary sort.
[0082] The model may be a two dimensional model.
[0083] The three dimensional display may be an autostereoscopic display for simultaneously displaying a left-eye image and a right-eye image, and wherein controlling the three dimensional display in dependence on the calculated parameters may comprise swapping the left-eye image and the right-eye image in dependence on the location of the user's head relative to the three dimensional display
DESCRIPTION OF ACCOMPANYING FIGURES
[0084] FIG. 1 is an illustration of a user tracking and 3D display system according to an embodiment of the invention;
[0085] FIG. 2 is a schematic illustration of a camera and radiation source arrangement in an embodiment of the invention;
[0086] FIG. 3 is a flow diagram of a method according to an embodiment of the invention;
[0087] FIG. 4 is a rendering of a model of a user's head used with embodiments of the invention;
[0088] FIG. 5 is a flow diagram of a method of head detection and tracking;
[0089] FIG. 6 is a flow diagram of model generation and selection;
[0090] FIG. 7 is a diagram of details of a model selection;
[0091] FIGS. 8 a and 8 b are illustrations of the results of threshold conversion on regions of an image;
[0092] FIG. 9 illustrates three dimensional display zones and a user's head; and
[0093] FIG. 10 illustrates a process of altering a three dimensional display.
DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS
[0094] FIG. 1 illustrates a user tracking and 3D display system 10 according to an embodiment of the invention. The system 10 displays three dimensional (3D) autostereoscopic images to a user 12 and to do so tracks the position of the user's head 14 . The system comprises a radiation source 16 for illuminating the user 12 (and, in particular, the user's head 14 ). A video camera 18 captures images of the user's head 14 and the output of an autostereoscopic display 20 is altered as described below in greater detail.
[0095] The system 10 further comprises a radiation controller 22 connected to the radiation source 16 to control the manner in which the radiation source illuminates the user's head 14 . A capture device 24 captures digitised images from the camera. A central processor 28 receives the captured images from the image capture device 24 and processes this information as described below. The 3D display 20 is controlled by a display adapter 26 . The 3D display 20 used in this embodiment is a display with a lenticular overlay, as known in the art. This display 20 displays 3D information from a 3D source 38 . The 3D source 38 may be any source of 3D information (left and right-eye information). For example in an operating theatre, the 3D source 38 may be a stereoscopic camera used for laparoscopy. The 3D source 38 is connected to the display adapter so that the 3D information from the source may be displayed on the 3D display in a known manner.
[0096] The 3D display is a lenticular display and as a user moves their head from left to right or from right to left, the 3D effect is blurred. Therefore, in embodiments of this invention, the processor tracks the position of the user's head and sends this information to the display adapter 26 . The display adapter, once informed of the position of the user's head relative to the display 20 is then able to determine whether the user's perception of the 3D effect would be improved by switching the left and right-eye information.
[0097] As stated, the 3D display 20 is a lenticular display, but is to be realised that any display employing the application of optical technologies and elements (so called parallax barrier or lenticular lens panes) that ensure that each eye of the viewer sees a slightly different perspective may be used. The human brain then processes these perspectives to a spatial picture.
[0098] The central processor 28 in the embodiment illustrated is a computer comprising a CPU 160 connected to a graphics processing unit 164 and a memory 162 .
[0099] It is to be realised that although various portions of the system 10 have been illustrated and described as separate devices, the actual hardware may not correspond to the blocks of FIG. 1 . For example, the graphics processing unit (GPU) 164 may be used for capturing images as well as for processing information relating to the head detection and tracking. Similarly, the information needed by the display adapter 26 to control the display 20 may be calculated by the processor 28 and by the display adapter 26 .
[0100] The arrangement of the radiation source 16 relative to the camera 18 is illustrated in FIG. 2 . The camera 18 comprises a monocular image input which, in this embodiment, is a single lens 30 . Many head detection and tracking systems, and other systems used to control a 3D display, use a stereoscopic input (i.e. an input which captures two images (often simultaneously) of the same scene from displaced positions). Differences in these images are then used to calculate the position of the head in the scene.
[0101] However, it is desirable for embodiments of this invention that the head detection and tracking system is capable of operating at distances exceeding the standard working distance of about 700 mm. Since one of the primary uses of embodiments of the invention relates to use in an operating theatre, a distance between a surgeon and the display will be between 1 m and 3 m. In an embodiment, compensations for movement of lateral up to 1 m are compensated for, preferably with reference to a horizontal axis of symmetry.
[0102] The use of stereoscopic input for head tracking and detection suffers from the disadvantage that such systems provide too much information to perform calculations on, particularly where a three dimensional model of the user's head is utilised (or other factors relying on significant calculations) and it is necessary to process the images at a frame rate of between 20 and 30 frames per second. In practice, using the types of radiation sources considered here, it has been found that it is necessary to process the information for a particular head position in about 20 ms, which is difficult where stereoscopic images are involved. This is particularly the case where a significant resolution is needed.
[0103] It has been found that instead of using a stereoscopic image input, a monocular image input is used and, provided that the imaging sensor has sufficient resolution, the required calculations can be performed, as described below. Therefore, in an embodiment, the video camera has a frame rate of between 80 and 120 frames per second. Preferably, the frame rate is about 100 frames per second. In these embodiments, the frame rate may also, or instead, refer to the number of images which the processor 28 is capable of processing (in other words, redundant frames could be discarded). Furthermore, it has been found that the resolution of the image produced by the camera can have a significant impact on the accuracy of the determination of the position of the user's head. This is all the more so in this case where a monocular camera is used. Preferably, the horizontal pixel resolution of the camera is such that a single pixel corresponds to 1 mm in the lateral plane of the user (although it is to be realised that some variation in this amount is inevitable as the user is able to move towards and away from the camera). In this embodiment, the resolution corresponds to between 0.5 and 1.5 cm. In the embodiment illustrated, the camera has a resolution of 2 500 (horizontal) by 1 800 pixels (vertical).
[0104] In these embodiments, for use in surgery, a minimum frame rate of 25 frames per second is needed since the update of the 3D display used by the surgeon needs to be in ‘real time’. Furthermore, it is a constraint that the position of the user's head be tracked in the time available between captured images (in other words, one half of the frame rate since the procedure of embodiments of the invention rely on two frames, see below).
[0105] The display adapter 26 may be a conventional display adapter such as a graphics card (whether separate or integrated). However, for embodiments of this invention it is important that the display adapter is able to control the three dimensional display 20 . To do so, it is important that the display adapter is able to swap the left eye and right eye images, or at least generate the instructions according to which this can be done. Similarly, for further embodiments, it is important that the display adapter is able to general the instructions for the display 20 to switch in between two dimensional and three dimensional modes. It is to be realised then that in an embodiment, the display adapter may be the same as the processor 28 in which case the device would include a graphics card or other means for processing the image information necessary for its display.
[0106] FIG. 2 illustrates a first set of infrared light emitting diodes (LEDs) 32 arranged along a scaffolding 36 . The scaffolding is arranged in a plane parallel to the plane of the lens 30 (i.e. parallel to a plane of the image sensor, not shown). The LEDs 32 are located on the scaffolding as close as convenient to the lens 30 . Therefore, the LEDs 32 are referred to as the ‘on-axis radiation source’. A second set of infrared LEDs 34 are arranged at a distance of 30 cm along the scaffolding 36 away from the LEDs 32 . (in further embodiments this distance may be varied) The LEDs 34 are away from the lens 30 of the camera 18 and therefore are referred to as the ‘off-axis radiation source’. LEDs 32 and LEDs 34 together comprise the radiation source 16 of FIG. 1 . In an embodiment, the LEDs 32 and LEDs 34 are OSRAM SFH 4750 LEDs which emit radiation predominately of a wavelength of 850 nm.
[0107] As illustrated in FIG. 1 , the radiation source 16 is connected to a radiation controller 22 . In an embodiment, the radiation controller 22 is an Arduino microcontroller which controls the operation of the LEDs 32 and 34 . In an embodiment, the radiation controller causes the LEDs 32 and 34 to be operated successively so that the on-axis LEDs 32 are activated while the off-axis LEDs 34 are turned off, and then the off-axis LEDs 34 are activated while the on-axis LEDs 32 are turned off. During each of these successive activations, the camera captures an image. In an alternative embodiment, all LEDs are activated simultaneously. The image corresponding to illumination by the on-axis LEDs 32 is referred to as the ‘on-axis image’ and the image corresponding to the off-axis LEDs 34 is referred to as the ‘off-axis image’.
[0108] In the embodiment illustrated, the radiation controller 22 is connected to the processor 28 which is also connected to the capture device. In this manner the processor is able to co-ordinate the operation of the camera 18 and the radiation source 16 to ensure that the on- and off-axis images are captures at the correct times.
[0109] In general the process of embodiments of the invention is outlined in FIG. 3 . At an initial stage, stage 40 , images are captured. At the next stage, stage 42 , these images are processed and then, on the basis of this processing, in stage 44 , the display is altered in dependence on the processed image data. The process then returns to the capture stage 40 . As described above, the image capture stage 40 involves capturing the on-axis and off-axis images. The processing step 42 is described below with reference to FIGS. 6 and 7 .
[0110] As previously mentioned, the processing of the image data according to certain embodiments relies on a three dimensional model of the user's head 14 ( FIG. 1 ). A graphical rendering of such a model 50 is illustrated in FIG. 4 . As illustrated, the model 50 includes a modelled head 52 having a left eye 54 and a right eye 56 . Furthermore, the model 50 includes three tracking markers 58 , 60 and 62 arranged in a triangle on the forehead. The tracking markers 58 , 60 and 62 in the model 50 correspond to markers attached to the surgical cap of a user (surgeon). Since the application of embodiments of the invention are to the environment of an operating theatre, the users will have masks and caps and the tracking markers are, in the embodiment illustrated, attached to the cap of the user. In a further embodiment, some tracking markers may be attached to a cap and others to a mask. In a specific embodiment, the tracking markers comprise a single marker attached to the cap and two markers attached to the mask. In a further embodiment, the tracking markers comprise two markers attached to the cap, and a single marker on the mask. It has been found that three markers arranged in a triangular pattern are effective since the triangular pattern is relative easy to recognise since it can be modelled easily, while still providing a large enough area. The markers are reflective to the radiation emitted by the radiation source. In this embodiment, the markers are comprised of a material which reflects infrared radiation.
[0111] In a further embodiment, a two-dimensional model of the user's head is used. This is illustrated in FIG. 9 and discussed in greater detail below. Depending on the model used and other factors in the hardware utilised, a marker to assist with the tracking is not always required. In other embodiments, a recognition marker may be used to identify the user whose head is being tracked. It is to be realised that in certain embodiments, the same marker may be used as a tracking and as a recognition marker. Furthermore, the designations ‘tracking marker’ and ‘recognition marker’ apply to the use to which those markers are put; there is no limitation placed on the construction of the markers by these designations.
[0112] Advantageously, embodiments of the invention are able to utilise the fact that a user may be wearing a mask and a cap by incorporating markers in these articles of clothing. In further embodiments, the markers may be incorporated in other clothing or clothing accessories to be worn by a user (such as a hat, glasses). Alternatively, the markers may be incorporated into a support frame worn by the user.
[0113] In a further embodiment, the system comprises two 3D displays where each display is intended for a corresponding user. In such a system, the difficulty lies in being able to distinguish the head of the first user from the head of the second user. In such an embodiment, different shaped markers are used to distinguish between different users. In particular, circles may be used as markers for a first user and triangles as markers for a second user. In a further multi-user embodiment, a single display viewable by multiple users may be used. In all of these embodiments, the users' heads are tracked and the output of the display or displays altered in accordance with the tracked position.
[0114] FIG. 5 is a more detailed illustration of a method 80 of adapting a 3D display in accordance with a determined position of the user in a single user system according to embodiments of the invention. At the initial step 82 , the on-axis image of the head is captured and at the following step, step 84 , the off-axis image of the head is captured. Both steps 82 and 84 are carried out as described above with reference to FIG. 2 . In this embodiment, the on-axis and off-axis LEDs are alternately activated. In an alternative embodiment, where the on-axis and off-axis LEDs are illuminated simultaneously, steps 82 and 84 are replaced with the capture of a single image.
[0115] For certain embodiments a difference between the on-axis image and the off-axis image is required. In the following step, step 86 , a difference image is calculated by subtracting pixel values for the on-image from those of the off-image. This difference image is used later in the process. However, the difference image is only required for certain models of the user's head and therefore is not always necessary. Therefore, this step has been illustrated with a dashed outline in FIG. 5 .
[0116] Once the difference image has been calculated, the process moves to step 88 where the head is detected in the image. At the following step, step 90 , the position of the head is calculated and the changes in the position are determined. Therefore, the step 90 has a loop representing the continuous tracking of the user's head. As part of the tracking of the head at step 90 , the position of the head is determined (step 92 ) and this information is used to control the 3D display at step 94 .
[0117] The step of recognising the head at step 88 (head detection) uses known algorithms for recognising whether a head is present in a particular image. In the embodiment shown, Haar Cascades are used to recognise a face. Other known facial-recognition algorithms may be used instead. The output from the face recognition is used to build the model corresponding to the head model at the co-ordinate position determined by the face recognition algorithm.
[0118] FIG. 6 illustrates a method 100 of tracking the head required as carried out in step 90 of FIG. 5 . As described above, the head detection is used to build a first model of the head at a likely position (the ‘input model’) at the first step, step 102 . At the next step, step 104 , N models are generated from the input model. In an embodiment, N is equal to 1 536. However, it is to be realised that the number of models will vary depending on any number of parameters such as the processing speed and capabilities of the hardware available for the calculations and the image capture rate (or frame rate) required. It has been found that generating a number of models of around 1 500 creates a reasonable balance between the number of times that the process must be iterated, the resources available, and the accuracy required for a reasonable performance. Furthermore, it is possible to evaluate more than N models by performing the steps detailed below for the N models more than once (i.e. performing steps 106 to 120 more than once, as). The ability to do so will depend on the capability of the hardware concerned and the time available between captured images or sets of images (in the case of a process such as this one based on two images). In this embodiment, these steps are cycled through three times so that a total of about 4 000 models are evaluated for each processed pair of on- and off-images.
[0119] Each of the N models is created by performing a minor transformation to the input model. In this embodiment, the transformations correspond to a small change in position (translation or rotation in one of the six degrees of freedom) of the head. In this embodiment, the changes are based on an assumed Gaussian distribution with a mean position estimated at the position assuming a speed of movement of 1 m·s −1 . Many changes to this constraint to the randomised model generation are possible. For example, a head is less likely to rotate in the plane parallel to the plane of the body and such rotation could be constrained more than transverse movement.
[0120] In the embodiment illustrated, parallel processing using a GPU is used to evaluate each of the models in the manner described as follows. In the following step 106 (for n=1), the processing branches depending on whether a region corresponding to an eye or to a marker is being dealt with. For each of the eyes 54 and 56 ( FIG. 4 ), a region corresponding to the eye is identified in step 108 on the basis of the model information. This is then compared to the difference image at step 110 by first performing a threshold conversion and then calculating a pixel value difference between the corresponding region for the original input model and for the new model corresponding to the designated value of n. The details of the threshold conversion are detailed below with reference to FIGS. 8 a and 8 b.
[0121] In the following step, a weighting is applied to the calculations for that region. Since the region here corresponds to an eye, the weighting applied is 0.4 so that the scores for both eyes together has a maximum value of 0.8.
[0122] A similar process is then carried out for regions corresponding to the three markers 59 , 60 and 62 ( FIG. 4 ). At step 114 the square region corresponding to the particular marker is determined; at step 116 the information for the region is compared to the on-image; and at step 118 a weighting is applied. Since these calculations correspond to markers, the weighting applied is 0.07 for each marker so that the total score for the markers has a maximum value of 0.2.
[0123] It is to be realised that the weighting applied can vary. In an embodiment, it has been found that the weighting of 0.8 for the eye regions and 0.2 for the marker regions provides particularly favourable results.
[0124] In the final step for n=1 an overall score between 0 and 1 is calculated for that model at step 120 by combining all of the calculations for each of the regions of that model.
[0125] It is to be realised that the steps detailed above for n=1 are carried out for all models up to n=N. Once this has been done, N scores have been produced and, at step 122 the scores are compared and the best score is used for further processing. It is to be realised however that it is not necessary that the model returned for further processing represent the best of all the models generated. In an alternate embodiment discussed below it is also possible to return one of the better models instead of the best.
[0126] At the following step 124 a prediction of the movement of the head is made based on the difference between the best model selected at step 122 . In this embodiment, this information is used to generate a vector representing the estimated movement of the user's head and on this basis a new model is generated. The new model is then used as an input model for a further iteration of the process 100 (i.e. used as an input model to step 104 ).
[0127] In this manner a likely position of the head in the captured images is generated. Referring back to FIG. 1 , if the position of the display 20 relative to the camera 18 is known (which may be determined through a calibration step), then the position of the user's head 14 relative to the display can be calculated. Where the display incorporates a lenticular screen and the display information is divided into a left eye channel and a right eye channel, the display adapter 26 is able to switch the two channels at that point when the user has moved their head past the point where they are able to observe 3D effects in the display (typically about 3 cm to the left or right of the optimal positions (for multi-view lenticular displays).
[0128] In further embodiments, other adjustments may be made on the basis of the determined information, depending on the type of 3D display used.
[0129] As mentioned above, the step 122 of the process of FIG. 6 involves selecting one of the models as the best or preferred model to represent the outcome of the process. It is to be realised that this involves comparing the calculations derived in step 120 for all of the models, if it is necessary to select the actual best model. This is a time consuming process. Since the above process is best implemented on a parallel processing machine, the comparison is all the more so a delay since all of the parallel processing will have to be halted for the comparison.
[0130] In an alternative embodiment illustrated in FIG. 7 , a process 150 for selecting a preferred model is illustrated. In the first step 152 (which would occur after step 120 of FIG. 6 ), a list of all of the scores calculated in step 120 is generated. If the score for a particular model is designated σ then this list is:
[0000] σ 1 ,σ 2 ,σ 3 , . . . ,σ N
[0131] In the following step, step 154 an indexed list is created by adding the weight of a model to the sum of the weight of each preceding model:
[0000]
(
1
,
σ
1
)
;
(
2
,
σ
1
+
σ
2
)
;
(
3
,
σ
1
+
σ
2
+
σ
3
)
;
…
;
(
N
,
∑
n
=
1
N
σ
n
)
[0132] In the following step, step 156 , a binary search is performed on the indexed list created in step 154 . To implement the binary search a random number between 0 and the sum off all weights (Σ n N =1σ n ) will be generated and the relevant index of the model to be selected is found using binary search for the random number in the indexed list. This is repeated as many times as there are indexed pairs in this embodiment (i.e. N times), although this is not essential to the invention; in a further embodiment, the binary search is conducted for fewer than N random numbers between 0 and the sum of all weights.
[0133] Binary search has the advantage of being quick, but the disadvantage that it may not return the best model. However, the search will return a favourable model and it has been found that the gains in speed are significant when compared to using a traditional sorting algorithm which involves comparing each score to all the others. In this embodiment then a favourable model is returned in step 158 instead of returning the best model of step 122 of FIG. 6 .
[0134] In a further refinement to the processing of embodiments of the invention, a threshold conversion is performed for each of the regions corresponding to eyes and markers (see steps 110 and 116 of process 100 of FIG. 6 ). Since, in this embodiment, the captured images are greyscale images, it has been found that an effective comparison between an identified region of a new model and an old model may be made if a threshold conversion is performed first. As mentioned, the regions which correspond to the eyes and the markers are delineated as square regions. It is then assumed that a circular area in the centre of that region is the eye or the marker. If this has been correctly identified, then that central region should have a markedly different colour to the surrounding region (which will represent skin in the case of the eye or clothing in the case of the marker).
[0135] In this embodiment therefore, the colour value of the central pixel is read (using the 256 greyscale range with which the colour information is stored in this embodiment). If this integer value is c then a value of c−1 is taken and all pixels in the region with a colour value less than c−1 are set equal to white and all pixels in the region with a colour value more than c−1 are set equal to white. In this manner the image information for the region is converted to black and white using a threshold colour value.
[0136] Two results of such threshold conversions are illustrated in FIGS. 8 a and 8 b . In FIG. 8 a the selected region did not correspond to a marker or an eye. In FIG. 8 b , the selected region corresponds to a marker. As illustrated, the threshold conversion resulting in FIG. 8 a shows a seemingly random pixel distribution, whereas the conversion resulting in FIG. 8 b results in an easily recognisable image of the marker. It has been found that a process of head detection and tracking based on such threshold conversions is more accurate than one relying on greyscale images alone.
[0137] In the threshold conversion described above, the threshold used for the conversion was c−1. It is to be realised that other threshold values could be used instead. For example, c−2, c−3 or the subtracting of a suitable integer value from c may be used instead. In a system with excess processing capacity, it may be possible to use more sophisticated algorithms for the threshold conversion too. However, the advantages in this threshold conversion lie primarily in its simplicity; it is not significantly expensive in processing resources to implement, and it yields reliable results.
[0138] In an alternative embodiment, a two dimensional model of the head is used. Such an embodiment has the advantage that the calculations involved are less complex, but the distances between the head and the display which such a model can successfully implement are more restrictive. In this embodiment, instead of the three dimensional model illustrated in FIG. 4 , the processor 28 at step 90 of FIG. 5 calculates a “template tracker” model of the head and uses this to track the head, in a known manner.
[0139] Only a single image is required for this, and therefore in this embodiment, steps 82 and 84 of FIG. 5 are replaced with the capture of a single image of the head illuminated by both the on-axis and off-axis LEDs. The step 86 of calculating the difference image in FIG. 5 comprises comparing an image to a subsequently captured image.
[0140] The image illuminated by both the on-axis and off-axis LEDs in this embodiment is used to determine whether a recognition marker is present. However, as described above, where the on-axis and off-axis LEDs are activated in sequence, the image corresponding to illumination by the on-axis LEDs is used to recognise the recognition marker. The use of the on-axis image for this purpose has a number of advantages. For example, more of the reflections of the on-axis LEDs 32 ( FIG. 2 ) by the marker will be directed into the camera 30 since these light sources are closer to the axis of the camera. Therefore, these reflections will be brighter than that of the light of the off-axis LEDs 34 . Furthermore, it is preferable to use the image illuminated by the off-axis LEDs 32 for detecting the head as the off-axis LEDs 34 are less likely to produce bright spots in the image as there will be less specular reflection due to those LEDs.
[0141] FIG. 9 illustrates the manner in which the display is controlled in step 94 . As mentioned, the three dimensional display 20 ( FIG. 1 ) is an autostereoscopic display. Such displays display a different image for the right and left eye of a user and use optical elements such as a lenticular overlay to display the different images to the different eyes of the user simultaneously. To do so, the display is divided up into a plurality of alternating left eye and right eye zones. A single right eye zone 162 and a single left eye zone 164 are illustrated in FIG. 9 .
[0142] FIG. 9 further illustrates a user 166 having a right eye 172 and a left eye 174 . The user further has a recognition marker 170 .
[0143] The display operates most effectively when the user's right eye 172 is located in the right eye zone 162 and the left eye 174 is located in the left eye zone 164 . The user's perception of the display becomes confused if the eyes are located in the incorrect zones and the three dimensional effect is lost. By tracking the position of the user's head and therefore of the eyes relative to the left and right eye zones of the display, the tracking device of embodiments of the invention is able to determine when the left eye enters a right eye zone (and the right eye enters a left eye zone) and then switch the images projected onto the two zones, thereby restoring the three dimensional effect.
[0144] FIG. 10 illustrates a process 180 of controlling the display as used in embodiments of the invention. At step 182 the position of the head is determined. This corresponds to step 92 of the process of FIG. 5 . In the following step, step 184 , the position of the head is compared to the known locations of the left and right eye zones (determined during calibrations, see below). In the following step, step 186 , a determination is made as to whether the head has moved sufficiently to move the left or right eye of the user out of the corresponding zone.
[0145] If the determination in step 186 is that the eyes of the user are in the correct zone, the process will return to step 182 to redetermine the position of the head.
[0146] If the determination in step 186 is that the eyes of the user have moved into the opposite zones, the left-eye image and the right eye image are swapped, thereby restoring the three dimensional effect, in step 188 . The process will then return to step 182 .
[0147] In this embodiment, the display 20 is able to operate in both two dimensional and three dimensional modes. As mentioned, if the user's eyes are not located in the correct zones, the three dimensional effect is lost, and the user becomes confused by the images being displayed. In applications such as surgery, it is important that the user's perception of the information being displayed is interfered with as little as possible. Therefore, it is preferable to have the display show a two dimensional image rather than a confused three dimensional image.
[0148] Therefore, in the embodiment illustrated, if the processor 28 determines at step 88 ( FIG. 5 ) that the head cannot be detected, or the head is lost during the tracking of step 90 , the processor will control the display 20 by the display adapter 26 to switch from three dimensional mode to two dimensional mode. In this embodiment, this involves displaying the same image in the left and right eye zones. It is to be realised that the processor 28 will process the on-axis images and determine whether the recognition marker 170 is present to determine whether the two dimensional or three dimensional mode is utilised.
[0149] Alternatively, or in addition, the mode may be switched if there is more than one user detected.
[0150] It is to be realised that this step of switching display modes is not dependent on the type of model used for the user's head. With reference to FIG. 4 , the markers 58 , 60 and 62 may be designated as recognition markers and the mode of the display switched in accordance with whether the markers are found in the relevant image.
[0151] The location of the left and right eye zones of a display are determined by the camera during a calibration step. In this embodiment, the display displays different colours (for example red and green) for all left and right eye zones in a dark room with a wall or other screen located at the user distance. The wall or screen will then reflect the zones back to camera and the processor is able to designate those areas of the captured images as the left and right eye zones.
[0152] The terms ‘two dimensional’ and ‘three dimensional’ have been used herein, specifically when referring to displays and information. It is to be realised that these are references to a user's perception and are not necessarily references to characteristics of the information and display, or other corresponding noun. | The invention extends to a tracking device for tracking a position of a moving object such as a human head or eyes, the device comprising a camera, a radiation source radiating electro-magnetic radiation, and a processor for calculating variables indicative of the position of an object relative to the camera, wherein the camera is adapted to capture images using illumination provided by the radiation source, wherein the radiation source comprises a source of infrared radiation and the camera comprises a monocular image input. Further aspects of the invention relate to an associated method for tracking a moving object; to quickly sorting a set of competing models of the users head; the use of threshold conversion to distinguish characteristics of captured images, and controlling the output of a three dimensional display in dependence on the tracked position of a user's head. | 6 |
PRIOR ART
[0001] There are peripherals in the trade for the interaction of the visually impaired users with equipment such as Braille Displays from Keyalt with 40 to 80 Braille cells. These devices include voice recognition software or verbal description of the elements on the screen.
[0002] The devices on the trade are restricted to text handling; such is the case of Braille Displays n which the text show non the computer is dynamically represented through microelectronics in Braille text. There are other devices that print any text that can be shown on the screen in Braille.
[0003] Speech Software, on the other hand describes and reads what is on the screen, it is restricted by the oral description of shapes, which the computer can not do very accurately.
[0004] Additionally Braille keyboards have the limitation of requiring the understanding of Braille language in order to be able to use them.
ADVANTAGES
[0005] The most important advantage is the possibility to dynamically represent any kind of image, allowing the distinction of shapes and colors. The invention involves external sensors that can be coded in any language.
[0006] Another great advantage is the design that allows the identification of a position in the processed image, and also the path followed along the image, zooming in or zooming out.
[0007] Any kind of image can be represented with a possibility to represent Braille coded text, everything on the screen can be shown at any moment, any picture, or a sequence of images that becomes a video; with a webcam everything in the surroundings can be represented in real time. The objective is to represent any object on the screen the way a sighted person would see it.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
[0008] FIG. 1 shows the block diagram of the system with a glove ( 22 ) as an output device.
[0009] FIG. 2 shows the glove ( 22 ) for the use of a visually impaired person.
[0010] FIG. 3 shows the application of the glove ( 22 ) in the peripheral ( 10 ) that contains the electromagnet grid ( 24 ) and the led grid ( 25 ).
[0011] FIG. 4 shows the image processing procedure.
[0012] FIG. 5 shows the hardware modules ( 10 ) in the peripheral and the software models ( 12 ) in the computer.
[0013] The system basically consists of a hardware part in the peripheral ( 10 ) and a software part ( 12 ) in the computer.
[0014] System configuration in its independent components can be done with Programmable Logical Devices (PLD), USB connection Electronic components, Printed Circuits, Power electronic devices, digital electronics devices, general electronic devices, coupling electronic devices, ferromagnetic materials (magnets, electromagnet cores, among others), function extension accessories, such as PDAs, webcams, cameras, scanners for module adapting, cables, wires, stationery for diffusion and other conducting elements.
[0015] An example of the system configuration and application can be seen in FIG. 1 with a frequency emitting glove according to a shape of color.
[0016] In FIG. 1 the different software layers can be seen, each one of them with a particular function.
[0017] In the computer ( 12 ) processing and communication responsibilities are divided in layers, the layers below have a lower level than the ones above. The layers, in ascending order are: software modules ( 11 ), daemon ( 13 ), LibUSB ( 14 ) and USB core ( 15 ). The software was developed for the GNU/Linux platform, but it's portable for other free versions of other UNIX operating systems such as FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD.
[0018] With no intention of requesting patentability protection we just want to explain this aspect related to the software. Software modules are applications in charge of handing images to be processed to the Daemon layer ( 13 ), these images come from different information sources, such as: any image ( 16 ), the full contents of the computer screen ( 17 ), an image of one or several Braille coded characters ( 18 ), a sequence of images captured in a video stream file ( 19 ).
[0019] As an application it's presented according to FIG. 4 , a prototype in which only the image module ( 16 ) was implemented, because this module is the base for all the others. This module consists in loading an image file in any format and hand it to the daemon layer ( 13 ).
[0020] For implementation of this module Python language was used, Python image library (PIL) and the graphic library wxPython.
[0021] The daemon layer ( 13 ) is a program in constant execution (service), and it's in charge of user interface, processing and coding of images that will then be sent to the peripheral ( 10 ), it also interprets all the data sent by the peripheral ( 10 ). For the prototype, the daemon ( 10 ) will not be executed as a service, it will be executed as a module that has to be called.
[0022] In FIG. 4 image processing ( 16 ) is shown and it's divided in four stages: filtration ( 1 ), coding ( 2 ), multiplexing ( 3 ) and structuring ( 4 ).
[0023] In the filtration stage ( 1 ), the image is captured and changed into a gray scale, then it's fractioned according to the dimensions of the electromagnet matrix (rows×columns) that are in the peripheral ( 10 ), the color in every fraction is obtained with a standard image pondering algorithm, located in image processing libraries.
[0024] In the coding stage ( 2 ) the image, once changed into a grayscale and fractioned can be seen as a numerical matrix in which every number has a value in the gray scale that is between 0 and 255. At this point, the coding ( 2 ) is done, depending on the definition value in which the system is working, for example, if working in an 8 tone definition, the peripheral ( 10 ) will be configured to represent only 8 different tones of gray, assigning each value in the gray scale an out tone equivalent in a smaller scale, while if the definition is 256, it would represent every tone in the gray scale. The value of the definition can be changed in the software.
[0025] Then, each one of the out tones (each one of the positions in the numerical matrix) is changed into a character array of zeros and ones, which will be translated as a pulse train that is sent to one of the elements in the grids ( 24 ) and ( 25 ) in the peripheral ( 10 ) in a later stage, making possible in this way to get different signals from electromagnetic fields in the electromagnets in the grid ( 24 ).
[0026] In the multiplexing stage ( 3 ), n time trains are multiplexed for each one of the parts in which the image is fractioned. For the example n=48 impulse trains, one for each one of the fractions of the coded image and these trains of pulses in time are multiplexed, making a new pulse train of 48 bits where the first bit corresponds to one of the bits in the first train, the second bit corresponds to one of the bits in the second train, and so on, depending on the instant in which it is.
[0027] In the structuring stage ( 4 ) the multiplexed pulse train is handed to the LibUSB library ( 14 ), which takes care of putting together the scheme of data that is going to be sent to the peripheral ( 10 ), where the data block is the multiplexed pulse train obtained in the last layer.
[0028] In the computer, the LibUSB library ( 14 ) is in charge of doing all the tasks related to communication through the USB port (Universal Serial Bus) ( 29 ).
[0029] For implementing the daemon ( 13 ) Python language and the Python Image Library (PLI) were used.
[0030] The LibUSB layer ( 14 ) is a library that works as a communication bridge between the USB core ( 15 ) and the daemon ( 13 ) layers. It contains the main user USB device access functions, according to USB 2.0 specifications.
[0031] The library LibUSB ( 14 ) and the Python headers were used to create a dynamic language module, the USB module, in order to make calls to the libUSB ( 14 ) API form the language, this library is usually accessed through the C language.
[0032] The USBcore ( 15 ) layer is a GNU/Linux module that allows USB ( 23 ) communication. Communication between the peripheral ( 10 ) and the computer ( 12 ) is done through the USB port ( 29 ), due to its features and popularity.
[0033] The peripheral ( 10 ) is a low speed device, meaning, it works at 1.5 Mbps and interrupt transfer was the data transference type that was used.
[0034] The peripheral ( 10 ) is made of a software part embedded in a microchip ( 26 ) and a hardware part. The software part of the microchip is divided in two layers, firmware ( 20 ) and the embedded program ( 21 ).
[0035] The firmware ( 20 ) is a layer that allows the interpretation of the USB protocol through software embedded in the microchip ( 26 ), given that the selected microchip (Motorola HC08JB8) has a USB module.
[0036] The program ( 21 ) is the highest level layer located on the side of the microchip ( 26 ). It's the final application in the microchip ( 26 ), and it's in charge of interpreting the information sent to the peripheral ( 10 ) from the computer ( 12 ) and representing it on the electromagnet grid ( 24 ) and the led grid ( 25 ).
[0037] In FIG. 1 the peripheral ( 10 ) is shown, it has three modules: microchip module ( 30 ), serial to parallel conversion and memory module ( 31 ) and the grid module ( 32 ) which is used for the electromagnet grid ( 24 ) and the led grid ( 25 ). The microchip module ( 30 ), is in charge of receiving and interpreting the data sent from the computer ( 12 ) and then send it to the serial to parallel conversion and memory module ( 31 ); this one is made of six 74LS259 integrated circuits, which are 8 bit addressable latches, each one of these sends a signal to a row in the grid and keep this signal until it gets new information; the grid module ( 32 ), is made by to parallel connected grids, one grid ( 25 ) made of leds ( 27 ) and the other one made of electromagnets ( 24 ), the led grid ( 25 ) which is used to run functionality tests with sighted people, while the electromagnet grid ( 24 ) is for visually impaired people. Each one of the elements of the electromagnet grid is a power circuit ( 26 ).
[0038] The peripheral ( 10 ) is created by a circuit made of three resistances, transistors, leds, capacitors, a switch, clocks, power sources, protoboard, microchips, circuit board, electromagnets and wires.
[0039] The glove ( 22 ) is shown on FIG. 2 , it acts as a sensor so the user can perceive the signals sent through the electromagnet grid ( 24 ), it is necessary due to the fact that the human body is not susceptible to magnetic fields, the glove interacts through its magnet sensors ( 28 ) with the electromagnet grid ( 24 ) so that the signals are perceived as magnetic field pulses with different frequencies, that is how it is possible to establish the differences in color, according to the frequency of the pulses, as a result, it is possible to establish differences in shape and color by perceiving signals from the grid ( 24 ).
[0040] An outline with a hardware part ( 10 ) in the peripheral and a software part ( 12 ) in the computer is shown on FIG. 5 .
Hardware Module ( 10 )
[0041] It is a module made of two sub-modules that divide the hardware ( 10 ) functions in the user interaction through the interaction device ( 36 ) and the control of the device ( 43 ). These two parts are physically separated and they communicate through a data cable, but depend logically from each other. The hardware module ( 10 ) communicates with the computer by using the TCP/IP protocol.
[0042] Control Module ( 43 )
[0043] This module is divided in two stages distinguishable by a hardware card and a module; described in detail below:
[0044] Processing Unit ( 42 )
[0045] The processing unit is managed by a programmable logic device, for example an FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array), which makes all the data digital processing, such as receiving bit map of the image that is going to be represented and generating the necessary pulses for color representation in each one of the pixels in this map, and tasks like coordinating communication between the control module and the user interaction device and the computer.
[0046] Communication Module ( 41 )
[0047] The communication module ( 41 ) is in charge of receiving the data in a communication network based on a data exchange standard protocol, for example TCP/IP, and a communication port with the Processing Unit Programmable Logic Device, for example a parallel port such as EPP (Enhanced Parallel Port).
[0048] Interaction Device ( 46 )
[0049] This part of the hardware ( 10 ) with which the user interacts, provides an output interface (Signal Emission) ( 44 ) and an input interface (Position Sensor) ( 45 ).
[0050] These two areas are closely related, together they are a mobile device that constantly sends information on its location, according to what the position sensor ( 45 ) detects, for the signal emission system ( 44 ) to update its frequencies.
[0051] Signal Emission ( 46 )
[0052] This module allows the system to perceive, through a special element located in the finger, different types of frequencies generated by the device. Each one of these frequencies represents an equivalent color from the image selected in the software, this way the user can recognize the presented signal. It also allows the system to identify shapes and figures through two frequencies that represent to opposite tones that present the limits of the represented signal. The device updates the information it represents according to what the processing unit indicates, unit that is constantly consulting the location detected by the position sensor ( 45 ).
[0053] Position Sensor ( 45 )
[0054] This part of the user interaction device constantly detects the device's position on the XY plane and informs the processing unit ( 42 ) so this last one transmits the position of the image to be updated to the software module ( 10 ).
Software Module ( 12 )
[0055] The software module ( 12 ) is executed in the computer, divided in: Applications, interface, Processing and Communication with the hardware module.
[0056] Applications ( 44 ), ( 45 ), ( 46 )
[0057] It's the software( 12 ) area that makes possible to determine the kind of use given to the device at a given time, the use can be of two kinds: text and image recognition, nevertheless interaction with other complementary modules, to extend the functionality of the device, is possible.
[0058] Image Module ( 44 )
[0059] It allows the system to select and image or shape from a data base or logic file in the computer, for it to be represented on the device by areas according to what the user selects, allowing movement over the image and zooming in and out.
[0060] Text Module ( 45 )
[0061] It makes possible to select a text file and make the conversion of each one of its characters to the corresponding image in Braille code and send them to the Processing layer, in order to be represented in the device, it also has current position identification functions in the whole document, as well as movement and search.
[0062] Other Modules ( 46 )
[0063] These are other possible modules that can be developed to extend the functionality of the device:
[0064] TTY Module: uses the Braille text module to represent text that shows on a tty or GNU/Linux standard terminal.
[0065] Video Module: it's in charge of periodically sending screen captures from a video file to the Processing layer.
[0066] Web Module: It makes possible to alternate between text and graphics in order to surf the websites with high multimedia content.
[0067] Interface Layer ( 47 )
[0068] This layer is the part of the software ( 12 ) with which the user interacts, it has a graphic user interface that allows the system to load the modules to alternate between the different functionalities of the device. It also presents speech based complements that allow visually impaired people to work better.
[0069] Processing Layer ( 48 )
[0070] It's a program in constant execution (service or daemon), image processing and coding ( 48 ) which will then be sent to the peripheral, it is also in charge of answering all the requests that come form the device through the communication layer ( 49 ).
[0071] This layer makes data transmission optimization processes, sending to the device only the information that has changed.
[0072] Communication Layer ( 49 )
[0073] This layer is in charge of doing all the coding process needed for transmission and reception to the device, it implements the TCP/IP protocol which is necessary for communication with the peripheral. It also makes search procedures of the device and it allows the rest of the software layers to keep working even if connection with the device is lost.
System Applications
[0074] Image module: it loads the image and sends it to the Daemon layer.
[0075] Screen module: it takes screenshots periodically and sends them to the Daemon layer.
[0076] Braille text module: it reads a text file and converts each one of its characters into the corresponding Braille image and sends them to the Daemon layer.
[0077] TTY module: uses the Braille text module to represent the text shown on a tty or standard GNU/Linux terminal.
[0078] Video module: it periodically sends screenshots from a video stream file to the Daemon layer.
[0079] Web module: it allows the system to switch between text and graphics to surf web sites with high multimedia contents.
[0080] Replace USB connection with a wireless connection.
[0081] Completely substituting a conventional monitor.
[0082] Connecting a PDA peripheral and a WebCam so a visually impaired person can perceive a representation of the outside world while moving around.
INVENTION OBJECTIVES
[0083] The invention is a solid base for countless applications, such as screen, Braille text, tty and web modules.
[0084] The invention is a solution not only for visually impaired people but also for people who are also hearing impaired.
[0085] A graph coding was also created, which allows the serial transmission of graphics and can be understood by visually impaired people who can learn shapes, figures and colors. | The invention relates to a system for the perception of images through touch. The inventive comprises hardware and software which enable any person with the sense of touch to perceive images, said system being intended for visually-impaired persons. The hardware comprises a peripheral which uses electromagnetic fields in order to represent forms, figures, colours or any image that can be displayed on a computer screen an hand device which enables the user to perceive signals. The software comprises a system with selects, process, encodes and transmits the images to be represented at the peripheral, enabling the user to select the area of the image to be represented, using a set of operations (including scrolling, approaching, changing definition). The system can also be used to establish a position of the plane of the image using a position sensor with constant updating. | 6 |
BACKGROUND
[0001] 1. Field
[0002] Packaging for microelectronic devices.
[0003] 2. Description of Related Art
[0004] Microelectronic packaging technology, including methods to mechanically and electrically attach a silicon die (e.g., a microprocessor) to a substrate or other carrier continues to be refined and improved. Bumpless Build-Up Layer (BBUL) technology is one approach to a packaging architecture. Among its advantages, BBUL eliminates the need for assembly, eliminates prior solder ball interconnections (e.g., flip-chip interconnections), reduces stress on low-k interlayer dielectric of dies due to die-to-substrate coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE mismatch), and reduces package inductance through elimination of core and flip-chip interconnect for improved input/output (I/O) and power delivery performance.
[0005] With shrinking electronic device sizes and increasing functionality, integrated circuit packages will need to occupy less space. One way to conserve space is to combine a device or package on top of a package. Current ways of integrating second devices (e.g., secondary dice) vertically to, for example, a system on chip (SOC) package is either package on package (POP) or through silicon via (TSV) integration. Both of these integration techniques require additional processing to attach the secondary die/module on top of the SOC package. The additional processing eventually creates assembly challenges. For example, in the case of a customer-owned POP (COPOP), the SOC package must be formed flat enough during the surface mount technology (SMT) reflow for the POP package to be properly soldered to the pad which drives process/material stackup characterization needed to achieve the desired outcome and also typically the size of the package is limited to small package sizes (e.g., a package size 8×8 square millimeter (mm 2 ) to 12×12 mm 2 ). While in the TSV scenario, it generally requires a thermal compression bonding (TCB) process which is not a very mature technology resulting in a slow throughput and assembly and reliability challenges.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0006] FIG. 1 shows a cross-sectional view one embodiment of a portion of a microelectronic package including a primary die and two secondary dice in a build-up carrier.
[0007] FIG. 2 shows a cross-sectional exploded side view of a sacrificial substrate with sacrificial copper foils attached to opposite sides thereof.
[0008] FIG. 3 shows the structure of FIG. 2 following the introduction of secondary dice on a surface of a copper foil and a dielectric layer over the secondary dice in a process of forming a build-up carrier.
[0009] FIG. 4 shows the structure of FIG. 3 following the patterning of electrically conductive vias to contact points and a first electrically conductive layer or line on the dielectric layer.
[0010] FIG. 5 shows the structure of FIG. 4 following the introduction of a dielectric layer on the first conductive layer and electrically conductive vias to the first conductive layer and contact lands on the dielectric layer.
[0011] FIG. 6 shows the structure of FIG. 5 following the patterning of conductive lands on the dielectric layer.
[0012] FIG. 7 shows the structure of FIG. 6 following the attachment of a primary die on the dielectric layer.
[0013] FIG. 8 shows the structure of FIG. 7 following the introduction of a dielectric layer over the primary die.
[0014] FIG. 9 shows the structure of FIG. 8 following the formation of openings in the dielectric layer to contact points on the die and the contact lands.
[0015] FIG. 10 shows the structure of FIG. 9 following the introduction of an electrically conductive material in the vias and the patterning of an electrically conductive layer or line on the dielectric as well as the introduction of a dielectric layer on the electrically conductive layer and the formation of openings therein.
[0016] FIG. 11 shows the isolation of one package from the sacrificial substrate, the package including patterned contacts for a surface mount application.
[0017] FIG. 12 illustrates a schematic illustration of a computing device.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
[0018] FIG. 1 shows a cross-sectional view of a microelectronic package according to one embodiment. As illustrated in FIG. 1 , microelectronic package 100 utilizes bumpless build-up layer (BBUL) technology. Microelectronic package 100 includes carrier 120 . For explanatory purposes, carrier 120 will be described with reference to two portions, portion 1200 A and portion 1200 B. It is appreciate that together portion 1200 A and portion 1200 B form a single integrated carrier.
[0019] Referring to FIG. 1 , portion 1200 A of carrier 120 includes primary die 110 , such as a microprocessor die or a system on chip (SOC) die, embedded in portion 1200 A device side up (as viewed). In one embodiment, die 110 is a silicon die or the like having a thickness of approximately 150 micrometers (μm). In another example, die 110 can be a silicon die or the like that has a thickness less than 150 μm such as 50 μm to 150 μm. It is appreciated that other thicknesses for die 110 are possible.
[0020] FIG. 1 shows that portion 1200 A of carrier 120 includes multiple build-up layers including dielectric layers 130 of, for example, ABF and one or more electrically conductive layers or lines 140 (one shown) of, for example, copper or a copper alloy (connected with conductive vias or the like) that provide connectivity to die 110 (power, ground, input/output, etc.) through contacts 145 such as, for example, contacts suitable for a surface mount packaging implementation (e.g., a ball grid array). Die 110 and portion 1200 A of carrier 120 are in direct physical contact with each other (e.g., there are no solder bumps connecting die 110 to carrier 120 ). Die 110 is directly electronically connected to electrically conductive contacts or conductive vias of portion 1200 A of carrier 120 . As illustrated, at least one electrically conductive layer 140 is connected through electrically conductive vias to portion 1200 B. In FIG. 1 , one of dielectric layers 130 surrounds the lateral side walls of die 110 .
[0021] Underlying a back side of die 110 of microelectronic package 100 in FIG. 1 , as viewed, is adhesive layer 150 of, for example, a die backside film (DBF) polymer, epoxy based adhesive with or without fillers. Underlying adhesive layer 150 is portion 1200 B of carrier 120 . Portion 1200 B includes additional build-up layers including dielectric layers 160 and one or more electrically conductive layers or lines 170 . Dielectric layers 160 (e.g., two or more) may be of a material similar to a material for dielectric layers 130 (e.g., ABF) or a different material. Conductive layers 170 (one shown) are, for example, a copper or copper alloy material. In this embodiment, conductive layers 170 are connected with electrically conductive vias or the like to one or more conductive layers 140 of portion 1200 A of carrier 120 .
[0022] In the embodiment shown in FIG. 1 , package 100 also includes two secondary dice, die 125 A and die 125 B embedded in portion 1200 B of carrier 120 . In one embodiment, secondary dice are dice having a desired electrical configuration that may or may not be electrically connected to die 110 . In the embodiment, shown in FIG. 1 , secondary die 125 A and secondary die 125 B are electrically connected to die 100 through routing layers in carrier 120 . Examples of secondary dice include but are not limited to a digital logic device, such as a dynamic random access memory (DRAM) device, a static random access memory (SRAM) device, a flash memory device, a microprocessor device, a digital signal processor (DSP) device, a graphics processor device, a crypto processor device, and an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) device. In this embodiment, die 125 A and die 125 B are positioned device side up (as viewed). Die 125 A and die 125 B each contain electrical contact points (contacts) on a device side which are connected through electrically conductive vias to conductive layer 170 .
[0023] FIG. 1 also shows contact lands 180 in portion 1200 B or carrier 120 at the interface of first portion 1200 A and second portion 1200 B. Contact lands 180 are connected to electrically conductive layers of carrier 120 , e.g., conductive layers of portion 1200 A of carrier 120 through electrically conductive vias. Contact lands 180 in connection with electrically conductive layer 170 , in this embodiment, provide a redistribution layer and together with electrically conductive vias to electrically conductive layer 140 an electrical connection between die 110 and dice 125 A and 125 B. Contact lands 180 may also allow additional interconnect points for the package (e.g., power, ground, input/output) between contacts 145 and secondary die 125 A and/or secondary die 125 B.
[0024] FIG. 1 shows primary die 110 in portion 1200 A of carrier 120 and secondary dice 125 A and 125 B in portion 1200 B. In another embodiment, such positions are reversed. FIG. 1 also shows two secondary dice. In another embodiment, a microelectronic package includes one secondary die. In a further embodiment, a microelectronic package includes more than two secondary dice. In a still further embodiment, a microelectronic package includes more than one primary die.
[0025] FIGS. 2-9 describe one embodiment for forming a microelectronic package, such as microelectronic package 100 ( FIG. 1 ). Referring to FIG. 2 , FIG. 2 shows an exploded cross-sectional side view of a portion of sacrificial substrate 210 of, for example, a prepeg material including opposing layers of copper foils 215 A and 215 B that are separated from sacrificial substrate 310 by shorter copper foil layers 220 A and 220 B, respectively. Copper foils 215 A and 215 B tend to stick to the shorter foils based on vacuum. One technique of forming build-up packages is to form two separate packages on a sacrificial substrate, one on a top surface sacrificial substrate 210 and one on a bottom surface (as viewed) and at some point during the formation process, each are separated from the sacrificial substrate. In the following description, a formation process will only be described and illustrated for a microelectronic package on the top surface. It is appreciated that a similar formation process may be followed on the bottom surface simultaneously.
[0026] FIG. 3 shows the structure of FIG. 2 following the introduction of secondary die 225 A and secondary die 225 B which are similar to secondary die 125 A and secondary die 125 B in FIG. 1 . Secondary die 125 A and secondary die 125 B are attached to copper foil 215 A device side up by, for example, adhesive 250 of, for example, DBF. In addition to secondary die 225 A and secondary die 225 B on copper foil 215 A, contacts may optionally be introduced on copper foil 215 A that might be used to electrical connect the ultimately formed package to an external device or devices suitable contacts include two layer contacts of a gold-nickel alloy and a copper or copper alloy formed by deposition (plating, sputtering).
[0027] Following the attachment of secondary die 225 A and secondary die 225 B and optional contacts, dielectric layer 260 of, for example, an ABF material possibly including a filler is introduced. One method of introduction of an ABF material is as a film that is laid on the secondary dice, the optional contacts and copper foil 215 A.
[0028] FIG. 4 shows the structure of FIG. 3 following the patterning of vias through dielectric layer 260 to contacts 227 on secondary die 225 A and secondary die 225 B and the formation of conductive vias and conductive layer 270 or line on each of dielectric layer 260 . In one embodiment, die 225 A and die 225 B may include electrically conductive pillars 228 on contacts 227 . Such pillars 228 may be added at the die fabrication stage. With regard to patterning vias in a material such as ABF, such patterning may be done by, for example, a drilling process. Once the vias are formed, electrical conductor (e.g., copper metal) patterning may be done in order to fill the vias and pattern electrically conductive layer or line 270 on dielectric layer 260 , for example, using an electroless seed layer followed by a dry film resist (DFR) patterning and plating. The DFR may then be stripped followed by a flash etch to remove any unwanted electroless seed layer. It is appreciated that other methods are also suitable. FIG. 4 shows vias 235 filled with conductive material and represented as conductive vias including conductive vias to contacts 227 of respective secondary die 225 A and secondary die 225 B.
[0029] FIG. 5 shows the structure of FIG. 4 following the introduction of a dielectric layer. FIG. 5 shows dielectric layer 275 of, for example, an ABF material introduced as a film. FIG. 5 also shows the patterning of electrically conductive vias 265 formed through dielectric layer 275 to electrically conductive layer 270 . A suitable material for electrically conductive vias 265 is copper deposited, for example, by an electroless process.
[0030] FIG. 6 shows the structure of FIG. 5 following the patterning of contact lands on conductive vias 265 . Contact lands 268 are, for example, a copper or copper alloy deposited, for example, using an electroless seed layer followed by a DFR patterning and plating.
[0031] FIG. 7 shows the structure of FIG. 6 following the mounting of die 340 on dielectric layer 275 (on a top surface of dielectric layer 275 as viewed). In this embodiment, die 340 is connected by adhesive 350 . A suitable adhesive material is DBF. In this embodiment, die 340 is positioned device side up (device side facing away from copper foil). Die 340 may include electrically conductive pillars 348 on contacts 347 (contact points). Such pillars 348 may be added at the die fabrication stage. In another embodiment, die 340 may have through substrate vias from a device side to a back side of the die. In such an embodiment, conductive vias 265 and optionally contact lands 268 could be patterned to conductive layer 270 in an area directly below die 340 to connect directly to the through substrate vias of die 340 .
[0032] FIG. 8 shows the structure of FIG. 7 following the introduction of a dielectric layer. FIG. 8 shows dielectric layer 360 of, for example, an ABF material introduced as a film. Dielectric layer 360 encompasses or encapsulates die 340 .
[0033] FIG. 9 shows the structure of FIG. 8 following the formation of openings 365 to contact lands 268 and to contact points on a device side of die 340 (openings to pillars 348 ). One way to form openings 365 through a dielectric material such as ABF is by a drilling process.
[0034] FIG. 10 shows the structure of FIG. 9 following the introduction of an electrical conductor (e.g., copper metal) in openings 365 and patterning of the conductor material into electrically conductive layer or line 370 . One method includes using an electroless seed layer followed by a dry film resist (DFR) patterning and plating. The DFR may then be stripped followed by a flash etch to remove any unwanted electroless seed layer. It is appreciated that other methods are also suitable.
[0035] Once electrically conductive layer 370 is introduced and patterned, a dielectric layer is introduced on the structure. FIG. 10 shows the structure of FIG. 9 following the introduction of dielectric layer 380 on the structure and encapsulating electrically conductive layer 370 . Patterning of additional levels of conductive lines (e.g., three additional levels separated from one another by dielectric layers (e.g., ABF film)) may follow. A typical BBUL package may have four to six levels of conductive lines or traces connected to one another or die 340 by conductive vias.
[0036] FIG. 11 shows the structure of FIG. 10 following the formation of openings through dielectric layer 380 to electrically conductive layer 370 and the introduction of an electrical conductor (e.g., copper metal) in the openings to form conductive vias 390 to which, for example, solder balls may be attached for a surface mount implementation. FIG. 11 also shows the structure following the separation of the structure from sacrificial substrate 210 and copper foil 215 A. By removing the individual packages from sacrificial substrate 210 and copper foil 215 A, FIG. 11 shows a free standing microelectronic package that has a primary die and secondary dice 225 A and 225 B therein.
[0037] FIG. 12 illustrates a computing device 400 in accordance with one implementation. Computing device 400 houses board 402 . Board 402 may include a number of components, including but not limited to processor 404 and at least one communication chip 406 . Processor 404 is physically and electrically coupled to board 402 . In some implementations the at least one communication chip 406 is also physically and electrically coupled to board 402 . In further implementations, communication chip 406 is part of processor 404 .
[0038] Depending on its applications, computing device 400 may include other components that may or may not be physically and electrically coupled to board 402 . These other components include, but are not limited to, volatile memory (e.g., DRAM), non-volatile memory (e.g., ROM), flash memory, a graphics processor, a digital signal processor, a crypto processor, a chipset, an antenna, a display, a touchscreen display, a touchscreen controller, a battery, an audio codec, a video codec, a power amplifier, a global positioning system (GPS) device, a compass, an accelerometer, a gyroscope, a speaker, a camera, and a mass storage device (such as hard disk drive, compact disk (CD), digital versatile disk (DVD), and so forth).
[0039] Communication chip 406 enables wireless communications for the transfer of data to and from computing device 400 . The term “wireless” and its derivatives may be used to describe circuits, devices, systems, methods, techniques, communications channels, etc., that may communicate data through the use of modulated electromagnetic radiation through a non-solid medium. The term does not imply that the associated devices do not contain any wires, although in some embodiments they might not. Communication chip 406 may implement any of a number of wireless standards or protocols, including but not limited to Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11 family), WiMAX (IEEE 802.16 family), IEEE 802.20, long term evolution (LTE), Ev-DO, HSPA+, HSDPA+, HSUPA+, EDGE, GSM, GPRS, CDMA, TDMA, DECT, Bluetooth, derivatives thereof, as well as any other wireless protocols that are designated as 3G, 4G, 5G, and beyond. Computing device 400 may include a plurality of communication chips 406 . For instance, a first communication chip 406 may be dedicated to shorter range wireless communications such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and a second communication chip 406 may be dedicated to longer range wireless communications such as GPS, EDGE, GPRS, CDMA, WiMAX, LTE, Ev-DO, and others.
[0040] Processor 404 of computing device 400 includes an integrated circuit die packaged within processor 404 . In some implementations, the package formed in accordance with embodiment described above utilizes BBUL technology with a carrier includes a primary die (e.g., microprocessor or SOC die) and one or more secondary dice (e.g., memory die or dice). The term “processor” may refer to any device or portion of a device that processes electronic data from registers and/or memory to transform that electronic data into other electronic data that may be stored in registers and/or memory.
[0041] Communication chip 406 also includes an integrated circuit die packaged within communication chip 406 . In accordance with another implementation, package is based on BBUL technology with a carrier includes a primary die (e.g., microprocessor or SOC die) and one or more secondary dice (e.g., memory die or dice). Such packaging will enable integration in a single package various devices, including but not limited to, a microprocessor chip (die) with a memory die with a graphics die with a chip set with GPS.
[0042] In further implementations, another component housed within computing device 400 may contain a microelectronic package based on BBUL technology with a carrier includes a primary die (e.g., microprocessor or SOC die) and one or more secondary dice (e.g., memory die or dice).
[0043] In various implementations, computing device 400 may be a laptop, a netbook, a notebook, an ultrabook, a smartphone, a tablet, a personal digital assistant (PDA), an ultra mobile PC, a mobile phone, a desktop computer, a server, a printer, a scanner, a monitor, a set-top box, an entertainment control unit, a digital camera, a portable music player, or a digital video recorder. In further implementations, computing device 400 may be any other electronic device that processes data.
[0044] In the description above, for the purposes of explanation, numerous specific details have been set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the embodiments. It will be apparent however, to one skilled in the art, that one or more other embodiments may be practiced without some of these specific details. The particular embodiments described are not provided to limit the invention but to illustrate it. The scope of the invention is not to be determined by the specific examples provided above but only by the claims below. In other instances, well-known structures, devices, and operations have been shown in block diagram form or without detail in order to avoid obscuring the understanding of the description. Where considered appropriate, reference numerals or terminal portions of reference numerals have been repeated among the figures to indicate corresponding or analogous elements, which may optionally have similar characteristics.
[0045] It should also be appreciated that reference throughout this specification to “one embodiment”, “an embodiment”, “one or more embodiments”, or “different embodiments”, for example, means that a particular feature may be included in the practice of the invention. Similarly, it should be appreciated that in the description various features are sometimes grouped together in a single embodiment, figure, or description thereof for the purpose of streamlining the disclosure and aiding in the understanding of various inventive aspects. This method of disclosure, however, is not to be interpreted as reflecting an intention that the invention requires more features than are expressly recited in each claim. Rather, as the following claims reflect, inventive aspects may lie in less than all features of a single disclosed embodiment. Thus, the claims following the Detailed Description are hereby expressly incorporated into this Detailed Description, with each claim standing on its own as a separate embodiment of the invention. | A method including forming a first portion of a build-up carrier on at least one first die, the at least one first die; coupling at least one second die to the first portion of the build-up carrier, the at least one second die separated from the first die by the at least one layer of conductive material disposed between layers of dielectric material; and after coupling the at least one second die to the first portion of the build-up carrier, forming a second portion of the build-up carrier on the at least one second die. An apparatus including a build-up carrier including including alternating layers of conductive material and dielectric material and at least two dice therein in different planes of the build-up carrier. | 7 |
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
[0001] This invention relates to a chemical modification of cellulose/alginate co-spun fibres and its applications as a medical dressing.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0002] It is well known that a moist environment helps the wound healing process by facilitating the interaction between cells and cell proliferation. Chemically modified cellulose, either by carboxymethylation or carboxyethylation, can enhance the properties of cellulose fibres such as the absorbency and gelling ability. Such a material can absorb as much as 15 times of liquid of its own weight. The chemically modified cellulose fibres can form gels on absorption of aqueous solutions to retain the moisture within the material, providing an ideal environment for wound healing and debridement. Furthermore, the gelled dressing can protect the wound by forming a semi-occlusive environment for the wound from the invasion of harmful substances. The chemically modified cellulose also expands on absorbing the fluid, creating a light pressure to the wound bed which would help blood circulation, supply of nutrients and removal the wastes.
[0003] Seacell fibres are essentially cellulose/alginate co-spun fibres, made by co-spinning cellulose and alginate through a solvent spun process. The majority of the fibres are cellulose but have alginate particles embedded in the fibres structure. It is a novel re-generated fibre, combining the benefits of both cellulose and alginate. The fibres can provide protein, amino, fat, cellulose and affluent mineral substance making it ideal for medical applications. Essentially, the Seacell fibres are made from the manufacturing procedure of Lyocell fibres, where the finely grinded alginate powder is blended into the cellulose spinning solution. In particular the alginate powder is grinded to fine particles of less than 9 μm, and then transferred to the cellulose NMMO solution. Alternatively, the alginate powder can be introduced into the spinning solution before cellulose dissolution, with a spinning solution composed of cellulose, alginate, NMMO and water. The solution is then extruded into fibres through a wet spinning process. The seacell shares the similar properties with that of the Lyocell fibres, such as tensile strength, processability etc. Through electron microscopy, it can be seen that seacell fibres have a porous structure, with some horizontal orientation and low crystallization. It has been found that the properties of the alginate component in the finished fibres are maintained, allowing some ingredients of the alginate to be released through the porous structure of the fibres in a moist environment.
[0004] Compared with Lyocel fibres, the seacell fibres have the added alginate component which binds metal ions. Additionally, alginate particles contain some minerals which help skin regeneration. It also contains some antibacterial ingredients providing some protection to the skin.
[0005] CN101967698A describes the manufacturing method of alginate/cellulose co-spun fibres, which includes the following steps: (1) the cellulose pulp is placed into NaOH solution to get alkalized cellulose; (2) sodium alginate is introduced into alkalized cellulose, with a percentage of up to 1˜5% by weight; (3) CS 2 is introduced into the above mixtures to start the reaction, and then dissolved by deionized water to attain cellulose/alginate xanthate viscose solution; (4) the spinning solution is made by filtration and deaeration of the cellulose/alginate xanthate viscose solution; (5) the said spinning solution is extruded to attain cellulose/alginate con-spun fibres; (6) after stretching and other further processing the cellulose/alginate co-spun fibres are made.
[0006] CN 101613893A describes the manufacturing method of bacterial cellulose/alginate co-spun fibres. The sodium alginate powder is placed into the bacterial cellulose solution with ultrasonic dispersion. The solution is then extruded through a wet spinning process to make the bacterial cellulose/alginate co-spun fibres. The fibres contain 5-20% by weight of sodium alginate and 80-95% of bacterial cellulose. The manufacturing method also includes dissolving bacterial cellulose into an imidazole chloride salt ionic solution at a concentration of 5˜10% by weight; followed by adding some fine sodium alginate powder into the above solution. After dispersion and deaeration, the said solution is extruded into a coagulant bath, dried and stretched to obtain the bacterial cellulose/alginate co-spun fibres.
[0007] CN101168869A describes a soy protein/alginate/cellulose fibre, as well as its manufacturing method. The spinning solution consists of soy protein, alginate and a high viscosity cellulose solution. The protein/alginate/cellulose co-spun fibres are obtained after multi-step coagulation process. The finished fibres contain 15-60% by weight of soy protein, 3-8% by weight of alginate and 32-82% of cellulose.
[0008] However, the above technology has obvious weakness, such as the particle size of alginate powder being too big, the dispersion of alginate powder not being very uniform and the independent relationship between the each component. Moreover, the finished fibre does not have sufficient absorbency and gelling ability which makes the fibre less ideal for being materials for wound dressings.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0009] In order to address the above weakness, this invention provides chemically modified seacell fibres, a wound dressing made of the chemically modified seacell fibres and its manufacturing method. The seacell fibres refer to cellulose/alginate co-spun fibres made from a solvent (wet) spinning process. During the chemical modification process, a hydrophilic group is conducted to seacell's cellulose component. Therefore the wound dressing made from the said chemically modified cellulose/alginate co-spun fibre can provide the benefits of both alginate and chemically modified cellulose, i.e. calcium and other nutrition from the alginate and gelling and absorbency from the chemically modified cellulose.
[0010] The first aspect of the present invention is to provide a chemically modified cellulose/alginate co-spun fibre. After the chemical modification, hydrophilic groups are introduced to the cellulose of the said fibres. The modified cellulose of the said chemically modified cellulose/alginate co-spun fibres has a degree of substitution of 0.05-0.5, preferably 0.2-0.4. The linear density of the said chemically modified cellulose/alginate co-spun fibres is 0.5 to 5 dtex, preferably 2 to 4 dtex. The fibre length is 5 to 180 mm, preferably 15-125 mm.
[0011] The seacell fibre of the present invention is made by adding alginate particles into the cellulose spinning solution followed by wet spinning process or solvent spinning operation.
[0012] The diameter of the said alginate particle is between 1 to 100 μm, preferably 1 to 50 μm.
[0013] The said alginate particle selects from red algae, brown algae and other algae.
[0014] The said alginate particles are dispersed into the cellulose spinning solution uniformly. The said chemically modified cellulose is carboxymethyl cellulose or carboxyethyl cellulose.
[0015] The chemically modified cellulose in the present invention can absorb wound exudates and form a gel, which facilitates the release of the active material of alginate, and provides a moist and nourish environment for the wound healing process.
[0016] The said nourishing materials are alginate acid, organic, ammonia acid, mineral, fat and vitamin.
[0017] The said alginate in the present invention is a high mannuronic acid, or high guluronic acid or mixture of both.
[0018] The second aspect of the present invention concerns a wound dressing comprising the said chemically modified cellulose/alginate co-spun fibres, or the blend of the said chemically modified cellulose/alginate co-spun fibres and other fibres. The said wound dressing has an absorption capacity of 12 g/100 cm2 or above to solution A. Solution A contains 8.298 g sodium chloride and 0.368 g anhydrous calcium chloride per 1 liter pure water.
[0019] Wet strength is an important indicator for the wound dressing. The said wound dressing has a wet strength of 0.3 N/cm or above. Due to the fact that such a dressing will become weak and heavy after absorbing wound exudates or solution A and form a gel, the testing for wet strength is very difficult. The sample will be damaged and break if the force to clamp the sample is too big, or will become too slippery if the force is too small. Therefore only the middle part of the sample is wet during the wet strength test. The basic procedure for wet strength testing is described as follows:
[0020] 1) The first specimen is cut into 2 cm×7 cm. The second specimen can be cut, take a 10×10 cm dressing as the example at the perpendicular position to the first piece so that one of the specimen is for MD (machine direction) and the other for CD (cross machine direction).
[0021] 2) Fold the specimen and place the middle part pf the specimen into the solution for 30 seconds. It is recommended to use solution A as described in BP1995;
[0022] 3) Place the above specimen into the two clamps of the Tensile Tester;
[0023] 4) The distance between the clamps is set to 50 mm, and the speed is set at 100 mm/min;
[0024] 5) Start the Tensile Tester to measure the maximum force to break the sample. It is recommended to test the other samples from the same dressing immediately after so that one of the readings (highest) can be recorded as CD, and the other reading as MD;
[0025] 6) It is recommended to test at least five samples (5 MD and 5 CD) for wet strength. Take the average value as the wet strength for the sample.
[0026] The wound dressing of the present invention can be made of the said chemically modified seacell fibres or of the blend of the said chemically modified seacell fibres and other fibres. The said other fibres can be selected from unmodified seacell fibres, unmodified cellulose, carboxymethyl cellulose fibres, carboxyethyl cellulose fibres, alginate fibres, chitosan fibres, acylated chitosan fibres, carboxymethyl chitosan fibres, lyocel fibres, viscose fibres, polyamide fibres, PVA fibres and polyester fibres.
[0027] The wound dressing in the present invention can also contain antibacterial agents, for example silver salt, nano silver and PHMB.
[0028] The said dressing can be manufactured by weaving, knitting and nonwoven process.
[0029] The present invention also provides a method of manufacturing chemically modified seacell fibres, including the following steps:
[0030] 1) Completely immerse cellulose/alginate co-spun (seacell) fibres into the sodium hydroxide solution with a concentration of 10% to 50% at room temperature. The volume ratio between seacell fibres and sodium hydroxide is from 1:7 to 1:10;
[0031] 2) Take the fibres out of the solution and squeeze the fibres, and place the fibres into the reacting solution for 10 to 120 minutes. The said reacting solution is made up of sodium chloroacetate, sodium hydroxide, water and ethanol, and the concentration of sodium chloroacetate is between 18-50% by weight;
[0032] 3) The fibres are placed into the acid solution for washing twice, and then into the ethanol washing solution containing 0.1% to 5% tween 20. The said acid solution consists of 0.5-5% acetic acid, 20-60% water and 35-79.5% ethanol, and the mass ratio between acid solution and fibres are within 5:1 to 50:1;
[0033] 4) After washing, the fibres are dried for 10-60 minutes at 30-80° C.
[0034] The reacting in above step 2 shall be carried out as the following: firstly, the solution shall be heated to 30-50° C., and then the fibres from step 1) are placed into the reacting solution. Continue to heat until the solution temperature reaches 40-65° C., then maintain the temperature until a satisfactory gelling is achieved.
[0035] In conclusion, the present invention provides a manufacturing method to obtain the chemically modified cellulose/alginate co-spun fibres which is absorbent and gelling. The modification enhances the property of the chemically modified cellulose/alginate co-spun (seacell) fibres, providing ideal material for the advanced wound dressing.
[0036] When the said wound dressing is used to manage chronic wounds, the dressing absorbs the exudates and forms gels, providing a moist environment for the healing process. As alginate particle is contained in the cellulose structure, it provides the advantages of cellulose fibres such as strength and softness, also the benefits of alginate such as being bacteriostatic, and providing calcium and nutrition. After chemical modification by introducing hydrophilic groups, such as carboxymethylation or carboxyethylation, the fibres become absorbent and gelling; ideal for the management of moderate or heavy exudates wounds. Additionally, the alginate component of the said chemically modified cellulose/alginate co-spun fibres provides a slow release of nutritious and antibacterial agents, this is very helpful for the slow wound healing process.
[0037] More importantly, the performance and the distribution of the alginate particle is not affected by the process of chemical modification. The combination of absorbency and gelling of chemically modified cellulose and availability of alginate particles makes the fibres ideal for wound dressing and enhances the application of the seacell fibres.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
Example 1
[0038] (1) 200 g of cellulose/alginate co-spun fibres (purchased from Smartfibres) is placed into 1000 ml 18% by weight of sodium hydroxide for 60 minutes;
[0039] (2) The above fibres are taken out of the solution and squeezed, and then immersed into the reacting solution which has been preheated to 41° C. The fibres are kept in the solution for 60 minutes at 50-55° C. The said reacting solution consists of 1000 g sodium chloroacetate, 830 g 30% sodium hydroxide solution, 2000 g ethanol and 2000 g deionized water;
[0040] (3) Take the fibres out of the reaction solution, and then place it into the acid solution for washing for 30 minutes. The fibres are washed twice in the solution until its pH value become neutral or a slightly acidic. The said acid solution consists of 500 ml ethanol, 300 ml pure water and 200 ml acid acetic;
[0041] (4) Take the fibres out of the washing solution, squeeze and then place it into the washing solution containing the 1000 ml ethanol and 2% by weight of Tween 20;
[0042] (5) Place the fibres in the oven and dry out the fibres.
[0043] The degree of substitution of the above chemically modified cellulose/alginate co-spun fibres is 0.29.
[0044] The linear density of the above cellulose/alginate co-spun fibres is 3 dtex, and the staple length is 50 mm. The above chemically modified cellulose/alginate co-spun fibres are converted into nonwoven pads by a carding and needle punching process. After slitting, cutting, packaging and sterilization, the dressing's absorbency and wet strength is measured as 19 g/100 cm 2 and 0.35 N/cm respectively.
Example 2
[0045] (1) At room temperature, 100 g cellulose/alginate co-spun fibres (purchased from Smartfibres) are placed into 600 ml 25% by weight sodium hydroxide solution for 50 minutes;
[0046] (2) The above fibers are taken out from the solution and squeezed to remove excessive solution. The fibres are then immersed into the reacting solution which has been preheated to 38° C. The fibres are kept in the solution for 60 minutes at 50-60° C. The said reacting solution consists of 1000 g sodium chloroacetate, 1630 g 30% sodium hydroxide solution, 2500 g ethanol and 1450 g deionized water;
[0047] (3) The fibres are taken out of reaction solution, and then placed them into the acid solution for washing for 30 minutes. Repeat the washing twice in this solution until its pH value become neutral or a slightly acidic. The said acid solution consists of 500 ml ethanol, 300 ml pure water and 200 ml acid acetic;
[0048] (4) Take the fibres out of the washing solution, squeeze and then place it into the washing solution containing the 600 ml ethanol and 1.5% by weight of Tween 20;
[0049] (5) Place the fibres in the oven and dry out the fibres.
[0050] The degree of substitution of the above chemically modified cellulose/alginate co-spun fibres is 0.28.
[0051] The linear density of the above cellulose/alginate co-spun fibres is 4 dtex, and the staple length is 60 mm. The above chemically modified cellulose/alginate co-spun fibres are converted into nonwoven pads by a carding and needle punching process. After slitting, cutting, packaging and sterilization, the dressing's absorbency and wet strength are measured as 19.5 g/100 cm 2 and 0.40 N/cm respectively.
Example 3
[0052] (1) At room temperature, 100 g cellulose/alginate co-spun fibres (purchased from Smartfibres) are placed into 600 ml 25% by weight sodium hydroxide solution for 60 minutes;
[0053] (2) The above fibers are taken out from the solution and squeezed to remove excessive solution. The fibres are then immersed into the reacting solution which has been preheated to 43° C. The fibres are kept in the solution for 46 minutes at 50-55° C. The said reacting solution consists of 1000 g sodium chloroacetate, 2500 g 30% sodium hydroxide solution, 2500 g ethanol and 1750 g deionized water;
[0054] (3) The fibres are taken out of reaction solution, and then placed them into the acid solution for washing for 60 minutes. Repeat the washing twice in this solution until its pH value become neutral or a slightly acidic. The said acid solution consists of 500 ml ethanol, 300 ml pure water and 200 ml acid acetic;
[0055] (4) Take the fibres out of the washing solution, squeeze and then place it into the washing solution containing the 600 ml ethanol and 1.5% by weight of Tween 20;
[0056] (5) Place the fibres in the oven and dry out the fibres.
[0057] The degree of substitution of the above chemically modified cellulose/alginate co-spun fibres is 0.30.
[0058] The linear density of the above cellulose/alginate co-spun fibres is 5 dtex, and the staple length is 50 mm. The above chemically modified cellulose/alginate co-spun fibres are converted into nonwoven pads by a carding and needle punching process. After slitting, cutting, packaging and sterilization, the dressing's absorbency and wet strength are measured as 21 g/100 cm 2 and 0.35 N/cm respectively.
Example 4
[0059] The chemically modified cellulose/alginate co-spun staple fibres from example 1 and carboxymethyl cellulose manufactured by Foshan United Medical Technologies Ltd are blended together, then processed by opening, carding, cross-lapping, double needling, and then by slitting, cutting, packaging and sterilization. The dressing's absorbency was measure at 19 g/100 cm 2 , and the wet strength at 0.38 N/cm.
[0060] Example 5
[0061] The chemically modified cellulose/alginate co-spun staple fibres from example 1 and chitosan fibres purchased from Jifa New Material Ltd are blended together, then processed by opening, carding, cross-lapping, double needling, and then slitting, cutting, packaging and sterilization. The absorbency of the dressing is 15 g/100 cm 2 , and the wet strength is 0.50 N/cm.
Example 6
[0062] The chemically modified cellulose/alginate co-spun staple fibres from example 2 and High M alginate fibres manufactured by Foshan United Medical Technologies Ltd are blended evenly then processed by opening, carding, cross-lapping, double needling, and then by slitting, cutting, packaging and sterilization. The absorbency of the dressing is 14 g/100 cm 2 , and the wet strength is 1.30 N/cm.
Example 7
[0063] The chemically modified cellulose/alginate co-spun staple fibres from example 2 and M/G type alginate fibres manufactured by Foshan United Medical Technologies are blended evenly for the nonwoven process of opening, carding, lapping, double needling, and then by slitting, cutting, packaging and sterilization. The absorbency is 16 g/100 cm 2 , and the wet strength is 1.60 N/cm.
Example 8
[0064] The chemically modified cellulose/alginate co-spun staple fibres from example 1, carboxymethyl cellulose manufactured by Foshan United Medical Technologies and chitosan fibres purchased from Jifa New Material Ltd are blended together, followed by opening, carding, cross-lapping, double needling, and then slitting, cutting, packaging and sterilization. The absorbency of the dressing is measured at 21 g/100 cm 2 , and the wet strength is 0.85 N/cm.
Example 9
Manufacture Silver Chemically Modified Cellulose/alginate Co-spun Staple Fibres:
[0065] (1) Prepare 30 g cellulose/alginate co-spun staple fibres using the process conditions in example 2;
[0066] (2) Prepare 300 ml silver nitrate water/ethanol solution containing 5% ethanol and 1 g silver nitrate. Ensure that the silver nitrate is completely dissolved into solution;
[0067] (3) Pre-heat the silver solution to 40° C., and then immerse the chemically modified cellulose/alginate co-spun staple fibres into the solution for 5 minutes;
[0068] (4) Introduce sodium chloride into the silver solution at the molar ratio to silver nitrate of 1:1, converting the silver nitrate into silver chloride;
[0069] (5) The silver chemically modified cellulose/alginate co-spun staple fibres are dried and then packed.
[0070] The silver content of the said silver fibres is 1.2%.
Example 10
Manufacture Silver Chemically Modified Cellulose/alginate Co-spun Staple Fibres:
[0071] (1) Prepare 30 g cellulose/alginate co-spun staple fibres using the process conditions in example 2;
[0072] (2) Prepare 300 ml silver nitrate water/ethanol solution containing 5% ethanol and 1 g silver nitrate. Ensure that the silver nitrate is completely dissolved into solution;
[0073] (3) Pre-heat the silver solution to 40° C., and then immerse the chemically modified cellulose/alginate co-spun staple fibres into the solution for 5 minutes;
[0074] (4) Introduce Sodium hypochlorite into the silver solution at the molar ratio to silver nitrate of 1:1, converting the silver nitrate into silver hypochlorite;
[0075] (5) The silver chemically modified cellulose/alginate co-spun staple fibres are dried and then packed.
[0076] The silver content of the said silver fibres is 1.0%.
Example 11
[0077] The silver chemically modified cellulose/alginate co-spun staple fibres from example 10, were blended evenly with the M/G alginate fibres manufactured by Foshan United Medical Technologies Ltd, then processed by opening, carding, cross-lapping, double needling, and then by slitting, cutting, packaging and sterilization. The absorbency of this dressing is 14 g/100 cm 2 , and wet strength is 1.45 N/cm.
[0078] Example 12
[0079] The silver chemically modified cellulose/alginate co-spun staple fibres from example 10, was blended evenly with acylated chitosan fibres purchased from Jifa New Material Ltd, then processed by opening, carding, cross-lapping, double needling, and then by slitting, cutting, packaging and sterilization. The absorbency of this dressing is 17 g/100 cm 2 , and wet strength is 1.0 N/cm. | The present invention relates to a chemically modified cellulose/alginate co-spun (seacell) fibres, wound dressing made therefrom and preparation method thereof. The seacell fibres are subject to a chemical modification through which a hydrophilic carboxymethyl group is introduced into the cellulose structure making the chemically modified seacell fibres more absorbent. The modified cellulose has a degree of substitution of 0.05-0.5; the seacell fibres have a linear density of 0.5-5 dtex and a fibre length of 5-180 mm. The present invention enables seacell fibres to have hygroscopic and gel-forming properties, while retaining its active ingredient of algae particles. The dressing made from this material can provide a combined benefit of CMC and alginate to the chronic wounds, enhancing the benefits of the moist wound healing environment. | 8 |
RELATED APPLICATIONS
[0001] This application claims priority benefit under Title 35 §119(e) of U.S. provisional Application No. 60/447,513, filed Feb. 14, 2003, the contents of which are herein incorporated by reference.
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
[0002] This invention relates to compounds that inhibit farnesyl-protein transferase and ras protein farnesylation, thereby making them useful as anti-cancer agents. The compounds are also useful in the treatment of diseases, other than cancer, associated with signal transduction pathways operating through ras and those associated with CAAX-containing proteins other than ras that are also post-translationally modified by the enzyme farnesyl protein transferase. The compounds also act as inhibitors of other prenyl transferases, and thus be effective in the treatment of diseases associated with other prenyl modifications of proteins.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0003] The mammalian ras gene family comprises three genes: H-ras, K-ras and N-ras. The ras proteins are a family of GTP-binding and hydrolyzing proteins that regulate cell growth and differentiation. Overproduction of normal ras proteins or mutations that inhibit their GTPase activity can lead to uncontrolled cell division. The transforming activity of ras is dependent upon localization of the protein to plasma membranes. This membrane binding occurs via a series of post-translational modifications of the cytosolic ras proteins. The first and mandatory step in this sequence of events is the farnesylation of these proteins. The reaction is catalyzed by the enzyme farnesyl protein transferase (FPT), and farnesyl pyrophosphate (FPP) serves as the farnesyl group donor in this reaction. The ras C-terminus contains a sequence motif termed a “Cys-Aaa 1 -Aaa 2 -Xaa” box (CAAX box), wherein Cys is cysteine, Aaa is an aliphatic amino acid, and Xaa is a serine or methionine. Farnesylation occurs on the cysteinyl residue of the CAAX box (Cys-186), thereby attaching the prenyl group on the protein via a thio-ether linkage.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0004] The present invention provides compounds of formula I, their enantiomers, diasteromers, tautomers and pharmaceutically acceptable salts, prodrugs and solvates thereof, for use as inhibitors of farnesyl protein transferase and ras protein farnesylation:
[0005] wherein:
[0006] W is hydrogen, halogen, cyano, alkyl, alkynyl, cycloalkyl, heterocyclic, aryl, or heteroaryl;
[0007] R 1 is alkyl, alkynyl, cycloalkyl, heterocyclic, aryl or heteroaryl;
[0008] R 2 is SO 2 R 3 , SO 2 NR 4 R 5 , C(═O)NR 6 R 7 , or C(═O)R 8 ;
[0009] X is NR 9 R 10 , CR 11 R 12 R 13 ;
[0010] R 3 is alkyl, alkynyl, cycloalkyl, heterocyclic, aryl or heteroaryl; each R 4 , R 5 , R 6 , R 7 , R 8 , R 9 , R 10 and R 14 is, independently, hydrogen, alkyl, alkynyl, cycloalkyl, heterocyclic, acyl, aryl or heteroaryl, wherein optionally R 4 and R 5 together, R 6 and R 7 together, or R 9 and R 10 together form a heterocycle incorporating the nitrogen atom;
[0011] each R 11 , R 12 and R 13 is, independently, hydrogen, alkyl, cycloalkyl, heterocyclic, aryl, heteroaryl or OR 14 , wherein R 11 and R 12 together optionally form a cycloalkyl attached in a spiro fashion, or a heterocylcoalkyl attached in a spiro fashion, or a carbonyl group (C═O).
[0012] The present invention also provides pharmaceutical compositions comprising the compounds of formula I and methods of treating farnesly protein transferase associated disorders using the compounds of formula I.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
[0013] The following are definitions of terms used in the present specification. These definitions apply to the terms as they are used throughout the specification either individually or as part of a larger group, unless otherwise indicated.
[0014] The term “alkyl” refers to straight or branched chain hydrocarbon groups having 1 to 12 carbon atoms, preferably 1 to 8 carbon atoms. Lower alkyl groups, that is, alkyl groups of 1 to 4 carbon atoms, are most preferred.
[0015] The “alkyl” may be substituted by one, two, or three substituents. Exemplary substituents include halogen, trifluoromethyl, trifluoromethoxy, alkenyl, alkynyl, nitro, cyano, keto (═O), OR a , SR a , NR a R b , NR a SO 2 R c , SO 2 R c , SO 2 NR a R b , CO 2 R a , C(═O)R a , C(═O)NR a R b , OC(═O)R a , OC(═O)NR a R b , NR a C(═O)R b , NR a CO 2 R b , cycloalkyl, heterocyclic, aryl, and heteroaryl, wherein R a and R b are selected from hydrogen, alkyl, alkenyl, cycloalkyl, heterocyclic, aryl, and heteroaryl, and R c is selected from alkyl, alkenyl, cycloalkyl, heterocyclic, aryl and heteroaryl. When a substituted alkyl includes a cycloalkyl, heterocyclic, aryl, or heteroaryl substituent, said ringed systems are as defined below and may optionally be subsituted. When either R a , R b or R c is an alkyl or alkenyl, said alkyl or alkenyl may optionally be substituted with 1-3 of halogen, trifluoromethyl, trifluoromethoxy, nitro, cyano, keto (═O), OH, O(alkyl), phenyloxy, benzyloxy, SH, S(alkyl), NH 2 , NH(alkyl), N(alkyl) 2 , NHSO 2 (alkyl), SO 2 (alkyl), SO 2 NH 2 , SO 2 NH(alkyl), SO 2 N(alkyl) 2 , CO 2 H, CO 2 (alkyl), C(═O)H, C(═O)alkyl, C(═O)NH 2 , C(═O)NH(alkyl), C(═O)N(alkyl) 2 , OC(═O)alkyl, —OC(═O)NH 2 , —OC(═O)NH(alkyl), NHC(═O)alkyl, and/or NHCO 2 (alkyl).
[0016] “Alkyl” when used in conjunction with another group such as in “arylalkyl” or “cycloalkylalkyl” refers to a substituted alkyl in which at least one of the substituents is the specifically-named group. For example, the term arylalkyl (or aralkyl) includes benzyl, or any other straight or branched chain substituted alkyl having at least one aryl group attached at any point of the alkyl chain.
[0017] The term “alkynyl” refers to straight or branched chain hydrocarbon groups having 2 to 12 carbon atoms and at least one triple bond. Alkynyl groups of 2 to 6 carbon atoms and having one triple bond are most preferred.
[0018] The term “cycloalkyl” refers to fuilly saturated and partially unsaturated hydrocarbon rings of 3 to 9, preferably 3 to 7 carbon atoms, and may be optionally substituted with halogen, alkyl, alkenyl, substituted alkenyl, alkynyl, nitro, cyano, keto (═O), OR a , SR a , NR a R b , NR a SO 2 R c , SO 2 R c , SO 2 NR a R b , CO 2 R a , C(═O)R a , C(═O)NR a R b , OC(═O)R a , —OC(═O)NR a R b , NR a C(═O)R b , NR a CO 2 R b , aryl, heteroaryl, heterocyclic, and/or another 4 to 7 membered cycloalkyl ring, wherein R a , R b and R a are defmed as above. When R a , R b and R c are selected from an alkyl or alkenyl group, such groups are in turn optionally substituted as set forth above in the definition for substituted alkyl. The term “cycloalkyl” also includes such rings having a second ring fused thereto (e.g., including benzo, heterocyclic, or heteroaryl rings) or having a carbon-carbon bridge of 3 to 4 carbon atoms. When a cycloalkyl has a second ring fused thereto or is substituted with a further ring, ie., aryl, arylalkyl, heteroaryl, heteroarylalkyl, heterocyclic, heterocyclic, cycloalkylalkyl, or a further cycloalkyl ring, such ring in turn may be substituted with one to two C 0-6 alkyl substituted with one to two of (or bonded to one of) halogen, tirfluoromethyl, C 2-6 alkenyl, nitro, cyano, keto (═O), OH, O(alkyl), phenyloxy, benzyloxy, SH, S(alkyl), NH 2 , NH(alkyl), N(alkyl) 2 , NHSO 2 (alkyl), SO 2 (alkyl), SO 2 NH 2 , SO 2 NH(alkyl), SO 2 N(alkyl) 2 , CO 2 H, CO 2 (alkyl), C(═O)H, C(═O)alkyl, C(═O)NH 2 , C(═O)NH(alkyl), C(═O)N(alkyl) 2 , OC(═O)alkyl, —OC(═O)NH 2 , —OC(═O)NH(alkyl), NHC(═O)alkyl, and NHCO 2 (alkyl).
[0019] Thus, the term “cycloalkyl” includes cyclopropyl, cyclobutyl, cyclopentyl, cyclohexyl, cycloheptyl, cyclooctyl, etc., as well as the following ring systems,
[0020] and the like, which optionally may be substituted at any available atoms of the ring(s).
[0021] When reference is made to two substituted groups forming a cycloalkyl attached in spiro fashion, it means a fully saturated and partially unsaturated hydrocarbon rings of 3 to 9, preferably 3 to 7 carbon atoms, as in
[0022] n=1-5, and so forth, which optionally may be substituted with zero to five groups (preferably with zero to two). It may also be fused with one or more rings which is cycloalkyl, heterocylco, or aryl as in:
[0023] and the like, which optionally may be substituted at any available carbon atom.
[0024] The term “acyl” refers to a group having a carbonyl
[0025] linked to an organic group i. e.,
[0026] wherein R d may be selected from alkyl, alkenyl, substituted alkyl, substituted alkenyl, aryl, heterocyclo, cycloalkyl, and heteroaryl, as defined herein.
[0027] The term “aryl” refers to phenyl, biphenyl, naphthalenyl, and anthrathenyl, with phenyl being preferred. The term “aryl” includes such rings having zero to three substituents (preferably 0-2 substituents), selected from the group consisting of 1) R h ; and 2) C 1-6 alkyl substituted with one to three R g , wherein R g is as defined above for cycloalkyl, and R h is selected from the same groups as R g but does not include ketone (═O). Additionally, two substituents attached to an aryl, particularly a phenyl group, may join to form a further ring such as a fused or spiro-ring, e.g., cyclopentyl or cyclohexyl, or fused heterocycle or heteroaryl. When an aryl is substituted with a further ring, such ring in turn may be optionally substituted halogen, tirfluoromethyl, C 2-6 alkenyl, nitro, cyano, ketone (═O), OH, O(alkyl), phenyloxy, benzyloxy, SH, S(alkyl), NH 2 , NH(alkyl), N(alkyl) 2 , NHSO 2 (alkyl), SO 2 (alkyl), SO 2 NH 2 , SO 2 NH(alkyl), SO 2 N(alkyl) 2 , CO 2 H, CO 2 (alkyl), C(═O)H, C(═O)alkyl, C(═O)NH 2 , C(═O)NH(alkyl), C(═O)N(alkyl) 2 , OC(═O)alkyl, —OC(═O)NH 2 , —OC(═O)NH(alkyl), NHC(═O)alkyl, and NRCO 2 (alkyl).
[0028] Thus, examples of aryl groups include:
[0029] and the like, which optionally may be substituted at any available carbon or nitrogen atom.
[0030] The term “heterocycle” or “heterocyclic” refer to substituted and unsubstituted non-aromatic 3 to 7 membered monocyclic groups, 7 to 11 membered bicyclic groups, and 10 to 15 membered tricyclic groups, in which at least one of the rings has at least one heteroatom (O, S or N). Each ring of the heterocyclic group containing a heteroatom can contain one or two oxygen or sulfur atoms and/or from one to four nitrogen atoms provided that the total number of heteroatoms in each ring is four or less, and further provided that the ring contains at least one carbon atom. The fused rings completing bicyclic and tricyclic groups may contain nitrogen and carbon atoms, where the carbon atoms may be saturated, partially saturated, or unsaturated. The nitrogen and sulfur atoms may optionally be oxidized and the nitrogen atoms may optionally be quaternized. The heterocyclic group may be attached at any available nitrogen or carbon atom. The heterocyclic ring may be optionally substituted. Exemplary substituents include C 1 to C 6 alkyl, halogen, trifluoromethyl, C 2-6 alkenyl, nitro, cyano, keto (═O), OH, O(alkyl), phenyloxy, benzyloxy, SH, S(alkyl), NH 2 , NH(alkyl), N(alkyl) 2 , NHSO 2 (alkyl), SO 2 (alkyl), SO 2 NH 2 , SO 2 NH(alkyl), SO 2 N(alkyl) 2 , CO 2 H, CO 2 (alkyl), C(═O)H, C(═O)alkyl, C(═O)NH 2 , C(═O)NH(alkyl), C(═O)N(alkyl) 2 , OC(═O)alkyl, —OC(═O)NR 2 , —OC(═O)NH(alkyl), NHC(═O)alkyl, and NHCO 2 (alkyl).
[0031] Exemplary heterocyclic groups include, without limitation:
[0032] and the like, which optionally may be substituted at any available carbon or nitrogen atom.
[0033] When reference is made to two substituted groups forming a heterocyclic attached in Spiro fashion, exemplary examples include:
[0034] and so forth, which optionally may be substituted at any available carbon or nitrogen atom.
[0035] The term “heteroaryl” refers to substituted and unsubstituted aromatic 5 to 7 membered monocyclic groups, 9 or 10 membered bicyclic groups, and 11 to 14 membered tricyclic groups which have at least one heteroatom (O, S or N) in at least one of the rings. Each ring of the heteroaryl group containing a heteroatom can contain one or two oxygen or sulfur atoms and/or from one to four nitrogen atoms provided that the total number of heteroatoms in each ring is four or less and each ring has at least one carbon atom. The fused rings completing the bicyclic and tricyclic groups may contain nitrogen and carbon atoms, where the carbon atoms may be saturated, partially saturated, or unsaturated. The nitrogen and sulfur atoms may optionally be oxidized and the nitrogen atoms may optionally be quaternized. Heteroaryl groups which are bicyclic or tricyclic must include at least one fully aromatic ring but the other fused ring or rings may be aromatic or non-aromatic. The heteroaryl group may be attached at any available nitrogen or carbon atom of any ring. The heteroaryl ring system may be optionally substituted with C 1 to C 6 alkyl, halogen, trifluoromethyl, C 2-6 alkenyl, nitro, cyano, keto (═O), OH, O(alkyl), phenyloxy, benzyloxy, SH, S(alkyl), NH 2 , NH(alkyl), N(alkyl) 2 , NHSO 2 (alkyl), So 2 (alkyl), SO 2 NH 2 , SO 2 NH(alkyl), SO 2 N(alkyl) 2 , CO 2 H, CO 2 (alkyl), C(═O)H, C(═O)alkyl, C(═O)NH 2 , C(═O)NH(alkyl), C(═O)N(alkyl) 2 , OC(═O)alkyl, —OC(═O)NH 2 , —OC(═O)NH(alkyl), NHC(═O)alkyl, and NHCO 2 (alkyl).
[0036] Examples of heteroaryl rings include
[0037] and the like, which optionally may be substituted at any available carbon or nitrogen atom.
[0038] When the term “unsaturated” is used herein to refer to a ring or group, the ring or group may be fully unsaturated or partially unsaturated.
[0039] It should be understood that one skilled in the field may make various substitutions for each of the groups recited in the claims herein, without departing from the spirit or scope of the invention.
[0040] Throughout the specification, groups and substituents thereof may be chosen by one skilled in the field to provide stable moieties and compounds.
[0041] The compounds of formula I form salts which are also within the scope of this invention. Unless otherwise indicated, reference to an inventive compound is understood to include reference to salts thereof. The term “salt(s)” denotes acidic and/or basic salts formed with inorganic and/or organic acids and bases. In addition, the term “salt(s) may include zwitterions (inner salts), e.g., when a compound of formula I contains both a basic moiety, such as an amine or a pyridine or imidazole ring, and an acidic moiety, such as a carboxylic acid. Pharmaceutically acceptable (i.e., non-toxic, physiologically acceptable) salts are preferred, such as, for example, acceptable metal and amine salts in which the cation does not contribute significantly to the toxicity or biological activity of the salt. However, other salts may be useful, e.g., in isolation or purification steps which may be employed during preparation, and thus, are contemplated within the scope of the invention. Salts of the compounds of the formula I may be formed, for example, by reacting a compound of the formula I with an amount of acid or base, such as an equivalent amount, in a medium such as one in which the salt precipitates or in an aqueous medium followed by lyophilization.
[0042] Exemplary acid addition salts include acetates (such as those formed with acetic acid or trihaloacetic acid, for example, trifluoroacetic acid), adipates, alginates, ascorbates, aspartates, benzoates, benzenesulfonates, bisulfates, borates, butyrates, citrates, camphorates, camphorsulfonates, cyclopentanepropionates, digluconates, dodecylsulfates, ethanesulfonates, fumarates, glucoheptanoates, glycerophosphates, hemisulfates, heptanoates, hexanoates, hydrochlorides (formed with hydrochloric acid), hydrobromides (formed with hydrogen bromide), hydroiodides, 2-hydroxyethanesulfonates, lactates, maleates (formed with maleic acid), methanesulfonates (formed with methanesulfonic acid), 2-naphthalenesulfonates, nicotinates, nitrates, oxalates, pectinates, persulfates, 3-phenylpropionates, phosphates, picrates, pivalates, propionates, salicylates, succinates, sulfates (such as those formed with sulfuric acid), sulfonates (such as those mentioned herein), tartrates, thiocyanates, toluenesulfonates such as tosylates, undecanoates, and the like.
[0043] Exemplary basic salts include ammonium salts, alkali metal salts such as sodium, lithium, and potassium salts; alkaline earth metal salts such as calcium and magnesium salts; barium, zinc, and aluminum salts; salts with organic bases (for example, organic amines) such as trialkylamines such as triethylamine, procaine, dibenzylamine, N-benzyl- β-phenethylamine, 1-ephenamine, N,N′-dibenzylethylene-diamine, dehydroabietylamine, N-ethylpiperidine, benzylamine, dicyclohexylamine or similar pharmaceutically acceptable amines and salts with amino acids such as arginine, lysine and the like. Basic nitrogen-containing groups may be quaternized with agents such as lower alkyl halides (e.g., methyl, ethyl, propyl, and butyl chlorides, bromides and iodides), dialkyl sulfates (e.g., dimethyl, diethyl, dibutyl, and diamyl sulfates), long chain halides (e.g., decyl, lauryl, myristyl and stearyl chlorides, bromides and iodides), aralkyl halides (e.g., benzyl and phenethyl bromides), and others. Preferred salts include monohydrochloride, hydrogensulfate, methanesulfonate, phosphate or nitrate.
[0044] Prodrugs and solvates of the inventive compounds are also contemplated. The term “prodrug” denotes a compound which, upon administration to a subject, undergoes chemical conversion by metabolic or chemical processes to yield a compound of the formula I, and/or a salt and/or solvate thereof. Various forms of prodrugs are well known in the art. For examples of such prodrug derivatives, see:
[0045] a) Design of Prodrugs, edited by H. Bundgaard, (Elsevier, 1985) and Methods in Enzymology, Vol.42, p. 309-396, edited by K. Widder, et al. (Acamedic Press, 1985);
[0046] b) A Textbook of Drug Design and Development, edited by Krosgaard-Larsen and H. Bundgaard, Chapter 5, “Design and Application of Prodrugs,” by H. Bundgaard,p. 113-191 (1991); and
[0047] c) H. Bundgaard, Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews, 8, 1-38 (1992), each of which is incorporated herein by reference.
[0048] Compounds containing a carboxy group can form physiologically hydrolyzable esters which serve as prodrugs by being hydrolyzed in the body to yield formula I compounds per se. Such prodrugs are preferably administered orally since hydrolysis in many instances occurs principally under the influence of the digestive enzymes. Parenteral administration may be used where the ester per se is active, or in those instances where hydrolysis occurs in the blood. Examples of physiologically hydrolyzable esters of compounds of formula I include C 1-6 alkylbenzyl, 4-methoxybenzyl, indanyl, phthalyl, methoxymethyl, C 1-6 alkanoyloxy-C 1-6 alkyl, e.g. acetoxymethyl, pivaloyloxymethyl or propionyloxymethyl, C 1-6 alkoxycarbonyloxy-C 1-6 alkyl, e.g. methoxycarbonyl-oxymethyl or ethoxycarbonyloxymethyl, glycyloxymethyl, phenylglycyloxymethyl, (5-methyl-2-oxo-1,3-dioxolen-4-yl)-methyl and other well known physiologically hydrolyzable esters used, for example, in the penicillin and cephalosporin arts. Such esters may be prepared by conventional techniques known in the art.
[0049] Compounds of formula I and salts thereof may exist in their tautomeric form, in which hydrogen atoms are transposed to other parts of the molecules and the chemical bonds between the atoms of the molecules are consequently rearranged. It should be understood that the all tautomeric forms, insofar as they may exist, are included within the invention. Additionally, inventive compounds may have trans and cis isomers and may contain one or more chiral centers, therefore existing in enantiomeric and diastereomeric forms. The invention includes all such isomers, as well as mixtures of cis and trans isomers, mixtures of diastereomers and racemic mixtures of enantiomers (optical isomers). When no specific mention is made of the configuration (cis, trans or R or S) of a compound (or of an asymmetric carbon), then any one of the isomers or a mixture of more than one isomer is intended. The processes for preparation can use racemates, enantiomers or diastereomers as starting materials. When enantiomeric or diastereomeric products are prepared, they can be separated by conventional methods for example, chromatographic or fractional crystallization.
[0050] The compounds of the instant invention may, for example, be in the free or hydrate form, and may be obtained by methods herein.
[0051] As described above, the present invention encompasses compounds of the following formula I, and salts thereof, for use as farnesyl protein transferase inhibitors:
[0052] wherein:
[0053] W is hydrogen, halogen, cyano, alkyl, alkynyl, cycloalkyl, heterocyclic, aryl, or heteroaryl;
[0054] R 1 is alkyl, alkynyl, cycloalkyl, heterocyclic, aryl or heteroaryl;
[0055] R 2 is SO 2 R 3 , SO 2 NR 4 R 5 , C(═O)NR 6 R 7 , or C(═O)R 8 ;
[0056] X is NR 9 R 10 , CR 11 R 12 R 13 ;
[0057] R 3 is alkyl, alkynyl, cycloalkyl, heterocyclic, aryl or heteroaryl;
[0058] each R 4 , R 5 , R 6 , R 7 , R 8 , R 9 , R 10 and R 14 is, independently, hydrogen, alkyl, alkynyl, cycloalkyl, heterocyclic, acyl, aryl or heteroaryl, wherein optionally R 4 and R 5 together, R 6 and R 7 together, or R 9 and R 10 together form a heterocycle incorporating the nitrogen atom;
[0059] each R 11 , R 12 and R 13 is, independently, hydrogen, alkyl, cycloalkyl, heterocyclic, aryl, heteroaryl or OR 14 , wherein R 11 and R 12 together optionally form a cycloalkyl attached in a spiro fashion, or a heterocylcoalkyl attached in a spiro fashion, or a carbonyl group (C═O).
[0060] Preferred compounds of the present invention are compounds of the formula I, and salts thereof, wherein:
[0061] W is hydrogen, halogen, cyano;
[0062] R 1 is alkyl, aryl or heteroaryl;
[0063] and all other constituents are as previously described.
[0064] More preferred compounds of the present invention are compounds of the formula I, and salts thereof, wherein:
[0065] W is cyano;
[0066] R 1 is benzyl or thiophenyl;
[0067] and all other constituents are as previously described.
Use and Utility
[0068] The compounds of formulas I are inhibitors of S-farnesyl protein transferase. They are thus useful in the treatment of a variety of cancers, including (but not limited to) the following:
[0069] carcinoma, including that of the bladder, breast, colon, kidney, liver, lung, ovary, pancreas, stomach, cervix, thyroid and skin; including squamous cell carcinoma;
[0070] hematopoietic tumors of lymphoid lineage, including leukemia, acute lymphocytic leukemia, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, B-cell lymphoma, T-cell lymphoma, Hodgkins lymphoma, non-Hodgkins lymphoma, hairy cell lymphoma and Burketts lymphoma;
[0071] hematopoietic tumors of myeloid lineage, including acute and chronic myelogenous leukemias and promyelocytic leukemia;
[0072] tumors of mesenchymal origin, including fibrosarcoma and rhabdomyoscarcoma;
[0073] other tumors, including melanoma, seminoma, tetratocarcinoma, neuroblastoma and glioma;
[0074] tumors of the central and peripheral nervous system, including astrocytoma, neuroblastoma, glioma, and schwannomas;
[0075] tumors of mesenchymal origin, including fibrosarcoma, rhabdomyoscaroma, and osteosarcoma; and
[0076] other tumors, including melanoma, xenoderma pigmentosum, keratoactanthoma, seminoma, thyroid follicular cancer and teratocarcinoma.
[0077] The compounds of formulas I are especially useful in treatment of tumors having a high incidence of ras involvement, such as colon, lung, and pancreatic tumors. By the administration of a composition having one (or a combination) of the compounds of this invention, development of tumors in a mammalian host is reduced.
[0078] Compounds of formulas I are also useful in the treatment of diseases other than cancer that are associated with signal transduction pathways operating through ras, e.g., neuro-fibromatosis, atherosclerosis, pulmonary fibrosis, arthritis, psoriasis, glomerulonephritis, restenosis following angioplasty or vascular surgery, hypertrophic scar formation and endotoxic shock. Compounds of formulas I are also useful as anti-fungal agents.
[0079] Compounds of formulas I are also useful in the treatment of diseases associated with farnesyl transferase substrates other than ras (e.g., nuclear lamins and transducin) that are also post-translationally modified by the enzyme farnesyl protein transferase.
[0080] Compounds of formulas I also act as inhibitors of other prenyl transferases (e.g., geranylgeranyl transferase I), and thus can be effective in the treatment of diseases associated with other prenyl modifications (e.g., geranylgeranylation) of proteins (e.g. the rap, rab, rac and rho gene products and the like). For example, they may find use as drugs against Hepatitis delta virus (HDV) infections, as suggested by the recent finding that geranylgeranylation of the large isoform of the delta antigen of HDV is a requirement for productive viral infection [J. S. Glen, et al., Science, 256, 1331 (1992)].
[0081] Compounds of formula I also induce or inhibit apoptosis, a physiological cell death process critical for normal development and homeostasis. Alterations of apoptotic pathways contribute to the pathogenesis of a variety of human diseases. Compounds of formula I, as modulators of apoptosis, will be useful in the treatment of a variety of human diseases with aberrations in apoptosis including cancer (particularly, but not limited to follicular lymphomas, carcinomas with p53 mutations, hormone dependent tumors of the breast, prostrate and ovary, and precancerous lesions such as familial adenomatous polyposis), viral infections (including but not limited to herpesvirus, poxvirus, Epstein-Barr virus, Sindbis virus and adenovirus), autoimmune diseases (including but not limited to systemic lupus erythematosus, immune mediated glomerulonephritis, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, inflammatory bowel diseases and autoimmune diabetes mellitus), neurodegenerative disorders (including but not limited to Alzheimer's disease, AIDS-related dementia, Parkinson's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, retinitis pigmentosa, spinal muscular atrophy and cerebellar degeneration), AIDS, myelodysplastic syndromes, aplastic anemia, ischemic injury associated myocardial infarctions, stroke and reperfusion injury, arrhythmia, atherosclerosis, toxin-induced or alcohol induced liver diseases, hematological diseases (including but not limited to chronic anemia and aplastic anemia), degenerative diseases of the musculoskeletal system (including but not limited to osteoporosis and arthritis), aspirin-sensitive rhinosinusitis, cystic fibrosis, multiple sclerosis, kidney diseases, and cancer pain.
[0082] The compounds of this invention are also useful in combination with known anti-cancer and cytotoxic agents i.e. Topoisomerase I and II inhibitors, antimetabolites, agents that affect microtubules, DNA intercalaters and binders, agents that interfere with angiogenesis, DNA alkylating agents, hormonal agents, protein kinase inhibitors, ribonucleotide reductase inhibitors, mitochondrial respiratory inhibitors, agents that affect Golgi apparaus, telomerase inhibitors, prenyl transferase inhibitors, cell membrane interactive agents, and treatments, including radiation. If formulated as a fixed dose, such combination products employ the compounds of this invention within the dosage range described below and the other pharmaceutically active agent within its approved dosage range. Compounds of formulas I can be used sequentially with known anticancer or cytotoxic agents and treatment, including radiation when a combination formulation is inappropriate.
[0083] Farnesyl transferase assays were performed as described in V. Manne et al., Drug Development Research, 34, 121-137, (1995). The compounds of the present invention are inhibitors of farnesyl transferase with IC 50 values between 1nM and 100 uM.
[0084] The compounds of this invention can be formulated with a pharmaceutical vehicle or diluent for oral, intravenous or subcutaneous administration. The pharmaceutical composition can be formulated in a classical manner using solid or liquid vehicles, diluents and additives appropriate to the desired mode of administration. Orally, the compounds can be administered in the form of tablets, capsules, granules, powders and the like. The compounds are administered in a dosage range of about 0.05 to 200 mg/kg/day, preferably less than 100 mg/kg/day, in a single dose or in 2 to 4 divided doses.
Methods of Preparation
[0085] Compounds of formula I may be prepared according to the following Schemes. Solvents, temperatures, pressures, and other reaction conditions may readily be selected by the knowledge of one skilled in the art.
[0086] Compound 1A could be obtained by someone skilled in the art by following the published procedure (Eur. J. Med. Chem. 497, 26, 1991).
[0087] In step 1, compound 1A can be converted to the corresponding sulfonamide 1B by reacting with a sulfonylation reagent, e.g., methane sulfonyl chloride.
[0088] In step 2, the halogen group (e.g., Br) of compound 1B can be converted to other groups, for example, cyano, aryl, or heteroaryl by reacting with an appropriate reagent in the presence of a catalyst like palladium.
[0089] In step 3, compound 1C can be regiospecifically nitrated to give compound 1D.
[0090] In step 4, compound 1D can undergo alkylation on nitrogen, for example, with benzyl chloride in the presence of a base such as sodium hydride to give compound 1E.
[0091] In step 5, the nitro group of compound 1E can be reduced by a reducing agent such as hydrogen over palladium catalyst.
[0092] In step 6, compound 1F can be alkylated at the free aniline group under reductive amination condition, e.g., reacting with imidazole carboxaldehyde in the presence of triethyl silane to give compound 1G.
[0093] In step 1 of Scheme 2, compound 1C can be converted to compound 2A through formylation reaction such as treatment with α,α-dichloromethyl methyl ether in the presence of a Lewis acid such as titanium tetrachloride.
[0094] In step 2 of Scheme 2, compound 2A can be converted to compound 2B by treatment with an alkylating agent such as benzyl bromide in the presence of a base such as cesium carbonate.
[0095] In step 3 of Scheme 2, compound 2B can be converted to compound 2C by treatment with a Grignard agent such as imidazole magnesium bromide.
[0096] In addition, other compounds of formula I may be prepared using procedures generally known to those skilled in the art. In particular, the following examples provide additional methods for preparing compounds of this invention. These examples are illustrative rather than limiting, and it is to be understood that there may be other embodiments that fall within the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the claims appended hereto.
Conditions
[0097] All temperatures are in degrees Celsius (° C.) unless otherwise indicated. Reverse phase (RP) HPLC purifications were done by eluting with a mixture of methanol in water containing 0.1% TFA on. YMC S5 ODS 4.6×50 mm column over 4 min, 4 mL/min. The retention times are reported as Rt. All the synthesized compounds were characterized by at least proton NMR and LC/MS. During work up of reactions, the organic extract was dried over Magnesium sulfate (MgSO 4 ), unless mentioned otherwise.
ABBREVIATIONS
[0098] NMM=N-methylmorpholine;
[0099] DIBALH=diisobutylaluminum hydride;
[0100] BOP reagent=benzotriazol-1-yloxy-tris(trimethylamino)phosphonium hexafluorophosphate;
[0101] DCE=dichloroethane;
[0102] DCC=dicyclohexyl carbodiimide;
[0103] EDCI=1-(dimethylaminopropyl)-3-ethylcabodiimide hydrochloride;
[0104] HOBt=hydroxybenzotriazole;
[0105] DCM=dichloromethane;
[0106] CbzCl=chlorobenzoyl chloride;
[0107] TFA=trifluoroacetic acid;
[0108] DIPEA=diisopropylamine.
EXAMPLE 1
[0109] [0109]
N-Benzyl-N-[6-cyano-8-(3H-imidazol-4-ylamino)-chroman-3-yl]-methanesulfonamide
[0110] A) A mixture of 5-bromosalicyldehyde (8.04 g, 40 mmoles), nitroethanol (7.28 g, 80 mmol) and dibutylamine hydrocholoride (3.28 g, 20 mmol) in isoamylacetate (80 mL) was heated to reflux with Dean-Stark trap (see Eur. J. Med. Chem. 497, 26, 1991). After 2 h, the reaction mixture was cooled to RT and concentrated in vacuo. The residue was purified by flash column chromatography eluting with hexanes in dichloromethane (2:1) to afford a yellow solid which was dissolved in dichloromethane and washed with 1 N NaOH (3 times). The organic layer was dried, and concentrated to afford 6-bromo-3-nitro-2H-chromene (4.0 g, 39%) as an yellow solid.
[0111] B) To a solution of compound 1A (4.0 g, 15.6 mmol) in chloroform (100 mL) and isopropanol (40 mL) was added silica gel (10 g, 230 Mesh), followed by sodium borohydride (1.5 g, 39.7 mmol) in small portions. After stirring for 20 min, acetic acid (1.5 mL) was added dropwise. After 20 min, the reaction mixture was filtered and the filtrate was concentrated to afford a white solid. The residue was purified by flash column chromatography to afford 6-bromo-3-nitro-chroman (3.6 g, 89%) as a solid.
[0112] C) To a stirring mixture of compound 1B (2.58 g, 10 mmol) and Raney Nickel (2 g) in ethanol (100 mL) at 45° C. was added hydrazine (5 mL, 40% in tetrahydrofuran) dropwise over 0.5 h. After 30 min more, the mixture was cooled to RT, filtered through a pad of celite, and the filtrate was concentrated in vacuo. The residue was purified by flash column chromatography eluting with 2% methanol in dichloromethane containing 0.1% ammonia to afford 6-bromo-chroman-3-ylamine (2.1 g, 89%) as an oil. LC/MS; (M+H) + =228.2.
[0113] D) Compound 1C (77.7 g, 0.29 M) was mixed with ethyl acetate (25 mL), NaHCO 3 (2 g) in water (5 mL), and methanesulfonyl chloride (1.17 g, 10.2 mmol). The mixture was stirred for 1 h, and then the two layers were separated and the aqueous layer was extracted with ethyl acetate. The organic layer was dried, and concentrated to afford a solid which was further purified by trituration with diethyl ether to afford N-(6-bromo-chroman-3-yl)-methanesulfonamide (21.15 g, 83%) as white solid. LC/MS; (M+H) + =304.3, 306.2.
[0114] E) To a solution of compound 1D (918 mg, 3 mmol) in NMP (10 mL) was added cuprous cyanide (918 mg, 10.3 mmol) and the resulting mixture was heated at 195° C. After 6 h, the mixture was cooled to RT and water (30 mL) was added. The precipitate formed was washed with water and the solid was extracted with 10% methanol in dichloromethane. The combined extracts were concentrated to afford the desired product, N-(6-cyano-chroman-3-yl)-methanesulfonamide (610 mg, 80%) as a white solid. LC/MS; (M+H) + =253.3.
[0115] F) To a solution of compound 1E (252 mg, 1 mmol) in chloroform (15 mL) were added KNO 3 (150 mg, 1.49 mmol) and TFA anhydride (0.5 mL, 3.5 mmol). After stirring at RT for 3 h, the mixture was washed with saturated NaHCO 3 solution. The organic layer was separated and the aqueous layer was extracted with dichloromethane. The combined organic layer was dried, concentrated and the residue was purified by flash column chromatography eluting with 2% methanol in dichloromethane to afford N-(6-cyano-8-nitro-chroman-3-yl)-methanesulfonamide (120 mg, 40%).
[0116] G) A mixture of compound 1F (150 mg, 0.5 mmol), benzyl alcohol (270 mg, 2.5 mmol), triphenylphosphine (655 mg, 2.5 mmol), and DIALD (505 mg, 2.5 mmol) in tetrahydrofuran (3 mL) was stirred at 50° C. for 2 h. The mixture was then cooled to RT, concentrated and the resulting residue was purified by silica gel column chromatography using ethyl acetate/hexanes (1:2) to afford N-benzyl-N-(6-cyano-8-nitro-chroman-3-yl)-methanesulfonamide (170 mg, 88%). LC/MS; (M+H) + =388.4.
[0117] H) To a solution of compound 1G (160 mg, 0.41 mmol) in ethyl acetate (15 mL) was added 10% Pd/C (60 mg) and the resulting mixture was stirred under hydrogen (balloon) for 5 h. It was then filtered, concentrated and the residue was purified by silica gel column chromatography using ethyl acetate/hexanes (1:1)to afford N-(8-amino-6-cyano-chroman-3-yl)- N-benzyl methanesulfonamide (120 mg, 82%). LC/MS; (M+H) + =358.2.
[0118] I) A mixture of 1H (100 mg, 0.28 mmol), 4-imidazolecarboxaldehyde (31.6 mg, 0.33 mmol), and TFA (0.2 mL) in dichloromethane (2 mL) was stirred at RT for 10 min. Triethylsilane (0.1 mL) was added dropwise to the above mixture. After 1 h, aqueous NaHCO 3 and dichloromethane were added to the reaction mixture. The organic layer was separated, dried and concentrated. The residue was purified by silica gel column chromatography using ethyl acetate/hexanes (1:1) to afford the title compound (120 mg, 100%). LC/MS; (M+H) + =438. RP HPLC Rt=2.77 min. (YMC S5 ODS 4.6×50 mm, 10%-90% aqueous methanol containing 0.1% TFA over 4 min, 4 mL/min).
EXAMPLE 2
[0119] [0119]
N-[3-(Benzyl methanesulfonylamino)-6-cyanochroman-8-yl]-N-(3H-imidazol-4-yl)acetamide
[0120] A solution of Example 1 ( 20 mg, 0.046 mmol ) in acetic anhydride ( 0.1 mL) was stirred at RT. After 3 h, methanol was added to the mixture. After stirring for 16 h, the mixture was neutralized with aqueous NaHCO 3 and extracted with dichloromethane. The combined extract was dried, and concentrated in vacuo. The residue was dissolved in methanol, HCl (1N, 0.05 mL)) and water (2 mL). After 20 min, the mixture was concentrated to remove methanol and the remaining residue was lyophilized to afford the title compound (12 mg, 50%) as a hydrochloride salt. LC/MS; (M+H) + =480.7. RP HPLC Rt=2.56 min.
EXAMPLE 3
[0121] [0121]
N-Benzyl-N-{6-cyano-8-[(3H-imidazol-4-yl)-methyl-amino]-chroman-3-yl}-methanesulfonamide
[0122] To a solution of Example 1 (20 mg, 0.049 mmol) in dichloromethane (1 mL) paraformaldehyde (50 mg), TFA (0.1 mL) and triethylsilane (0.1 mL) were added. After stirring at RT for 2 h, and the mixture was neutralized with aqueous NaHCO 3 solution, the organic layer was separated and the aqueous layer was extracted with dichloromethane (2 times). The combined organic layer was dried, filtered and concentrated. The residue was purified by SCX® cartridge eluting with methanol and then with 2N ammonia in methanol. The fractions containing desired product were treated with a solution containing 1N HCl (0.05 mL) and water (2 mL) and lyophilized to afford the title compound as a hydrochloride salt (12 mg, 65%), a white solid. MS: (M+H) + =451. RP HPLC Rt=2.77 min.
EXAMPLE 4
[0123] [0123]
N-Benzyl-N-{8-[benzyl-(3H-imidazol-4-yl)-amino]-6-cyano-chroman-3-yl}-methanesulfonamide
[0124] The procedure described for the preparation of Example 3 was followed to convert Example 1 (22 g, 0.5 mmol) by treatement with benzaldehyde (0.1 mL) to the title compound (4 mg, 20%) as HCl salt. LC/MS; (M+H) + =528.3. HPLC Rt=3.36 min.
EXAMPLE 5
[0125] [0125]
N-Benzyl-N-{6-cyano-8-[hydroxy-(3-methyl-3H-imidazol-4-yl)-methyl]-chroman-3-yl}-methanesulfonamide
[0126] A) To a solution of compound 1D of Example 1 (306 mg, 1.0 mmol) in dichloromethane (10 mL) were added TiCl 4 in dichloromethane (1M, 2.5 mL, 2.5 mmol) and α,α-dichloromethyl methyl ether (0.5 mL). After stirring at RT overnight, water (2 mL) was added and the mixture was refluxed for 3 h. After cooling to RT, the organic layer was separated, dried and concentrated in vacuo . The resulting residue was triturated with ether and dried in vacuo to afford N-(6-bromo-8-formyl-chroman-3-yl)-methanesulfonamide (230 mg, 69%).
[0127] B) To a solution of compound 5A (334 mg, 1 mmol) in dimethyl formamide (3 mL) were added Cs 2 CO 3 (650 mg, 2 mmol) and benzyl bromide (256 mg, 1.5 mmol) and the mixture was stirred at RT for 2 h. The mixture was washed with water (10 mL) and extracted with dichloromethane (3 times). The combined organic extracts were dried, concentrated and the residue was purified by flash silica gel column chromatography eluting with 2% methanol in dichloromethane to afford N-benzyl-N-(6-bromo-8-formyl-chroman-3-yl)-methanesulfonamide (360 mg, 85%).
[0128] C) To a solution of compound 5B (360 mg, 0.85 mmol) in dimethyl formamide (4 mL) were added zinc cyanide (200 mg, 1.7 mmol), and Pd(Ph 3 ) 4 (100 mg, 0.09 mmol). After stirring for 3 h at 90° C. under Argon, the mixture was cooled to RT and diluted with dichloromethane (20 mL) and filtered through a pad of Celite®. The filtrate was concentrated and the residue was purified by flash silica gel column chromatography eluting with ethyl acetate in hexanes (1:1) to afford N-benzyl-N-(6-cyano-8-formyl-chroman-3-yl)-methanesulfonamide (280 mg, 89%).
[0129] D) To a solution of 1-methyl-5-iodoimidazole (208 mg, 1 mmol) in dichloromethane (10 mL) under Argon was added a solution of ethyl magnesium bromide (3M in ether, 0.4 mL, 1.2 mmol). The resulting solution was stirred at RT for 1.5 h, then a solution of compound 5C (185 mg, 0.5 mmol) in dichloromethane (5 mL) was added. After stirring at RT overnight, the mixture was treated with saturated NH 4 Cl solution and the organic layer was separated, dried and concentrated. The residue was purified by flash silica gel column to afford the title compound(165 mg, 73%) as a mixture of diastereomers.
[0130] E) The above mixture of diastereomers was separated by preparative RP HPLC eluting with a mixture of methanol in water containing 0.1% TFA , then converted to respective HCl salts.
[0131] Isomer A: HPLC RT=2.37 min, LC/MS; (M+H) + =453.
[0132] Isomer B: HPLC RT=2.52 min. LC/MS; (M+H) + =453.
EXAMPLE 6
[0133] [0133]
N-Benzyl-N-{6-cyano-8-[methoxy-(3-methyl-3H-imidazol-4-yl)-methyl]-chroman-3-yl}-methanesulfonamide
[0134] Sodium hydride (60% in oil, 3.3 mg, 0.08 mmol) was washed with hexanes, and then suspended in dimethyl formamide. To this suspension, a solution of compound 5D (25 mg, 0.55 mmol) in dimethyl formamide (0.5 mL) was added. After 10 min at RT, the mixture was cooled to 0° C., and iodomethane (15 mg, 0.11 mmol) was added. After 2 h, one drop was acetic acid was added and the resulting mixture was purified by preparative HPLC to obtain two isomers which were converted to the HCl salt and lyophilized.
[0135] Isomer I (5.5 mg): LC/MS; (M+H) + =467. HPLC Rt=2.58 min.
[0136] Isomer II (8.0 mg): LC/MS; (M+H) + =467. HPLC Rt=2.76 min.
EXAMPLE 7
[0137] [0137]
N-Benzyl-N-[6-cyano-8-(3-methyl-3H-imidazole-4-carbonyl)-chroman-3-yl]-methanesulfonamide
[0138] To a solution of Example 5 (45 mg, 0.1 mmol) in dichloromethane (3 mL) at RT was added Dess-Martin reagent (102 mg) and the mixture was stirred at RT overnight. The mixture was diluted with dichloromethane and washed with 1N NaOH solution. The combined organic extracts were dried, concentrated and the residue was purified by flash silica gel column chromatography followed by RP HPLC. The desired fractions were concentrated and the residue was converted to HCl salt and lyophilized to afford the title compound (39 mg, 86%) as a solid. MS: (M+H) + =451. HPLC RT=2.84 min.
EXAMPLE 8
[0139] [0139]
N-Benzyl-N-{8-[(4-chloro-phenyl)-hydroxy-(3-methyl-3H-imidazol-4-yl)-methyl]-6-cyano-chroman-3-yl}-methanesulfonamide
[0140] To suspension of Example 7 (25 mg, 0.5 mmol) in tetrahydrofuran (0.5 mL) at 0° C. was added a solution of p-chlorophenyl magnesium bromide (1M in ether, 0.1 mL, 0.1 mmol). After stirring for 2 h at RT, the mixture was treated with NH 4 Cl solution and extracted with dichloromethane. The combined organic extracts were dried, concentrated and the residue was purified by reverse phase preparative HPLC. The appropriate fraction were mixed, concentrated and converted to HCl salt to afford the title compound (25 mg, 87%). LC/MS: (M+H) + =561, 563 (3:1 ratio).
EXAMPLE 9
[0141] [0141]
N-Benzyl-N-{6-cyano-8-[(3-methyl-3H-imidazol-4-ylmethyl)-amino]-chroman-3-yl}-methanesulfonamide
[0142] Compound 1H of Example 1 (50 mg, 0.14 mmol) was treated with 1 -methyl-5-imidazolecarboxaldehyde (23 mg, 0.21 mmol) in a manner similar to the preparation of Example 1 (procedure I) to afford the title compound (60 mg, 85%). MS (ESI): (M+H) + =452. HPLC RT=2.68 min.
EXAMPLE 10
[0143] [0143]
N-Benzyl-N-{6-cyano-8-[methyl-(3-methyl-3H-imidazol-4-ylmethyl)-amino]-chroman-3-yl}-methanesulfonamide
[0144] Example 9 (49 mg, 0.1 mmol), was converted to the title compound (7.5 mg, 14%) as the HCl salt in a manner similar to the preparation of Example 3. LC/MS; (M+H) + =466.2. HPLC RT=2.72 min.
EXAMPLE 11
[0145] [0145]
N-{6-Cyano-8-[(pyridin-4-ylmethyl)-amino]-chroman-3-yl}-N-thiophen-3-ylmethyl-methanesulfonamide
[0146] A) Compound 1F was converted to N-(6-cyano-8-nitro-chroman-3-yl)-N-thiophene-3-ylmethyl-methanesulfonamide (40%) by treatment with 3-thiophenemethanol in a manner similar to the preparation of compound 1G. LC/MS; (M+H) + =394.3.
[0147] B) Compound 11A was converted to the title compound in a manner similar to the conversion of compound 1G to Example 1 except pyridine-4-carboxaldehyde was used in the second step. LC/MS; (M+H) + =469.5.
EXAMPLE 12
[0148] [0148]
N-[6-Cyano-8-(methyl-pyridin-4-ylmethyl-amino)-chroman-3-yl]-N-thiophen-3-ylmethyl-methanesulfonamide
[0149] Example 11 (89 mg, 0.2 mmol)was converted to the title compound (31 mg) in a manner similar to the preparation of Example 3. LC/MS; (M+H) + =469.5.
EXAMPLE 13
[0150] [0150]
N-{6-Cyano-8-[(pyridin-3-ylmethyl)-amino]-chroman-3-yl}-N-thiophen-3-ylmethyl-methanesulfonamide
[0151] Compound 11A was converted to the title compound in a manner similar to the conversion of compound 1G to Example 1 except pyridine-3-carboxaldehyde was used in the second step. LC/MS; (M+H) + =469.5.
EXAMPLE 14
[0152] [0152]
N-[6-Cyano-8-(methyl-pyridin-3-ylmethyl-amino)-chroman-3-yl]-N-thiophen-3-ylmethyl-methanesulfonamide
[0153] Example 12 (164 mg, 0.36 mmol)was converted to the title compound (127 mg, 76%) in a manner similar to the preparation of Example 3. LC/MS; (M+H) + =469.5.
EXAMPLE 15
[0154] [0154]
N-{6-Cyano-8-[(3H-imidazol-4-ylmethyl)-amino]-chroman-3-yl}-N-thiophen-3-ylmethyl-methanesulfonamide
[0155] The title compound (122 mg) was prepared from compound 1G in a manner similar to the preparation of Example 1. LC/MS; (M+H) + =444.4. | The present invention discloses the identification of the novel inhibitors of farnesyl protein transferase and ras protein farnesylation. The compounds and pharmaceutical compositions disclosed herein are useful in treating diseases associated with farnesyl protein transferase, such as cancer. | 2 |
PRIORITY CLAIM TO RELATED APPLICATION
[0001] This application claims the benefit of the earlier priority filing date of commonly owned and co-pending U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/924,833 filed Jun. 1, 2007, which was filed in the name of the sole and common inventor, Charles G. WAGNER, which is entitled METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR MONITORING POWER CONSUMPTION, and which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety as though fully set forth in the present application.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0002] 1. Field of the Invention
[0003] This invention relates to the field of devices, methods, and systems for monitoring electric power consumption of electrically powered appliances, devices, and equipment as well as power consumption of residential, commercial, and/or industrial buildings and facilities as well as organizational or business campuses of any size or configuration. The invention described herein further relates to a method and apparatus for the monitoring of electricity consumption, and more particularly, to a system including one or more current and/or power sensing devices connected to a remote monitor that enables home, business, and/or any electricity users to monitor their power consumption to enable such adjustments as are necessary or desirable to reduce and/or proactively manage and optimize electricity usage and to reduce or control associated costs.
[0004] 2. Description of Related Art
[0005] The inventor herein has previously invented, with others, a power and current-sensing device disclosed and claimed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,754,218 (hereafter “the '218 Patent”) and a monitoring device disclosed and claimed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,717,872 (hereafter “the '872 Patent”), both of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety as though fully set forth herein. The '218 Patent discloses a magnetically permeable core suitable to be disposed around a power feeder cable, such as is typically used to supply power to a residence or business from the main power grid.
[0006] A coil situated upon the core generates an induced voltage proportional to the feeder cable current without ohmic contact being required. In addition, the wrapping of a core around the current-carrying cable balances the unbalanced magnetic fields surrounding the cable, which unexpectedly reduces power loss. The '872 Patent discloses and claims a device to monitor the power being supplied to a building, such as a residence or business, using a magnetically permeable core, including a read-out unit calibrated to convert the current sensed from the core into units of power being consumed by the building.
[0007] The core and monitoring device disclosed and claimed in the '218 and '872 Patents enable a user to sense current and thus monitor the power being consumed in a building on a real-time basis. Studies have shown that when power consumption is monitored on a real-time basis, consumers reduce their consumption by an average of ten to twenty percent.
[0008] For example, a consumer may realize that a light or other appliance has been left on, or a freezer door left open, unintentionally. Alternatively, the consumer may realize that certain appliances he or she is using are not energy-efficient and may be spurred to replace those appliances with more efficient models. As energy prices skyrocket and concerns grow about power generation and consumption contributing to global warming (especially where the grid power is derived from fossil fuels), becoming more energy efficient and thus reducing power consumption is both an economic and a climatic imperative.
[0009] While the core and device disclosed and claimed in the prior art '218 and '872 Patents assist in accomplishing the goal of decreasing power consumption, they do suffer some deficiencies. For example, using the prior art devices, one can monitor only the total power being consumed in the building. At most times, more than one electrically powered appliance is being used in the building; therefore, it can be difficult to pinpoint exactly which appliance is the most inefficient.
[0010] Also, while the prior art devices include a monitor with units calibrated to show the amount of power being consumed, the monitor displays only the present power consumption and cannot provide any information as to past usage, averages per different times of day, or other information that might be useful in profiling and reducing power consumption. Further, the prior art core transmitted the data to the monitor via a wire, necessitating either locating the monitor outside the building, or running a wire into the building.
[0011] What has long been needed in the field of art is a core and monitoring system that allows for a core wrapped around a current-carrying cable to balance unbalanced magnetic fields to reduce power consumption. Preferably, such a system could be adapted in varied configurations to monitor the current-carrying cable non-invasively to enhance safety during installation and operation.
[0012] More preferably, such monitoring systems would be optionally compatible for use with a plurality of core sensors so that the consumption of individual appliances may be monitored periodically and/or in real-time. In even more optionally preferred variations, monitoring systems could be modified to communicate with and/or receive information transmitted from the cores to the monitoring hardware via a wireless method.
[0013] In additionally preferred alternative variations, the monitoring system may be augmented to sense power consumption and to communicate such information in a display or read-out scaled to and/or configured to display dimensional units that accommodate any type of electric load. In further modified embodiments, the monitoring system may also be adapted to sense power consumption periodically and/or continuously and to transmit such consumption information instantaneously, on demand, occasionally, or periodically.
[0014] Even more preferably, certain alternative power consumption monitoring systems may incorporate software and/or circuitry configured to operate, collect, display, and analyze information about power consumption either on-site, proximate to, and/or remote from the location of the electric loads. In other preferred or optional variations, the monitoring system may be implemented whereby the software can interface with the system and can correlate the monitored information with a user's electric utility bill. In this way, new, innovative, and heretofore unavailable capabilities can be established whereby power consumers and producers, distributors, traders, resellers, suppliers, and/or utility service providers or organizations or municipalities may more accurately ascertain power consumption or usage, availability, quality, and/or reliability so as to better control, manage, increase availability and quality, and/or reduce or optimize power consumption to minimize inefficiencies.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0015] Many heretofore unmet needs are met and problems of the prior art are solved with the innovative power consumption monitoring devices, methods, firmware, software, and systems of the invention, many embodiments of which enable and establish previously unavailable features. Such features and capabilities may preferably or optionally include, among other elements and for purposes of illustration and example but not for purposes of limitation, improved and more accurate power consumption monitoring, new ways to adjust electric loads in view of more timely awareness of consumption and/or anomalies, and new power consumption sensor arrangements and monitoring capabilities. Such novel and innovative features and capabilities may also further preferably or optionally incorporate more readily configurable, reconfigurable, and easily adaptable sensors and monitors and combinations and arrangements thereof, all of which enable consumers and/or producers, distributors, traders, resellers, or suppliers to protect against and to quickly remedy low quality power or unavailability, and/or inefficient, unnecessary, and less than optimal consumption of power.
[0016] In one preferred configuration of the invention, a power consumption monitor and/or monitoring system includes at least one, and more preferably a plurality of magnetic cores adapted to be respectively situated around one or more wires, cables, conductors, and/or cords that are transmitting electric power to residential, commercial, and/or industrial equipment, appliances, buildings, facilities, and campuses. Preferably, one or all of the plurality of magnetic cores incorporates or is in communication with one or more signal transceivers or transmission circuits, which accompany or are incorporated with one or more of the plurality of magnetic cores.
[0017] Even more preferably, each of the one or more transmission circuits is configured to transmit current and power information wirelessly to at least one monitoring device and/or to receive information therefrom. In one optionally preferred configuration of any of the embodiments of the invention, the monitoring device may be adapted to wirelessly receive transmissions from any of the contemplated transmission circuits and/or to communicate information thereto. In another alternative configuration, the monitoring device may be further configured to display the current and power information and/or to retransmit such information to another device. In yet more optionally preferred configurations, the monitoring device or another component in communication therewith collects, modifies, retransmits, and/or analyzes the power and current information and displays and/or communicates modified or converted power consumption information.
[0018] For purposes of example but not for purposes of limitation, such modified and/or converted information may be ascertained through any of a number of ways that include passive, reactive, inductive, ohmic, impedance, resistive, and/or combination-type sensors. Such modified and/or converted information may describe or be further converted to describe power use, quality, availability, voltage, current, frequency, power factor, and any desired or related information. In turn, this modified and/or converted information may also be useful to compute, describe, estimate, and/or predict total, instantaneous, and/or average power consumption for a period of time, total or average power consumed per unit time, maximum and minimum power consumed at any moment in time, and/or total or average power consumed.
[0019] Preferably, any or all of such modified and/or converted information may also be attributable to and/or identifiable with respect to a specific one and/or any or all of the monitored residential, commercial, and/or industrial equipment, appliances, devices, buildings, or facilities. Such modified information may also preferably include optional information such as information that may be mathematically, statistically, or algorithmically derived from power consumption information, and which may include voltage, current, frequency, cost of power use, projected or estimated power use and cost, as well as reliability, availability, and quality of any aspect of the consumed power, and any combination thereof.
[0020] The invention further comprises, in various of its aspects and embodiments, a software program or programs and elements thereof, which may be resident on each, every, and/or any component of the power consumption monitoring system, including for purposes of example without limitation, a power consumption sensor, a sensor monitoring device, the consumption monitoring system, a computer, a computing device, and/or components and elements thereof. The components containing such resident software program and/or programs may be proximate to, remote to, and/or inside or integrated with the residential, commercial, and/or industrial equipment, appliances, devices, buildings, facilities, and/or campuses. In additionally preferable or optional configurations to any of the embodiments of the invention, such components may also be integrated with circuit breakers, subcircuit or branch conductors, as well as in appliances, devices, equipment, and any other type of electric load.
[0021] In other optionally preferred novel embodiments, any of the monitoring devices, sensors, computers, or computing devices, may be connected with any of the other components wirelessly or with a wire. Any of the contemplated components may also be in communication with any of the other components across a network, through a phone line, a power line, conductor, or cable, and/or over the internet. In other alternatively preferred configurations of the invention, the resident software program may have numerous features that, for purposes of example without limitation, enable a user or consumer to compare current power use to historical use and to evaluate or compare current costs to previous or historical costs, to compare current or prior costs to such costs for similar facilities, and/or to evaluate, compare, and/or audit such current or prior costs with respect to producer, supplier, distributor, trader, and/or utility company invoices.
[0022] More preferably, such resident software program and/or programs may enable any of the contemplated information to be communicated by text, voice, fax, and/or e-mail messages to a user or consumer either periodically, when certain predefined or predetermined conditions occur such as predefined alarm events or conditions, and/or when anomalous, unexpected, or expected power readings occur and/or are detected. One such example that may preferably create an instance when the contemplated information may be communicated by the resident software may include unexpected power use at a time when a commercial facility is closed or when personnel should not should be in the building, or when power outages or brownouts occur, or when unusually high or low consumption occurs.
[0023] Also, such resident software program and/or programs may be optionally or preferably further modified to enable special capabilities that can assist disabled, ill, or special needs individuals that reside in their own home or in any other facility and who need to manage and/or monitor their power consumption, availability, quality, and/or anomalies related thereto. More specifically and for purposes of example without limitation, the resident software and related components contemplated by the present invention may be engineered to special needs computing device that enable voice response, eye-movement response, and/or large print display or loud audio annunciator and spoken text capabilities. Additionally preferable options may include engineered adaptations of any of the variations of the inventive monitoring system that communicate any of the contemplated information, including for illustration purposes without limitation, power consumption monitoring information, in response to remote polling, on demand, occasionally, and/or periodically to such individuals and/or to their care providers, power service providers, medical providers, and/or others. Such communications can be by any of the means, modes, and methods described elsewhere herein and can preferably or optionally be used to communicate alerts regarding routine power consumption, unexpected anomalies, expected occurrences, or predetermined information related to monitoring system and component and sensor performance, power supply conditions, power consumption, and/or power quality, reliability, and/or availability.
[0024] With this optionally preferred capability, users as well as utility service providers, power service providers, medical providers, and/or others can be notified and/or alerted to existing or prospective issues regarding use, maintenance, and/or other power service issues or needs. Such notification and alerting capabilities may enable routine preventative maintenance, may prevent equipment failures and may enable faster remedy of existing or exigent issues.
[0025] In certain possibly extraordinary but optionally preferred and/or necessary circumstances, the disabled, ill, and/or special needs individuals may have a need to ensure continuous and/or maximized availability of high-quality electricity so that special needs equipment and/or appliances is/are always available for exigent, periodic, occasional, and/or continuous use. For further purposes of example, but not for purposes of limitation, such special needs equipment can include medication dispensers, intravenous and food supply pumps, defibrillators, cardiac and/or respiratory assistance machines, oxygen supply machines, hepatic and gastric and renal filtering and assistance machines, medical condition monitoring devices, emergency medical services communications devices including radio and telecommunications devices, and all sorts of similarly important, special needs equipment, devices, components, and appliances.
[0026] Even more preferably, the resident software program or programs or any element thereof may be configured to generate power consumption and usage histories and/or predicted use estimates for periods of time to create historical and/or predictive load profiles, which a user, consumer, producer, supplier, distributor, utility service provider, trader, reseller, or other person or entity may use to establish best power supply and/or consumption practices and to ascertain whether various equipment, devices, electricity metering devices, appliances, buildings, or facilities, are using power inefficiently or are otherwise experiencing anomalous power consumption or calibration issues. Such historical or predictive power consumption information may also be preferably useful in further optional configurations of the resident software that enable auditing power costs and utility service invoices and billings to ensure actual use and costs meet contractual rates and/or anticipated costs and consumption. This type of information collection and analysis capability may also preferably enable the capability to detect electric service meter malfunctions and/or calibration errors that may otherwise go undetected.
[0027] In variations of any of the optional and preferred embodiments of the invention, a power consumption monitoring system is also contemplated for monitoring the power transmitted by one or more electrical conductors. The system preferably includes one or more current-to-voltage transformers or CVTs that have a passive, open-circuit electromagnetic force (EMF) sensor or concentrator. The EMF concentrator or sensor is positioned near, adjacent, or next to one of the current-carrying electrical conductors. The open-circuit EMF concentrator can preferably include a ferromagnetic core that is wound with a wire coil, which responds to or captures the electromagnetic field or signal produced by the electrical conductors. The CVT is adapted to generate a voltage potential or an amplitude or scalar signal that is proportional to the power being transmitted through the conductor(s).
[0028] The power consumption monitoring system also may preferably include one or more first programmable radios on a chip or PROCs that are electrically connected to and which communicate with the CVT(s). The first PROC(s) are configured to transmit the amplitude signal and/or other information to other devices in the monitoring system and/or to receive information therefrom. The first PROCs include software or programming instructions or firmware that reside(s) in a storage or nonvolatile memory on the first PROC(s). The resident software of the first PROC, among other capabilities, is operative to periodically sample, store, and convert the amplitude signal to a digital quantity that represents the amplitude of the power being transmitted through the conductor(s). Also, the PROC(s) are responsive to and communicate with other devices in the monitoring system to transmit the digital quantity for further analysis or use or retransmission, and/or to receive information from other devices for configuration purposes and/or for collection, A monitoring device is also preferably included as a component of the power consumption monitoring system and includes, among elements, a second PROC, one or more second programmable systems on a chip or second PSOC(s), a multi-digit, numeric, alphanumeric, graphical, rectilinear, and/or multidimensional information display, and in some preferably optional arrangements, input, selection, manipulation, and/or configuration switches operative to control some capabilities of the monitoring device. The second PROC and the PSOC(s) may also include monitoring software that is programmed into the second PROC and/or the second PSOC(s), and which is operative to periodically communicate with the first PROC(s) to receive and store the scalar or amplitude signal or digital quantity and to display the digital quantity on the display in a unit of power consumption, and to respond to the input switch(es), and/or to receive information from other devices. In additionally preferred and optional embodiments of the novel power monitoring system, the monitoring device can also have the monitoring software adapted to collect a plurality of the digital quantities and to convert the collected plurality of digital quantities into an historical power consumption quantity, which can be shown on the display, and that can be communicated to other devices.
[0029] In yet other alternatively preferred configurations, the inventive power consumption monitor may further incorporate a radio frequency booster module, which can also include a third PROC and a third PSOC and which may communicate with any of the first and second PROC(s) to receive and retransmit the amplitude signal and/or the digital quantity an additional distance to the monitoring unit. Also, optionally preferred booster software that may reside on the third PROC and/or the third PSOC, and which operates to calibrate, quantify, and/or store the received amplitude signal and/or digital quantity, and to periodically retransmit the digital quantity the additional distance to the monitoring unit, and/or to receive and/or retransmit any other information from other devices within and without the contemplated monitoring system. Any of the first, second, and/or third PROCs may also further preferably include optional signal strength and quality information gathering capabilities that may be collected, stored, analyzed and retransmitted to any other device within or outside the power consumption monitoring system, which information can be further used to assess and/or improve the accuracy of any of the contemplated information of the monitoring system.
[0030] Particularly preferred embodiments of the innovative power monitoring system may include a computing device or a computer that may typically include a storage device, a memory, a display, one or more input devices such as a keyboard and/or a mouse pointing device, and any number of wired and/or wireless communications ports. Preferably, the computer or computing device incorporates or contains one or more software programs or elements thereof, which are resident on the computer or computing device.
[0031] Such software programs or elements are optionally and changeably configured to occasionally, upon demand, periodically, and/or continuously record the amplitude signal and/or digital quantity to an historical database of power consumption information on the storage device. The software program or programs or elements or routines thereof may acquire, be populated with, and/or access power cost information from a utility supplier, and may also compute an actual, total, average, estimated, or predicted cost of power that has been or is expected to be consumed per unit time by an entire facility and/or an individual appliance and/or group of equipment or appliances or devices, using the information stored in the historical database. Further variations enable comparison of such actual and predicted consumption information to comparable facilities, equipment, and appliances so that consumers, producers, suppliers, distributors, utility service organizations or entities, and any interested party may better assess and manage the efficiency of power use and associated costs.
[0032] In further optionally contemplated alternatives, the software programs or elements thereof may also contain or be populated with one or more predetermined and/or predefined alarm conditions or event notification parameters, and may be enabled to compare such alarm conditions or event parameters with the amplitude signal, digital quantity, and/or any other contemplated information to determine if the alarm condition is met. If so, then an alarm event or event parameter notification can be triggered and communicated to other devices in the power monitoring system, or to users or consumers by electronic message, a voice response alert system, a displayed or audio-visually annunciated alarm, a text message, an audio or visual alarm annunciator or klaxon, fax or other means of communication described elsewhere herein. Additionally preferred variations of the invention may also communicate with automated emergency power generator systems and equipment to enable instantaneous and/or rapid backup power supply augmentation or replacement as needed to accommodate power grid service interruptions, brown-outs, or unavailability.
[0033] As also described elsewhere herein, such communications may preferably have special importance in the special situations relevant to individuals or organizations that provide services to such individuals who may be experiencing short or long-term disabilities, acute or chronic illnesses, or that have other extraordinary or special needs requirements related to their electricity and power use and consumption.
[0034] These variations, modifications, and alterations of the various preferred and optional embodiments may be used either alone or in combination with one another and with the features and elements already known in the prior art and also herein contemplated and described, which can be better understood by those with relevant skills in the art by reference to the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments and the accompanying figures and drawings.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING(S)
[0035] Without limiting the scope of the present invention as claimed below and referring now to the drawings and figures, wherein like reference numerals across the drawings, figures, and views refer to identical, corresponding, or equivalent elements, methods, components, features, and systems:
[0036] FIG. 1 shows a main sensor unit in accordance with the present invention.
[0037] FIG. 2 shows the main sensor unit of FIG. 1 removed from its housing.
[0038] FIG. 3 is a schematic of a signal generator or transceiver or transmission circuit in accordance with the present invention.
[0039] FIG. 4 shows a clip-on sensor in accordance with the present invention.
[0040] FIG. 5 shows a monitoring and display unit connected with a computing device in accordance with the present invention.
[0041] FIG. 6 is a schematic of a radio frequency signal generating or transceiver or transmission circuit of the monitoring and display unit in accordance with the present invention.
[0042] FIG. 7 is a functional schematic of an RF repeater or booster module of the power consumption monitoring system in accordance with the present invention.
[0043] FIGS. 8 and 9 are functional schematics and flow diagrams illustrating the polling operation and flow of communications and information of the power consumption monitoring system in accordance with the present invention.
[0044] FIG. 10 is an example of information that may be displayed by the software resident on a computing device of the power consumption monitoring system in accordance with the present invention.
[0045] FIG. 11 is an example of a utility cost information input screen of the resident software of the system in accordance with the present invention.
[0046] FIG. 12 is an example of an additional utility, device, and appliance information input screen of the resident software of the system in accordance with the present invention.
[0047] FIG. 13 shows a graphic representation of power consumption displayed by the resident software of the system in accordance with the present invention.
[0048] FIGS. 14 and 15 are graphic representations of alarm condition parameter input screens of the resident software of the system in accordance with the present invention.
[0049] FIG. 16 shows an entry screen to select graphic display parameters of the resident software of the system in accordance with the present invention.
[0050] FIG. 17 shows a graphical comparison of total power consumption of a facility along with power consumption of individual appliances for a period of time as displayed by the resident software of the system in accordance with the present invention.
[0051] FIG. 18 is a graphical representation of a utility-rate overlap graph displayed by the resident software of the system in accordance with the present invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
[0052] As used herein, the expression “CVT” means a current-to-voltage transformer, which is described in more detail elsewhere herein and in the above noted U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,717,872 and 4,754,218. The term “EMF” means electromagnetic force. The abbreviation “PROC” means programmable radio on a chip, which is a transceiver capable of bidirectional communications and which is described in more detail elsewhere herein. The term “PSOC” means programmable system on a chip and an example is described elsewhere herein. The term “RF” denotes the phrase “radio frequency”.
[0053] Referring now to the various figures and illustrations, those skilled in the relevant arts should appreciate that each of the preferred, optional, and alternative embodiments of the inventive power consumption monitoring system 10 contemplates interchangeability with all of the various features, components, modifications, and variations illustrated throughout the written description, claims, and pictorial illustrations.
[0054] With this guiding concept in mind, and with reference now to FIG. 1 , one possible embodiment of a main sensor unit 12 is illustrated, which is attached to a current-carrying, electrical power supply conductor “C” that may be located on an exterior of a building or facility and that supplies power to an electric service meter E. In other arrangements not shown here but likely apparent to those knowledgeable in the arts, the main sensor unit 12 may also be positioned proximate to or may be attached to the conductor C in interior locations such as inside a circuit breaker panel or other type of distribution enclosure or service junction, and/or branch conductor or subcircuit.
[0055] In further preferred but optional configurations contemplated by the inventive system 10 , the sensor unit 12 may be integrated into circuit breakers, circuit breaker panels, subcircuit or branch conductors. The sensor unit 12 and other devices of the novel monitoring system may also preferably be reconfigured for use in all types of peripheral monitoring applications including integration into or with discrete power-consuming equipment, electric loads of all kinds, and/or any electric power-consuming appliance or device. The main sensor unit 12 may also preferably include a non-conductive and weather-proof housing 14 that protects the components of the unit 12 , and which can be attached to the conductor C with a fastening device such as, but not limited to, hook and loop type straps 16 that are also known as VELCRO® straps.
[0056] With continued reference to FIG. 1 and now also to FIGS. 2 and 3 , it can be understood that the main sensor unit 12 may incorporate a signal transceiver, communication and/or transmission circuit or radio frequency (RF) signal generator 20 that includes an amplitude signal generator or core 22 similar to that disclosed and claimed in the previously noted '218 patent. The signal transceiver or transmission circuit 20 may be powered by a replaceable and/or rechargeable battery or batteries B, such as one, two, or more AA-sized batteries, or by a solar cell (not shown), or by any other suitable power source including inductive and other types of power supplies that may parasitically obtain power from the conductor that is being monitored.
[0057] The core 22 may be a Hall Effect sensor or a CVT that incorporates a passive, open-circuit EMF sensor or concentrator. Preferably, the core 22 is positioned in the housing 12 so that when the housing 12 is affixed to the conductor C, the core 22 is proximate to the conductor C. In this arrangement, the CVT or core 22 will generate an amplitude signal across the terminals 24 ( FIG. 3 ) in the form of a voltage differential or potential, which is proportional to the power being transmitted through the current-carrying conductor C.
[0058] More preferably, and as may be comprehended with continued reference to FIGS. 1 , 2 , and 3 , and with reference now also to FIG. 4 and the '218 and '872 Patents, the open-circuit EMF sensor or concentrator or core 22 may be formed as a ferromagnetic core that is wound with a wire coil to be responsive to the electromagnetic field or signal produced by and proximate to the electrical conductors C. The response of the open-circuit coil results in a voltage differential across terminals 24 , which establishes the contemplated amplitude or scalar signal.
[0059] The described signal-generating transceiver or transmission circuit 20 may incorporate a number of discrete components and/or single chip-type combined or integrated components. In one optionally preferred arrangement, the signal transceiver or transmission circuit 20 incorporates a power supply circuit 24 that incorporates a voltage regulator 26 configured to protectively supply power to the circuit 20 . Any number of equally suitable power supply circuits may also be used, and one possibly preferred type of voltage regulator can be the ON Semiconductor LM2931 series Low Dropout Voltage Regulator, model LM2931-5.0, which is described for purposes of example but not limitation.
[0060] The signal communication and/or transmission circuit of FIG. 3 may also further incorporate either a single, first PROC in the form of a discrete component, or may incorporate both the first PROC as well as a PSOC that can augment the capabilities, programmability, and reconfigurability of the main sensor unit 12 . In one exemplary arrangement of the signal transceiver or transmission circuit 20 , the EMF concentrator 22 is in bidirectional communication with the PSOC 34 , which can be a Cypress Semiconductor Corporation PSOC Mixed Signal Array, model CY8C27143. In this possibly preferred arrangement, the PSOC 34 receives the amplitude signal at terminals 24 and communicates with the first PROC 32 , which may be any number of suitable PROC transceiver components such as, for purposes of example without limitation, a Cypress Semiconductor Corporation PROC transceiver, model CYWUSB6953. This and other similarly capably PROCs may preferably be modified to generate and to capture signal strength information that may be sampled, collected, and used to establish signal reliability indicia and related information that can be further used to assess quality and reliability of the other contemplated information described elsewhere herein. (See, e.g., FIG. 17 ).
[0061] In any of the optionally preferred arrangements of the signal transceiver or transmission circuit 20 , the first PROC 32 and/or PSOC 34 may be programmed with firmware or software instructions contained in the nonvolatile flash memory of either component 32 , 34 , which instructions are operative to periodically sample the amplitude signal and to convert and store the sampled amplitude signal, in a portion of the nonvolatile memory, as a digital quantity that represents the magnitude of the power being transmitted through the conductor C. Additionally, the software instructions may be further operative to periodically communicate with and to transmit the digital quantity and/or receive information from other devices, via an antenna 36 that is typically integrated with the PROC 32 , to other devices or components of the power consumption monitoring system 10 as described elsewhere herein.
[0062] Any of the various optionally preferred embodiments of the inventive signal transceiver or transmission circuit 20 may further be adapted with software instructions that enable the circuit 20 to hibernate for a majority of the time to conserve power, to receive calibration, configuration, and/or other information, and/or to periodically transmit the scalar or amplitude signal and/or the digital quantity after a preset amount of time has elapsed, or to transmit only in response to occasionally and/or periodically received polling requests from other devices and/or components of the power consumption monitoring system as described elsewhere herein, or in any combination of periodic time intervals and/or polling requests.
[0063] With continued reference to the various figures and now also specifically to FIG. 4 and the '218 patent, the main sensor unit 12 may be replaced by or accompanied by a peripheral and/or clip-on sensor or clip 40 , which may be sized to be smaller or to have a different three-dimensional geometry than the main sensor unit 12 . The possibly preferable modified geometry may be identical or similar to sensor unit 12 , and may be further modified to be more suitable for attachment to smaller power cables or cords. In other optionally preferable variations of any of the contemplated embodiments, the peripheral or clip sensor 40 may also be integrated into individual circuit breakers, subcircuit and/or branch conductors, individual equipment, as well as individual devices and appliances.
[0064] In any of such contemplated arrangements, the peripheral or clip sensor 40 may be customized to monitor the power consumption of a particular machine, a single appliance, or other device in any number of configurations that may be best suited to the particular preferences of consumers or suppliers or the relevant power-monitoring application. It may also be possibly preferred to have the peripheral sensor or clip 40 attach to such power cables or cords with a spring or spring-clamp fastener 42 or the hook and loop-type straps or fasteners 16 described elsewhere herein.
[0065] Peripheral sensor or clip 40 may preferably incorporate the same EMF sensor or core 22 or RF signal generator or signal transceiver or transmission circuit 20 or a similar circuit. In additional variations to the contemplated peripheral sensor or clip 40 and the main sensor unit 12 , each or either may be further adapted to produce the amplitude signal and/or digital quantity, or to ascertain and transmit the on-and-off state or condition of equipment or any device that is to be monitored.
[0066] In this way, either or both the main sensor unit 10 or the peripheral sensor or clip 40 can transmit the on-or-off status of anything that is being monitored for power consumption. In this possibly desirable, alternative configuration, it may be further preferred to employ multiple peripheral or clip sensors 40 and/or one or more additional main or peripheral sensor units 12 attached to a primary grid supply conductor, and/or to subcircuit or branch conductors so that power consumption can be compared to determine the difference in power consumption between the on and off conditions of anything that is being monitored, which enables a determination of power use by groups of equipment and/or individual appliances.
[0067] With reference now also to FIGS. 5 and 6 , the new power consumption monitoring system of the invention also incorporates a RF signal monitor and display, or monitoring device or unit 50 that is integrated with one or more communications ports that may include universal serial bus ports, fire wire or 1394 ports, serial ports, IC2 ports, network ports, infrared ports, and/or any other desired communications ports readily known to those skilled in the relevant arts. The monitoring device 50 may further include one or more display panels 52 that may preferably include a multiple digit, numeric, alphanumeric, graphical, rectilinear, and/or multidimensional information display 54 , which also may include one or more device on-off condition or state graphical icons or pips 56 , and one or more input or configuration or selection switches 58 adapted to manipulate or modify or configure or convert the information shown on the display 54 and/or to modify the configuration and/or the operation of the monitoring device 50 and/or the resident software and/or monitoring system 10 . The monitoring device also preferably incorporates a RF signal generating or transceiver or transmission circuit 60 ( FIG. 6 ) that may further include a second PROC 62 .
[0068] With respect to the contemplated switches 58 , one possible type of such manipulation that can be enabled by switches 58 may be to convert the displayed dimensional units of power consumption information or to select or change what or which portion of type of information is displayed. Other capabilities of such switches may preferably include the optional modification of the periodicity of polling of the sensor devices 12 , and/or any other aspect of the function and/or operation of the monitoring system 10 . The exemplary illustrations and figures reflect a limited number of such switches 58 . However, further contemplated and optionally preferred embodiments of the instant invention may also incorporate a greater or lesser number of such switches ranging from zero switches to an alphanumeric and function keyboard having all possible combinations of alphanumeric characters in any language, and which may be similar to any known alphanumeric and function keyboard presently known and contemplated by those having skills and knowledge in the relevant arts and as depicted in connection with the illustrations reflecting computing device 80 (See, e.g., FIG. 5 ).
[0069] The monitoring device 50 may further include a second PSOC 64 to be in communication with the second PROC 62 and the display 54 . The contemplated second PROC 62 and PSOC 64 may be selected from any of the discrete components or combinations thereof described as being suitable for use with the signal transceiver or transmission circuit 20 , or may be selected from any number of similarly capable or configured devices, sensors, or discrete components.
[0070] The monitoring device 50 also preferably includes monitoring software resident on or contained in the nonvolatile flash-type memory that is typically or optionally available for use with the second PROC 62 . More preferably, the monitoring software is configured to occasionally, on demand, or periodically communicate with, send information to, and/or to poll the first PROC 32 to request transmission of the scalar or amplitude signal or digital quantity or other information, which is then received and stored by the second PROC 62 and/or PSOC 64 .
[0071] The monitoring software is preferably further operative to convert the digital quantity to a unit of power consumption, such as a number referred to herein as a “Power Equivalent,” which may be, for purposes of illustration but not for purposes of limitation, a four-digit number from 0000 to 9999. This power equivalent number may represent the power being consumed in arbitrary units, a unitless number, a “true” reading of actual power usage in kilowatts, as a number that represents the cost per unit time of power being consumed, a running or historical average or total of power being consumed, and/or a cumulative or periodic total of power consumed, or any other conceivable quantity that represents desired or relevant power consumption information. The contemplated Power Equivalent may be translated or converted into an actual kilowatt amplitude of total facility power consumption or individual appliance consumption, a ratio or percent of power consumed by a respectively monitored appliance, an actual total facility cost of power consumed, a cost or cost ratio or cost percentage for an individually monitored appliance or for all monitored appliances, or a cost per kilowatt number as also described elsewhere herein. See, e.g., FIGS. 5 and 9 .
[0072] In even more preferable modified embodiments of the inventive power consumption monitoring system 10 ( FIGS. 5 , 7 , 8 , 9 ), the monitoring and display device 50 is configured as a master device wherein the second PROC 62 and the second PSOC 64 control and poll the first PROC 32 and the first PSOC 34 as slaves. Even more preferably, the master second PROC 62 and second PSOC 64 control one or more or a plurality of slave first PROCs 32 and PSOCs 34 in the main sensor unit or plurality of units 12 as well as the clip-on sensor 40 and a plurality thereof.
[0073] In one optionally preferred mode of operation, the second PROC 62 and/or
[0074] PSOC 64 of master monitoring and display device 50 transmits requests for data to the main sensor unit(s) 12 and the clip(s) 40 . The master second PROC 62 and PSOC 64 also may be configured to hibernate between polling requests to conserve energy, and to occasionally or upon demand/or periodically activate or “wake up”, such as once every second, to poll or request information from the slave first PROCs 32 and/or PSOCs 34 . With continued reference to FIGS. 1 through 5 and now also to FIGS. 6 , 7 , 8 , and 9 , the contemplated master-slave arrangement and polling and information request operations are illustrated in more detail in schematic and functional representations.
[0075] Any of the optional and preferred embodiments of the invention may be further modified to operate in combination with an RF repeater or booster module 70 , which is functionally depicted in FIGS. 7 and 9 in operation with other components of the contemplated power consumption monitoring system 10 of the invention. More specifically, the contemplated RF repeater or booster module 70 may preferably incorporate a third PROC 72 and a third PSOC 74 that may be the same as or similar to the PROCs and PSOCs described in connection with the first and second PROCs 32 , 62 and PSOCs 34 , 64 .
[0076] The third PROC 72 and PSOC 74 are adapted to communicate with the first and second PROCs 32 , 62 and PSOCs 34 , 64 to receive and retransmit the amplitude signal or other information 76 ( FIGS. 7 , 8 , 9 ) an additional distance 78 to the monitoring unit 50 . As also discussed elsewhere herein, bidirectional communications may preferably or optionally be incorporated so that the booster software or any other contemplated device or component of the invention may communicate calibration, configuration, polling requests, and other information between any other contemplated device of the monitoring system 10 . Further, booster software is preferably loaded into the nonvolatile flash memory of the third PROC 72 and/or PSOC 74 and/or other element, and may be operative in one aspect to poll or request the amplitude signal and/or digital quantity information and/or other information from the first PROC 32 and PSOC 34 .
[0077] More preferably, the contemplated booster software may preferably receive signals and information from the main and peripheral sensors 12 , 40 and use those received signals and information to calibrate and/or normalize the information to enable more accurate reporting and computation of the contemplated power consumption and related information. In optionally preferred configurations, the booster software or portions or routines therein receives and stores the amplitude signal, digital quantity, signal strength, and/or other received information obtained from the main sensor unit or units 12 and the peripheral or clip-on sensor or sensors 40 .
[0078] In further preferred variations, the booster software also may periodically retransmit the scalar or amplitude signal and/or digital quantity, and/or any other information the additional distance 78 to the monitoring unit 50 . When needed or as preferred, the monitor unit 50 may be physically remote from the booster module 70 and the sensors 12 , 40 . In other equally preferred and optional variations, the monitor unit 50 may be situated proximate to the booster module 70 and/or the main and peripheral sensors 12 , 40 . The booster software calibrates the amplitude signal and/or digital quantity to a reference value in units of power consumption that for purposes of example but not limitation can be kilowatt-hours.
[0079] In additionally preferred and optionally suitable variations of any of the configurations of the monitoring system 10 , the booster module 70 is more preferably arranged with an ohmic connection to the monitored power grid. In other modifications, reactive, inductive, and/or other types of connections may be more suitable. The optionally preferred ohmic connection may in certain applications enable more accurate sensing of power grid reference or baseline or nominal voltages, currents, frequencies, or other parameters. The ohmic connection may be accomplished by positioning or mounting the booster module 70 in a standard power outlet or receptacle, and may also be connected in any other way such as with an alligator-type spring clip, a soldered connection, a clamp-on connector, an inline connector, or other similar means.
[0080] The booster module also preferably includes what is often referred to by those skilled in the relevant arts as a precision resistor or similar connoted device, which may be occasionally, on demand, and/or periodically switched on to enable very accurate load, power, voltage, and/or current information to be ascertained. Such very accurate information can then be captured and compared to the signals and similar information received from the main and peripheral sensors 12 , 40 .
[0081] During initial installation and with continued operation, the resident software of the various components and the booster software include a portion or a routine that ascertains the nominal amplitude and/or digital quantity linear power response slope of each of the main and peripheral sensors 12 , 40 . The booster software uses the respective response slopes and the periodic signals and information received from each main and peripheral sensor 12 , 40 , as well as the very accurate load information obtained using the precision resistor to calibrate, baseline, normalize, and/or correct the signals and information received from each main and peripheral sensor 12 , 40 . In this way, each sensor 12 , 40 is periodically recalibrated to maximize accuracy. The resident and booster software may be configured to regularly sample and accumulate signal and other information from one, some or all such sensors 12 , 40 and to apply well-known statistical methods to optimize calibration and accuracy of the signals and other information.
[0082] Even more preferably, the RF signal generator and booster module 70 is configured to be used so that the third PROC 72 and PSOC 74 will automatically seize control from the monitoring device 50 of the slave first PROCs 32 and PSOCs 34 . Most preferably, the booster software and the monitoring software are preconfigured to automatically detect the mutual presence of one another. Thus, when the booster module 70 is operationally positioned within the range of the signal transceiver or transmission circuit(s) 20 of the main sensor unit(s) 12 , the clip-on sensor(s) 40 , and the monitor and display unit 50 , the monitor unit 50 automatically relinquishes its master polling status. More preferably, the monitor unit 50 will then also display the information communicated by the booster module 70 , and may even more preferably retransmit such information via wired or wireless communications to other components and devices of the monitoring system 10 .
[0083] The main and peripheral sensor unit(s) 12 and the peripheral clip-on sensors 40 assume what can be referred to as a primary slave status that operates in response to communications from or polling or information requests from the booster module 70 . Further, the monitor and display unit 50 may also be manually relegated or may automatically relegate itself to a secondary slave status whereby it passively receives transmissions from the booster module 70 and responds by recording, processing, displaying, and communicating the received amplitude signals and/or digital quantity information. Once the monitor and display unit 50 receives and records the amplitude signals and/or digital quantity information, such can be displayed or further communicated to other components of the power consumption monitoring system as described elsewhere herein.
[0084] Any of the embodiments of the novel and inventive power consumption monitoring system may be further modified to incorporate one or more computing devices and/or computers 80 ( FIGS. 5 , 8 , 9 ) that may be proximate or remote to any of the system components already described. The one or more computing devices and/or computers 80 may preferably include a storage device, a nonvolatile and/or volatile memory, a display, a keyboard and pointing device, and any of a number of communication ports already described elsewhere herein.
[0085] More preferably, the computing device or computer 80 is in communication with the monitoring device 50 via any one or more of the contemplated communications ports and contains a software program and/or elements thereof resident on one or more of the storage device and/or the volatile and/or nonvolatile memory. The storage device and/or the volatile and/or nonvolatile memory may be selected from what are known to those skilled in the art as hard disk drives, flash memory drives, volatile random access memories (RAMs), and any other type of nonvolatile RAMs and similarly capable devices.
[0086] Even more preferably, and with reference now also to FIGS. 8 , 9 , and 10 , the resident software program and/or elements thereof includes one or more routines to receive the amplitude signal and/or digital quantity information or other information from the monitoring device 50 and to periodically record this information to an historical database of power consumption information on one or more of the storage device or memories, and to display such information in various forms. As also described elsewhere herein, the resident software program or programs may be configured to enable auditing of utility service bills and invoices and may further be used to compare actual power use adduced by the monitoring system 10 to the use recorded by the electric meter E ( FIG. 1 ), which can enable detection of malfunctioning or improperly calibrated electronic or mechanical utility service meters.
[0087] Most preferably, the software program and elements thereof may optionally or preferably include routines to input, store, and/or access local or remote power cost information such as utility supplier cost rates ( FIGS. 11 , 12 ), and to compute actual and projected costs for power consumption as a function of the amplitude signal and/or digital quantity information and the historical database power consumption information. Further, such computed and projected costs may be displayed as shown in FIGS. 5 , 9 , and 10 . As may also be seen in FIGS. 10 , 13 and 16 , such current, historical, and projected power consumption information may be numerically and/or graphically displayed on the display of the computer 80 by additional routines of the resident software program.
[0088] Additionally preferred variations of any of the embodiments of the invention may also contemplate the resident software program and elements thereof to include one or more routines that (a) input, store, and access one or more predefined alarm conditions, (b) compare the amplitude signal and/or digital quantity information to each such condition, and (c) communicate an alarm event when such conditions are met by the amplitude signal and/or the digital quantity information.
[0089] The power consumption monitoring system contemplates many possible alarm conditions, FIG. 14 , that can be predefined as desired and that may include, for purposes of non-limiting examples, a facility or campus-wide total power consumption alarm condition that may be triggered if the total power being consumed exceeds a predetermined amount. An example of this total power condition may be modified so that any power consumption above zero triggers the alarm event if power is consumed during time periods when no power consumption is expected, such as in a commercial facility that is usually inoperative during nights, weekends, or holidays. (See, e.g., FIGS. 9 and 14 ).
[0090] In this way, the facility can be protected against unauthorized, off-hours use. Further, such a facility can be protected against unexpectedly wasteful or inefficient power consumption due to malfunctioning equipment or devices by setting the total power consumption alarm condition to a predetermined maximum amount. A residential property may be similarly protected by setting a total power consumption alarm condition that corresponds to a maximum power consumption expectation. Any type of residential or other facility may also be monitored with similarly configured alarms that can trigger an audit of utility service bills, and may be profiled to establish baseline or nominal power consumption profiles or expectations.
[0091] The resident software program and elements thereof may also include routines configured to monitor single devices and/or appliances as can be understood with reference to FIGS. 9 and 15 . Individual appliances may be associated with one or more main sensor units 12 and/or clip-on sensors 40 so that power on and off conditions maybe be identified, and so that actual power consumption may be ascertained and stored. Also, predefined alarm conditions may be established so that an inefficient and/or malfunctioning appliance or other device may be readily identified, which can avoid wasted power consumption. As discussed in more detail herein, such predetermined or predefined alarms may preferably be set to trigger notifications to service providers seeking to obtain early warnings of possible issues related to individuals with special needs that are associated with a disability, illness, or other extraordinary set of circumstances.
[0092] In yet even more preferred or alternative modifications to any of the preceding resident software and elements thereof, as may be comprehended with reference now also to FIGS. 16 , 17 , and 18 , routines may be incorporated that enable and contemplate numerous graphical display capabilities that may be arranged by selected periods of time ( FIG. 16 ), that enable review and comparison of power consumption of an entire building or facility with individual appliances or devices ( FIG. 17 ), and which enable comparison of power consumption per unit time against actual utility supplier rates that may also vary during the overlapping period of time ( FIG. 18 ).
[0093] Such utility supplier rates and historical power consumption information such as total kilowatt-hours used gleaned from monthly electric utility supplier invoices or bills may be input via a data entry routine of the resident software as illustrated by the input screens of FIGS. 11 and 12 , and which also enables the association of specific devices or appliances with respective main sensor units 12 and/or clip-on sensors 40 . Using the information entered from such electric bills, and using the historical power consumption database information, the resident software program may convert the power equivalent units established by the power consumption monitoring system into actual kilowatt hours, a ratio or percent of power consumed by a respectively monitored appliance, an actual total facility cost of power consumed, a cost or cost ratio or cost percentage for an individually monitored appliance or for all monitored appliances, or a cost per kilowatt number as also described elsewhere herein. This will have great prospective benefit for the user, as the user can proactively modify the power consumption profile of the building and/or appliances to conserve power and reduce costs.
[0094] The first time that the user inputs information from the electric bill using the software, the conversion from power equivalents to kilowatt hours may have a predictive margin of error of, for example, perhaps approximately 10 percent. However, each time that a user inputs additional information from a new electric bill, the margin of error will be reduced, as the resident software program gains a larger and more statistically robust sample size of historical billings or actual power usage and costs.
[0095] The graph of FIG. 18 enables users and consumers to adjust power consumption to periods of time when costs for power are less expensive. In operation, the graphical representation of FIG. 17 illustrates the varying power usage during the course of the selected period of time, which can enable users to identify and adopt power use expectations or baselines of times and durations of operation of equipment or devices, which in turn enables the user to identify unexpectedly operating and/or inefficiently performing appliances, equipment, and devices.
[0096] Additional functionality of the resident software and elements and routines thereof may preferably include the capability to send periodic usage data and alarm events or alerts to the user via e-mail, text message, voice mail using a voice response capability, by fax, by remote web server communicating with remote user web-browser applications, and by any other desired communication method. (See, e.g., FIG. 9 ). Such additional communication capabilities may be of increased significance in the aforementioned special needs situations where it may be important to enable early warning or immediate intervention for those individuals or facilities needing a reliable and uninterrupted supply of electricity. In this way, any anomalous power consumption may be readily identified and redressed. The software may also preferably access and store power consumption usage information pertaining to devices, appliances, homes, and/or businesses having similar profiles to those being monitored so that the user can compare his or her power usage with a typical or comparable power usage profile.
[0097] Using various arrangements of the contemplated main sensor units 12 , clips 40 , monitor units 50 and resident software program routines of the present invention, users may gain information about power consumption in a variety of applications and environments, which enables users to make adjustments and take corrective action regarding possibly inefficient power consumption. For example, the user may have learned over the course of time that an oven in a house usually consumes 40 Power Equivalents when in use, but that it is now consuming significantly more or less, leading to a determination that one of the burner coils is malfunctioning.
[0098] In another example, parents may use the system to determine whether their children are using too many electronic devices at one time, such as having a TV, stereo, air conditioner, and computer all in use at the same time, and perhaps unnecessarily. Parents can thus use the system to enable children to manage their power consumption within a predetermined “power budget” for a given period of time such as a week, and can increase or decrease allowance or other incentives to gain cooperation.
INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITY
[0099] The embodiments of the present invention are suitable for use in many applications that involve the requirement to monitor power consumption of residential, commercial, and industrial equipment, appliances, devices, buildings, facilities, and campuses. The various configurations and capabilities of the inventive power consumption monitoring devices, systems, and methods of use can be modified to accommodate nearly any conceivable power consumption monitoring requirement. The arrangement, capability, and compatibility of the features and components of the novel monitoring devices, systems, and methods of use described herein can be readily modified according to the principles of the invention as may be required to suit any particular power supply or power consuming device, or power consumer or user, and can be especially modified to accommodate applications involving individuals and service providers in special needs situations that require a reliable and an uninterrupted supply of electricity.
[0100] Such modifications and alternative arrangements may be further preferred and/or optionally desired to establish compatibility with the wide variety of possible applications that are susceptible for use with the inventive and improved power consumption monitoring devices, systems, and monitoring methods that are described and contemplated herein. Accordingly, even though only few such embodiments, alternatives, variations, and modifications of the present invention are described and illustrated, it is to be understood that the practice of such additional modifications and variations and the equivalents thereof, are within the spirit and scope of the invention as defined in the following claims. | A power consumption monitor, system, and method for monitoring power consumed by equipment, appliances, devices, buildings, and campuses is accomplished by passive sensors ( 12, 40 ) that detect power transmitted by individual conductors (C), and which include a current to voltage transformer with a passive, open-circuit electromagnetic force concentrator ( 22 ) positioned near the conductor (C). The sensor ( 22 ) generates an amplitude signal proportional to the power passing through the conductor (C). Programmable radios on a chip ( 32, 62, 72 ) and systems on a chip ( 34, 64, 74 ) are used to transmit the amplitude signal to a monitor ( 50 ) that displays the power being consumed along with actual and estimated cost and historical information. Software programs are implemented across the sensors ( 12, 40 ) and monitors ( 50 ) and a remote computer ( 80 ) to enable real-time monitoring power consumption with a resolution that spans from entire campuses down to single devices. | 8 |
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION
[0001] This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/568,931 filed May 7, 2004, which is incorporated by reference as if fully set forth.
FIELD OF INVENTION
[0002] The present invention is related to a wireless communication system including at least one wireless transmit/receive unit (WTRU), at least one Node-B and a radio network controller (RNC). More particularly, the present invention is related to a method and apparatus for assigning automatic repeat request (ARQ)/hybrid automatic repeat request (H-ARQ) processes in the WTRU for supporting enhanced uplink (EU) transmissions.
BACKGROUND
[0003] Methods for improving uplink (UL) coverage, throughput and transmission latency are being investigated in the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). In order to achieve these goals, scheduling and assigning of UL physical resources will be moved from the RNC to the Node-B.
[0004] The Node-B can make decisions and manage UL radio resources on a short-term basis better than the RNC. However, the RNC still retains coarse overall control of the cell with EU services so that the RNC can perform functions such as call admission control and congestion control.
[0005] A new medium access control (MAC) entity called MAC-e is created in a WTRU and the Node-B to handle the transmission and reception of enhanced dedicated channel (E-DCH) transmissions. There may be several independent uplink transmissions processed between the WTRU and UMTS terrestrial radio access network (UTRAN) within a common time interval. One example of this is MAC layer H-ARQ or MAC layer ARQ operation where each individual transmission may require a different number of transmissions to be successfully received by the UTRAN. Proper assignment of data blocks to ARQ/H-ARQ processes for transmission is necessary for operation of the EU services. This function includes rules for retransmitting failed transmissions, prioritization between different logical channels and provisioning of quality of service (QoS) related parameters.
SUMMARY
[0006] The present invention is related to a method and apparatus for assigning an ARQ/H-ARQ process in a WTRU for supporting EU transmissions. After parameters associated with the ARQ/H-ARQ processes are configured, the WTRU assigns an ARQ/H-ARQ process for a selected data. After transmitting the data, the WTRU determines whether feedback information for the data has been received. The WTRU releases the ARQ/H-ARQ process if an acknowledgement (ACK) message has been received, and retransmits the data if a non-acknowledgement (NACK) message or no feedback information has been received in a predetermined time period while incrementing a transmission counter in the WTRU. When a transmission limit has been reached, the WTRU may discard the data or reinitiate the transmission. An ARQ/H-ARQ process assigned for transmission of lower priority data may be preempted for transmission of higher priority data when there is no available ARQ/H-ARQ process.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0007] A more detailed understanding of the invention may be had from the following description of a preferred embodiment, given by way of example and to be understood in conjunction with the accompanying drawing wherein:
[0008] FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a wireless communication system operating in accordance with the present invention;
[0009] FIG. 2A is a flow diagram of an EU transmission process implemented by the system of FIG. 1 for assigning an ARQ or H-ARQ process in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention;
[0010] FIG. 2B is a flow diagram of an EU feedback reception process implemented by the system of FIG. 1 ;
[0011] FIG. 3A is a flow diagram of an EU transmission process implemented by the system of FIG. 1 for assigning an ARQ or H-ARQ process using preemption and re-initiation procedures in accordance with another embodiment of the present invention; and
[0012] FIG. 3B is a flow diagram of an EU feedback reception process implemented by the system of FIG. 1 .
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
[0013] Hereafter, the terminology “WTRU” includes but is not limited to a user equipment (UE), a mobile station, a fixed or mobile subscriber unit, a pager, or any other type of device capable of operating in a wireless environment. When referred to hereafter, the terminology “Node-B” includes but is not limited to a base station, a site controller, an access point or any other type of interfacing device in a wireless environment.
[0014] The features of the present invention may be incorporated into an integrated circuit (IC) or be configured in a circuit comprising a multitude of interconnecting components.
[0015] Hereafter, for simplicity, the present invention will be explained with reference to H-ARQ operation. However, it should be noted that the present invention is equally applicable to ARQ operation without affecting the functionality of the present invention.
[0016] FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a wireless communication system 100 operating in accordance with the present invention. The system 100 includes at least one WTRU 102 , at least one Node-B 104 and an RNC 106 . The RNC 106 controls overall EU operation by configuring EU parameters for the Node-B 104 and the WTRU 102 , such as priority of each TrCH, MAC-d flow or logical channel mapped on an E-DCH, maximum number of transmissions for each TrCH or logical channel, maximum allowed EU transmit power or available channel resources per Node-B 104 . The WTRU 102 sends a channel allocation request via the UL EU channel 110 and receives channel allocation information via the DL EU signaling channel 112 . The WTRU 102 transmits E-DCH data via a UL EU channel 110 to the Node-B 104 in accordance with the channel allocation information. The Node-B 104 sends feedback information on the data block via the DL EU signaling channel 112 to the WTRU 102 .
[0017] In accordance with the present invention, the assignment of an H-ARQ process for supporting a data transmission is controlled by the WTRU 102 . The Node-B 104 provides allocation of physical resources for which the WTRU 102 determines what data will be transmitted using which H-ARQ process. The WTRU 102 includes a pool of H-ARQ processes 114 , a controller 116 and a transmission counter 118 .
[0018] The controller 116 controls the overall assignment of H-ARQ processes including selecting data for transmission based on priority, assigning one of the available H-ARQ processes 114 to the selected data and releasing H-ARQ processes 114 when the data transmission is successfully completed.
[0019] The transmission counter 118 indicates the number of transmissions for a given H-ARQ process, which is equivalent to a receive sequence number (RSN). The transmission counter 118 may also be used to as a new data indicator (NDI).
[0020] In one embodiment, a preemption procedure is used to manage E-DCH transmissions, whereby the assignment of the H-ARQ processes is based on absolute priority. The highest priority class traffic and the earliest transmission number within the same priority class takes precedence over other transmissions. The transmission of a data block is also subject to a maximum number of H-ARQ transmissions for each E-DCH TrCH, or each logical channel mapped to an E-DCH TrCH. An H-ARQ process servicing a lower priority data transmission may be superceded by a higher priority data transmission.
[0021] In another embodiment, a re-initiation procedure is used to manage E-DCH transmissions, whereby if at least one of a transmission time limit and a maximum number of transmissions has been reached, the lower priority data transmission may be reassigned to an H-ARQ process.
[0022] FIG. 2A is a flow diagram of an EU transmission process 200 implemented by the system 100 of FIG. 1 for assigning H-ARQ processes 114 in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention. When a radio access bearer (RAB) is configured to operate on an E-DCH, parameters related to assigning H-ARQ processes 114 in the WTRU 102 are configured by the RNC 106 to support EU data transmissions (step 202 ). The parameters include, but are not limited to, priority of each logical channel, MAC-d flow or TrCH mapped to an E-DCH, and maximum number of H-ARQ transmissions for each TrCH, MAC-d flow or logical channel mapped to an E-DCH.
[0023] For each transmit time interval (TTI) at step 204 , the WTRU 102 then determines whether physical resources have been allocated for the WTRU 102 for supporting EU operation (step 206 ). If physical resources have not been allocated at step 206 , the process 200 returns to step 204 until the next TTI occurs. If physical resources have been allocated at step 206 , the WTRU 102 selects a data block for transmission (step 208 ). For new data transmissions, the highest priority data block is selected for each assigned H-ARQ process. In step 210 , the WTRU 102 then determines a transmission status of the selected data. The transmission status is set as either “new transmission” or “retransmission.”
[0024] If, in step 210 , the WTRU 102 determines that the transmission status of the selected data is “retransmission”, the same H-ARQ process 114 that was used for the previous transmission remains assigned to the data block, the transmission counter 118 in the WTRU 102 is incremented, and an NDI of the transmission is set to “old data” to indicate that the assigned H-ARQ process 114 retransmits data identical to what was transmitted previously, in order to allow for combining at the Node-B 104 (step 212 ). The process 200 then returns to step 204 until the next TTI occurs.
[0025] If, in step 210 , the WTRU 102 determines that the transmission status of the selected data block is “new transmission”, the WTRU 102 assigns an available H-ARQ process 114 to the selected data block and sets an NDI to indicate “new data” (step 214 ). The data block is then transmitted using the assigned H-ARQ process and the transmission counter 118 in the WTRU 102 is incremented (step 216 ). The process 200 then returns to step 204 until the next TTI occurs.
[0026] FIG. 2B is a flow diagram of an EU feedback reception process 250 implemented by the system 100 of FIG. 1 . In step 252 , the WTRU 102 determines whether feedback information for a previously transmitted data block has been received. If the WTRU 102 received an ACK message, the corresponding H-ARQ process 114 is released and is available for supporting another data transmission (step 254 ). If the WTRU 102 received a NACK message of a feedback timeout occurs, the WTRU 102 determines whether the transmission counter 118 in the WTRU 102 has reached a predetermined maximum number of H-ARQ transmissions (step 256 ).
[0027] If the number of H-ARQ transmissions indicated by the transmission counter 118 in the WTRU 102 has not reached a predetermined maximum number at step 256 , the transmission status of the data block is set as a “retransmission” (step 258 ).
[0028] If the maximum number of H-ARQ transmissions is reached at step 256 , the WTRU discards the data at the MAC layer and releases the associated H-ARQ process (step 260 ).
[0029] FIG. 3A is a flow diagram of an EU transmission process 300 implemented by the system 100 of FIG. 1 for assigning H-ARQ processes 114 using preemption and re-initiation procedures in accordance with another embodiment of the present invention. When a RAB is configured to operate on an E-DCH, parameters related to assigning H-ARQ processes 114 in the WTRU 102 are configured by the RNC 106 to support EU data transmissions (step 302 ).
[0030] For each transmit time interval (TTI) at step 304 , the WTRU 102 then determines whether physical resources have been allocated for the WTRU 102 for supporting EU operation (step 306 ). A priority class is configured for each logical channel, MAC-d flow or TrCH mapped to an E-DCH, whereby the highest priority data block is always serviced first. If physical resources have not been allocated at step 306 , the process 300 returns to step 304 until the next TTI occurs. If physical resources have been allocated at step 306 , the WTRU 102 selects for transmission the data block having the highest priority from all possible data that can be transmitted in the current TTI, (i.e., new data, previous unsuccessful transmissions and interrupted transmissions), (step 308 ). If several data blocks having the same highest priority are available for transmission, the WTRU 102 may prioritize the data block having the earliest sequence number or the data block having the highest number of transmissions. This operation assists “first-in first-out” (FIFO) processing and minimizes the delay for any data transmission. In step 310 , the WTRU 102 then determines a transmission status of the selected data. The transmission status is set as either “new transmission,” “retransmission” or “interrupted transmission.”
[0031] If the data block has not been previously transmitted, or an H-ARQ transmission is restarted, the transmission status is set as a “new transmission” in step 310 . If the data block has been transmitted but was not successfully delivered, (and not interrupted by a higher priority data block), the transmission status of the data is set as a “retransmission” at step 310 . The WTRU 102 may optionally implement preemption of an H-ARQ process assigned to support higher priority data. An H-ARQ process already assigned for lower priority data which needs to be transmitted may be preempted with higher priority data when there is no other H-ARQ process available. If the H-ARQ process assigned to the data block is preempted, the lower priority data is blocked from transmission in the current TTI and the transmission status of the blocked data is set as an “interrupted transmission” at step 310 .
[0032] If, in step 310 , the WTRU 102 determines that the transmission status of the selected data is “retransmission”, the same H-ARQ process 114 that was used for the previous transmission remains assigned to the data block, a transmission counter 118 is incremented and an NDI of the transmission is set to “old data” to indicate that the assigned H-ARQ process 114 retransmits data identical to what was transmitted previously, in order to allow for combining at the Node-B 104 (step 312 ). The process 300 then returns to step 304 until the next TTI occurs.
[0033] If, in step 310 , the WTRU 102 determines that the transmission status of the selected data block is “new transmission”, the WTRU 102 determines whether there are any H-ARQ processes 114 available (step 314 ). If an H-ARQ process is available, (or a process supporting lower priority data is available), one of the available H-ARQ processes 114 is selected (step 316 ). If the transmission status of the selected data block is a “new transmission,” the WTRU 102 selects an available H-ARQ process 114 (step 316 ). The WTRU 102 assigns the selected H-ARQ process 114 to the selected data block and sets an NDI to indicate “new data” (step 318 ). The data block is then transmitted using the assigned H-ARQ process and the transmission counter 118 in the WTRU 102 is incremented (step 320 ). The process 300 then returns to step 304 until the next TTI occurs.
[0034] If, in step 310 , the WTRU 102 determines that the transmission status of the selected data block is “interrupted transmission”, (which is the case for which preemption is permitted), the WTRU 102 determines whether there are any H-ARQ processes 114 available (step 322 ). If there are no H-ARQ processes 114 available at step 322 , transmission of a lower priority data block is interrupted and a transmission status of the interrupted lower priority data is set to “interrupted transmission” (step 324 ). The H-ARQ process 114 previously assigned for the lower priority data is assigned for the currently selected data block and an NDI is set to indicate new data (step 318 ). The data block is then transmitted using the assigned H-ARQ process and the transmission counter 118 in the WTRU 102 is incremented (step 320 ). The process 300 then returns to step 304 until the next TTI occurs.
[0035] FIG. 3B is a flow diagram of an EU feedback reception process 350 implemented by the system 100 of FIG. 1 . In step 352 , the WTRU 102 determines whether feedback information for a previously transmitted data block has been received. If the WTRU 102 received an ACK message, the corresponding H-ARQ process 114 is released and is available for supporting another data transmission (step 354 ). If the WTRU 102 received a NACK message or a feedback timeout occurs, the WTRU 102 determines whether the number of H-ARQ transmissions indicated by the transmission counter 118 in the WTRU 102 has reached a predetermined maximum number of H-ARQ transmissions (step 356 ).
[0036] If the maximum number of H-ARQ transmissions has not been reached at step 356 , the transmission status of the data block is set as a “retransmission” (step 358 ).
[0037] If the maximum number of H-ARQ transmissions is reached at step 356 , the WTRU 102 has two options 360 , 362 . In the first option 360 , the WTRU 102 discards the data block at the MAC layer and releases the assigned H-ARQ process 114 . In the second option 362 , the WTRU 102 may set the transmission status of the data block as a “restarted transmission” and starts a new transmission for the data block. The transmission counter 118 is then set to zero and the NDI is set to “new data” (step 364 ).
[0038] Although the features and elements of the present invention are described in the preferred embodiments in particular combinations, each feature or element can be used alone without the other features and elements of the preferred embodiments or in various combinations with or without other features and elements of the present invention. | A method and apparatus for assigning automatic repeat request (ARQ)/hybrid-automatic repeat request (H-ARQ) processes in a wireless transmit/receive unit (WTRU) to support enhanced uplink (EU) data transmissions. After parameters associated with the ARQ/H-ARQ processes are configured, the WTRU assigns an ARQ/H-ARQ process for selected data. After transmitting the data, the WTRU determines whether feedback information for the data has been received. The WTRU releases the ARQ/H-ARQ process if an acknowledgement (ACK) message has been received, and retransmits the data if a non-acknowledgement (NACK) message or no feedback information has been received in a predetermined time period while incrementing a transmission counter in the WTRU. When an ARQ/H-ARQ transmission limit has been reached, the WTRU may discard the data or reinitiate the transmission. An ARQ/H-ARQ process assigned for transmission of lower priority data may be preempted for transmission of higher priority data when there is no available ARQ/H-ARQ process. | 7 |
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/057,693, filed Mar. 28, 2008, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.
BACKGROUND
This invention relates to matrix-vector calculations on general-purpose computers, and particularly to systems and methods for a combined matrix-vector and matrix-transpose vector multiply for a block sparse matrix on a single instruction, multiple data (SIMD) processor.
A physics engine for an online game provides simulation of a simplified model of real-world physics. Typically, integration is required to determine, given position and momentum information about the objects in the world, where each object will be after the next time step. This determination can be done using semi-implicit integration of a penalty force-based system (a dynamic system that enforces constraints by applying a restorative force when a constraint is violated). The properties of the system are represented as a block-sparse matrix A and a vector b. The biconjugate gradient algorithm is used to solve A*Δv=b, and then the vector Δv is used to update the system for the next time step. For the online game application, speed of computation is more important than great accuracy; it is sufficient to perform these calculations in single precision floating point without taking special measures to ensure numerical accuracy.
The physics engine for an online game may operate as follows. In a typical online game physics engine, each object in the virtual world is represented as one or more rigid bodies; multiple bodies may be necessary to represent such things as robots with moving parts. The system stores information about the position and motion of each rigid body at a given time t 0 , along with an indication of whether each body is potentially moving (active) or at rest (sleeping). This indication reduces the amount of calculation required because unless something happens to a sleeping body, it remains where it is and there is no need to calculate a new position for it. In order to derive the positions and motions of the active bodies at some future time t 0 +Δt, the following steps are performed: 1) determine which of the rigid bodies are colliding; 2) wake any sleeping bodies with which an active body has collided; 3) partition the active bodies into non-interacting groups; 4) put to sleep the active bodies in any group which has come to rest; and 5) integrate each of the groups of active bodies to determine their position/motion for the next step.
For game systems developed to run on the Cell Broadband Engine Architecture (Cell BE), the first four steps run on the power-processing element (PPE), the main processor, which acts as a controller for the several synergistic processing elements (SPEs). The integration step (which is numerically intensive) is farmed out to the SPEs. Ideally, each partition of the set of active bodies is handled by a single SPE. In practice, the size of the group that fits on an SPE is constrained by the amount of local store available on the SPE. Therefore, an additional step of decoupling, which breaks up the groups into smaller groups, is used to obtain groups that fit on an SPE. This step introduces some errors into the simulation, but they can be managed. However, the necessity of decoupling places a premium on a space-efficient implementation of the integration algorithm; the less storage is required to integrate a group of a given size, the larger the group that can be integrated without decoupling.
To integrate a group on the SPE, the PPE supplies information on the positions and motions of the rigid bodies in the group, the forces which connect them (these can be used to define hinges and joints), and the points where one rigid body is in contact with another. The SPE then performs the following steps: 1) form the matrix A and the vector b which describe the system; 2) solve A*Δv=b using the biconjugate gradient method; and 3) return Δv to the PPE, which uses it to update the positions and motions of the rigid bodies.
In the maximal coordinates representation, each rigid body contributes six coordinates to b, and A is a square matrix containing six elements per dimension for each rigid body. A is typically block-sparse; that is, it can be divided into a grid of 6×6-element submatrices, most of which are all zero but a few of which have nonzero elements. In particular, the diagonal blocks are nonzero, and there is a pair of off-diagonal nonzero blocks for each pair of bodies that interact directly. It is well known that by storing only the nonzero blocks, along with information giving the position of each block within the matrix, the storage required for the array A can be greatly reduced, and the computation required to perform calculations which can only yield zero results can be avoided.
The biconjugate gradient algorithm used to solve A*Δv=b is well-known, and can be expressed as follows:
Pseudocode:
Compute r (0) = b − Ax (0) for some initial guess x (0) .
Choose {tilde over (r)} (0) (for example, {tilde over (r)} (0) = r (0) ).
for i = 1, 2, ...
solve Mz (i−1) = r (i−1)
solve M T {tilde over (z)} (i−1) = {tilde over (r)} (i−1)
ρ i−1 = z (i−1)τ {tilde over (r)} (i−1)
if ρ i−1 = 0, method fails
if i = 1
p (i) = z (i−1)
{tilde over (p)} (i) = {tilde over (z)} (i−1)
else
β i−1 = ρ i−1 /ρ i−2
p (i) = z (i−1) + β i−1 p (i−1)
{tilde over (p)} (i) = {tilde over (z)} (i−1) + β i−1 {tilde over (p)} (i−1)
endif
q (i) = Ap (i)
{tilde over (q)} (i) = A T {tilde over (p)} (i)
α i = ρ i−1 /{tilde over (p)} (i)τ q (i)
x (i) = x (i−1) + α i p (i)
r (i) = r (i−1) − α i q (i)
{tilde over (r)} (i) = {tilde over (r)} (i−1) − α i {tilde over (q)} (i)
check convergence; continue if necessary
end
The pseudocode above is from a “Mathworld” (mathworld.com) article by Noel Black and Shirley Moore, adapted from Barret et al (1994). The computation at the top of the loop is sometimes simplified (at a cost of possibly having to do more iterations) by replacing the preconditioner M with the identity matrix. In this case the first two lines in the loop become z (i-1) =r (i-1) and {tilde over (z)} (i-1) ={tilde over (r)} (i-1) . Inspection of the subsequent calculations shows that it is not necessary to form z and {tilde over (z)} at all; r and {tilde over (r)} can be substituted. The most computationally intensive part of this procedure that remains is the formation of the two matrix-vector products q (i) =Ap (i) and {tilde over (q)} (i) =A T {tilde over (p)} (i) . The straightforward way to do this computation is to have a procedure which multiplies a matrix and a vector together, to use it to obtain the first product, to form the transpose of A, and to use the routine again to form the second product. The disadvantages of this are the computation and storage required to form the transpose of A and the fact that the elements of A must be read out of storage twice per iteration for the multiplications, once from the original matrix and once from the transpose. In addition, for a processor such as the Cell BE SPE, the number of instructions used to load and store the data required for a matrix-vector multiply is much larger than the number of arithmetic instructions needed to perform the calculations, so that the full capability of the processor cannot be utilized.
There persists a need for modifications to the above-discussed pseudo-code for a combined matrix-vector and matrix-transpose vector multiply for a block sparse matrix on a single instruction, multiple data (SIMD) processor having the characteristics of the Cell BE SPE, namely, the ability to execute many instructions at once but with latencies of several cycles before results are available, and the desirability of having the number of arithmetic and logical computations at least as large as the number of loads and stores.
BRIEF SUMMARY
Embodiments of the invention include a method of updating a simulation of physical objects in an interactive computer environment having a processor, a memory and a display, the method including generating a set of representations of objects in the interactive computer environment; partitioning the set of representations into a plurality of subsets such that objects in any given set interact only with other objects in that set; generating a system of linear equations A*Δv=b which describe the changes in velocities Δv in terms of known characteristics of the objects such as mass and forces acting on the objects, said characteristics being used to generate the block-sparse matrix A and the vector b; applying a biconjugate gradient algorithm to solve A*Δv=b for the vector Δv of velocity changes to be applied to each object, wherein a single matrix-vector multiplication routine is called once per iteration to perform two matrix-vector multiplications, one involving A and the other involving the transpose of A, to determine the values of two vectors used to update the residuals used in the biconjugate gradient algorithm; applying the velocity changes to determine a next state of the simulated objects; and converting the simulated objects to a visual representation comprising pixel data for display.
Additional embodiments include a method for a combined matrix-vector and matrix transpose-vector multiplication calculation for a block-sparse matrix A which computes q=Ap and qt=A T pt for iteratively solving a system of equations AΔv=b for updating a simulation of physical objects in an interactive computer environment, the computer environment having a processor, a memory in which the matrix A and vectors p, pt, q, and qt are stored, and a plurality of registers capable of representing and operating on multiple matrix or vector elements in a single operation, the method including storing the matrix A as a collection of nonzero subblocks chained in a first dimension, with one chain for each position in a second dimension, such that each block includes an index giving its position in said first dimension and the subblock elements are stored in groups corresponding to the register size and ordered reading along said first dimension within the group; initializing each element of the vector q to zero; for each subblock chain along said second dimension, performing the steps of a) for each position along said first dimension of the subblock, initializing a register to all zeros as an accumulator; b) for each position along said second dimension of the subblock, filling a register with copies of the element of the p vector corresponding to that position; c) for each subblock in said chain, performing the steps of reading all groups of elements of said subblock into registers; reading the elements of q corresponding to the subblock elements along said second dimension into one or more registers, adding to said registers the sum of the products of the appropriate registers of matrix elements and copies of the p vector elements corresponding to said horizontal positions in the subblocks, and using the resulting register values to update said elements of q corresponding to said subblock elements along said second dimension; forming the products of the matrix elements with the elements of pt corresponding to the positions along said first axis and adding them to the corresponding accumulators; d) for each accumulator, summing the individual elements of the accumulator and storing the result as the element of qt corresponding to the chain offset by the accumulator's position within the subblock.
Further embodiments include a computer readable medium having computer executable instructions for performing a method of updating a simulation of physical objects in an interactive computer environment having a processor, a memory and a display, the method including generating a set of representations of objects in the interactive computer environment, partitioning the set of representations into a plurality of subsets such that objects in any given set interact only with other objects in that set, generating a block-sparse matrix A and a vector b for each subset, the block-sparse matrix representing the interactions between the objects in the subset, wherein nonzero sub-matrices representing the direct interaction of the objects are stored along with coordinate information corresponding to a position of each one of the plurality of sub-matrices within the first matrix, the sub-matrices being derived from the characteristics of the objects, applying a biconjugate gradient algorithm to solve A*Δv=b for the vector Δv of velocity changes to be applied to each object, wherein a single matrix-vector multiplication routine is called once per iteration to determine the values of two vectors used to update the residuals used in the biconjugate gradient algorithm, applying the vector of velocity changes Δv to determine a next state of the simulated objects, and converting the simulated objects to a visual representation comprising pixel data for presentation on the display.
Further embodiments include a computer readable medium having computer executable instructions for performing a method of updating a simulation of physical objects in an interactive computer environment having a processor, a memory and a display, the method including generating a set of representations of objects in the interactive computer environment, partitioning the set of representations into a plurality of subsets such that objects in any given set interact only with other objects in that set, applying a biconjugate gradient algorithm to solve A*Δv=b for the vector Δv of velocity changes to be applied to each object, wherein solving A*Δv=b comprises the following steps:
a. determining b-Ax, wherein A is a block-sparse matrix representing interactions between the objects and b is a vector representing an expected position of the objects;
b. assigning results of the b-Ax calculation to vectors r, rt, p, and pt;
c. defining a vector procedure computing the dot product of r and rt;
d. using the vector procedure to determine if the dot product result is 0, in which case, recording a calculation failure;
e. calculating the vectors q=Ap and qt=A T (pt) using a single procedure which reads each subblock of A only once;
f. calculating scalar quantities α and β;
g. updating the x, r and rt vectors as defined by x=x+αp, r=r−αq, and rt=rt−αqt;
h. computing the dot product of r and rt;
i. defining a test procedure for determining convergence of the dot product of r and rt;
j. using the test procedure to determine if convergence has occurred, in which case, recording a complete calculation;
k. using the vector procedure to determine if the dot product result is 0, in which case, recording a calculation failure;
l. updating the scalar β and the vectors p and pt;
m. iteratively repeating steps e-l until convergence of r and rt is achieved;
applying the vector of velocity changes Δv to determine a next state of the simulated objects; and converting the simulated objects to a visual representation comprising pixel data for presentation on the display.
Further embodiments include a method for a combined matrix-vector and matrix transpose-vector calculation for a block-sparse matrix A which computes q=Ap and qt=A T (pt), for iteratively solving a system of equations A*Δv=b for updating a simulation of physical objects in an interactive computer environment, said computer environment having a processor, a memory in which said matrix A and vectors p, pt, q, and qt are stored, and a plurality of registers capable of representing and operating on multiple matrix or vector elements in a single operation, the method including storing the matrix A as a collection of nonzero subblocks chained in a first dimension, with one chain for each position in a second dimension, such that each block includes an index giving its position in said first dimension and the subblock elements are stored in groups corresponding to the register size and ordered reading along said first dimension within the group, initializing each element of the vector q to zero, for each subblock chain along said second dimension, performing, for each position along said first dimension of the subblock, initializing a register to all zeroes as an accumulator, for each position along said second dimension of the subblock, filling a register with copies of the element of the p vector corresponding to that position, for each subblock in said chain, performing, reading all groups of elements of said subblock into registers, reading the elements of q corresponding to the subblock elements along said second dimension into one or more registers, adding to said registers the sum of the products of the appropriate registers of matrix elements and copies of the p vector elements corresponding to said horizontal positions in the subblocks, and using the resulting register values to update said elements of q corresponding to said subblock elements along said second dimension, forming the products of the matrix elements with the elements of pt corresponding to the positions along said first axis and adding them to the corresponding accumulators, for each accumulator, summing the individual elements of the accumulator and storing the result as the element of qt corresponding to the chain offset by the accumulator's position within the subblock.
Other systems, methods, and/or computer program products according to embodiments will be or become apparent to one with skill in the art upon review of the following drawings and detailed description. It is intended that all such additional systems, methods, and/or computer program products be included within this description, be within the scope of the present invention, and be protected by the accompanying claims.
TECHNICAL EFFECTS
As a result of the summarized invention, technically a novel implementation of the matrix-vector calculations q=A*p and qt=A T *pt for a block-sparse matrix A and vectors p, pt, q, and qt which does not require explicit formation of A T has been achieved. The methods described herein can be implemented on a SIMD processor architecture such as that of the Cell BE SPEs. This method avoids forming the transposes of the individual blocks as well as of the full matrix; the transpose of the blocks is implicit in the way the multiplications are performed and accumulated. As such, rearrangement of the elements of each block to create a transposed block can be bypassed. This method reduces the amount of storage required and is more efficient on a SIMD architecture than forming the transpose of A and doing two separate matrix-vector multiplications.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWINGS
The subject matter which is regarded as the invention is particularly pointed out and distinctly claimed in the claims at the conclusion of the specification. The foregoing and other objects, features, and advantages of the invention are apparent from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which:
FIG. 1 illustrates a system level diagram of a computer system in accordance with exemplary embodiments;
FIG. 2 illustrates a flow chart of pseudocode implementing the solution of A*Δv=b;
FIG. 3 shows an example of how the square matrix A may be represented in computer storage;
FIG. 4 shows the calculations implemented to update the q and qt vectors for each 6×6 subblock in the matrix A; and
FIG. 5 illustrates an exemplary method of the computation of FIG. 4 .
The detailed description explains the preferred embodiments of the invention, together with advantages and features, by way of example with reference to the drawings.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
Exemplary embodiments include systems and methods for a combined matrix-vector and matrix-transpose vector multiply for a block sparse matrix on a single instruction, multiple data (SIMD) processor.
In another exemplary embodiment, a similar calculation can be performed with chaining across block rows, the groups in row-major order, and the index indicating the subblock column, in which case p/q and pt/qt would change places.
FIG. 1 illustrates a system level diagram of a computer system 10 in accordance with exemplary embodiments. System 10 includes a general-purpose processor 20 which can include the ability to carry out the scalar, vector, matrix etc. operations described herein. Processor is further coupled to a display 22 , a storage device 24 , such as a hard drive, and various peripherals 26 for aiding in the implementation of the methods described herein. System 10 further includes a memory 30 for storing instructions, data, calculations, etc. described herein. As discussed above, system 10 can include a single instruction, multiple data (SIMD) processor as processor 20 .
FIG. 2 illustrates a flow chart of pseudocode implementing the solution of A*Δv=b. The preconditioner M can be defined to be the identity matrix, so that the “solve” operations reduce to vector copies and the “z” vectors can be replaced by references to the “r” vectors. The loop is rearranged to remove the test for the first iteration. The vectors {tilde over (p)}, {tilde over (q)}, and {tilde over (r)} are referred to as pt, qt, and rt, respectively; the t's can be thought of as standing for either “tilde” (from the description of the algorithm above) or “transpose” (because they participate in the transpose multiply). Given a sparse matrix A, a vector b, and an initial approximation to the solution x (which in our application is a vector consisting entirely of zeroes), several expressions can be computed. First, b-Ax is computed and the result assigned to each of the vectors r, rt, p, and pt at step 110 . The dot product of r with rt is also computed at step 110 . If this result is zero at step 120 , the method fails. The two matrix-vector products q and qt are computed at step 130 . As discussed further below, it is appreciated that the computation of the vectors q and qt are calculated by a single matrix vector multiplication routine that is called once per iteration to determine the value of updated vectors. The scalars alpha and beta are then computed, alpha is used to update the x, r, and rt vectors, and the dot product of r and rt is computed at step 140 . Check for convergence at step 150 (in which case the computations are complete) and for a zero dot product at step 160 (in which case the method fails). If there is no 0 dot product at step 160 , beta is calculated and used to update the p and pt vectors at step 170 , and the loop repeats. With these modifications, there remain two lines in the biconjugate gradient loop that are particularly computation-intensive: the lines involving multiplication of A and A T by vectors.
A feature of the SPE of the Cell BE is its SIMD architecture; it has a large number of 128-bit (“quadword”) registers. Each register is capable of holding four floating-point values, and instructions that operate on these registers can operate on all elements of a register (or registers) simultaneously. Thus, if two registers containing (a,b,c,d) and (e,f,g,h) are added, a result of (a+e, b+f, c+g, d+h) is obtained. A single instruction can also load or store four floating-point values residing in properly aligned contiguous storage locations.
FIG. 3 shows an example of how the square matrix A may be represented in computer storage. Each 6×6 block contains 36 single-precision floats of element data, a row index, and a pointer to the next block in the column. In an exemplary implementation, the 36 elements are stored three to a quadword, with the fourth word containing 0, and the vectors are similarly stored three elements to a quadword. Although it is contemplated to pack them as four to a quadword, calculations outside the biconjugate gradient routine become more complicated. In an exemplary embodiment, the diagonal elements are stored as a one-dimensional array so that the array index of an element indicates its row and column, and the other elements in the column are chained from the diagonal element. It is appreciated that the order in which the elements are chained can vary; a different ordering may produce a slightly different result because of operations being done in a different order. The Λ values indicate null pointers and mark the ends of the chains. If there are additional blocks in the portions of FIG. 3 marked “ . . . ”, the null chain pointers above them are replaced by pointers to the first such additional block in each column.
The computation of q=Ap and qt=A T pt is now discussed. In general, p and pt are inputs and q and qt are outputs. FIG. 4 shows the calculations implemented to update the q and qt vectors for each 6×6 subblock in the matrix A, and FIG. 5 illustrates an exemplary method of the computation. The matrix elements m ij are shown in the center of FIG. 4 , where i is the row index and j is the column index within the subblock. The subblocks of A are stored as four 3×3 blocks; the 3×3 blocks are stored in row-major order but within each block the elements are stored in column-major order, for ease of computation. Each rectangle in the figure represents a quadword (four single-precision floats), but the fourth word is not used and is not illustrated in FIG. 4 . The groups of rectangles show the 3×3 blocks. The 6×6 subblocks are processed reading down the block columns of A.
Referring to FIG. 5 , the q vector is initialized to all zeroes at step 210 . The column number j is set to 0. At step 220 , test to see if the last block column has been processed; if so, processing is complete. Otherwise, the first 6×6 subblock in the chain for the current column is addressed at step 230 , which in an exemplary embodiment is the diagonal element. Six elements of the p vector are read, indexed by 6j, 6j+1, 6j+2, . . . , 6j+5 and denoted v 0 , v 1 , . . . , v 5 , and shuffled into six “v registers”, each of which has three copies of one of the elements. These elements are used to update six elements of the q vector for each subblock in the column. Six 4-float accumulators tacc 0 , tacc 1 , . . . , tacc 5 are initialized so that each contains four zero entries; these accumulators store partial results used to calculate six elements of the qt vector corresponding to the current column, since by reading down the block columns of A, the block rows of A T are read across. The loop which processes one 6×6 subblock is then entered at step 240 .
The row index i is read from the current subblock, and the matrix elements m ij are loaded into quadword registers as shown in FIG. 4 . Each 6×6 subblock causes six elements of q to be updated based on the matrix elements and six elements of p. The six elements of q are loaded into two accumulators acc 0 and acc 1 . The v registers are then multiplied with the associated matrix elements as indicated by the dots in FIG. 4 , and the products are summed as shown by the lines. It is appreciated that in a SIMD architecture such as that of the Cell BE, vectors are multiplied or summed element by element. Thus, acc 0 accumulates the first three elements of the revised q vector, which are q0+Σm 0i v i , q1+Σm 1i v i , and q2+Σm 2i v i , and acc 1 accumulates the second three elements, which are q3+Σm 3i v i , q4+Σm 4i v i , and q5+Σm 5i v i . These results are stored back into the q vector as the updated values.
To compute the current subblock's contribution to the six qt values corresponding to the current block column, the appropriate six entries of pt (denoted w 0 , w 1 , . . . , w 5 ) are read into two quadword registers, and then multiplied with the appropriate subblock elements as shown by the dots in FIG. 4 . It is appreciated that although 12 “w” registers are shown in FIG. 4 , there are two distinct sets of values, representing two “w” registers which are each used six times. Two of the resulting products are accumulated into each of the taccN registers. Each taccN register thus has the entries (m 0N w 0 +m 3N w 3 , m 1N w 1 +m 4N w 4 , m 2N w 2 +m 5N w 5 ) added to it element-wise. These values sum to the required Σm iN w N . In an exemplary implementation, these sums are completed when all of the subblocks in the block column of A have been processed. The sums of the elements of the taccN registers can then be calculated and stored as the next six elements of qt. In an exemplary implementation, summing the elements of a quadword register is performed outside of the inner loop, at step 260 .
After a subblock is processed, the block pointer to address the next subblock in the chain is updated. If there is another block in the chain, the loop to process it is repeated. When the end of the chain is reached, the elements of each of the taccN accumulators are summed and the results qt[6j], qt[6j+1], . . . , qt[6j+5] are stored at step 260 . If a next block column exists, it is then processed.
It is therefore appreciated that the handling of the A matrix can be minimized by utilizing the features that each 6×6 block affects only six elements of each result vector, and by observing that it is possible to avoid forming the transposes of the individual blocks. By reading down the block columns of A, the shuffling of the elements of p and the summing of the partial results of the transpose multiply are moved out of the inner loop. In a register-rich architecture such as the Cell BE SPE, all of the 36 block elements can be loaded into registers (three to a register) with remaining registers for accumulators and other operands. The transpose of the block is implicit in the way the multiplications are performed and accumulated. In general, the block elements do not have to be rearranged to create a transposed block. The aforementioned loops described above can allow inputs to be loaded farther ahead of the places where they are needed (to cover load latencies), and supplemental accumulators can be implemented to allow more operations to proceed in parallel.
This algorithm is useful because on the Cell BE SPE space is at a premium and a relatively high ratio of computation to storage access and branch instructions is desirable. Other solvers can be substituted for the biconjugate gradient. For example, the conjugate gradient squared algorithm replaces multiplies by A and A T with two multiplies by A, but the data dependencies are such that they cannot be combined. The overhead of going through A twice remains, and since there is less computation per loop it is harder to utilize the power of the SPE effectively.
Therefore, it is appreciated that a method for a combined matrix-vector and matrix-transpose vector multiply for a block sparse matrix on a single instruction, multiple data (SIMD) processor is described herein. In an exemplary implementation, the following instructions can be implemented for the above-described methods.
Store the block-sparse matrix A as a collection of nonzero subblocks. The blocks are chained in a first dimension (e.g., vertical), with one chain for each position in a second dimension (e.g., horizontal). Each block includes an index giving its position in the matrix in the first dimension. The elements of the subblock are stored in groups corresponding to the processor register size; within each group, elements are ordered reading along the first dimension.
Store the vectors p and pt with elements grouped corresponding to the subblock and processor register sizes (e.g., three to a quadword).
Store the vector q with elements grouped corresponding to the subblock and processor register sizes, with all elements initialized to 0. In an exemplary implementation, no initialization is performed for the vector qt.
For each subblock chain along the second dimension (i.e. each block column),
For each position along the first dimension of the subblock, initialize a register taccN to all zeroes as an accumulator. For each position along the second dimension of the subblock, fill a register vN with copies of the element of the p vector corresponding to that position. For each subblock in the chain,
Read all groups of elements of the subblock into registers. Read the elements of q corresponding to the subblock elements along the second dimension into one or more registers. In another exemplary implementation, the sum of the products of the appropriate registers of matrix elements and the SIMD registers vN containing copies of the elements of p corresponding to the horizontal positions in the subblocks are added to the register(s). The resulting register values are used to update the elements of q corresponding to the subblock elements along the second dimension. Form the products of the appropriate registers of matrix elements with the elements of pt corresponding to the positions along the first axis and they are added to the taccN accumulators.
For each the taccN accumulator, the individual elements of the accumulator are summed and the result is stored as the element of qt corresponding to current block column, offset by the accumulator's position within the block.
The capabilities of the present invention can be implemented in software, firmware, hardware or some combination thereof.
As one example, one or more aspects of the present invention can be included in an article of manufacture (e.g., one or more computer program products) having, for instance, computer usable media. The media has embodied therein, for instance, computer readable program code means for providing and facilitating the capabilities of the present invention. The article of manufacture can be included as a part of a computer system or sold separately.
Additionally, at least one program storage device readable by a machine, tangibly embodying at least one program of instructions executable by the machine to perform the capabilities of the present invention can be provided.
The flow diagrams depicted herein are just examples. There may be many variations to these diagrams or the steps (or operations) described therein without departing from the spirit of the invention. For instance, the steps may be performed in a differing order, or steps may be added, deleted or modified. All of these variations are considered a part of the claimed invention.
As described above, embodiments can be embodied in the form of computer-implemented processes and apparatuses for practicing those processes. In exemplary embodiments, the invention is embodied in computer program code executed by one or more network elements. Embodiments include computer program code containing instructions embodied in tangible media, such as floppy diskettes, CD-ROMs, hard drives, or any other computer-readable storage medium, wherein, when the computer program code is loaded into and executed by a computer, the computer becomes an apparatus for practicing the invention. Embodiments include computer program code, for example, whether stored in a storage medium, loaded into and/or executed by a computer, or transmitted over some transmission medium, such as over electrical wiring or cabling, through fiber optics, or via electromagnetic radiation, wherein, when the computer program code is loaded into and executed by a computer, the computer becomes an apparatus for practicing the invention. When implemented on a general-purpose microprocessor, the computer program code segments configure the microprocessor to create specific logic circuits.
While the invention has been described with reference to exemplary embodiments, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes may be made and equivalents may be substituted for elements thereof without departing from the scope of the invention. In addition, many modifications may be made to adapt a particular situation or material to the teachings of the invention without departing from the essential scope thereof. Therefore, it is intended that the invention not be limited to the particular embodiment disclosed as the best mode contemplated for carrying out this invention, but that the invention will include all embodiments falling within the scope of the appended claims. Moreover, the use of the terms first, second, etc. do not denote any order or importance, but rather the terms first, second, etc. are used to distinguish one element from another. Furthermore, the use of the terms a, an, etc. do not denote a limitation of quantity, but rather denote the presence of at least one of the referenced item. | Systems and methods for combined matrix-vector and matrix-transpose vector multiply for block sparse matrices. Exemplary embodiments include a method of updating a simulation of physical objects in an interactive computer, including generating a set of representations of objects in the interactive computer environment, partitioning the set of representations into a plurality of subsets such that objects in any given set interact only with other objects in that set, generating a vector b describing an expected position of each object at the end of a time interval h, applying a biconjugate gradient algorithm to solve A*Δv=b for the vector Δv of position and velocity changes to be applied to each object wherein the q=Ap and qt=A T (pt) calculations are combined so that A only has to be read once, integrating the updated motion vectors to determine a next state of the simulated objects, and converting the simulated objects to a visual. | 6 |
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION
[0001] This application is a continuation-in-part of prior U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/978,027 filed on Oct. 29, 2007.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0002] 1. Field of the Invention
[0003] The instant invention relates generally to wire dispensers, and in particular to a portable and adjustable wire dispenser for accommodating various sizes of spools, preferably to assist individuals at construction locations and industrial sites.
[0004] 2. Description of the Related Art
[0005] The use of insulated electrical wire is widespread and is available to construction contractors, electricians, hobbyists and homeowners at most hardware stores. The wire is generally obtained from a wholesaler or maker in standard sized coils which are wrapped and held in a coil configuration by ties for transport or handling. The retailer, such as the hardware store, must uncoil the wire to measure and sell desired lengths to a customer. These coils generally have the same inner diameter, but the cross section of the coil may vary, depending on the size of wire.
[0006] The use of wire dispensers for electrical wire, cable or any other material wrapped in a coil configuration is known in the art. These wire dispensers are designed to make the installation of wire an easier and quicker operation. Electricians regularly use large quantities of electrical wire during installation at either commercial or residential locations. In addition, various other technicians and contractors use wire dispensers to assist in the installation of many materials, including cable, copper and rope.
[0007] The instant invention relates to a portable and adjustable wire dispenser that assists an individual during the installation of wire, for example while attempting to install electrical wire. Many devices have been developed to provide some type of assistance to individuals engaged in the installation of wire, especially contractors and electricians who often dispense large quantities of electrical wire. Ultimately, it is the design goal for such an apparatus to provide a wire dispenser that is portable and adjustable to accommodate various sizes of spools and reels, wherein the apparatus utilizes a plurality of rotatable members that allow for a reel to freely rotate when in use.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0008] The instant invention, as described further herein, imparts a novel wire, hose, rope, cord dispenser which encompasses the advantages of other wire dispensers, but creates flexibility in the size of reel an individual desires to use based on the adjustability of the rotatable members. The instant invention as illustrated herein, is clearly not anticipated, rendered obvious, or even present in any of the prior art mechanisms, either alone or in any combination thereof.
[0009] The primary object of the instant invention is to provide an apparatus capable of dispensing wire material, wherein the apparatus contains a plurality of adjustable rotatable members to accommodate varying sizes of reels of wire.
[0010] Another object of the instant invention is to provide an apparatus capable of dispensing wire material, wherein the apparatus is portable in nature to allow an individual the option to selectively move the apparatus to different locations during the installation of wire material.
[0011] Another object of the instant invention is to provide an apparatus capable of dispensing wire material, wherein the apparatus eliminates the need for an individual to lift and elevate a reel off the ground and onto a support stand; instead the instant invention allows a reel to simply be placed on a base platform with the adjustable rotatable members.
[0012] Another object of the instant invention is to provide an apparatus capable of dispensing wire material, wherein the apparatus does not possess a weight limitation regarding different reels since the reels weight is distributed throughout the base platform and rotatable members rather than solely on a support stand.
[0013] There has thus been outlined, rather broadly, the more important features of the apparatus for dispensing wire material in order that the detailed description thereof that follows may be better understand, and in order that the present contribution to the art may be better appreciated. There are additional features of the invention that will be described hereinafter and which will form the subject matter of the claims appended hereto.
[0014] In this respect, before explaining at least one embodiment of the invention in detail, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited in its application to the details of construction and to the arrangements of the components set forth in the following description or illustrated in the drawings. The invention is capable of other embodiments and of being practiced and carried out in various ways. Also, it is to be understood that the phraseology and terminology employed herein are for the purpose of the description and should not be regarded as limiting.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0015] Advantages of the present invention will be apparent from the following detailed description of exemplary embodiments thereof, which description should be considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:
[0016] FIG. 1 is a diagrammatic perspective view of the portable and adjustable reeled wire dispenser in use having a base platform with a pair side walls and a plurality of adjustable rotatable members, and a plurality of wheels to assist an individual in moving the wire dispenser to different locations and wherein the base platform is hingedly connected to allow for easy transportation by an individual.
[0017] FIG. 2 is a diagrammatic perspective view of a preferred embodiment of the portable and adjustable reeled wire dispenser.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
[0018] FIG. 1 illustrates a coiled apparatus 10 having a base platform 12 , wherein first and second side walls 14 A and 14 B extend upwardly from the base platform 12 . Each side wall 14 A and 14 B contains a plurality of apertures 16 A arranged in a first row, and a plurality of apertures 16 B arranged in a second row, wherein the second row of apertures 16 B is located substantially above the first row of apertures 16 A. Furthermore, each row of apertures 16 A and 16 B is equidistantly disposed along the side walls 14 A and 14 B, wherein each aperture 16 A and 16 B is capable of receiving a plurality of rotatable members 18 for retaining a reel 20 of wire. Moreover, each aperture 16 A located in the first row is in substantial alignment with each corresponding aperture 16 B located in the second row, wherein each pair of first and second row apertures 16 A and 16 B are substantially perpendicular to each side wall 14 A and 14 B.
[0019] In one embodiment, the side walls 14 A and 14 B along with the base platform 12 are constructed from a single piece of material which is appropriately cut and shaped to produce the side walls 14 A and 14 B and the base platform 12 as shown in FIG. 1 . Alternatively, the side walls 14 A and 14 B, along with the base platform 12 may be separately constructed and attached together to form the apparatus illustrated in FIG. 1 , using any type of standard type of fastening compound or device, including but not limited to a bolt or screw, or using any standard method such as welding, or any combination thereof.
[0020] The wire dispenser 10 further comprises a plurality of rotatable members 18 each having a first and second end 22 A and 22 B, wherein the rotatable members 18 support and distribute the weight of the reel 20 . Each end 22 A and 22 B of each rotatable member 18 includes a protruding member 24 extending outwardly, wherein each protruding member 24 is receivable in each corresponding aperture 16 A and 16 B. Each rotatable member 18 , preferably a cylindrical bar, is associated with the first and second side wall 14 A and 14 B for retaining a reel 20 of wire while also allowing the reel 20 to freely rotate to dispense wire. Each rotatable member 18 is attachable to the first and second side walls 14 A and 14 B by placing the first end 22 A of each rotatable member 18 into the first side wall 14 A such that the protruding member 24 couples with either a first or second row aperture 16 A and 16 B, and likewise placing the second end 22 B of each rotatable member 18 into the second side wall 14 B such that the protruding member 24 couples with the corresponding aperture 16 A and 16 B. The placement of each rotatable member 18 depends on the size of the reel 20 being used, and as such, the dispenser 10 accommodates various reel sizes by simply adjusting the placement of the rotatable members 18 . An individual who desires to adjust each rotatable member 18 to accommodate a different sized reel can simply depress protruding member 24 from each aperture 16 A and 16 B and place the rotatable member in another aperture 16 A and 16 B. Preferably, each protruding member 24 is a pin.
[0021] In use, an individual first determines the size of reel 20 necessary for the task at hand, and after this determination is made, an individual adjusts and secures each rotatable member 18 at the appropriate location to ensure proper contact and support with the reel 20 , when an individual places the reel 20 on the wire dispenser 10 . Once each adjustable rotatable member 18 is secured, an individual simply needs to roll the reel onto the rotatable members 18 and can immediately begin to dispense wire. The instant invention eliminates the need to place some type of cylindrical object through the core of the reel 20 , and then elevate the reel onto some type of support stand for use; rather the reel 20 in connection with the instant invention does not have to leave the ground for placement on the wire dispenser 10 . Furthermore, the instant invention is not confined to one size of reel 20 for use because of the plurality of adjustable rotatable members 18 that are not locked into position as in most prior art wire dispensers.
[0022] In use, the plurality of rotatable members 18 is able to freely rotate in either a clockwise or counter-clockwise based on an individual's use and rotation of the reel 20 . Additionally, multiple reels 20 are placeable on the wire dispenser 10 simultaneously for use by an individual.
[0023] In one preferred embodiment (shown in FIG. 1 ), the wire dispenser 10 includes three rotatable members 18 , wherein two of the rotatable members are placed in the first row of apertures 16 A at a predetermined distance apart, depending on the size of the reel 20 in use. A third rotatable member 18 is placed in the second row of apertures 16 B substantially above one of the rotatable members 18 located in the first row of apertures 16 A. This configuration allows for an individual to place a reel 20 on the wire dispenser 10 and feed the material contained within the reel 20 underneath the lower-most of the two rotatable members 18 which are disposed one above the other, in order to provide sufficient tension upon the reel 20 to prevent the reel 20 from disengagement with the wire dispenser 10 due to light weigh of the reel 20 through displacement of the material on the reel 20 .
[0024] In alternate embodiments, an individual may vary either the amount or placement of the rotatable members 18 depending on the specific use of the wire dispenser 10 or the specific type or size of the reel 20 in use with the dispenser 10 . Yet in other alternate embodiments, the construction of each side wall 14 A and 14 B may vary in design (as shown in FIG. 2 ) such that each side wall 14 A and 14 B extends upwardly to accommodate a third rotatable member 18 , wherein each side wall 14 A and 14 B includes approximately half the amount of apertures 16 B in the second row as in the first row. Furthermore, the amount of apertures 16 B located in the second row may vary due to design of each side wall 14 A and 14 B based upon an individual's preference and specific use of the wire dispenser 10 .
[0025] As illustrated in FIG. 1 the instant invention permits easy inspection of the reel 20 in use by an individual, such that a visual inspection can be made to determine how much wire is remaining on each reel 20 . Furthermore, when the reel 20 has no material left to dispense, an individual can simply remove the reel 20 without disturbing other reels in use, and easily replace the empty reel 20 with a full reel 20 .
[0026] An alternate embodiment of the instant invention is shown, wherein the wire dispenser 10 contains a plurality of wheels 26 located on the base platform 12 enabling an individual to move the wire dispenser 10 while the reel is located on the dispenser 10 instead of removing the reel and carrying the dispenser 10 to another location for use. Each wheel 26 is attachable to the base platform 12 using any standard fastening means such as a bolt or screw.
[0027] FIG. 2 illustrates another embodiment of the instant invention, wherein the wire dispenser 10 includes three rotatable members 18 , and wherein each side wall 14 A and 14 B extends upwardly approximately at the midpoint of each side wall 14 A and 14 B to accommodate a rotatable member 18 in the second row of apertures 16 B.
[0028] While several embodiments of the instant invention have been illustrated by way of example, it is apparent that further embodiments could be developed within the spirit and scope of the instant invention. However, it is to be expressly understood that such modifications and adaptations are within the spirit and scope of the instant invention, as set forth in the following claims. | A portable and adjustable reeled wire dispenser having a base platform with first and second side walls extending upwardly from the base platform and a plurality of adjustable rotatable members for accommodating various reel sizes to assist an individual in the installation of electric, cable wire or other material. | 1 |
RELATED APPLICATION DATA
The present application claims the benefit under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) of the priority date of Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/473,994 filed May 28, 2003, which is hereby incorporated by reference.
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to testing, evaluating and measuring learning rates and other performances of electronic recommendation systems and other related systems employed by online content service providers.
BACKGROUND
Recommender systems are well known in the art. In one example, such systems can make recommendations for movie titles to a subscriber. In other instances they can provide suggestions for book purchases, or even television program viewing. Such algorithms are commonplace in a number of Internet commerce environments, including at Amazon, CDNOW, and Netflix to name a few, as well as programming guide systems such as TiVO. While the details of such algorithms are often proprietary, the latter typically use a number of parameters for determining a user's movie “tastes” so to speak, including demographics, prior movie rentals, prior movie ratings, user navigation statistics, comparison with other users, etc.
Recommender systems are often implemented as collaborative filtering (CF) algorithms. Such algorithms purportedly are “content” neutral, in the sense that they provide recommendations to a user for an item based on his/her similarity to another user (or users), and not with regard to the characteristics of the item itself. CF algorithms nonetheless may not be entirely “neutral, and may include subtle unintended (or even intended) bias in their recommendations. In some cases they may not recommend items that are “new” because CF systems tend to lag in their learning capabilities.
From the perspective of a subscriber or a content provider, determining the existence and extent of bias in a particular recommender system may be important. For example, a movie studio, a book publisher, a television program source (i.e., different types of content provider) may want to determine if a particular content service provider is accurately presenting recommendations to the right demographics group.
A recent article by Kushmerick titled “Robustness Analyses of Instance-Based Colloborative Recommendation”—13 th European Conference of Machine Learning, 2002, incorporated by reference herein—makes mention of the fact that recommender systems can be potentially “attacked” by outsiders to artificially inflate or degrade ratings of items. This problem is treated as one of “noise” which can affect the reliability and reputation of recommender systems. A similar discussion is presented by Kushmerick et al. in another article entitled “Collaborative Recommendation: A Robustness Analysis”—ACM Transactions on Internet Technology, Special Issue of Machine Learning for the Internet—(publication date unknown), which disclosure is also incorporated by reference herein. Thus the problem of “noise” added to recommender system datasets is just beginning to be appreciated.
Notably, however, Kushmerick fails to consider the possibility of an internal “bias” which is intentionally introduced by the recommender system operator, or how to detect/measure the same. Such bias may be designed and built in by the recommender system operator based on a desire to alter—i.e., boost or reduce the marketability of certain items in exchange for some incentive from a third party. Since such bias is introduced by the operator, it is extremely challenging to detect from the outside. Nonetheless, the identification and measurement of such bias is clearly useful to outside parties to help gain an understanding of the relative fairness, reliability, reputation, etc. of recommender systems.
Furthermore, a content provider may want to test the adequacy and suitability of an inventory management and/or shipping system used by a particular service provider, to ensure that their stock of items is being adequately managed. From the perspective of a content provider, it is important to improve the efficiency of distributors who are effectively managing consumer demand for items by the content provider. One important parameter, for example, may be the issue of how quickly a recommender system for a particular vendor is able to assimilate and give recommendations on new items. The lack of data for new items is a known limitation of recommender systems, and yet the prior art does not describe any mechanism for comparing the performance of recommender systems in this respect.
In addition, the prior art does not consider how to determine whether a recommender system is complying with a particular preference policy which might be specified for recommendations. Such mechanism can afford a purchaser of such preference an opportunity to determine the performance of an online operator in achieving/satisfying a particular marketing/advertising criterion.
Finally, the prior art does not indicate how the effects of advertising can be correlated with recommender system behavior, or even how recommender system recommendations can be mined and exploited to improve online advertising campaigns. Accordingly, there is a present need for systems and methods for achieving such functions.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of the present invention, therefore, is to overcome the aforementioned limitations of the prior art.
Another object is to provide a method for testing, rating and reporting on a performance of a recommender system;
A related object is to provide a method for testing, rating and reporting on a performance of a recommender system concerning its ability to absorb new items and present meaningful recommendations for such materials;
A related object is to provide a method for analyzing recommendations made by a recommender system, for purposes of evaluating effects of advertising;
A further object is to provide a method for identifying whether a recommender system is accurately following a specified policy or preference;
Still another object is to provide a method for testing, rating and reporting on an inventory management performance of a content service provider;
Yet another object is to provide a method for testing, rating and reporting on a shipping/returns performance of a content service provider;
Another object is to deliver advertising to subscribers based on an analysis of recommender system behavior.
A first aspect of the invention, therefore, concerns a method of testing a recommender system.
A policy to be used in testing the recommender system is first established. Thereafter, a plurality of separate proxy accounts are set up at the online content service provider. The recommender system is then forced to interact with the plurality of separate proxy accounts to generate a plurality of separate recommendations for a plurality of corresponding items. A compliance level with the established policy can then be determined by examining the separate recommendations.
In a preferred embodiment, the policy includes at least one rule associating a particular subscriber profile with a particular item. The particular subscriber profile is also preferably defined by reference to a predetermined demographic profile which specifies at least an age and sex of a subscriber. Each particular item specified in the policy originates from a common content provider source. The policy can include flexible concepts, and can be associated with an expected or measured popularity of a particular item for a particular subscriber. In some instances, an intentionally biased policy can be used, which favors items originating from a particular content provider, so that the recommender system is tested to verify that it behaves with such bias.
To assist third party marketers/retailers, etc., additional policies can be automatically provided for testing a recommender system. Such additional policies can be based on evaluating a popularity of an item as determined from analyzing usage by online subscribers of text descriptors associated with the item. For example, a demand for a rental movie title can be determined by reference to a measurement of usage by online subscribers of text descriptors associated with the item during a period in which said movie title is in active release in public movie theatres. A growth in popularity of such movie title over time can also determine how to set a policy. Furthermore, in some instances, a third party can be given express permission, in exchange for consideration, to intentionally provide a policy of its choosing to bias a recommender system. This can be used, for example, to determine the effectiveness of a recommender system in providing marketing/sales opportunities to the third party.
Again in a preferred embodiment, the plurality of separate proxy accounts are set up with separate demographic profiles. Each recommendation made to a particular proxy account is logged. The recommendations are classified and compiled into at least two categories: (a) recommended items that satisfy the policy; (b) recommended items that do not satisfy the policy; in some instances they can also be compiled with reference to a third category: (c) recommended items that do not satisfy the policy but which originate from a predetermined content provider.
An informative report can be generated which identifies whether first content from a first content provider is recommended as frequently as second content from a second content provider. The report can also identify a list of most frequently recommended items to the separate proxy accounts; and/or a plurality of lists identifying the most frequently recommended items to each of the separate corresponding proxy accounts. Furthermore, the report can identify a degree of bias exhibited by the recommender system with respect to items originating from one or more particular content providers.
The item recommended can be a movie title, a book title, a music title, an article being auctioned, and/or a television program. In instances where the item includes newly released content, the recommender system can be tested to determine an extent of an awareness of such newly released content by the recommender system.
In other instances, a search engine can be tested using a similar methodology, to analyze for patterns of bias.
A second aspect of the invention concerns testing a service performance of an online content service provider. After identifying any bias, an inventory management system used by the online content service provider is analyzed to determine an existence and extent of supply deficiencies of inventory items. The testing steps are performed over a network by a client device without directly accessing a database of transaction records maintained by the online content provider at a separate server device.
In preferred embodiments an additional step of testing a shipping and returns management system used by the online content service provider is performed. This helps to determine delays and latencies associated with distributing inventory items to subscribers of the online content service provider, handling returns of old inventory items, and shipping new items as replacements for old inventory items. An availability of inventory items can also be determined, including whether an item is immediately available, or available only with a delay. As with the prior tester, a report can be generated and transmitted automatically to alert the online content provider to any bias and supply/logistical deficiencies.
A further aspect of the invention concerns a method of measuring behavior of a recommender system used for recommending items of interest to subscribers of an online content service provider. The method includes the steps of: setting up a target preference to be used by the recommender system; causing the recommender system to interact with at least one proxy account and so as to generate a plurality of separate recommendations for a plurality of corresponding items; verifying whether a preference exhibited by the recommender system is within the target preference by examining the separate recommendations.
In a preferred embodiment the target preference is identified as part of a contractual arrangement between the online content service provider and a content provider which provides items to the online content service provider for distribution. The target preference can be specified as an absolute number of recommendations, and/or a percentage of recommendations to be provided to subscribers. It can also be limited to a particular time period. For some applications, the preference is measured as part of an electronic audit of the performance of the online content service provider.
Still another aspect of the invention concerns a method of measuring effects of advertising on a recommender system used for recommending items of interest to subscribers of an online content service provider. The method includes generally the steps of (a) measuring awareness of an item by the recommender system; (b) presenting advertising associated with the item to subscribers of the online content provider; and repeating step (a) to determine a change in awareness by the recommender system in response to the activities of step (b).
A preferred approach measures the awareness by examining a frequency and/or probability that such item is recommended to a particular subscriber. In some applications steps (a) through (c) can be repeated for a second online content service provider, and a difference is compared between a change in awareness by the online content service provider recommender system and a second recommender system used by the second online content service provider. Further in some situations advertising can be adjusted for the second online content service provider and the online content service provider based on a learning rate for the item exhibited by their respective recommender systems.
Still another aspect of the invention concerns a method of delivering advertising to a subscribers of an online content service provider which uses a recommender for recommending items of interest to subscribers. The method generally comprising the steps of: (a) delivering advertising concerning a first item to the subscribers of the online content service provider; (b) measuring an awareness of a second item recommended by the recommender system to the subscribers of the online content service provider; (c) measuring an association exhibited by the recommender system between said first item and said second item, including a frequency and/or probability that the first item is also recommended to a subscriber when the first second item is recommended; (d) automatically adjusting the advertising delivered in step (a) associated with the first item to subscribers of the online content provider based on steps (b) and (c).
In some environments the online advertising is provided under control of an entity separate from the online content service provider. The advertising for the first item is reduced or eliminated in response to a determination that said second item and said first item are highly correlated.
It will be understood from the Detailed Description that the inventions can be implemented in a multitude of different embodiments. Furthermore, it will be readily appreciated by skilled artisans that such different embodiments will likely include only one or more of the aforementioned objects of the present inventions. Thus, the absence of one or more of such characteristics in any particular embodiment should not be construed as limiting the scope of the present inventions. While described in the context of a rental system, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that the present teachings could be used in any Internet based rental or purchase system that employs a queue of some form.
DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 is a flow chart illustrating the steps performed by a recommender tester process implemented in accordance with one exemplary embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 2 is a flow chart illustrating the steps performed by an inventory monitoring process implemented in accordance with one exemplary embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 3 is a flow chart illustrating the steps performed by a shipping/returns monitoring process implemented in accordance with one exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
As noted above, a content provider may use the present process to test, monitor and report on the performance of a content service provider, including a recommender system employed by the latter, to see if it is behaving in accordance with a particular policy, and/or if it is showing some measurable bias. A “recommender system” in this instance refers to a type of intelligent software agent which tailors a recommendation or suggestion for an item to a particular subscriber, based on characteristics of the subscriber, the item itself, or some combination thereof. In other words, a recommender system may incorporate some randomization features, but does not operate entirely based on a “random” presentation of content to a subscriber, or on a purely “programmed” presentation of content. Thus, a recommender system typically bases a particular recommendation to a particular subscriber based on explicit and implicit data obtained from such subscriber. The latter, of course, can include information gleaned from queries, web searches, surfing behavior, content selection, etc. In some instances, of course, a conventional search engine can be modified to behave like a recommender system in connection with certain types of searches.
A “content provider” in this instance refers generally to any entity that creates and/or supplies an inventory of items, such as books, movies, electronic programming. For example, a movie studio, a book publisher, a music publisher, and certain television stations are types of content provider.
A “content service provider” (or service provider) in this instance refers generally to an entity that is not directly involved in the creation of new content, but, rather, merely distributes it in some fashion as a service to subscribers.
These general definitions are intended merely as a simplification of course for understanding the present invention, and are not intended to be an exhaustive explanation of the kinds of entities/situations which are encompassed by the terms recommender system, content provider, or service provider.
As alluded to earlier, there are a number of reasons why a content provider would be interested in the performance of a content service provider, including an inventory management, shipping, and recommender system maintained by the latter. While the present description provides a few examples, a variety of other potential uses of the invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art.
In a first example concerning DVD rentals, the consideration paid by content service providers to content providers (at least in some cases) is a function of the number of distributions of the titles to subscribers. For example, Netflix has a revenue sharing arrangement with a number of movie studios, in which the latter subsidizes the initial cost of inventory/titles in exchange for sharing part of the downstream revenue. Thus, in these instances, the content providers are financially coupled to a service provider's performance. Consequently, there is a need to ensure that the service provider, including a recommender system they may employ, is performing up to par and adequately marketing/promoting a particular content provider's materials. An automated monitoring system can also observe a number of service provider functions, such as inventory availability, inventory turn-around, as well as inventory recommendations. These are but examples, of course, and other service provider benchmarks could also be monitored and rated.
Thus content providers could also use such programs as described herein to detect and confirm that their inventory is being properly managed and fairly allocated by the service provider. Again distribution agreements between content providers and service providers typically call for some minimum availability performance, and if a service provider is not meeting demand, the content provider can be kept apprised of such fact.
Recommender Tester and Monitor
In a first aspect of the invention, a content provider can test, measure and verify the performance of a particular recommender system, using the recommender testing process illustrated in FIG. 1 . To do this, a content provider sets up multiple accounts with different profiles, for the purpose of confirming/verifying that the service provider is accurately targeting inventory titles to an appropriate audience, and/or that the recommender system is behaving appropriately in accordance with terms specified in an agreement between the service provider and the content provider.
In the latter case, for example, an agreement may call for the service provider to provide certain target levels of preference to a content provider, ranging from a simple “best efforts” type of preference to an extreme case of “exclusive” type of preference. In the former case the service provider may be required, for example, merely to present the content provider's items on a “fair” basis compared to other content providers. In the latter case the service provider may be required to present only such content provider's items, at least during defined periods.
Of course, there can be other variations as well, and those skilled in the art will appreciate that a contract term may specify that a content provider should receive a certain degree of preference (specified as an overall percentage of recommendations, or as an overall percentage of recommendations within the first N presentations), during certain time periods, for certain types of content, for certain genres, and/or for certain subscriber profiles. Again, there are wide variety of preferences, and the ways in which they can be implemented, and the present invention is by no means limited to any particular variant.
Brief Review of Recommender Systems and Need for Monitoring
Before describing the present invention, however, it is useful to review general background information pertinent to recommender systems. As noted earlier, a number of online rental providers use a recommender system to refer titles to subscribers. From a content provider's perspective, it is important that such recommender systems “push” the content provider's titles to the appropriate audience, or in accordance with target preference terms specified in an agreement with the service provider.
It is important to note that the service provider recommender systems are typically programmed using one or more of a variety of artificial intelligence techniques, some of which are identified in U.S. Patent Publication 200210625A1 to Amazon, and which is incorporated by reference herein. The general notion is to identify items that may be of interest to users, by monitoring their online behavior, their past purchases/rentals, similarities to other users as analyzed by collaborative filtering, etc. Still others operate by making suggestions based on analyzing similarities between items selected by the user (so called content filter based systems).
Another characteristic of recommender systems is that they are typically adaptive, meaning that they alter their recommendations by learning from other inputs aside from the user, such as from other user selections, user ratings, and community-wide based statistical data gathering. In many cases, a recommender system is unbiased, meaning that it is essentially content-neutral, and does not discriminate in favor of one content provider (i.e. releases from one movie studio) over another. Consequently, some recommender systems can be characterized as having essentially a content-neutral policy.
While this aspect can be important to subscribers, from the perspective of a content provider, what is more important is that any recommender system accurately and adequately present items originating from such source to appropriate audiences. On the other hand, from the perspective of a particular content provider, however, such entity would prefer that a recommender system use an extremely biased policy in its favor, in order to maximize distribution (and/or sales) of its products through the service provider. This may occur, as noted above, if a content provider has a particular preference guaranteed by contract from a service provider.
It is apparent that these two dynamics oppose each other, but at this time, a content provider is unable to monitor performance of a recommender system, let alone effectuate a major policy change in a neutral recommender system maintained by a content service provider. Nevertheless a content provider should be permitted, at least on some level, to monitor and ensure that even a content-neutral policy is being accurately implemented by a recommender system, and that, at some level it is being treated fairly as compared to other content providers, and/or that a particular preference is being honored.
Under conventional contractual arrangements for licensing and selling content, a content provider is not given sufficient audit rights to determine whether a particular service provider (or other seller) is using a fair recommender system, or behaving in accordance with a defined preference. Thus, there is a need for the present invention whereby a content provider can identify and substantiate any actual bias or preference in a recommender engine, which can be used to provide feedback to a service provider. This allows for a type of electronic auditing tool to verify performance of an entity pursuant to a defined preference in an agreement with a third party.
Recommender System Testing
The first step of the recommender system testing process 100 , therefore, is to identify a particular policy at step 110 which the content provider wishes to test against. The policy may be based, for example, on the content provider's own evaluation of what demographics are required to optimize its revenues through a service provider from a particular set of titles. Alternatively (or in addition) it may be negotiated and agreed upon as a form of preference that is defined in specific technical terms in an agreement with the service provider.
In the first case, the policy can be determined by reference to a number of techniques. For instance, in the case of movie rental items, this can be done with conventional surveys, and/or polling of movie audiences. A number of patents/applications describe the use of various data mining techniques for the purpose of identifying current trends, popularity, awareness, etc., of certain concepts, people, companies, and even individual content items (i.e., such as a book or movie title). An example of this is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 6,493,703 which is hereby incorporated by reference. A similar concept is illustrated in U.S. Patent Publication no. 2003/0004781 to Mallon et al. in which a community “buzz” index is used to predict a popularity, for example, of a particular movie before it is released. This application is also hereby incorporated by reference. Alternatively, interested entities can specify keywords, for example, and measure the awareness of such concepts within a particular online group. This can be measured, for instance, by examining queries, postings, clicks, etc., made by Internet users at a particular site. The awareness factors are typically expressed in some type of percentage of users, etc. Again, for further details those skilled in the art should refer to such disclosures.
The aforementioned Mallon et al application makes mention of using the techniques therein for purposes of measuring the “buzz” associated with a movie before it is released, and then using such figures to predict the popularity of a movie (including expected box office receipts) after it is released. The present invention can make use of a variation of this principle, in which the “buzz” associated with a particular movie title is measured not only before it is released within specific demographic groups, but also contemporaneous with its release, and for a period of time thereafter. This larger snapshot in time is more likely to reveal a more accurate indicator of the popularity of a particular title with a particular demographics group. In this respect, Internet users are likely to have significantly different interests and behaviors than the average movie fan. This means that typical measures of expected movie popularity, such as box office receipts, may not be accurate indicators of online rentals of a particular title.
Thus it is more desirable, in fact, to identify a sample population online that mirrors the tendencies of subscribers of an online rental service. By observing the characteristics of the former (again, using one of the techniques described in the aforementioned patents and applications) a content provider can predict more accurately both the popularity and demographic profile for a particular title. As an example, a movie studio may observe that there is significant awareness of a particular movie (and thus potential rentals) among young males in the age range of 18-21, as determined by studying particular Yahoo! Message boards, other common interest online communities, or some other survey measuring mechanism. Again, the measurement of such interest can be based over a longer time period than that described in the prior art. Moreover, instead of “predicting” the popularity of a title as described in the prior art reference to Mallon et al, the actual popularity can be determined in fact by measuring at a time contemporaneous with the movie's release. The change in popularity can also be identified, to see if a movie's pre-release buzz was translated into a similar actual buzz, and, if so, for what duration of time. Again this is more accurate than pure box office receipts in predicting rental demand, because the latter may be distorted. As an example, as between two movies achieving the same box office receipts in the same time period, a title (A) that enjoyed a lot success early on but which peaks early and declines rapidly is probably less likely to require or enjoy as much rental demand as a title (B) that starts off slowly but which builds continuing increasing sales over time. In the former case, the initial high popularity may be attributed to extensive advertising that fails to support a bad movie, while in the latter case the later high popularity may be attributed to favorable word of mouth which is continually growing. In such cases a content provider is better served by allocating a greater number of inventory for title B, even if the overall box office numbers are the same.
In any event, regardless of the source of the information, an expected popularity, an expected demographic base/target, and/or a specified preference pursuant to an agreement is derived at step 105 . This proprietary intelligence is then specified as a policy to measure the performance of a service provider recommendation system.
This can be done with (or without) reference to a list of particular items provided at step 112 . Based on the results, the content provider can make efforts to alert the service provider, and even try to supplement, coax, or tune the service provider recommendation system to conform to the policy.
To do this, a plurality of dummy (profiling) accounts are set up at a particular content site at step 115 with a plurality of different standard profiles, which are preferably based on a particular subscriber demographic. For each account, the content provider can specify a particular gender, age, income, domicile, etc. Again, preferably the profiling accounts are set up so that each account has a distinct profile, and such that there are a sufficient number of profiles to accurately measure responsiveness of a recommender system to a particular content provider's titles. In other words, if a movie studio has identified 10 basic demographic profiles that it uses to measure interest in its content, then a corresponding number of accounts are also set up to see how they are treated by the service providers' recommender system.
At step 120 ratings for particular titles might also be explicitly provided for each account to the recommender system. This may be optional depending on whether such data is required by the particular recommender system (not all of them require ratings) and/or whether the content provider already has sufficient preexisting information (from the profile alone) to supply such data.
As noted, the above account profile information can be based on the content provider's own data concerning which demographics groups it believes (or has determined through other survey data) are appropriate for particular titles. Therefore, these accounts are set up based on a prediction by the content provider that they should elicit a particular recommendation from the service provider's system, regardless of the type of recommendation engine used, based on the identified policy.
These profiling accounts are used by the content provider to monitor an overall performance/compliance by the service provider with explicit contractual terms, and/or content provider specific marketing targeting characteristics for particular content. Accordingly, the identity of titles recommended by the recommender system (regardless of whether the latter is based on collaborative filtering, content filtering, item relatedness, or some equivalent methodology) to a particular profile account is then observed at step 125 . This step can be repeated, as necessary, to continue eliciting recommendations for the particular profile account, and the titles presented can be catalogued.
At step 130 the invention determines whether the recommender system has recommended one of the content provider's titles. If not, a non-compliant list is updated with the movie title at step 135 and the process returns to step 125 to solicit another recommendation, until there are no more recommendations.
The non-compliant list can be used by the content provider for marketing intelligence, and/or as a starting point for providing feedback to the service provider to alter/tune the recommendation system based on non-compliance with the identified policy. Again, in some instances, it is possible that a particular service provider will offer higher placement of recommendations to certain content providers based on an amount of consideration paid, and/or to comply with a contractually mandated preference.
Thus, in a manner akin to that used by such services as Overture and Google (for search engines) a service provider might have a pay for placement policy, and the present invention can be used by a content provider to monitor compliance with such arrangement. In situations where a recommender system is biased (either intentionally or unintentionally), therefore, the existence and extent of bias and/or contractual preference can thus be measured.
If the title is one that is owned by the particular content provider, an additional check is made as well at step 135 to determine if this is a title that corresponds to an item that the content provider also predicted and/or desired to be recommended to a particular subscriber within the requirements of the policy identified by the content provider. If not, an incongruence list is updated with the name of the title. This list can be used for follow-up with the service provider to understand the reason why the title was recommended, and, if necessary to fine-tune the recommender system.
If the title is recommended, and it was predicted (or required) by the content provider also to be recommended, the item is logged at step 150 on a compliance list. Again, the process loops back so the content provider can repeat the process to see if additional titles owned by the content provider are recommended. An overall compliance list can then be generated to see a percentage or number of content provider titles that were actually recommended.
In the end, the content provider can generate a master report at step 160 which identifies how accurately a service provider recommender system is matching the expectations and/or wishes of the content provider as concerns identifying appropriate titles to one or more particular demographic groups. For example, a log could be presented with all of the titles presented on the non-compliant list, the incongruent list, and the compliant list.
An overall percentage of accurate hits can be obtained, so that, for example, one metric may measure whether what percentage of a set of applicable titles were indeed presented to a particular group. Thus, if 10 titles should be shown to a particular account (or demographics group) in accordance with a defined policy, and only 5 were actually presented, this could be represented as a 50% hit ratio.
Additional metrics to determine how “immediately” the recommender presented the title could be presented as well. As an example, if the title was presented on the nth recommendation to a benchmark subscriber having a particular profile, or a part of a list of n items, this information could be logged as well.
Again, any preference which the content provider is supposed to receive can be measured, without regard to the form of the preference, and without having to rely on internal databases or reports from the service provider. The latter may be unavailable, or, in some cases, inaccurate.
In some instances, however, a service provider may provide actual abridged logs of recommendations made to subscribers, from which data files the above information can also be mined without explicitly setting up proxy accounts. Again, the content provider may cooperate with the service provider to develop a set of data fields to be logged, and thus ensure that the data files contain sufficient demographic information so that an accurate tallying of the appropriateness of recommendations can be measured. The logs can be edited appropriately by the service provider to include only pertinent data relevant to measuring the recommendation accuracy and bias, and thus protect the privacy of individual members. For example demographic variables such as age, gender, domicile can be captured along with the context of the recommendation (i.e., specific query or page being viewed) the date/time, and the actual items recommended. Additional data on prior items selected by the subscriber could also be correlated to give a picture of the user's preferences.
The invention can also be executed at defined intervals to measure changes in the recommender system. Thus, a comparison on a week to week basis could be done to see if there are improvements or degradations in relevancy, and/or to see if the service provider has tuned the recommender system in accordance with the content provider's wishes. The changes in the recommender system could also be tracked over time in response to specific news stories, press releases, word of mouth, or other published events.
Finally, the above testing can be done on a number of recommender systems providing similar items, and the results posted online for the benefit of consumer education. For example, various sites which recommend books could be evaluated, based on a particular subscriber profile, to see what titles are recommended. A neutral recommender system recommendation could be identified as well as a reference or benchmark, based on either a completely neutral recommender engine, or a compilation of known statistics of preferences already exhibited by the demographic group. As an example, in the movie title market, a website identified as GroupLens is considered to be a fairly accurate and neutral recommender of titles, absent of any bias. Observations of any “bias” detected in the recommendations of other sites (i.e., other movie recommenders operated by such entities as Netflix, Blockbuster, Walmart) could also be identified for the benefit of online users, so that they could more accurately determine sites which are not using some form of artificial bias. The above could take the form of a single web page, tabulated report on the perceived biases of particular websites. Other examples for other items will be apparent to those skilled in the art.
Advertising—Recommender System Correlations
In some instances the invention could be run in conjunction with an advertising campaign, to measure the change in recommender system behavior in response to advertising. This in turn could be used by advertisers to determine the types and extent which advertising can influence recommender system characteristics, to improve advertising efficiency. In some cases, for example, certain ads may work better with certain types of recommender systems, and this behavior can be captured and exploited, to better craft appropriate advertising that is more effective (in the sense of generating additional relevant recommender system recommendations, or measurable bias).
In other words, the present invention, unlike the aforementioned Mallon et al. system, can be used to measure the activity or “buzz” of a recommender system and its reaction to advertising, as opposed to the buzz of a particular group of individuals. This can be used to improve advertising delivery and campaigns in a more effective manner, since recommender systems have a significant influence on online consumption, and are essentially marketing complements to advertising.
For example, if ad#1 for item #1 is presented at both a first online service provider and a second online service provider, the invention can be used to see its effect on separate recommender systems at such sites. If a first recommender system demonstrates a significant recognition or awareness of item #1 (such as measured by actual number of recommendations to one or more subscribers, or by a percentage of recommendations within a set of N recommendations, and/or as a percentage relative to other items), but a second recommender system does not, an advertiser can then use such information to change or reduce usage of ad#1 at the second online server.
Similarly, an advertiser may execute the present invention and study the reports and compliant, non-compliant and incongruent lists across the various profile accounts to discovery, identify and exploit associations employed by the recommender system which are not publicly disclosed by a service provider. In other words, a first advertiser may note that their own item (A) is always (or extremely likely to be) recommended in connection with (as part of a list or immediately following) recommendation of item B to a subscriber at a particular service provider website. If item B is an offering from a competitor, and a second advertiser is paying for such placement (i.e., through a preference or some other mechanism), then the first advertiser can essentially piggy-back on such advertising, and reduce their expenditures in advertising at the service provider website for item A. This is because, in this instance, the associational behavior of the recommender system, which automatically places item A with item B, can be exploited to help the first advertiser eliminate paying for the actual placement of item A. Stated another way, a recommender system can act as a type of proxy advertiser in some instances.
Other variations will be apparent to those skilled in the art. By studying a list of recommendations made to one or more accounts, an advertiser can also glean associational links between subscriber profiles and certain items, as well as item to item correlations. If an advertised item is already sufficiently linked to certain subscriber profiles, or other popular items, an advertiser can adjust an advertising activity to reflect such existing awareness within the recommender system. Similarly, if an item is not sufficiently linked and does not show up with an appropriate frequency, an advertiser can make note of such fact and bring it to the attention of the service provider for correction. To identify associations, the advertiser can also specifically “rate” certain benchmark items during step 120 so as to see what particular recommendations are elicited. In other words, an advertiser might rank item A very high on a proxy account, and then see which items are recommended to such proxy account based on such rating.
The advertiser can thus “learn” the behavior of a particular recommender system, and thus tailor advertising to a particular website so as to maximize an influence on a recommender system. Other examples will be apparent to those skilled in the art.
Since recommender systems are now proactively and aggressively making specific suggestions to online users, and such suggestions are often followed up on, an advertiser has a very keen interest in determining an effectiveness of an ad through measurements of a recommender system. The ad “effectiveness” could be measured at different times, as well, to determine a lag in a recommender system.
It should be noted, of course that the converse process could also be used by the service provider, to increase a number of relevant recommendations that are tied to specific advertisers. Thus, in the case noted above, a recommendation system may be programmed to automatically “bump” item A from a list under certain circumstances, such as if an advertiser has not actually paid for item A to be advertised, and/or if item B is also on such list.
The process can be repeated again for a different account, until the policy has been verified for each of the profiles if desired. The process might be employed only on certain dates or times, for example, corresponding to a preference period specified in an agreement with the online service provider. Other examples will be apparent to those skilled in the art.
Again all of the above reports could also be published online for public consumption, so that interested parties could observe and determine a performance of various service providers.
Alternatively, the data can be used as an analysis tool against a competitor to see a recommendation immediacy rating for the latter's items, and to detect any actual “bias” in the recommender system policy. For example, the content provider could identify the actual number and identity of titles from another content provider recommended to the same demographic profile accounts. Using their own metrics (as gleaned from their own research concerning the relative expected popularity of a particular title, such as online buzz, surveys, polling, or even box office sales) the content provider can then determine if a title in their library is being treated similarly, better, or worse by a service provider recommender system compared to a comparable title from another content provider.
The process could be used to sample some portion of the content provider's library as noted at step 120 to make the same comparison against a plurality of comparable titles, and/or from multiple content sources. A fairness treatment/parameter can thus be computed for individual titles (across one or more content providers) and/or in aggregate (across one or more content providers) to detect and measure any bias and/or preference in a recommender system.
For instance, a particular item (A) might be presented to 10 different accounts in 10 different priorities. A first subscriber may have item A recommended as the first item to be recommended. Another subscriber have item A recommended as the 5 th item to be recommended. Item A could then be compared to other items presented to the different accounts, to measure its relative treatment, and a report of the same could be presented to the content provider.
Thus the present method can used to measure and determine an overall relative recommendation treatment afforded by a recommender system to one content provider over another. This can be broken down further by demographics group if necessary, by genre, or even by some number of titles. Other examples will be apparent to those skilled in the art.
A similar report can be generated on a per title basis, i.e., to identify which demographic groups were presented with a particular title, and if such presentation was appropriate. Furthermore, a composite list of titles recommended can be presented to help the content provider identify whether certain titles were omitted, and not recommended at all.
Further a report could be generated that simply identifies the top titles from the content provider that are actually recommended. This can be based on the number of times that they are presented to particular demographic group profile accounts, the immediacy in which they are presented, or some combination (perhaps weighted) of the same. The weightings can be designed in some appropriate fashion desired by the particular content provider. As above, again, a similar list can be compiled for competitors, to evaluate an overall recommendation performance across multiple demographics groups.
Again, if a title is NOT recommended when it should be, the content provider can make note of such fact, and compile a list of titles for each service provider, either as part of a non-compliance list, or as part of an incongruence list. By doing this for each service provider, an overall performance can be determined to see which one is doing the better job of pushing the content provider's titles. As between two separate service providers, the content provider will want to know which one which is most efficient at presenting the content provider's titles to the right audiences.
Furthermore, as alluded to earlier, the content provider can also use the non-compliance list and the incongruence lists to alert the service provider directly to perceived problems or deficiencies in the recommender system. The service provider, in turn, may then elect to update the recommender system to more accurately reflect the desired response for particular subscriber profiles.
It should be noted that in some instances, certain recommender systems, may not recommend certain titles, based on their availability. Thus, a subscriber will not be recommended any titles that are not immediately available, and this may skew the results in an undesirable manner. To accommodate this nonetheless, the content providers can eliminate any such titles from consideration. Thus, they can detect any titles that are not currently available, and eliminate them from the compliance lists if desired.
Identifying—Monitoring and Comparing Learning Rate of Recommender Systems
Nonetheless, it can be seen that the present invention has particular utility in measuring the “learning” state/ability of particular recommender systems. By specifying a particular set of new items at step 112 (i.e., articles that are probably not rated by a large number of subscribers) the invention can determine which recommenders systems are more adaptable and fast-learning. For example, a movie studio, book publisher or music publisher may want to measure how “educated” a particular recommender system is about a particular new release. CF systems are known to suffer from learning lags caused by the first rater problem. From the perspective of a content provider, they would prefer that their new releases be recommended as soon as possible. Content service providers have a similar interest, because if subscribers are not “suggested” an item at their site early on, the chances increase that they will see it (and thus buy or rent it) someplace else. Thus, the present invention affords an ability to see which systems are most capable of learning new material.
It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that a similar evaluation could be made to determine a recommender system's reaction to a change in a subscriber profile. That is, a similar deficiency or lag in learning in response to subscriber tastes is known to be associated with recommender systems. Thus, another evaluation which can be performed is to present a set of N different profiles to a series of recommender systems, and then monitor the recommendations made by each recommender. The N profiles are then altered in a predetermined fashion, such as, for example, providing a number of new ratings on a number of predetermined benchmark items. The behavior of the recommender systems is then observed again to see what the new set of recommendations is that is now presented based on the new N profiles. From the perspective of a content provider, they may develop a desired target policy/profile for recommendations that they prefer to see based on such new profile. This target set of recommendations can then be compared to the actual recommendations made by the disparate sites to see which ones most accurately “learn” or mirror the results desired by a particular content provider.
Another advantage of the present invention is that it is not necessary to rely solely on a recommender system's collection of ratings information from subscribers, which, in many instances, may be under-reporting or underestimating the popularity of a title with a particular demographic, either because of a lack of ratings (which such systems rely upon extensively but take time to correct) or an incorrect modeling. By measuring early on a recommender system's behavior towards a particular benchmark profile, a content provider can take preemptive action to make sure that titles are accurately presented to appropriate audiences of its choosing.
While the invention is presented in the context of a movie title recommender system, it is apparent that the methods disclosed above could be used in connection with a variety of online commercial sales/rental sites which use recommendation engines. Thus, a book/music supplier to Amazon could use the present invention to determine an accuracy, fairness and new item learning capabilities of a recommender system used by that website. A television content programmer could use the invention to verify the recommendations made by comparable recommenders. Suppliers of inventory to an online auction system (such as eBay) could use the invention to measure a fairness of an auction system recommender system. Other examples will be apparent to those skilled in the art, and the invention is by no means limited to the embodiments discussed herein.
Inventory Monitoring
As an ancillary component to the recommender tester system 100 , the content service provider is also analyzed to determine if they are maintaining an adequate amount of inventory. It will be apparent that the process described in FIG. 2 could be implemented as part of the recommender tester process above, or as part of a completely different program.
Thus, at step 210 of FIG. 1 a content provider could specify a list of titles to determine their overall availability. These titles, for example, could be media that originate from a particular studio or particular book/music publisher among other things.
At step 220 , the availability of the titles is measured at the content service provider. In the instance of an online service provider (such as at Netflix, Amazon, etc.), steps 210 and 220 can be performed automatically using a proxy account and automated programming techniques that are well known in the art. Other examples will be apparent to skilled artisans.
At step 230 , a report is generated concerning the overall availability of titles from a particular content provider (or meeting some other specified criteria). This can be used for several purposes. First, if a title is continually identified as “long wait,” (or out of stock) a content provider can notify the content service provider that they wish to supply additional titles to improve subscriber delivery figures. Since the content provider typically derives revenue from actual shipments to subscribers, it is preferable that there be a satisfactory supply of titles to maximize their shared revenues. Again, while some service providers may already perform a similar function as a means of determining perceived needs, they do not operate with a particular content provider's interest in mind. Thus, they may not measure or react to inventory deficiencies for a particular content provider. Nor can content providers obtain access in many instances to the proprietary inventory management systems used by content service providers. Accordingly, they have a need for a system such as described herein, to help them verify that a library of titles they are sharing with the content service provider are being properly managed, and/or generally to ensure that a content service provider is adequately stocked.
It will be understood by those skilled in the art that the above is merely an example of an inventory monitoring method and that countless variations on the above can be implemented in accordance with the present teachings. A number of other conventional steps that would be included in a commercial application have also been omitted to better emphasize the present teachings. For further details on the specifics of the operation of the Netflix system see U.S. Pat. No. 6,584,450 incorporated by reference herein.
Shipping/Returns Monitoring
As a further enhancement to the invention, again in the case of inventory, there are commercial arrangements (as in the case of Netflix above ) whereby if content service providers do not turn around inventory fast enough, revenues are concomitantly reduced for the content providers as well. Accordingly, a shipping/returns monitoring system 300 can be implemented as shown in FIG. 3 , either alone, or in combination with the recommender tester and inventory monitoring systems noted above.
To do this, multiple proxy accounts are set up at step 310 with each service provider, across different geographic regions, to gain better/more accurate shipping/receiving performance data for an individual provider. A list of items is ordered at step 320 . The time required by the content service provider to actually ship is then measured at step 330 , and an actual received time is also measured. In the case of an online rental system (such as Netflix, where a subscriber returns movies and is supposed to be shipped a new movie soon thereafter), the item is then returned, and the invention measures the overall processing time required for the content service provider to send out a new title. Again, at step 340 , an overall shipping and returns performance report is generated for the content provider. This could include such statistics as response times between orders and shipments, response times for shipments and receipts, turn-around times for returns, etc.
Again, since service providers are loathe to share their own proprietary turnaround data, the present invention affords a simple mechanism for content providers to observe the shipping/receiving performance of service providers using dummy, or proxy accounts. This data, in turn, can be used to reward and/or punish service providers who are performing well or poorly, or to negotiate new revenue sharing terms.
It will be understood by those skilled in the art that the above is merely an example of a shipping/returns performance method and that countless variations on the above can be implemented in accordance with the present teachings. A number of other conventional steps that would be included in a commercial application have been omitted, as well, to better emphasize the present teachings.
Finally, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that the methods of the present invention, including those illustrated in FIGS. 1 , 2 and 3 can be implemented using any one of many known programming languages suitable for creating applications that can run on client systems, and large scale computing systems, including servers connected to a network (such as the Internet). The details of the specific implementation of the present invention will vary depending on the programming language(s) used to embody the above principles, and are not material to an understanding of the present invention.
The above descriptions are intended as merely illustrative embodiments of the proposed inventions. It is understood that the protection afforded the present invention also comprehends and extends to embodiments different from those above, but which fall within the scope of the present claims. | A recommender system is analyzed to determine various performance characteristics, such as a learning rate for new items, or a learning rate for new subscriber tastes. Comparisons of different recommenders are presented to assist consumers and marketers in selecting appropriate e-commerce sites for purchasing, advertising, etc. | 6 |
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates generally to rotary, turn-to-set fastener devices and more particularly is directed to quarter turn fasteners operative to quickly secure and release two juxtaposed panels.
Fasteners of this type are well known in the fastening art and are typically configured to include a solid shank with a radially enlarged, generally circular, head with the lower region of the shank having a helical camming groove adapted to receive a wire element integrally formed in a retainer plate affixed below the lowermost panel. In operation, these retainer plates are preferably preassembled to the lowermost panel. The fastener is inserted through a pair of apertures in both panels and rotated a quarter turn so that the grooves lockingly and resiliently engage and compress the wire creating a clamped joint. Devices of this type are typically relatively expensive and obviously require a multipart system and often exhibit relatively high on and off torque to properly seat and/or remove the fastener from its locking position. A retainer plate for such a system must, in some manner, be preassembled to the lower panel.
Other disadvantages of this type of fastener and other prior art turn-to-set fasteners is the inability to preassemble the fastener within a top panel so that a plurality of such fasteners can be preassembled in one panel and all locked after a mating second panel is positioned over the fasteners.
Various plastic devices have been devised exhibiting quarter turn locking features, however none of these incorporate a significant resilient clamping feature.
Accordingly, it is a primary object of the present invention to provide a quarter turn fastener which incorporates features enabling it to be preassembled in a top panel in a particular radial orientation relative to an associated elongated aperture therein so that a plurality of such fasteners can be preassembled, followed by the locking of these fasteners, clamping two plates together after aligned elongated apertures of a second lower panel are assembled over the locking region.
Another object of the invention is to provide a quarter turn fastener which minimizes the material used to produce a firm but slightly flexible clamping joint.
Yet another object of the invention is to provide a fastening system with a particularly designed aperture in at least one of the panels cooperating with alignment and retention means in the fastener for preassembly purposes.
A particular advantage of the invention is a sheet metal fastener incorporating a plurality of spring forces which can be quickly applied to a pair of panels with a minimum of on or off torque.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In accordance with the invention, a fastener device and system is described which satisfies the objects, aims and advantages above stated. A sheet metal device incorporating a split shank joined at its lower extremity and having laterally projecting head portions on either side of the slot forming the shank halves and including a laterally projecting locking region at the lower extremity extending generally in the plane of the slot. The shank halves are preferably arcuate in cross section and the outer periphery of a region of each shank portion intermediate the head and locking region includes an outwardly extending ledge and an alignment surface formed directly adjacent and above the ledge. The ledge and alignment surface permits the fastener to be inserted into an aperture in a top panel, axially retained and radially positioned therein. The head portions and the locking regions both incorporate spring hinges to facilitate the preassembly and clamping resilience in the final locking position.
The panels to be clamped together will include aligned, elongated apertures with the uppermost panel aperture having alignment grooves adapted to be associated with the alignment surfaces of the fastener when the fastener is inserted therein. The minimum transverse dimension of the elongated aperture in the lower panel will preferably be slightly larger than the minimum transverse dimension of the aperture in the first panel to permit the ledge to snap beneath the lower marginal surface of the first aperture.
The invention could further include camming or locating surfaces formed integral with the lowermost marginal surface of the lower panel or alternatively a cam plate can be associated with the lowermost surface of the lower panel, both of which provide means for securely and lockingly receiving the locking regions of the fastener.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
Other objects and advantages of the invention will become apparent upon reading the following detailed description and upon reference to the drawings in which --
FIG. 1 is a top plan view of the fastener.
FIG. 2 is a side elevational view of the fastener.
FIG. 3 is a side elevational view of the fastener taken 90° relative to FIG. 2.
FIG. 4 is a partial top plan view of the aperture in a top panel to be secured using the fastener of this invention.
FIG. 5 is a sectional view as would be taken in the direction of lines 5--5 of FIG. 1 with the fastener shown in preassembled condition in a top panel.
FIG. 6 is a top plan view, in partial section, of the top surface of a lowermost panel showing a cam plate associated with the panel.
FIG. 7 is an elevational view, in partial section, of the fastener in its preassembled position after a lower panel has been aligned with the fastener.
FIG. 8 is a side elevational view, in partial section, showing the fastener device in its locked position relative to a pair of superimposed panels.
FIG. 9 is a side elevational view, in partial section, of the fastening system shown in FIG. 8 taken 90° to the FIG. 8.
FIG. 10 is a blank outline used to form the fastener of the present invention.
FIG. 11 is a cross sectional view of the fastening system as taken along the lines 11--11 of FIG. 7.
FIG. 12 is a cross-sectional view similar to that of FIG. 11 of an alternate embodiment of the invention.
FIG. 13 is a bottom plan view of an alternate embodiment of a lowermost panel used in the fastening system of the invention.
FIG. 14 is a cross-sectional view of the bottom panel of FIG. 13 as taken along lines 14--14 of FIG. 13.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
Turning now to the drawings where like reference numbers throughout the various views are intended to designate similar elements or components, fastener device 10 will be shown to incorporate various featues of the invention.
Fastener 10 is a one-piece sheet metal device being joined at its entering end and split from the entering end upwardly through the shank and the head. Thus, the shank will comprise a pair of shank halves 12 of a generally arcuate cross-sectional configuration and a pair of opposed head regions 14 located on either side of a slot 18. A laterally extending locking region 16 will be formed at the lowermost extremity of the shank.
Referring to FIGS. 1-3 in conjunction with FIG. 5, certain features of the invention will become apparent. The head halves 14 extend laterally outwardly on either side of an axial plane which in part defines the slot region 18. The shank halves 12 are preferably biased radially outwardly from one another to enhance the preassembly features of the invention to be described later herein. Head regions 14 are generally sloped outwardly and downwardly providing a compression spring member and are connected to the shank by web member 34, essentially providing a hinge about which the spring head may compress. The head regions may be corrugated in directions generally parallel to the slot to enhance the strength and spring features of the head.
The locking region 16 basically includes a pair of laterally extending arms lying generally within the axial plane which in part defines the slot 18. The locking region 16 thus creates a maximum and minimum transverse dimension at the lower extremity. The maximum dimension extends in the direction of the arms and the minimum dimension being generally the transverse dimension of the shank adjacent the lower extremity.
A principle feature of the invention, as will be seen with reference to FIGS. 2, 3, and 5, is the partial annular ledge 20 formed in each of the shank halves and its associated generally flat alignment surface 22 positioned immediately above the ledge. Alignment surface 22, as shown in the preferred embodiment, is a generally flat, limited surface area outward deformation on the shank and is located generally midway in the periphery of each shank half 12 so that the opposing surfaces 22 lie in planes generally parallel to the plane of the slot 18. Since the device 10 is of a sheet metal material, preferably of a uniform thickness, the ledge 20 and alignment surface 22 may be conveniently embossed outwardly from the outer peripheral surface of the arcuate shank half 12. The function and importance of the alignment surfaces 22 and ledge 20 will become apparent upon a closer examination of FIGS. 4 and 5.
An upper panel 40, to be clamped through the use of the fastener of this invention, includes an elongated aperture 46 defining a maximum and minimum transverse dimension. A pair of shallow, longitudinally extending, recesses 50 are formed generally midway in the side of the aperture which defines its maximum dimension.
In operation, the fastener is associated with the aperture 46 in such a manner as to permit the laterally enlarged locking region 16 to be inserted downwardly through the aperture bringing the flat alignment surfaces 22 into mating, cooperative engagement with the recesses 50 so that the flat surface 52 of the recess resiliently abuts flat surface 22. This mating abutment will occur after the shank has been inserted to the extent that annular ledge regions 20 are snapped beneath the lower marginal surface regions of the lower surface 54 of the panel. Thus, the fastener is not only axially retained in the top panel by ledge 20 but is also retained from rotation relative to the top panel through the interaction of the surface 22 and recess 50. It should be noted that the uncompressed axial distance between the outermost edge 30 of the head and the ledge 20 should be slightly less than the panel thickness in the region of the aperture.
FIGS. 4 and 5 show that the upper surface of the upper panel 40 may include a first recessed surface 44 in the immediate marginal surface area around the aperture and a second smaller radial extent recess 48 impressed somewhat deeper into the panel. The first, larger surface extent recess 44 permits the head of the fastener to be substantially flush with the otherwise planar surface of the panel, while the smaller and somewhat deeper recess 48 permits the driver blade accepting indentations 32 of the head to be compressed and received therein.
A reference to FIG. 11 will show the interlocking which occurs between the alignment surfaces 52 in the aperture and the alignment surfaces 22 on the shank prohibiting relative rotation of the shank once it has been preassembled with annular ledge 20 abutting against the lower surface 54 of the panel 40.
The present invention is also concerned with a total fastening system incorporating a one-piece fastener device with particularly configured apertures in an upper and lower panel to be clampingly joined together. Accordingly, a lower panel 42 is particularly adapted to be clamped beneath the upper panel using the fastener of this invention.
With reference to FIGS. 7-9, it will be shown that the minimum transverse dimension of the elongated aperture 56 in the lower panel is slightly greater than the aligned minimum transverse dimension of the aperture 46 in the upper panel. As shown in FIG. 7, this dimensional differential enables the ledge 20 of the fastener to abut against the marginal surface beneath the upper panel, thus permitting the preassembly which is an important feature of the invention. The maximum transverse dimension of the aperture 56 may be substantially identical to the maximum transverse dimension of the aperture 46, both of which are sufficient to permit the entry of the locking region 16 of the fastener.
In operation, the fastener 10 or a plurality of fasteners 10 are preassembled and snappingly retained in aligned positions in their respective apertures in the top panel 40. Subsequent to this preassembly, the lower panel 42 is associated beneath the upper panel so that the apertures 46 register with the fastening device 10 as shown generally in FIG. 7. A rotary motion is imparted to the fastener, as for example by a screw driver type tool 72 and the fastener is rotated 90° to the locking position shown in FIGS. 8 and 9. To achieve the locking position, the generally arcuate or bow-shaped elements 24 on each laterally extending locking region preferably ride up a camming surface associated with the lower surface of the panel 42 in a manner to be described later herein. Bow-shaped elements 24 are preferably hingedly connected to the bight region 27 of the shank by a web 28 which extends generally upwardly a short distance forming a cantilever spring element. The uppermost surface area of the bow elements will include a locking protuberance 26. The spring force in the locking region in cooperation with the spring force in the head region 14 contributes to the effective operation of the fastener device. While FIGS. 8 and 9 show the head completely compressed, it should be apparent that this is merely illustrative of the fact that a spring exists in the system at the head region.
With reference to FIGS. 6-9, the preferred embodiment of the system will include a cam plate element 62 preassembled in a cavity 58 formed integral beneath the lower panel 42. The cam plates will include an elongated aperture 64 sufficient to permit the entry of the locking region along its maximum dimension, but configured so that its minimum dimension will be less than the maximum dimension of the locking region of the fastener. On either side of the aperture, downwardly dimpled camming surfaces 66 are provided with an aperture or depression 68 formed herein. These camming surfaces, in cooperation with the bow elements 24, and particularly with locking protuberance 26, create the spring force and locking features sufficient to retain the device in a locking configuration. In certain instances it may be desirable to form a secondary impression in the camming surface, such as a locating path 67, shown in dotted line in order to accurately guide the protuberance 26 along a predefined cam path. The retainer plate is retained in position by downwardly extending spring arms 70 which bear against the sides of the cavity 58.
The camming and locking features provided by cam plates 62 can be alternatively integrally formed on the surface of the lower panel. For example, as shown in FIGS. 13 and 14, camming ridges 66a may be formed to extend upwardly toward a central locking trough 68a. These surface configurations are integrally molded in the formation of the lower surface 60a of a lower panel 42a. This type of configuration and other configurations can be clearly utilized to create the locking and camming features of a discrete cam plate without departing from the true spirit and scope of the invention.
As noted above, the alignment surfaces 22 in cooperation with an alignment surfaces formed in a recess form an important part of the invention. It should become apparent that such a feature may take various forms and still satisfy the aims of the invention. For example, in FIG. 12 an alignment surface 22a is shown to be a dimpled region immediately above a locking ledge 20a with the dimpled region being of a significantly less radius of curvature than the radius of curvature of the shank half 12a. Accordingly, a longitudinal recess 52a, conforming to the radius of curvature of dimpled regions 22a, may be formed in the aperture.
As noted above, one of the advantages of the present invention is the configuration of a quarter turn fastener of sheet metal material utilizing a minimum amount of such material. Device 10 can readily be formed from a blank, such as shown in FIG. 10. Such a blank will include a head half region 14 interconnected to a shank region 12 through a spring web 34. The locking region is formed by a region which is configured to form the bow-shaped element 24 connected by a spring web 28 to the bight region 27 of the fastener.
The fastener system just described can be manipulated in several ways. For example, the on or off torque may be applied through a blade-like driver 72 in the associated recesses 32 formed in the head. However, a hex-type driving socket may also be applied to the parallel outer edges 30 and hex sides 31 on each head half 14. Additionally, the fastener can be locked from beneath the panels through the association of a torque applying tool or particularly designed socket receiving the locking region 16.
The invention thus described clearly provides a quarter turn fastener and fastening system which permits a plurality of fasteners to be preassembled, retained axially and located radially in an aperture so that the second of two panels can be subsequently associated with the fastener and the fasteners all rotated 90° to a firm but somewhat flexible locking position.
It is apparent that there has been provided, therefore, in accordance with the invention a fastener device and fastening system that fully satisfies the objects, aims and advantages set forth above. While the invention has been described in conjunction with specific embodiments thereof, it is evident that many alternatives, modifications and variations will be apparent to those skilled in the art in light of the foregoing description. Accordingly, it is intended to embrace all such alternatives, modifications and variations as fall within the spirit and broad scope of the appended claims. | A one-piece sheet metal fastening device for securing two work panels together. The device incorporates a split shank joined at its lower extremity, a split head and a laterally extending locking region at the lower extremity of the shank. The shank includes means to preassemble and rotationally align the fastener within an aperture in a first panel so that a second panel can thereafter be associated with the lower locking region of the fastener. | 5 |
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
[0001] The invention relates to identifying documents, based on an image query, and more specifically, based on a region of the image indicated by a user.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0002] In their daily workflow, radiologists encounter cases for which they need additional information to accurately interpret the cases shown in viewed X-ray, CT, MR, or other multidimensional images. One possible source of information is previous cases described in case reports or studies. Such case reports or studies are documents stored in a database. A typical way to query the database for a document is by typing a string of characters that comprises a key relating to the information needed be a user.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0003] It would be advantageous to facilitate a user's access to documents comprising information of interest, based on a viewed multidimensional image.
[0004] Thus, in an aspect, the invention provides a system for identifying a document of a plurality of documents, based on a multidimensional image, the system comprising:
[0005] an object unit for identifying an object represented in the multidimensional image, based on a user input indicating a region of the multidimensional image, and further based on a model for modeling the object, determined by segmentation of the indicated region of the multidimensional image;
[0006] a keyword unit for identifying a keyword of a plurality of keywords, related to the identified object, based on an annotation of the model for modeling the object; and
[0007] a document unit for identifying the document of the plurality of documents, based on the identified keyword.
[0008] Thus, the system advantageously facilitates a user's access to documents comprising information of interest, based on a viewed multidimensional image. The document may be identified by its name or, preferably, by a link to the document. By following the link, the system may be further adapted to allow the user to retrieve the document stored in a storage comprising the plurality of documents, e.g. download a file comprising the document, and view the document on a display.
[0009] In the six embodiments of the system according to the invention described below, identifying the document of interest is made more interactive, thereby offering the user an intuitive way of navigating to the document of interest.
[0010] In an embodiment of the object unit of the system, identifying the object represented in the multidimensional image comprises:
[0011] displaying a set of candidate objects, each candidate object being identified based on the user input indicating the region of the multidimensional image, and further based on a model for modeling the candidate object, determined by segmentation of the indicated region of the multidimensional image; and
[0012] obtaining a user input for selecting a candidate object from the displayed set of candidate objects, thereby identifying the object.
[0013] The identified candidate objects may be represented by their names or icons, for example. Thus, the system helps coping with the situation where more than one candidate object is identified by the object unit on the basis of the user input.
[0014] In an embodiment of the object unit of the system, identifying the object represented in the multidimensional image comprises computing and displaying a score of each candidate object of the set of candidate objects. The score helps the user to select the candidate objects from the displayed set of candidate objects.
[0015] In an embodiment of the keyword unit of the system, identifying the keyword of the plurality of keywords, related to the identified object, comprises:
[0016] displaying a set of candidate keywords of the plurality of keywords, each candidate keyword being related to the identified object, based on an annotation of the model for modeling the object; and
[0017] obtaining a user input for selecting a candidate keyword from the displayed set of candidate keywords, thereby identifying the keyword.
[0018] Thus, the system helps coping with the situation where more than one candidate keyword is identified by the keyword unit on the basis of the annotation of the object model corresponding to the object identified in the multidimensional image.
[0019] In an embodiment of the keyword unit of the system, identifying the keyword represented in the multidimensional image comprises computing and displaying a score of each candidate keyword of the set of candidate keywords. The score helps the user to select the candidate keyword from the displayed set of candidate keywords.
[0020] In an embodiment of the document unit of the system, identifying the document of the plurality of documents comprises:
[0021] displaying a set of candidate documents of the plurality of documents, each candidate document being identified based on the identified keyword; and
[0022] obtaining a user input for selecting a candidate document from the displayed set of candidate documents, thereby identifying the document.
[0023] The candidate documents may be represented by their names or icons, for example. Thus, the system helps coping with the situation where more than one candidate document is identified by the document unit on the basis of the identified keyword.
[0024] In an embodiment of the document unit of the system, identifying the document represented in the multidimensional image comprises computing and displaying a score of each candidate document of the set of candidate documents. The score helps the user to select the candidate document from the displayed set of candidate documents.
[0025] In an embodiment, the system further comprises a fragment unit for labeling text fragments of documents with labels comprising keywords of the plurality of keywords, and the document is identified by the document unit, based on the labels. The fragment unit comprising a natural language processing tool is adapted to label fragments of the document comprising the natural language. The labels comprising keywords are then used by the document unit to identify the documents of interest.
[0026] In an embodiment, the system further comprises a category unit for identifying a category of the object represented in the multidimensional image, and the object unit is adapted to identify the object further, based on the identified category of the object. The category may be comprised explicitly in the user input, e.g. as information for qualifying the object to be identified such as information for use by a pixel or voxel classifier, or may be derived from the user input and the multidimensional image, e.g. based on an analysis of the region indicated in the user input and/or its surroundings.
[0027] In an embodiment of the system, the category of the object represented in the multidimensional image is a position of the object, and the category unit is adapted to identify the position of the object, based on a reference object identified in the multidimensional image. The reference object may be identified using image segmentation. The object identified by the object unit may be the reference object. This embodiment allows differentiating between identical objects in different positions or taking into account objects that are only partially comprised in the indicated region, for example.
[0028] In an embodiment, the system further comprises a retrieval unit for retrieving the identified document.
[0029] In a further aspect, the system according to the invention is comprised in a database system.
[0030] In a further aspect, the system according to the invention is comprised in an image acquisition apparatus.
[0031] In a further aspect, the system according to the invention is comprised in a workstation.
[0032] In a further aspect, the invention provides a method of identifying a document of a plurality of documents, based on a multidimensional image, the method comprising:
[0033] an object step for identifying an object represented in the multidimensional image, based on a user input for identifying the object, and further based on a model for modeling the object, determined by segmentation of the multidimensional image;
[0034] a keyword step for identifying a keyword of a plurality of keywords, related to the identified object, based on an annotation of the model for modeling the object; and
[0035] a document step for identifying the document of the plurality of documents, based on the identified keyword.
[0036] In a further aspect, the invention provides a computer program product to be loaded by a computer arrangement, the computer program comprising instructions for retrieving a document of a plurality of documents, based on a multidimensional image, the computer arrangement comprising a processing unit and a memory, the computer program product, after being loaded, providing said processing unit with the capability to carry out steps of the method.
[0037] It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that two or more of the above-mentioned embodiments, implementations, and/or aspects of the invention may be combined in any way deemed useful.
[0038] Modifications and variations of the database system, of the image acquisition apparatus, of the workstation, of the method, and/or of the computer program product, which correspond to the described modifications and variations of the system or of the method, can be carried out by a person skilled in the art on the basis of the description.
[0039] A person skilled in the art will appreciate that the multidimensional image in the claimed invention may be 2-dimensional (2-D), 3-dimensional (3-D) or 4-dimensional (4-D) image data, acquired by various acquisition modalities such as, but not limited to, X-ray Imaging, Computed Tomography (CT), Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), Ultrasound (US), Positron Emission Tomography (PET), Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT), and Nuclear Medicine (NM).
[0040] The invention is defined in the independent claims. Advantageous embodiments are defined in the dependent claims.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0041] These and other aspects of the invention will become apparent from and will be elucidated with respect to the implementations and embodiments described hereinafter and with reference to the accompanying drawings, wherein:
[0042] FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of an exemplary embodiment of the system;
[0043] FIG. 2 shows an exemplary graphical user interface of the system according to an exemplary embodiment;
[0044] FIG. 3 shows a flowchart of exemplary implementations of the method;
[0045] FIG. 4 schematically shows an exemplary embodiment of the database system; and
[0046] FIG. 5 schematically shows an exemplary embodiment of the image acquisition apparatus; and
[0047] FIG. 6 schematically shows an exemplary embodiment of the workstation.
[0048] Identical reference numerals are used to denote similar parts throughout the Figures.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS
[0049] FIG. 1 schematically shows a block diagram of an exemplary embodiment of the system 100 for identifying a document of a plurality of documents, based on a multidimensional image, the system 100 comprising:
[0050] an object unit 110 for identifying an object represented in the multidimensional image, based on a user input indicating a region of the multidimensional image, and further based on a model for modeling the object, determined by segmentation of the indicated region of the multidimensional image;
[0051] a keyword unit 120 for identifying a keyword of a plurality of keywords, related to the identified object, based on an annotation of the model for modeling the object; and
[0052] a document unit 130 for identifying the document of the plurality of documents, based on the identified keyword.
[0053] The exemplary embodiment of the system 100 further comprises
[0054] a fragment unit 125 for labeling text fragments of documents with labels comprising keywords of the plurality of keywords, and wherein the document is identified by the document unit 130 , based on the labels;
[0055] a category unit 115 for identifying a category of the object represented in the multidimensional image, and wherein the object unit 110 is adapted to identify the object further, based on the identified category of the object;
[0056] a retrieval unit 140 for retrieving the identified document;
[0057] a control unit 160 for controlling the work of the system 100 ;
[0058] a user interface 165 for communication between the user and the system 100 ; and
[0059] a memory unit 170 for storing data.
[0060] In an embodiment of the system 100 , there are three input connectors 181 , 182 and 183 for the incoming data. The first input connector 181 is arranged to receive data coming in from a data storage means such as, but not limited to, a hard disk, a magnetic tape, a flash memory, or an optical disk. The second input connector 182 is arranged to receive data coming in from a user input device such as, but not limited to, a mouse or a touch screen. The third input connector 183 is arranged to receive data coming in from a user input device such as a keyboard. The input connectors 181 , 182 and 183 are connected to an input control unit 180 .
[0061] In an embodiment of the system 100 , there are two output connectors 191 and 192 for the outgoing data. The first output connector 191 is arranged to output the data to a data storage means such as a hard disk, a magnetic tape, a flash memory, or an optical disk. The second output connector 192 is arranged to output the data to a display device. The output connectors 191 and 192 receive the respective data via an output control unit 190 .
[0062] A person skilled in the art will understand that there are many ways to connect input devices to the input connectors 181 , 182 and 183 and the output devices to the output connectors 191 and 192 of the system 100 . These ways comprise, but are not limited to, a wired and a wireless connection, a digital network such as, but not limited to, a Local Area Network (LAN) and a Wide Area Network (WAN), the Internet, a digital telephone network, and an analog telephone network.
[0063] In an embodiment of the system 100 , the system 100 comprises a memory unit 170 . The system 100 is arranged to receive input data from external devices via any of the input connectors 181 , 182 , and 183 and to store the received input data in the memory unit 170 . Loading the input data into the memory unit 170 allows quick access to relevant data portions by the units of the system 100 . The input data comprises the multidimensional image and the user input. The memory unit 170 may be implemented by devices such as, but not limited to, a register file of a CPU, a cache memory, a Random Access Memory (RAM) chip, a Read Only Memory (ROM) chip, and/or a hard disk drive and a hard disk. The memory unit 170 may be further arranged to store the output data. The output data comprises the identified document. The output data may also comprise, for example, a list comprising candidate objects, a list comprising candidate keywords, and/or a list comprising candidate documents. The memory unit 170 may be also arranged to receive data from and/or deliver data to the units of the system 100 comprising the object unit 110 , the category unit 115 , the keyword unit 120 , the fragment unit 125 , the document unit 130 , the retrieval unit 140 , the control unit 160 , and the user interface 165 , via a memory bus 175 . The memory unit 170 is further arranged to make the output data available to external devices via any of the output connectors 191 and 192 . Storing data from the units of the system 100 in the memory unit 170 may advantageously improve performance of the units of the system 100 as well as the rate of transfer of the output data from the units of the system 100 to external devices.
[0064] In an embodiment of the system 100 , the system 100 comprises a control unit 160 for controlling the system 100 . The control unit 160 may be arranged to receive control data from and provide control data to the units of the system 100 . For example, after identifying the object, the object unit 110 may be arranged to provide control data “the object is identified” to the control unit 160 , and the control unit 160 may be arranged to provide control data “identify the keywords” to the keyword unit 120 . Alternatively, a control function may be implemented in another unit of the system 100 .
[0065] In an embodiment of the system 100 , the system 100 comprises a user interface 165 for communication between a user and the system 100 . The user interface 165 may be arranged to receive a user input for identifying an object in the multidimensional image, for selecting a candidate keyword from the set of candidate keywords etc. Optionally, the user interface may receive a user input for selecting a mode of operation of the system such as, e.g., selection of a model for image segmentation. The user interface may be further arranged to display useful information to the user, e.g. a score of a candidate document for selection as the identified document. A person skilled in the art will understand that more functions may be advantageously implemented in the user interface 165 of the system 100 .
[0066] In an embodiment, the documents are medical reports. The system 100 is adapted for identifying a medical report relevant to a case studied by a radiologist examining a 2-D brain image from a stack of 2-D brain images, each 2-D brain image being rendered from a CT slice of a stack of CT slices. The radiologist may indicate a region in the image, using an input device such as a mouse or a trackball. For example, the radiologist may draw a rectangular contour in the viewed image.
[0067] In an embodiment of the object unit 110 of the system 100 , the user input indicating a region of the multidimensional image may be the whole image. In such a case it may not be required to draw a contour comprising the whole image. In particular, selecting a 2-D image from the stack of brain images may be interpreted as selecting a region—the whole image—where an object is to be identified by the object unit 110 .
[0068] FIG. 2 shows an exemplary graphical user interface of the system according to an exemplary embodiment. The user-radiologist is provided with a brain image 20 . He has drawn a rectangle 211 indicating a region in the image 20 . The object unit 110 is adapted to interpret the indicated region on the basis of image segmentation.
[0069] The object of image segmentation is classifying pixels or voxels of an image as pixels or voxels describing an object represented in the image, thereby defining a model of the object. In one embodiment, pixels or voxels may be classified using a classifier for classifying pixels or voxels of the image. In another embodiment, pixels or voxels may be classified based on an object model, e.g. a deformable model, for adapting to the image. A person skilled in the art of image segmentation will know these and many other useful segmentation methods, which can be used by the system 100 of the invention. An exemplary 2-D model comprises a contour defined by a plurality of control points. An exemplary 3-D model comprises a mesh surface. Pixels on and/or inside the contour or voxels on and/or inside the mesh surface are classified as pixels or voxels belonging to the object. The object unit 110 of the system may be adapted for segmenting the image. Alternatively, the multidimensional image may be segmented and the results of the segmentation are used by the object unit 110 of the system 100 . A person skilled in the art will know various segmentation methods and their implementations which may be used by the system 100 of the invention.
[0070] In an embodiment of the system 100 , the stack of brain images constituting 3-D image data is segmented using model-based segmentation employing surface mesh models. The pixels in each 2-D brain image of the stack of brain images are thus classified based on the 3-D image segmentation results.
[0071] In an embodiment of the object unit 110 of the system 100 , a region of a multidimensional image is determined by the position of the object model determined by segmentation of the image. For example, it can be a circle or rectangle (for 2-D images) or a sphere or parallelepiped (for 3-D images) comprising the pixels or voxels of the identified object. Selecting the multidimensional image and, optionally, an object model or classifier by the user may thus be interpreted as a user input for indicating a region of the image.
[0072] In an embodiment of the object unit 110 of the system 100 , identifying the object represented in the multidimensional image comprises
[0073] displaying a set of candidate objects, each candidate object being identified based on the user input indicating the region of the multidimensional image, and further based on a model for modeling the candidate object, determined by segmentation of the indicated region of the multidimensional image; and
[0074] obtaining a user input for selecting a candidate object from the displayed set of candidate objects, thereby identifying the object.
[0075] In the first column 21 , FIG. 2 shows a list of candidate objects identified based on the region 211 drawn on the brain image 20 .
[0076] In an embodiment of the object unit 110 of the system 100 , identifying the object represented in the multidimensional image comprises computing and displaying a score of each candidate object of the set of candidate objects. The non-parenthesized numbers to the right of the candidate objects listed on the list shown in column 21 are the scores. In an embodiment of the object unit 110 , the scores are computed using the formula (Y/X) a (Y/Z) b (X/M) c wherein:
X=the number of pixels classified as pixels of the object in the viewed image of the stack of images, Y=the number of pixels classified as pixels of the object and comprised inside the rectangle drawn by the user in the viewed image of the stack of images, Z=the number of image pixels inside the rectangle drawn by the user in the viewed image of the stack of images, and M=the maximum number of pixels of the object in any image of the stack of images, and wherein a, b and c are exponents determined experimentally (equaling, e.g. 1.3, 0.4 and 1).
[0081] In an embodiment, the system 100 of the invention further comprises a category unit 115 for identifying a category of the object represented in the multidimensional image, and the object unit 110 is adapted to identify the object further based on the identified category of the object. The category may indicate, for example, location (e.g. left or right half of the body) or type of a vessel (e.g. vein or artery), which may be modeled by the same mesh model. Based on the body location, the object unit may be also adapted to identify an object comprising a segmented object in whole or in part. For example, based on the body location and a segmented tumor object, the organ attacked by the tumor may be identified by the object unit 110 . Thus, in an embodiment, the category of the object represented in the multidimensional image is a position of the object, and the category unit 115 is adapted to identify the position of the object based on a reference object identified in the multidimensional image. To identify more objects in the multidimensional image, which are not segmented, the category unit 115 is adapted to explore the spatial arrangement of the anatomy represented in the multidimensional image, based on the objects identified by image segmentation. This can be done with the help of ontologies, such as SNOMED CT (see http://www.ihtsdo.org/snomed-ct/) and/or UMLS (see http://www.nlm.nih.gov/research/umls/). The ontologies may comprise body locations that encompass the identified object model and the spatial relations between the identified object and other objects. For example, other objects may be parts of the identified objects or vice versa. Optionally, the category unit 115 may be integrated with the object unit 110 .
[0082] An object identified based on the category identified by the category unit 115 may be also assigned a score. In an embodiment, the spatial relations between the identified reference object and the object identified based on the object category may comprise a function indicating what percentage of the object identified based on the object category is comprised in the indicated region, depending on the location and/or shape of the region. For instance, if the tegmentum of pons is the reference object, 80% of the pons is on average comprised in the indicated region. Inversely, if the pons is the reference object and is fully comprised in the indicated region, 100% of the tegmentum of pons is comprised in the indicated region.
[0083] Thus, the spatial reasoning engine can “explode” a given body location by walking up and down the spatial relations to other body locations and computing the portions which are comprised in the indicated region, given the location and shape of the indicated region and the portion of the reference object which is comprised in the indicated region. This “explosion” step results in new objects identified by the object unit 110 and their scores.
[0084] Optionally, the category unit 115 may be integrated with the object unit 110 .
[0085] The models or model parts are associated with keywords. Alternatively or additionally, classes of pixels or voxels classified in the process of image segmentation may be associated with keywords. The keywords may describe clinical findings relevant to the object. In some implementations, these keywords may depend on the actual shape of the object determined by image segmentation. For example, image segmentation of a blood vessel may indicate a stenosis or occlusion of the vessel. Thus, a keyword “stenosis” or “occlusion” may be used in relation to the vessel in line with the image segmentation result. A person skilled in the art will understand that the keywords may be single or multiple words such as names, phrases or sentences.
[0086] In an embodiment of the keyword unit 120 of the system 100 , identifying the keyword of the plurality of keywords, related to the identified object, comprises:
[0087] displaying a set of candidate keywords of the plurality of keywords, each candidate keyword being related to the identified object, based on an annotation of the model for modeling the object; and
[0088] obtaining a user input for selecting a candidate keyword from the displayed set of candidate keywords, thereby identifying the keyword. In the second column 22 in FIG. 2 , a list of candidate keywords identified by the keyword unit 120 , relating to the objects identified by the object unit 110 and listed in the first column 21 in FIG. 2 , is shown. Identifying the keyword represented in the multidimensional image comprises computing and displaying a score of each candidate keyword of the set of candidate keywords. The score is given by the non-parenthesized number to the right of each keyword. In an embodiment, the score is defined as the sum of products of the score of the keyword comprised in the object model used for identifying the object by the score of the object, the sum running over all identified objects the models of which comprise the keyword.
[0089] In an embodiment of the document unit 130 of the system 100 , identifying the document of the plurality of documents comprises:
[0090] displaying a set of candidate documents of the plurality of documents, each candidate document being identified based on the identified keyword; and
[0091] obtaining a user input for selecting a candidate document from the displayed set of candidate documents, thereby identifying the document.
[0092] The third column 23 in FIG. 2 comprises a list of identifiers (IDs) of candidate documents identified by the document unit 130 , corresponding to the keywords in the second column 22 in FIG. 2 , identified by the keyword unit 120 . Identifying the document represented in the multidimensional image comprises computing and displaying a score of each candidate document of the set of candidate documents. In an embodiment, the score is based on the number and frequency of occurrence of the keywords identified by the keyword unit. In the example shown in FIG. 2D , these are all keywords listed in the second column, i.e. all candidate keywords are selected by a user as the keywords identified by the keyword unit. The scores are displayed to the right of each report ID. Under each report ID, the keywords found in the report are also listed. The user can now select one or more candidate medical reports to be the reports identified by the document unit 130 . The retrieval unit 140 may be further arranged to retrieve the identified reports. The retrieved reports help the user-radiologist to interpret the viewed brain image 20 in FIG. 2 .
[0093] In an embodiment, the system 100 further comprises a fragment unit 125 for labeling text fragments of documents with labels comprising keywords of the plurality of keywords, and wherein the document is identified by the document unit 130 based on the labels. A natural language processing (NLP) tool structures and labels the “raw” natural language from radiology reports using MedLEE (see Carol Friedman et al., “Representing information in patient reports using natural language processing and the extensible markup language”, JAMIA 1999(6),76-87). In one of its modes MedLEE adds an XML document to a given radiology report. This XML document labels fragments of the text in terms of body locations, findings, sections, etc. It also adds modifiers to these labels that specify further information such as specifications (“large”, “lateral”), level of certainty and mappings to UMLS. The document unit 130 is adapted for identifying the document, based on a comparison of identified keywords with the body locations and observations from the XML document.
[0094] A person skilled in the art will appreciate that the system 100 may be a valuable tool for assisting a physician in many aspects of her/his job. Further, although the embodiments of the system are illustrated using medical applications of the system, non-medical applications of the system are also contemplated.
[0095] Those skilled in the art will further understand that other embodiments of the system 100 are also possible. It is possible, among other things, to redefine the units of the system and to redistribute their functions. Although the described embodiments apply to medical images, other applications of the system, not related to medical applications, are also possible.
[0096] The units of the system 100 may be implemented using a processor. Normally, their functions are performed under the control of a software program product. During execution, the software program product is normally loaded into a memory, like a RAM, and executed from there. The program may be loaded from a background memory, such as a ROM, hard disk, or magnetic and/or optical storage, or may be loaded via a network like the Internet. Optionally, an application-specific integrated circuit may provide the described functionality.
[0097] An exemplary flowchart of the method M of identifying a document of a plurality of documents, based on a multidimensional image, is schematically shown in FIG. 3 . The method M begins with an object step S 10 for identifying an object represented in the multidimensional image, based on a user input indicating a region of the multidimensional image, and further based on a model for modeling the object, determined by segmentation of the indicated region of the multidimensional image. After the object step S 10 , the method M continues to a keyword step S 20 for identifying a keyword of a plurality of keywords, related to the identified object, based on an annotation of the model for modeling the object. After the keyword step S 20 , the method M continues to a document step S 30 for identifying the document of the plurality of documents, based on the identified keyword. After the document step S 30 , the method terminates.
[0098] A person skilled in the art may change the order of some steps or perform some steps concurrently using threading models, multi-processor systems or multiple processes without departing from the concept as intended by the present invention. Optionally, two or more steps of the method M may be combined into one step. Optionally, a step of the method M may be split into a plurality of steps.
[0099] FIG. 4 schematically shows an exemplary embodiment of the database system 400 employing the system 100 of the invention, said database system 400 comprising a database unit 410 connected via an internal connection to the system 100 , an external input connector 401 , and an external output connector 402 . This arrangement advantageously increases the capabilities of the database system 400 , providing said database system 400 with advantageous capabilities of the system 100 .
[0100] FIG. 5 schematically shows an exemplary embodiment of the image acquisition apparatus 500 employing the system 100 of the invention, said image acquisition apparatus 500 comprising an image acquisition unit 510 connected via an internal connection with the system 100 , an input connector 501 , and an output connector 502 . This arrangement advantageously increases the capabilities of the image acquisition apparatus 500 , providing said image acquisition apparatus 500 with advantageous capabilities of the system 100 .
[0101] FIG. 6 schematically shows an exemplary embodiment of the workstation 600 . The workstation comprises a system bus 601 . A processor 610 , a memory 620 , a disk input/output (I/O) adapter 630 , and a user interface (UI) 640 are operatively connected to the system bus 601 . A disk storage device 631 is operatively coupled to the disk I/O adapter 630 . A keyboard 641 , a mouse 642 , and a display 643 are operatively coupled to the UI 640 . The system 100 of the invention, implemented as a computer program, is stored in the disk storage device 631 . The workstation 600 is arranged to load the program and input data into memory 620 and execute the program on the processor 610 . The user can input information to the workstation 600 , using the keyboard 641 and/or the mouse 642 . The workstation is arranged to output information to the display device 643 and/or to the disk 631 . A person skilled in the art will understand that there are numerous other embodiments of the workstation 600 known in the art and that the present embodiment serves the purpose of illustrating the invention and must not be interpreted as limiting the invention to this particular embodiment.
[0102] It should be noted that the above-mentioned embodiments illustrate rather than limit the invention and that those skilled in the art will be able to design alternative embodiments without departing from the scope of the appended claims. In the claims, any reference signs placed between parentheses shall not be construed as limiting the claim. The word “comprising” does not exclude the presence of elements or steps not listed in a claim or in the description. The word “a” or “an” preceding an element does not exclude the presence of a plurality of such elements. The invention can be implemented by means of hardware comprising several distinct elements and by means of a programmed computer. In the system claims enumerating several units, several of these units can be embodied by one and the same record of hardware or software. The usage of the words first, second, third, etc., does not indicate any ordering. These words are to be interpreted as names. | The invention relates to a system ( 100 ) for identifying a document of a plurality of documents, based on a multidimensional image, the system ( 100 ) comprising an object unit ( 110 ) for identifying an object represented in the multidimensional image, based on a user input indicating a region of the multidimensional image, and further based on a model for modeling the object, determined by segmentation of the indicated region of the multidimensional image; a keyword unit ( 120 ) for identifying a keyword of a plurality of keywords, related to the identified object, based on an annotation of the model for modeling the object; and a document unit ( 130 ) for identifying the document of the plurality of documents, based on the identified keyword. Thus, the system advantageously facilitates a user's access to documents comprising information of interest based on a viewed multidimensional image. The document may be identified by its name or, preferably, by a link to the document. By following the link, the system may be further adapted to allow the user to retrieve the document stored in a storage comprising the plurality of documents, e.g. download a file comprising the document, and view the document on a display. | 6 |
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION
[0001] This application claims the benefit of priority of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/329,234, filed Oct. 12, 2001.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0002] The present invention relates to a termination for connecting superconducting and high temperature superconducting (HTS) cables operating at sub-ambient temperatures to cables operating at ambient temperature.
[0003] It is known that superconductors are metals, alloys, or oxides thereof, and in general are compounds having practically zero resistivity below a transition temperature, i.e. the critical temperature. A superconducting cable must be operated below its critical temperature, therefore it is cooled during use by, for example, cryogenic cooling fluids. Metal and alloy superconductors have critical temperatures below 20° K. while metal oxide (ceramic) superconductors have higher critical temperatures on the order of 80° K. thus distinguishing them from the former materials and separating them into a class known as high temperature superconductors that are used to make HTS cables. Because of the brittleness of high temperature superconductors, the cable making material is presently manufactured in the form of tapes known as HTS tapes.
[0004] Because of their negligible resistance, superconducting power cables lose only about one-half percent of power during transmission, compared to a 5 to 8 percent loss of traditional power cables and deliver about three to five times more power through the same area than traditional power cables. As the rapid growth of urban areas increases demand for electricity, the ability of HTS cables to transmit more power while using equivalent amounts of space as traditional cables are increasingly important.
[0005] To be useful, a superconducting cable must have terminations such that the cold superconductor may be connected to a conventional resistive conductor in an ambient temperature environment. The two primary functions carried out by a superconducting cable termination are providing transition from the cryogenic superconducting environment to ambient conditions and transitioning the large radial voltage gradient in the cable to the much lower gradient tolerable after termination.
[0006] Generally, an HTS cable has a coaxial configuration comprised of an energized inner superconductor (phase or line), at least one layer of electrical insulating material, and an outer layer of superconductor placed at zero potential (neutral, ground, or shield). Multiple layers of energized superconductor and electrical insulation may be present in some cables to transmit three phase power. An HTS cable is generally made by winding HTS tapes over a hollow tube known as a former. The former provides mechanical support for the HTS tapes and electrical insulation as well as a path for cryogenic fluid circulation from one end of the cable to the other for cable cooling. The coolant, in some HTS cable designs, permeates the cable structure and thereby becomes an important part of the electrical insulation. In this function, the coolant must also be kept at a pressure where bubbles do not form during operation and the coolant pressure may then be above ambient pressure. HTS cable is housed in a conduit with thermal insulation to keep the cable at the desired temperature and having sufficient strength to accommodate the pressure of the cooling fluid and protect the cable from harm. The conduit also provides an additional path for cryogenic fluid circulation from one end of the cable to the other for cable cooling. Terminations are located on each end of the HTS cable to affect the transition from the superconducting cable, generally cooled by pressurized cryogenic fluid such as liquid nitrogen, to external bushings at ambient temperature.
[0007] Various types of terminations have been used in the prior art, but these terminations are complex, subject to stress and susceptible to failure.
[0008] A common prior art design has two sets of bushings, a cold bushing and a warm bushing, at two separate boundaries. At the first boundary the cold bushing separates the HTS cables cooled by cold, pressurized liquid nitrogen from another region that is warmer and either is in a vacuum or is filled with an insulating gas such as nitrogen or SF6. At the second boundary the warm bushing separates the vacuum or insulating gas region from ambient conditions (i.e. 295° K. and one atmosphere). The cold bushing in such designs is a highly stressed component and prone to failure. The bushing experiences significant thermal/mechanical stresses during cooldown of the cable and must be designed for cable current (several kA) and, for the inner conductor, has to have sufficient solid insulation for the rated voltage (˜10-100 kV). The bushing must also have sufficient electrical insulation to withstand the rated voltage.
[0009] In one known embodiment, described by C. Bogner in “Transmission of Electrical Energy by Superconducting Cables”, pages 5145-16 in S. Foner and B. B. Schwartz ed., Superconducting Machines and Devices , NATO Advanced Study Institute, Entreves, Italy, 1973, Plenum Press (1974) a terminal for a single-phase superconducting cable comprises a vacuum container inside which a casing filled with low-temperature liquid helium is disposed.
[0010] U.S. Pat. No. 6,049,036 discloses a terminal for connecting a multiphase superconducting cable to room temperature electrical equipment. The terminal includes a casing with cooling fluid, inside which three cable superconductors are connected with a resistive conductor the end of which is connected to the room temperature equipment phases at the outside of the casing. The design features internally cross connections between the three shield conductors at the cold end eliminating the need for the shield conductors to ambient conditions, although an external connection is provided to establish ground potential. In this design, the internal portion of the resistive conductor ends are filled by gaseous coolant that forms an interface with the liquid coolant somewhere along the resistive conductor and this interface is held in place by gravity, thus vertical orientation is required in this invention. Further, this invention has a high voltage insulator that forms a vacuum boundary that extends from room temperature to coolant temperature.
[0011] U.S. Pat. No. 4,485,266 discloses a termination for connecting a single coaxial superconducting power transmission line to an ambient bushing that operates in the horizontal position. The invention has a completely sealed horizontal conduit that connects the cold superconducting cable to a room temperature sulfurhexafluoride insulated bushing. The sealed conduit is a very complex structure that provides electrical insulation between phase and shield as they warm and transition to normal conductors, each of which has its own independently cooled heat exchanger that controls the temperature gradient along the conductor.
[0012] U.S. Pat. No. 3,902,000 discloses a termination for connecting a single coaxial superconducting cable to an ambient temperature bushing. The patent provides for a low temperature stress cone to expand the dimensions of the insulation prior to encountering the vertical temperature gradient region. This is done because the coolant, helium, has poor dielectric properties in the warm gaseous state. Gaseous coolant is vented from the top of the termination to provide cooling for the temperature transition zone. The inner conductor is connected to a conventional bushing having conventional dielectric fluid at the warm end.
[0013] Prior art terminations utilized either vertical configuration or a very complicated horizontal section with independent cooling circuits to control temperature gradients in the transition zone between the superconducting and normal conducting cables. The present invention considerably simplifies the design of terminations for HTS cables by using a unique and innovative technique employing the thermal gradient along the termination's copper conductors to eliminate the requirement for vertical orientation or independent cooling circuits. This produces an HTS cable that is more reliable due to the inherent simplicity of the termination design.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0014] Superconducting cables consist of one or more electrically insulated superconducting conductors contained in a hermetically sealed thermally insulated conduit. Said superconducting cable being maintained at a temperature below the superconducting transition temperature by flowing a coolant such as liquid nitrogen through the conduit. Each end of the superconducting cable conduit is connected to a termination that provides a means for connecting external, ambient temperature, normal conductor connectors to the superconducting conductors. Each of the two terminations consists of a set of electrically insulated normal conductors having one end maintained at a temperature below the superconducting transition temperature that is electrically connected to its corresponding superconducting cable and having the other end connected to the internal connector of an ambient temperature bushing. The normal conductors thus have a large temperature difference from one end to the other.
[0015] The termination consists of the normal electrically insulated conductors contained in a thermally insulated conduit. The termination conduit consists of three distinct regions. A cold end housing for making connections between the normal conductors and the superconductors. An ambient temperature housing for making connections between the normal conductors and the internal connection of the ambient temperature hermetic bushing. A transition duct connects the cold housing and the ambient housing through which the normal conductors and insulators pass. The transition duct is sized so that the insulators and conductors completely fill the duct. Sealant compounds, elastomer seals, and mechanical seals close the gaps between the insulators, conductors, and transition duct. One or more capillary passages through, or parallel to, the termination duct connects the cold housing end to the ambient housing end to maintain pressure equilibrium across the termination duct, thereby limiting liquid coolant from flowing from the cold housing to the warm housing. The conductors and transition duct are of a size and length so as to minimize the heat flow through the normal conductors from the ambient temperature housing to the cold housing.
[0016] The present invention is an innovative termination that connects the high temperature superconducting (HTS) cable regions which are immersed in pressurized cryogenic fluid such as liquid nitrogen to the high voltage and neutral (shield) external bushings at ambient temperature and pressure. The termination consists of a splice between the HTS power (inner) and shield (outer) conductors and concentric resistive conductors (copper pipes) in the termination.
[0017] There is also a transition from the dielectric tape insulator used in the HTS cable to G-10 insulators used between and around the copper pipe conductors in the termination.
[0018] The invention consists of a feed and a return end or terminations designated by the flow of cryogenic fluid. Each termination has a warm and cold end. At the warm end of the termination the copper pipes are connected via copper braided straps to conventional warm external bushings which have low thermal stresses.
[0019] Thus, the termination allows for a natural temperature gradient in the copper pipe conductors inside the termination which enables the controlled flashing of the coolant, i.e. pressurized liquid nitrogen to gaseous nitrogen. Thus the entire termination is near the nitrogen supply pressure thereby eliminating the high voltage and shield cold bushings, a highly stressed component used in prior art HTS cables.
[0020] The copper conductors transfer heat absorbed from the outside at ambient temperature and heat produced by current passage under a resistive effect, to the cryogenic liquid coolant which passes through the resistive conductors, which heats up and flashes to gas.
[0021] Other aspects of the design include: (1) a sliding seal to allow for cable contraction as it is cooled from room temperature to ˜72-82 K and (2) specialized seals and static vacuum with multi-layer superinsulation to minimize radial heat leak to the environment.
[0022] The present inventive termination can be used by cable manufacturers and the electric utility industry in replacing the overburdened infrastructure of conventional copper cables having oil/paper insulation with a new generation of more efficient HTS cables, especially in urban areas where the higher current density of the HTS conductors would allow increased capacity in existing underground cable tunnels.
[0023] One object of the present invention is to provide a simplified HTS cable termination.
[0024] It is also an object of this invention to provide an HTS cable termination that does not require a cold bushing.
[0025] A further object of this invention is to provide a termination for connecting an HTS conductor and shield to copper conductors for electrical power transmission.
[0026] Another object of this invention is to provide for a termination which is near the supply pressure of the cryogenic coolant.
[0027] It is a further object of the invention to provide a termination partially formed of pressurized piping made of fiberglass sections.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0028] [0028]FIG. 1 is a schematic representation of one embodiment of the termination of the present invention.
[0029] [0029]FIG. 2 is a cross sectional view showing an HTS cable with terminations of the present invention.
[0030] [0030]FIG. 3 is a cross sectional view showing one embodiment of the superconducting cable feed termination.
[0031] [0031]FIG. 4 is a cross sectional view showing an embodiment of the superconducting cable return termination.
[0032] [0032]FIG. 5( a ) is a cross sectional view showing one embodiment of a joint between the superconducting cable conduit and the termination conduit.
[0033] [0033]FIG. 5( b ) is a cross sectional view showing an alternative embodiment of a joint between the superconducting cable conduit and the termination conduit.
[0034] [0034]FIG. 6 is a cross sectional view showing an HTS cable to termination splice in detail.
[0035] [0035]FIG. 7 is a detail of the cold end sliding seal between the coolant jacket and the outer normal conducting pipe.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
[0036] While the exact design of the superconducting cable may vary, the embodiment of this invention described and illustrated here is for connecting a coaxial superconducting cable consisting of a superconducting center phase conductor and an outer superconducting shield conductor, to a pair of copper conductors that make utilization of the cable for electrical power transmission possible. The present embodiment is designed for continuous 1.25 kA operation at 7.2 kVAC operation and 110 kV BIL and has been operated continuously at 13 kVAC and withstood 120 kV impulse. The same principles can be used to design superconducting terminations and splices that have multiple phase conductors operate at different current and voltage levels.
[0037] [0037]FIG. 1 shows a schematic representation of the superconducting cable termination of the present invention. Referring to FIG. 1, superconducting cable 101 is shown in the conduit which is surrounded by termination conduit 109 . Cold section 403 in termination conduit 109 is filled with coolant 413 and contains splice 412 . Thermal insulation 411 surrounds superconducting cable 101 and conduit 109 . Transition duct 404 is adjacent cold section 403 and positioned between cold section 403 and ambient temperature section 405 . Ambient temperature section 405 contains gaseous coolant 406 at conduit pressure and ambient temperature. Internal connections 407 and external connections 408 are located in ambient section 405 . Hermetic bushings 409 are intermediate between external connections 408 and ambient temperature section 405 . A pressure equalization capillary 410 connects ambient temperature section 405 and cold section 403 . A detail of the internal connections attachment to the splice section end present in ambient temperature section 405 shows thermal insulation 414 adjacent electrical insulation 122 which is adjacent copper pipe conductor 114 . Electrical insulation 123 is situated between copper pipe conductor 114 and copper pipe conductor 115 . Electrical stress relief material 29 abuts electrical insulation 123 and copper pipe conductor 114 . Internal connector 118 is adjacent copper pipe 114 and one of the external connections 408 . The superconducting cable is contained in a hermetically sealed, thermally insulated cable conduit. Each end of the superconducting cable conduit is connected to a termination that provides a means for connecting external, ambient temperature, normal conductors to the superconducting conductors. Each of the two terminations are identical except for connections made to accommodate coolant flow. The superconducting cable is maintained at a temperature below the superconducting transition temperature by flowing a coolant, such as liquid nitrogen, through the conduit. The coolant also cools the splice between the superconductor and normal conductor in the termination. The termination consists of a set of electrically insulated normal conductors, shown as copper pipes 114 and 115 in FIG. 1, having one end maintained at a temperature below the superconducting transition temperature that is electrically connected to its corresponding superconducting conductor, in the region the splice 412 , and having the other end connected to the internal connector of an ambient temperature bushing. The normal conductors, copper pipes, are contained in a transition duct 404 that has a large temperature difference from one end to the other. Therefore, the termination conduit 109 consist of three distinct regions: a cold section 403 for making connections between the normal conductors and the superconductors, an ambient temperature section 405 for making connections between the normal conductors and the internal connection of the ambient temperature hermetic bushing, and a transition duct 404 connecting the cold section and the ambient section through which the normal conductors and insulators pass. The transition duct is sized so that the insulators and conductors completely fill the duct. Sealant compounds, elastomer seals, and mechanical seals close the gaps between the insulators, conductors, and transition duct. The cold section and transition duct share a common thermally insulated conduit. One or more capillary passages through, or parallel to, the termination duct connecting the cold housing end to the ambient housing end maintain pressure equilibrium across said termination duct, thereby limiting the liquid coolant flow from the cold housing to the warm housing. FIG. 1 illustrates the pressure equalization capillary 410 external and parallel to the transition duct The conductors and transition duct are of a size and length so as to minimize the heat flow through the normal conductors from the ambient temperature section to the cold section of the termination conduit.
[0038] [0038]FIG. 2 shows a simplified representation of an HTS cable with two terminations. HTS cable 11 is housed within cable conduit 12 which is provided with a vacuum jacket that limits radial heat transfer to the cable from the surroundings. HTS cable 11 is normally a multilayer structure wound in a coaxial configuration around a former that is hollow in the center to allow a flow of cryogenic cooling fluid, such as liquid nitrogen. The former may be made of flexible materials, including polymers and metals. Advantageously the former is a stainless steel hose with perforations to allow the cryogenic fluid to surround and permeate the HTS cable. Thermally insulated conduit 12 maintains the cooling fluid at desired operating temperature by retarding heat flow to the coolant, maintains the pressure of the cooling fluid, and protects the cable. The present invention consists of a feed end termination 13 and a return end termination 14 . The ends are called terminations in the usual sense of a coaxial cable termination in that they allow the center conductor to be accessed while preventing breakdown to the shield, but they also have the additional functions of accessing coolant to the HTS cable, and interfacing the copper conductor to the HTS conductor.
[0039] The designation of feed termination 13 and return termination 14 in FIG. 2 is used in this specific embodiment to refer to the fact that the coolant is circulated in a counter-current manner entering at flow pipe 24 and exiting a flow pipe 25 . Hence the designation feed for the termination that interfaces with the external coolant circulation system in the counter-current cooling configuration and the designation return for the termination that internally reverses the coolant flow direction in the counter-current flow configuration. In the counter-current flow configuration, coolant is supplied to pipe 24 and flows through the HTS to normal conductor splice shown in FIG. 1, through the center of the HTS cable from feed termination 13 to return termination 14 , where it passes through the HTS to the normal conductor splice to the outside of HTS cable 11 , returning to the feed termination 13 through the annular space between HTS cable 11 and the cable conduit 12 , then exiting the system through flow pipe 25 . The coolant can also be routed in a co-current configuration through the system by introducing it into both flow pipes 24 and 25 and removing it at flow pipe 26 in the return termination. Pipes 24 , 25 , and 26 may also function as ports for pressure relief, for instumentation, and for attachment of external pressure equalization capillary for the ambient temperature part of the termination 15 . Port 27 is provided to allow external pressure equalization across the joint between HTS conduit 12 and termination conduits 13 and 14 . External electrical connections are made in the terminations through hermetic bushings to the phase at 16 and the ground at 20 . Within the terminations, the splice between the HTS and normal conductor is made in the cold section of the termination at 22 for the phase and 23 for the shield. Normal conducting copper pipes 21 pass from the cold section to the ambient temperature section of the termination through a duct with sliding seals that allows conductor motion. The duct is either hermetically sealed, if an external pressurization capillary is used, or has an internal flow capillary if internal pressurization is employed. Internal connections between the copper pipe conductors 21 and the hermetic bushings 16 and 20 are made at ambient temperature using internal clamps 18 and copper braid straps 17 . Flexible copper braid straps 17 allow the cable to move relative to said hermetic bushings 16 and 20 without transmitting mechanical stress to the bushings. Conversely, flexible copper braid straps 17 allow unconstrained contraction and expansion of the cable with temperature. Electrical stress relief material 19 is applied at the end of the shield copper pipe at ground potential to prevent electrical breakdown across the electrical insulation to the coaxial pipe at phase potential.
[0040] [0040]FIGS. 3 and 4 show detailed cross sections of the feed and return terminations, respectively. These terminations are identical except for the coolant pipes 24 , 25 , and 26 , the absence of seal 127 in the return termination (FIG. 4), and a difference in outer sleeve 107 , details that will be discussed later.
[0041] Advantageously the present invention uses a coolant liquid nitrogen, at pressures in excess of atmospheric pressure but less than 150 pound per square inch (psi), therefore 150 psi-class components are used at all pressure boundaries. Referring to FIG. 3, HTS cable 102 is housed in a vacuum insulated cable conduit 132 and interfaces with the termination conduit at flange 101 forming a warm pressure boundary. The annular gap between cable 102 and termination conduit 109 , advantageously about 0.1 inch in this embodiment, may be packed with Gore-Tex packing 240 and grease-impregnated fiberglass sleeving 241 as indicated in FIG. 5 a . Alternatively, the annular gap may be packed with Gore-Tex packing 240 , dry fiberglass sleeving 242 , and fiberglass filled grease 243 as indicated in FIG. 5 b . Said grease should have properties similar to high temperature silicone grease having a wide temperature range and high dielectric strength. Said fiberglass filled grease is formulated by adding 33% by weight {fraction (1/32)}″ long glass fibers to said grease. Said grease packings form a hermetic seal that prevents coolant from migrating axially down the annulus. Flange 27 may be attached by a capillary to the coolant return line to equalize the pressure across the packing. In an alternate embodiment of the present invention, the termination may be designed to connect vertically upward from the cable, in which case the grease impregnated fiberglass sealed bayonet may be replaced by a standard liquid nitrogen bayonet fitting. Termination conduit 109 in this embodiment also utilizes vacuum thermal insulation. When vacuum insulation is employed the insulating quality of said conduit may be enhanced by placing layers of superinsulation in the vacuum space to reduce radiation heat transfer and getter and/or adsorbent material may be attached to the cold surface internal to vacuum space 235 to help maintain vacuum over long periods of time. Conduit 109 is also equipped with combination pump-out port with a pressure relief plug 236 and a vacuum gauge tube 237 , as is commonly done with vacuum insulated cryogenic equipment. Fittings 110 , 113 , and 131 along with the hermetic bushing and other flanges constitute the housing for the ambient temperature portion of the termination (i.e. 15 in FIG. 2). Advantageously the present invention uses fiberglass and epoxy composite fittings for this purpose. Other materials may be used that provide either adequate standoff or insulation to ground to prevent electrical breakdown to internal high voltage components across the gaseous coolant that provides dielectric strength in this section of the termination. Design of the ambient temperature housing can take advantage of the fact that pressurized liquid nitrogen has a high dielectric breakdown strength. An optional relief valve 121 may be provided to prevent overpressure should liquid coolant enter and suddenly evaporate in this section of the termination. The pressure of the relief valve is selected to give some operating margin above normal system operating pressure and should be sized for maximum boil-off rate during accident conditions. The ambient temperature region is designed to be at ambient temperature when the cable is in service carrying full current. When no current, or reduced current, is applied and coolant flow is continued, the ambient temperature section will cool below ambient temperature. To accommodate this additional cooling, gaskets and other components are selected for service at the reduced temperature. Alternatively, heat may be applied to the system using thermostatically controlled heat blankets or tapes to maintain ambient temperature. Spool piece 110 and other housing components in this region may be made of aluminum, or other high thermal conductivity material, to facilitate heat transfer from surroundings or applied heating elements. Heat transfer to surroundings may also be enhanced by addition of external and internal cooling fins or through the use of heat pipes. These are the basic components of the pressure boundary of said termination. The exact size of these various components is determined such that they can adequately house the termination internals with sufficient clearances to prevent electrical breakdown and interface with the external system.
[0042] The sizing of the termination internals beginning with the transition section of the termination is as follows. The conductors and transition duct are of size and length so as to minimize the heat flow through the normal conductors from the ambient temperature housing to the cold housing. The present invention is designed for continuous 1.25 kA operation at 7.2 kVAC operation and 110 kV BIL. Two concentric, electrically insulated, copper pipes carry current through the transition section to the HTS cable phase and shield conductor, FIGS. 3, 112 and 114 respectively. The pipes are sized according to the optimization principles outlined by R. McFee in “Optimum Input Leads for Cryogenic Apparatus” pages 98-102 in The Review of Scientific Instruments Volume 30 (1959), but constrained by available pipe sizes and the annular separation required for adequate electrical insulation. Advantageously phase pipe 112 is 1.25 inch ASTM-B-188 standard wall copper pipe (1.25 inch I.D. by 1.66 inch O.D.) and has an optimal length at full current with a temperature gradient from 300° K. to 77° K. of 54 inches and shield pipe 114 is ASTM F68 2 . 5 inch O.D. by 0.065 inch wall copper tubing and has an optimal length at full current with a temperature gradient from 300° K. to 77° K. of 42.5 inches. Optimal lengths are the nominal distances from the copper pipe's respective internal connector to the point that the copper pipe first encounters its respective liquid nitrogen coolant. In the ambient temperature section additional phase pipe length extends under the internal phase connector 218 and additional shield pipe length extends under the internal shield connector 118 , plus an additional inch to allow application of the stress control material 29 . Internal connectors 118 and 218 are preferably clamshell copper connectors that are bolted to pipes 114 and 112 . Internal connectors 118 and 218 advantageously are brazed to flexible copper braids 117 and 217 and said braids have appropriate attachments for interfacing with bushings 20 and 16 . Internal phase connector 218 serves the additional function of securing the position of tube 123 and 111 , advantageously using set screws. In the cold section additional pipe length extends into the splice to provide adequate surface area for heat transfer for the heat load at full current plus additional length required for mechanical attachments to the superconducting cable. Further additional pipe length may be added to accommodate expansion and contraction of the cable by having more length to move back and forth in the duct. The annular space between the pipes is occupied by tube 123 fabricated of filament wound glass impregnated with epoxy having properties similar to G10. G10 has thermal expansion properties similar to copper and has the electrical strength necessary for 110 kV BILL. Other materials that have suitable mechanical and electrical properties could be used for tube 123 . The tube nominally fills the annular space in the transition region and extends to internal connector 218 on the ambient temperature end and into the splice on the cold end. In the ambient temperature region tube 123 has an internal o-ring groove at 115 to inhibit coolant flow through this space. The internal surface tube 123 is wound on copper foil over its full length and the external surface is painted with electrically conductive paint over that part of its length that contacts the copper shield conductor pipe, thus the internal and external surfaces of the tube conduct electricity. The purpose of the electrically conductive coating is to eliminate partial discharge in the very small annular gap at the copper to electrical insulator interface. A small metal shim is placed between the copper pipes and the conductive coating in the ambient temperature region to fix the joined surfaces at the same potential, thus eliminating any possibility of discharge. Advantageously the distance between the end of shield pipe 123 and internal phase connector 115 is greater then about 7 inches and preferably in excess of 8 inches. The edge of shield pipe 114 is sealed to insulating tube 123 using a commercial polymeric stress relief kit 29 . Elements of stress relief kit 29 are carefully applied to form a gas tight seal between shield pipe 114 and insulating tube 123 . Therefore, stress relief kit 29 has three functions: electrical stress relief, gas flow restriction, and mechanical securing of adjacent elements. Thus the set of conducting pipes ( 112 and 114 ) that passes through the transition zone of the termination along with nested insulating tube 123 and plug 111 , with internal connectors 118 and 218 in place with stress material 9 , forms a rigid assembly that is free to move back and forth as a unit in the insulated conduit.
[0043] The transition duct is sized to accept the previously described set of concentric normal conducting pipes and insulating tubes. The insulated conduit 109 in FIGS. 3 and 4 preferably is stainless steel and is grounded in service. Therefore, in order to mitigate the possibility that any internal components would short to conduit 109 in an accident condition, and to provide additional thermal insulation, a G-10 sleeve 122 is installed between the duct wall and the shield conductor pipe 112 . Sleeve 122 is of sufficient thickness to meet the BIL rating of the cable. Sleeve 122 is further sized internally to have a free-running fit on shield conductor pipe 112 and externally to allow introduction of sealant compounds. Advantageously the space between G-10 sleeve 122 and insulated conduit 109 is completely filled from end to end with a low temperature addition cured silicone elastomer compound such as Dow Corning 3-6121 Encapsolating Elastomer. The elastomer compound prevents coolant flow in the annular space, thus preventing any undesired convective cooling in this region. The ambient temperature end of sleeve 122 is sealed against gas flow on the shield conductor pipe preferably with a spring-loaded polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) reciprocating seal 104 , such as Bal Seal 317 MB-409. A centering ring 105 is installed next to seal 104 to take up any radial mechanical force. The centering ring is sized to have a free-running fit on shield conductor 112 and is made of a material that has similar thermal-mechanical properties to copper and also has a low coefficient of friction against copper; advantageously a mica-filled PTFE such as Polymer Corporation Fluorosint 500 may be used. Thus, the transition duct is sized so that the insulators and conductors completely fill the duct and sealant compounds, elastomer seals, and mechanical seals close the gaps between the insulators, conductors, and transition duct.
[0044] Plug 111 in FIGS. 3 and 4 closes the inside of phase conductor 104 . Preferably plug 111 is fabricated of filament wound glass impregnated with epoxy having properties similar to G-10, the center of which is completely filled from end to end with a low temperature addition cured silicone elastomer compound 130 , such as Dow Corning 3-6121 Encapsolating Elastomer. Plug 111 may be fabricated entirely of a single material that has relative low thermal conductivity and has thermal expansion properties similar to copper. Plug 111 does not have to be an electrical insulator and can have different embodiments depending on whether an external or internal capillary is used to pressurize the ambient temperature housing. If an external capillary is used plug 111 is advantageously sealed an elastomeric o-ring 116 to form a hermetic seal that impedes gas flow through the annulus between plug 111 and phase conductor pipe 112 . If internal pressurization is employed the annulus between plug 111 and phase conductor pipe 112 becomes the capillary passage and is not sealed. Instead, plug 111 advantageously is made to form a loose-running fit with phase conductor pipe 112 that allows ample gas flow for pressurization and a double thread is cut in plug 111 , one thread of which is filled with packing 129 . The double threads advantageously are 0.5 inch pitch starting 180 degrees apart and are of a depth appropriate of packing (ie. 0.125 inch diameter and 0.1 inch deep designed to receive 0.125 inch diameter GoreTex packing in the preferred embodiment) and a length of 4.5 inches. Both liquid and gaseous coolant are free to flow in one groove and packing 129 prevents flow in the other groove so that a series of equilibrium cells are formed with the state of the fluid in each cell being determined by the temperature of copper phase conductor pipe 112 and the pressure of the coolant. Plug 111 has a further function in that it is sized on the cold end to control forced convection heat transfer of coolant fluid along the inner surface of phase conductor pipe 112 .
[0045] [0045]FIG. 5( a ) shows the termination to cable joint packing consisting of a grease impregnated fiberglass sleeving and FIG. 5( b ) shows an alternate joint packing of a fiberglass sleeve filled with grease.
[0046] The splice section of the termination, depicted in FIG. 6, provides both electrical connection between HTS and normal conducting elements and cooling for the conductors. The HTS cable is wound on a former 202 and has as its basic elements the HTS phase conductor 203 , an electrical insulation package 205 , and a coaxial HTS shield 206 . The cable end has two copper elements 217 and 222 that are threaded together and to former 202 . The HTS phase conductors are soldered to copper end 222 . Copper end 222 is threaded to copper phase conductor pipe 104 and locked in place with a jam nut 223 . In this embodiment said HTS shield 206 is advantageously covered with a brass sleeve 207 that is clamped onto the cable with bolted copper clamshell connector 103 . In other embodiments, said sleeve 207 may be copper and said connection between HTS shield 206 and sleeve 207 may be soldered. Connector 103 is further bolted to said copper shield conductor pipe 114 using a flange that is silver brazed to shield conductor pipe 114 . The annular space between copper phase pipe 104 and copper shield pipe 114 is filled with an electrical insulation package that is layered in such a way as to provide electrical insulation, electrical stress relief, and a flow path for coolant. Advantageously copper phase pipe 104 has a ring of holes for coolant flow located at 215 and copper shield pipe 114 has a ring of holes for coolant flow located at 229 . The flow path for coolant through the annulus is established by a layer of thin-wall Teflon tubes 216 that are twisted in a helical pattern as the diameter changes such that they form a single dense layer of tubing having no gaps between tubes. The outside of HTS phase conductor 203 , its solder joint to copper cable end 222 , and end 222 are covered by a single layer of semiconductor tape material. Layers of Cryoflex™ insulation 213 and 219 are then wound over the semiconductor tape to form a cone for Teflon® tubes 216 to lay on and to form an electrical stress relief cone at 210 that extends from HTS shield 206 to copper shield conductor pipe 209 . Electrical stress relief cone 210 is formed by a single complete layer of semiconductor tape material held in place by a single complete layer of copper tape having conducting adhesive and over wound with layers of Cryoflex insulation 219 out to the inside diameter of shield conductor pipe 114 . Semiconductor tape material from stress cone 107 is extended over the outside surface of Cryoflex insulation layers 213 to Teflon tubes 216 to eliminate electrical stress at holes 215 . The outside of Teflon tubes 216 and the tapered section of G-10 sleeve 123 is over wound with layers of Cryoflex insulation to the inside diameter of shield conductor pipe 114 . The various layers of electrical insulation and semiconductor tape are fastened in place, when required, by Kapton tape.
[0047] [0047]FIG. 6 depicts the feed termination. In this termination coolant enters at 232 , flows along the outside of copper shield conductor pipe 114 through annular heat transfer gap 227 , through holes 215 , through Teflon tubes 216 , along the outside of copper phase conductor pipe 104 through annular heat transfer gap 225 , through holes 229 , and then along the inside of copper phase conductor pipe 104 through heat transfer gap 224 to the inside of the cable. Flow through the splice in the return end is in the opposite direction where coolant flows to the outside of the cable and then back to the feed end where it exits through 230 . Heat transfer gaps 227 , 224 , and 225 are sized to maintain the cold section of the termination at the desired operating temperature.
[0048] The outside of heat transfer gap 227 envelope in FIG. 6 is formed by G-10 sleeve 107 . Sleeve 107 has a stainless steel flange at one end that is fastened to insulated conduit 109 using bolts. Sleeve 107 differs between the feed and return ends. FIG. 6 depicts the feed end that has a spring-loaded PTFE face seal 127 between G-10 sleeve 107 flange and insulated conduit 109 . The return end requires no such seal. The stainless steel flange on G-10 sleeve 107 for the return end, however, has several holes that allow free passage of coolant across the flange from the inside to the outside of the flange. G-10 sleeve 107 has a spring loaded sliding seal 212 that rides against copper shield conductor pipe 114 . Sliding seal 212 , depicted in FIG. 7, uses 0.062 inch thick GoreTex gasket material 304 to form a seal between G-10 sleeve 107 and copper shield conductor 114 . The GoreTex gasket is held in place with cover plate 303 that has a record groove surface to hold the GoreTex gasket in place. GoreTex gasket 304 is energized by a helical spring 305 such as Bal Seal 107LBA-(2.500)-50W-2 spring fitted inside retaining ring 301 . Centering ring 105 functions as a sleeve bearing supporting copper shield conductor 114 .
[0049] Although this invention describes a connector for a single phase superconducting cable, it will be understood by one skilled in the art the above invention is also useable for multi-phase cables.
[0050] Although specific embodiments have been illustrated and described, it will be obvious to those skilled in the art that various modifications may be made without departing from the essence of the invention. | Disclosed is a termination that connects high temperature superconducting (HTS) cable immersed in pressurized liquid nitrogen to high voltage and neutral (shield) external bushings at ambient temperature and pressure. The termination consists of a splice between the HTS power (inner) and shield (outer) conductors and concentric copper pipes which are the conductors in the termination. There is also a transition from the dielectric tape insulator used in the HTS cable to the insulators used between and around the copper pipe conductors in the termination. At the warm end of the termination the copper pipes are connected via copper braided straps to the conventional warm external bushings which have low thermal stresses. This termination allows for a natural temperature gradient in the copper pipe conductors inside the termination which enables the controlled flashing of the pressurized liquid coolant (nitrogen) to the gaseous state. Thus the entire termination is near the coolant supply pressure and the high voltage and shield cold bushings, a highly stressed component used in most HTS cables, are eliminated. A sliding seal allows for cable contraction as it is cooled from room temperature to ˜72-82 K. Seals, static vacuum, and multi-layer superinsulation minimize radial heat leak to the environment. | 7 |
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
This application is a continuation-in-part of and claims priority to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/556,592, filed Jul. 24, 2012, now U.S. Pat. No. 8,444,722, issued on May 21, 2013, which is a continuation application and claims priority to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/655,716, filed on Jan. 6, 2010, now abandoned. This application also relates to International Patent Application Serial No. PCT/US2013/21563, filed Jan. 15, 2013. The disclosures of these patent documents are incorporated herein by reference in their entireties.
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material, which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the United States Patent and Trademark Office files or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to ecologically friendly fuel products and fire starters and, more particularly, to ecologically friendly fuel products such as, for example, fuel logs, blocks, bricks, pellets and the like, and fire starters made from organic and inorganic material.
2. Description of the Related Art
The search for new energy sources is on ongoing concern for all humanity as a rate of depletion of oil reserves and other energy sources such as, for example, coal, natural gas, wind, solar, nuclear, hydrogen, increases with rising demand. Additionally, concerns grow over the treatment of waste products with respect to, for example, safety, reliability, and disposal of the waste product. Accordingly, the inventor has determined that the exploitation of new energy sources can go hand-in-hand with addressing the problem of how to dispose of and potentially reuse, recycle, or usefully convert, all of the waste material and products, both organic and inorganic, produced by humans and/or animals in commercial, agricultural and/or industrial activities. As the protection and preservation of the environment is of paramount concern, the reuse and recycling of all manner of waste product, human and non-human, organic and inorganic, is being undertaken at all levels of society, whether it is personal, occupational, or governmental level.
One of the most common and overlooked sources of waste and potential energy is livestock manure which can include, but is not limited to, manure produced by cattle, horses, sheep, goats, pigs, poultry, and the like. Such waste materials accumulate in amounts over millions of pounds per year. These waste materials must be disposed of in environmentally safe and governmentally approved methods. With economic circumstances squeezing agricultural and other establishments using animals and live stock, such as small farms and/or sporting facilities, along with the increased costs and complexities of appropriately disposing of all the waste materials and products, establishments are investigating ways to convert the waste material into a usable product. It is generally known that if a usable fuel can be generated from such waste material, the fuel would be both eco friendly and profitable for the establishment. The prior art discloses a variety of methods and processes for converting various types of organic and inorganic material into usable fuel product.
For example, Jackman (U.S. Pat. No. 3,910,775) is seen to describe a method and an apparatus for handling refuse, using waste and treating raw sewage wherein the material is processed into a source of energy.
Beningson et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 4,063,903) is seen to describe an apparatus for disposal of solid wastes and recovery of fuel product therefrom through the conversion of the organic fraction of such wastes to fuel by the recovery of the constituents of the inorganic fashion.
Schulz (U.S. Pat. No. 4,152,119) is seen to describe briquettes of a specified geometry and composition that are produced to serve as feed material or “burden” in a moving-burden gasifier for the production of a synthesis or fuel gas from organic solid waste materials and coal.
Nielsen (U.S. Pat. No. 4,372,749) is seen to describe a method for the manufacturing of fuel briquettes from selected components of garbage that are comminuted and combined with coal dust.
Lindemann (U.S. Pat. No. 4,496,365) is seen to describe a method of producing briquettes from organic waste products by the use of high pressure to produce sterilized fuel briquettes of high heating values.
White (U.S. Pat. No. 6,506,223) is seen to describe a fuel pellet that is produced by the combination of organic waste material with a binder obtained by direct liquefaction and/or fast pyrolysis of biomass material.
Miller (U.S. Pat. No. 6,544,425) is seen to describe a method of dewatering coal tailings and slurries and removing contaminants therefrom.
Cullen (U.S. Patent Application Pub. No. US 2007/0006526 A1) is seen to describe fuel pellet briquettes manufactured from biomass and recovered coal slurries.
Philipson (U.S. Pat. No. 7,252,691) is seen to describe a process for the conversion of municipal solid waste to combustible pellets of high fuel value.
Nonetheless, despite the ingenuity of the above apparatuses, methods, and processes, there remains a need for ecologically friendly fuel products and fire starters and, more particularly, for ecologically friendly fuel products such as, for example, fuel logs, blocks, bricks, pellets and the like, and fire starters made from organic and inorganic material including for example, waste matter, readily available on agricultural and livestock establishments such as, for example, farms and/or sporting establishments.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is directed to ecologically friendly organic fuel products and fire starters including products in the form of logs, balls, blocks, bricks, briquettes, blanks, and/or pellets from organic material that include straw and manure from, for example, cattle; sheep, goats, poultry, horses and the like. The fuel products and fire starters, in any of the above forms, is a mixture composed by weight or volume of the following elements, components, and/or ingredients in various combinations: at least about fifty-eight to sixty percent (58% to 60%) decomposed straw, at least about thirty-eight percent (38%) horse and/or cow manure, about two percent (2%) hay mixture of various blends that is dry and used as feed, and about two percent (2%) straw dust that is from material that has been pounded on by animals. The mixture can vary up or down (e.g., plus or minus) by up to about six percent (6%) of each element, component and/or ingredient.
In one embodiment, the fuel products and fire starters are hydraulically compressed to a solid configuration weighing approximately two pounds (2 lbs.; 0.91 kilograms), plus or minus several ounces, and whose dimensions are at least about two and one half inches (2.5 in.; 6.35 centimeters (cm.)) wide, three and one half inches (3.5 in.; 8.89 cm.) high, and six inches (6 in.; 15.24 cm.) in length. It should be appreciated that the above described compression process could also be used in the creation of fuel and/or fire staring logs, balls, bricks, briquettes, blanks, or pellets incorporating, for example, wood chips and coal slurry material. Thus, both organic material and/or inorganic material, though not necessarily mixed together, can be subjected to the above process and method for producing fuel products and fire starters.
In one aspect, the present invention provides a process and a method for manufacturing organic fuel products and fire starters in various forms, each that are renewable and reduce the carbon footprint on the earth.
In another aspect, the present invention provides a process and a method for manufacturing organic fuel products and fire starters in various forms, each that is eco friendly and is made from readily available natural resources.
In yet another aspect, the present invention provides a process and a method for manufacturing organic fuel products and fire starters in various forms, each that burn clean and puts carbon in the ash to be deposited back into the ground.
In still another aspect, the present invention provides a process and a method of manufacturing organic fuel products and fire starters in various forms, each that avoid the formation of creosote in a chimney or other exhaust line or outlet, and that reduce any risk of fire.
In still yet further aspect, the present invention provides a process and a method of manufacturing organic fuel products and fire starters in various forms, each that eliminate all work from splitting wood, chain saw, use of gasoline, and the problems that arise from wood stacked in the home such as, for example, the attraction and potential infestation of bugs, and of the labor associated with the above.
In still further aspects, the present invention provides a process and a method of manufacturing organic fuel products and fire starters that are manufactured in pellet form suitable for use, for example, in a pellet stoves and the like.
In still further aspects, the present invention provides a process and a method of manufacturing organic fuel products and fire starters that are used for fertilizer in pots, directly in gardens, and with one of the components helping to, for example, keep moisture around plants and other vegetation thereby reducing the need to water the plants and vegetation.
In still further aspects, the present invention provides a process and a method of manufacturing organic fuel products and fire starters that are wholly organic and eliminate, or at least reduce, any need for the use of chemicals of any kind.
In still further aspects, the present invention provides a process and a method of manufacturing organic fuel products and fire starters that when manufactured and configured in pellet form can be used in a variety of flora that require nutrients.
In still further aspects, the present invention provides a process for creating an organic fuel product from raw organic material, the process comprising: placing straw in a first grinder for grinding; cleaning the ground straw by removing seeds; hammering the straw in a hammering process; heating the straw to a temperature of at least 110 degrees Fahrenheit; providing the straw to a second grinder for mixing and grinding; adding manure to the second grinder for mixing and grinding with the straw; providing the mixed and ground straw and manure to a tumble dryer for drying the straw and manure mixture to an amount that is less than ten percent of the original moisture content of the straw; and providing the intermixed straw and manure from the tumble dryer to a hydraulic press for compacting and compressing the intermixed straw and manure thereby creating an organic fuel product.
In one embodiment, the process for creating the organic fuel product, further including providing at least one of hay and straw dust that is added to and intermixed with the straw at the first grinder. In one embodiment, the hay is at least one of hay that is used to feed animals, hay that is used as bedding for animals and hay that is used as mulch. In one embodiment, the hydraulic press of the process for creating the organic fuel product exerts a pressure of at least 22,000 pounds per square inch.
In one embodiment, the fuel product produced by the process is comprised of straw in a range of about 58 to 60 percent by weight. In one embodiment, the fuel product produced by the process is comprised of manure in a range of about 38 percent by weight. In one embodiment, the manure is derived from horses. In one embodiment, the manure is derived from cows. In yet another embodiment, the manure is derived from swine. In still another embodiment, the manure is derived from poultry.
In one embodiment, the fuel product produced by the process is comprised of hay in a range of about 2 percent by weight. In one embodiment, the fuel product produced by the process is comprised of straw dust in a range of about 2 percent by weight.
In one embodiment, the fuel product produced by the process is configured in the form of a cylindrical pellet. In another embodiment, the fuel product produced by the process is configured in a form of a brick that is at least six inches long, at least two and one half inches wide and at least three and one half inches high.
In one embodiment, the process for creating the organic fuel product, further includes, prior to the step of adding the manure to the second grinder, composting the manure for a period of time of at least about one day to forty-five days.
In one embodiment, the process for creating the organic fuel product further includes filtering an output of the first grinder to collect contaminates including at least one of fine or coarse dust, powders or particles, gases and/or a combination thereof.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
The features and advantages of the present invention will be better understood when the Detailed Description of the Preferred Embodiments given below is considered in conjunction with the figures provided.
FIG. 1 is an exemplary schematic diagram of one process and method of manufacturing organic fuel products and fire starters illustrating the method and processing steps of converting natural materials to a usable fuel product and fire starter.
FIG. 2 is a perspective view of a fuel product, e.g., a fuel briquette, formed by the process and method illustrated in FIG. 1 .
FIG. 3 is a perspective view another fuel product, e.g., a cylindrical pellet, formed by the process and method illustrated in FIG. 1 .
FIG. 4 is a table of exemplary ingredients used in the process and method of FIG. 1 .
FIG. 5 is an elevation view of a fire starter, formed by the process and method illustrated in FIG. 1 , in use.
FIG. 6 is a perspective view of the fire starter of FIG. 5 .
FIGS. 7A and 7B are views of a filtration system in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 8 depicts the filtration system of FIGS. 7A and 7B deployed, in one embodiment of the present invention, to filter output from a hammering process of the process of FIG. 1 .
In these figures like structures are assigned like reference numerals, but may not be referenced in the description of all figures.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
As illustrated in FIGS. 1 to 8 , ecologically friendly, organically composed fuel products and fire starters including products in the form of logs, balls, spheres, blocks, bricks, briquettes, blanks, and/or pellets are formed in a method and/or process 10 generally depicted in FIG. 1 . In one embodiment, a fuel product is formed as a fuel brick 12 ( FIGS. 1 and 2 ), in another embodiment, the fuel product is formed as a cylindrical pellet 14 ( FIG. 3 ), and in still another embodiment, a fire starter is formed as a fire starting ball or fire starter 13 ( FIGS. 5 and 6 ).
As illustrated in FIGS. 1-4 , raw organic materials 15 such as, for example, components, elements and/or ingredients set forth in the Table 16 ( FIG. 4 ) are provided to form the ecologically friendly, organically composed fuel products and fire starters, such as the fuel brick 12 or fuel pellet 14 , including: by weight about fifty-eight to sixty percent (58% to 60%) straw 18 that has been hammered, cleaned of all seeds, and heated to a temperature from about sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit (65° F.; about 18.3° C.), to about two hundred degrees Fahrenheit (200° F.; about 93.3° C.), and preferably to at least about one hundred ten degrees Fahrenheit (110° F.; about 43.3° C.), then decomposed for a time period from about one (1) day to about forty-five (45) days or more, and preferably to at least about forty-five (45) days; about thirty-eight percent (38%) animal manure 20 preferably, but not exclusively limited to, horse or cow manure that is removed from stalls and kept dry under cover and mixed with straw compound; about two percent (2%) hay mixture of various blends that is dry and used as feed; and about two percent (2%) straw dust that is derived from material that has been pounded on by, for example, animals such as the aforementioned horses, cows, and the like.
It should be appreciated that it is within the scope of the present invention that the components, elements and/or ingredients that comprise the mixture that form the fuel products (e.g., fuel brick 12 or fuel pellet 14 ) can vary up or down (e.g., plus or minus) by approximately six percent (6%) of each component, element and/or ingredient. For example, the mixture that forms the fuel products may or may not include hay 22 and/or straw dust 24 . Moreover, wax 25 is optionally added to the mixture by decreasing one or more of the aforementioned components, elements and/or ingredients, when the mixture is used to form the fire starter 13 . As such, wax 25 is not a required element for fuel products (e.g., the fuel brick 12 or the fuel pellet 14 ). Similarly, one or more additives 21 may optionally be added to the mixture by decreasing one or more of the aforementioned components, elements and/or ingredients, when the mixture is used to form the fuel products (e.g., fuel brick 12 or fuel pellet 14 ) and/or the fire starter 13 to provide a visual and/or aromatic feature, as described below. The one or more additives 21 may be added by weight at about less than one percent or one percent to five percent (<1% or 1% to 5%). It should also be appreciated that while the manure is described as being preferably from horses or cows, the manure may also be manure produced by, for example, cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, poultry, and the like. Similarly, while the hay is described as being feed grade hay, it is also within the scope of the present invention to use other blends of hay such as, for example, bedding hay, mulch hay and the like.
When the forming process 10 of FIG. 1 is completed, the fuel products and/or fire starter (and components, elements and/or ingredients thereof) are dried to less than about ten percent (10%) of their moisture content.
In general, the components, elements and/or ingredients 15 are run through a medium to a fine grinder in a tube system that then feeds the components, elements and/or ingredients 15 to a hopper that then feeds the material through to a piping system that is computer controlled. This allows enough raw materials of the components, elements and/or ingredients 15 to enter a chamber that forms the fuel products and/or fire starter. In one embodiment, this step is electronically controlled by a visual inspection system. The material is then hydraulically compacted by at least about twenty-two thousand (22,000) or more pounds of pressure thereby creating a form, such as for example, the block or brick 12 that weigh approximately two pounds (2 lbs.; 0.91 kg.) plus or minus several ounces. As shown in FIG. 2 , in one embodiment, the configuration of the ecologically friendly, organic fuel brick 12 includes dimensions of at least about six inches (6 in.; 15.24 cm.) long, two and one half inches (2.5 in.; 6.35 cm.) wide, and three and one half inches (3.5 in.; 8.89 cm.) high.
More specifically, with reference to FIG. 1 , the process or method 10 for creating or producing the organic fuel products (e.g., the fuel brick 12 or fuel pellet 14 ) from the above described raw organic materials 15 (e.g., the components, elements and/or ingredients 15 of FIG. 4 ), includes the following steps. First, the raw materials 15 , e.g., natural field straw 18 with or without one or more of hay 22 and/or straw dust 24 is provided, and then the raw material 15 is deposited in (e.g., by feed from a conduit) a first grinder 26 to undergo a grinding process. In one embodiment, depicted in FIG. 1 , a first one 60 A of a filtration system 60 is optionally coupled to the first grinder 26 by a conduit 50 such as, for example, a flexible, semi-rigid or rigid pipe (e.g., a ten inch (10″) steel pipe). The filtration system 60 , described in detailed below, receives and collects or filters contaminates such as, for example, fine or coarse dust, powders or particles, gases (e.g., ammonia gas) and/or a combination thereof. Next, the ground material 15 comprising the natural field straw 18 , with or without one or more of hay 22 and straw dust 24 , passes to a cleaning chamber 28 for cleaning and to undergo a removal of scales and a cleaning of all seeds, and the like. Next the cleaned and ground material 15 passes to the hammering process 30 . As shown in FIG. 1 , a second one 60 B of the filtration system 60 is coupled to the hammering process by a conduit 50 to receive and collect or filter contaminates output therefrom. From the hammering process 30 the raw material 15 moves to a heating process 32 where the hammered, cleaned and ground material 15 is heated to a temperature of at least about one hundred and ten degrees Fahrenheit (110° F.; about 43.3° C.). The heated material 15 then passes to a second grinder 34 having a mixing and grinding chamber 34 A. At the second grinder 34 animal manure 20 such as, for example, horse or cow manure that has been decomposed or composted for a time period of at least about forty-five (45) days, is added to the processed material 15 (e.g., in one embodiment, the processed straw 18 with or without one or more of hay 22 and straw dust 24 ). It should be noted that the percentage amounts of each component, element and/or ingredient of the mix comprising the material 15 (e.g., the straw 18 , manure 20 either horse or cow, hay 22 and straw dust 24 ) can vary up or down (plus or minus) by at least about six percent (6%). As shown in FIG. 1 , the filtration system 60 is optionally omitted from the second grinder 34 , although it should be appreciated that it is within the scope of the present invention to optionally provide one of the filtration system 60 coupled to the second grinder 34 .
The processed material 15 , which now includes the manure 20 , is provided to, for example, a tumble dryer 36 that dries the processed material 15 to below less than about ten percent (10%) of its original moisture content. As shown, a third one 60 C of the filtration system 60 is coupled to the tumble dryer 36 by a conduit 50 to receive and collect or filter contaminates output therefrom.
From there the processed material 15 is provided to a collection chamber 38 and then, optionally, the material 15 is provided to a hopper feeder 40 (shown in dashed lines). In one embodiment, the hopper feeder 40 selectively feeds the processed material 15 to a hydraulic press 42 such as, for example, a briquette machine, that compresses or compacts the processed material 15 by the application of about twenty-two thousand (22,000) or more pounds of pressure thereby creating the organic fuel product (e.g., the fuel block 12 ) having predetermined dimensions. It should be appreciated that it is within the scope of the present invention to eliminate the hopper feeder 40 as other means may be employed to selectively feed the processed material 15 to the hydraulic press 42 . It should also be appreciated that it is within the scope of the present invention to form/configure various shaped fuel products such as logs, balls, blocks, bricks, briquettes, blanks, and/or pellets in the hydraulic press 42 including the fuel brick 12 ( FIGS. 1 and 2 ), the cylindrical pellet 14 ( FIG. 3 ), and the fire starting ball 13 ( FIGS. 5 and 6 ).
In one aspect of the present invention, to form the fire starter 13 as illustrated in FIG. 5 , prior to processing by the hydraulic press 42 , wax 25 is added to the processed material 15 (e.g., the processed straw 18 , manure 20 either horse or cow, with or without one or more of hay 22 and straw dust 24 ). In one embodiment, the fire starter 13 includes: by weight about fifty-eight to sixty percent (58% to 60%) straw 18 that has been hammered, cleaned of all seeds, and heated to a temperature from about sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit (65° F.; about 18.3° C.), to about two hundred degrees Fahrenheit (200° F.; about 93.3° C.), and preferably to at least about one hundred ten degrees Fahrenheit (110° F.; about 43.3° C.), then decomposed for a time period from about one (1) day to about forty-five (45) days or more, and preferably to at least about forty-five (45) days; about thirty-eight percent (38%) animal manure 20 preferably, but not exclusively limited to, horse or cow manure that is removed from stalls and kept dry under cover and mixed with straw compound; about two percent (2%) wax 25 . The processed material 15 and wax 25 mixture is next sent to the hydraulic press 42 that compresses or compacts the processed material 15 by the application of about twenty-two thousand (22,000) or more pounds of pressure thereby creating the organic fire starter 13 having predetermined dimensions such as, for example, a ball or sphere shape. In one embodiment, the fire starter 13 is not sent to the hydraulic press 42 and, as such, does not undergo the compressing or compacting step. Rather, the mixture of the processed material 15 and the wax 25 is otherwise formed into sphere or ball shape for use.
In yet another aspect of the present invention the components, elements and/or ingredients that comprise the mixture that form the fuel products (e.g., fuel brick 12 or fuel pellet 14 ) and/or the fire starter 13 includes the additives 21 to enhance a visual or aromatic feature of the fuel products (e.g., fuel brick 12 or fuel pellet 14 ) and/or the fire starter 13 . For example, it should be appreciated that it is within the scope of the present invention to add a fragrance such as, for example, lavender, rose, sandlewood, pine, patchouli and the like, to provide a more aesthetically pleasing smell or aroma to the products as they are stored and/or used. Similarly, it should be appreciated that a component may be added to provide a preferred color to the fuel products and/or fire starters while not in use (e.g., in shipment, storage and/or display) or which when used burns to provide a desirable visual effect (e.g., color or other effect).
The filtration system 60 , in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention is depicted in FIGS. 7A , 7 B, and 8 . As shown in FIG. 7A , that depicts a bottom view, the filtration system 60 includes a filtration chamber 62 having one or more input ports 66 (e.g., one (1) input port 66 A shown) and one or more output ports 64 (e.g., four (4) output ports 64 A to 64 D shown). As described above, the filtration system 60 receives an air flow, via the conduit 50 coupled to the one or more input ports 66 , from one or more steps of the process of FIG. 1 , and collects or filters contaminates such as, for example, fine or coarse dust, powders or particles, gases (e.g., ammonia gas) and/or a combination thereof, from the air flow. As shown in FIGS. 7B and 8 , one or more filtration bags or containers 70 are coupled to the one or more output ports 64 . In one embodiment, the filtration bag or container 70 is selectively attachable and detachable from the one or more output ports 64 to permit periodic removal for cleaning. In one embodiment, the filtration bag or container 70 comprised of fabric or like material having a capability to filter or screen gases, particles and other contaminates. In one embodiment, the filtration bag or container 70 filters, at an about ninety-nine percent (99%) efficiency, particles having a size in a range of about one (1) micron or more.
While various changes in the details, steps, and components that have been described may be made by those skilled in the art within the principles and scope of the invention herein illustrated and defined in the appended claims; therefore, the invention has been shown and described herein in what is believed to be the most practical and preferred embodiments, it is recognized that departures can be made therefrom within the scope of the invention, and that are not to be limited to the details disclosed herein, but is to be accorded the full scope of the claims so as to embrace any and all equivalent processes, methods, steps, and end products. | Ecologically friendly and organically composed fuel products and fire starters are presented. The composition of products and starters includes, but is not limited to: 58 to 60 percent decomposed straw, 38 percent horse or cow manure, and optionally, two percent hay mixture from various blends used as feed, and two percent straw dust from material pounded on by animals. During a formation process the composition is subjected to a number of steps with the end product being a hydraulically compressed fuel log, brick, ball, block, briquette, blank, pellet, and the like, dried to a less than 10 percent moisture content. While the process is applicable to formation of organic fuel products and fire starters, other ingredients may be used to produce other types of fuel products, both organic and inorganic, including wood chips, other kinds of animal manure. | 2 |
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates to a pressure actuator which derives power from a difference of pressure between two pressure sources such as an engine intake system and the atmosphere and in particular to an air filter system for a vacuum actuator for vehicle speed control which is economical and reliable. Typically, one of the pressure sources is the atmosphere but the other pressure source may be either a negative pressure source such as an engine intake system or a positive pressure source derived from an air pump or the like (for instance in the case of a supercharged engine from which negative pressure is not always available).
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
From the past, various speed control devices for maintaining vehicle speed at fixed levels have been known. According to such a speed control device which is sometimes called as a cruise control device, the driver is not required to keep stepping on the accelerator pedal to keep the automobile cruising at a constant speed and he is free from the need for adjusting the depression of the accelerator pedal in order to maintain a constant speed irrespective of the inclination and other conditions of the road.
Vacuum actuators which derive power from negative pressure of the engine intake system are commonly used as actuators for vehicle speed control. A conventional typical vacuum actuator comprises a diaphragm which defines a negative pressure chamber in cooperation with the casing of the actuator and a plurality of solenoid valves which selectively communicate the negative pressure chamber with the intake system of the engine or the atmosphere as required, and the resulting displacement of the diaphragm is transmitted to the accelerator pedal by way of a control cable. The solenoid valves are controlled by a control device incorporating a micro processor, and the output of a speed sensor is supplied to the control device. Thus, using the vehicle speed as a controlled variable and the accelerator pedal depression as a manipulated variable, the control device controls the accelerator pedal depression by way of the solenoid valves and maintains the vehicle speed at a constant level by a feedback control.
Specifically, negative pressure from the engine intake system is supplied to the negative pressure chamber by way of a negative pressure valve when the accelerator pedal depression is required to be increased, and the atmospheric pressure is introduced into the negative pressure chamber by way of a vent valve when the accelerator pedal depression is required to be reduced. Additionally, when the accelerator pedal is required to be quickly released, for instance when the vehicle brake is activate, a safety valve is activated and quickly communicates the negative pressure chamber with the atmosphere. Thus, in order to assure a high level of reliability, the vent valve and the safety valve are used in parallel in a redundant manner.
While the negative pressure source only draws air from the actuator, the atmospheric air supplied to the actuator through the vent valve and the safety valve must be actually introduced into the valves and eventually to the engine intake system. Therefore, in order to assure proper functioning of the solenoid valves, the atmospheric air must be filtered with an air filter unit which is typically internally equipped in the actuator. Since the air is more or less continually introduced into the actuator, the air filter unit must be capable of functioning properly for a long time period without replacing filter elements. Clogging of the air filter elements will cause a failure of the actuator.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 62-96144 (based on U.S. patent application Ser. No. 783,039 filed on Sept. 30, 1985 now abandoned) discloses a vacuum actuator of this type. This actuator is provided with a vent valve and a safety valve, but an air filter device having a single filter element which is common to the vent valve and the safety valve selectively communicates a vacuum chamber defined by a diaphragm with the atmosphere. However, according to this prior art, the air passage within the filter element appears to be restricted and local clogging of the filter element appears to be inevitable over an extended service period.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE PRESENT INVENTION
In view of such and other problems of the prior art, a primary object of the present invention is to provide an air filter system for a vacuum actuator which is capable of effectively removing foreign matters from the air introduced into the actuator over a long time period.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an air filter system for a vacuum actuator which is free from clogging over a long period by efficient utilization of a filter element.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide an air filter system for a vacuum actuator which is effective in removing foreign matters and is yet capable of rapid venting action as required.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide an air filter system for a vacuum actuator which offers relatively small flow resistance to the incoming air flow.
According to the present invention, these and other objects of the present invention can be accomplished by providing an air filter unit for a pressure actuator comprising a solenoid valve unit including a plurality of solenoid valves and a diaphragm unit including a diaphragm defining a pressure chamber, air pressure within the pressure chamber being adjusted by selective activation of the solenoid valves which communicate the pressure chamber with pressure sources of different pressure levels, comprising: a filter element holder defining a pair of receptacles for receiving filter elements therein, the filter elements being so disposed as to intercept air flow from an external air source into the vacuum chamber by way of corresponding ones of the solenoid valves; the first filter element received in one of the receptacles being finer in structure than the second filter element received in the other receptacle.
Thus, the air filter system is effective in removing foreign matters and is yet capable of rapid venting action as required. According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the first filter element consists of a combination of a paper filter element and a urethane foam filter element while the second filter element consists solely of a urethane foam filter element.
According to a certain aspect of the present invention, the receptacles are arranged in the filter element holder in a mutually parallel relationship, one end of each of the receptacles being communicated with a port of corresponding one of the solenoid valves while the other end of the receptacle is communicated with a common air inlet provided in a casing of the actuator; the one end of at least the receptacle which receives the first filter element being provided with a bottom wall having a hole and a step for contacting the paper filter element so as to define a depression communicated with the hole and extending in a radial direction.
Thus, through effective utilization of the filter element, the air filter system offers relatively small flow resistance to the incoming air flow and is free from clogging over a long period.
According to another aspect of the present invention, the paper filter element and the urethane foam filter element of the first filter element have different colors while at least a part of the filter element holder defining the receptacle receiving the first filter element is made of at least semitransparent material and the air filter holder is provided with a part which is complementary in shape to a corresponding part of the casing of the actuator for preventing the air filter holder to be fitted into the casing with improper orientation. This is advantageous for preventing omissions and errors in assembling the actuator.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 is a schematic view illustrating the overall structure and the action of the cruise control device to which the vacuum actuator of the present invention is applied;
FIG. 2 is an exploded perspective view of the vacuum actuator according to the present invention;
FIG. 3 is a sectional view showing the air filter unit in greater detail;
FIG. 4 is an exploded perspective view of the air filter unit showing how it is fitted into an internal depressi,on of an end cover of the casing of the actuator.
FIG. 5 is a partly cut-away perspective view of the filter element holder; and
FIG. 6 is a partly broken-away perspective view of the vacuum actuator.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT
Now the present invention is described in the following with reference to the appended drawings.
FIG. 1 shows a preferred embodiment of the vacuum actuator according to the present invention, and this vacuum actuator comprises a solenoid valve unit 1 and a diaphragm unit 2. The overall housing 6 of this vacuum actuator comprises a casing 80 which is made of synthetic resin material and accommodates the solenoid valve unit 1 and another casing 60 which is made of sheet metal and accommodates diaphragm unit 2. The solenoid valve unit 1 comprises a vacuum valve 3, a safety valve 4 and a vent valve 5.
As best shown in FIG. 6, a diaphragm 8 which is biased by a conical coil spring 7 is interposed between the two parts of the housing 6 and defines a vacuum chamber 9 in cooperation with the casing 80 of the solenoid valve unit 1. A wire holder 10 is attached to a central part of the diaphragm 8 so as to project out of the casing 60 of the diaphragm unit 2. Thus, dependent upon the magnitude of the negative pressure in the negative pressure chamber 9, the wire holder 10 is axially displaced and actuates a accelerator pedal (not shown in the drawings) by way of a control cable as described in greater detail hereinafter.
A first port of the vacuum valve 3 is connected to an engine intake system (not shown in the drawings) by way of a conduit 11 and a check valve 12 while a second port of the vacuum valve 3 is communicated with the vacuum chamber 9 within the casing 80 as described hereinafter. The conduit 11 is also connected to an accumulator 13 for storing vacuum or negative pressure therein Thus, by opening this vacuum valve 3, the negative pressure in the negative pressure chamber 9 is increased and the diaphragm 8 is pulled inwardly against the spring force of the conical coil spring 7 thereby actuating the accelerator pedal in the direction to increase the vehicle speed.
A first port of the vent valve 4 is connected to the atmosphere by way of an air filter unit 14 while a second port of the vent valve 4 is likewise communicated with the vacuum chamber 9 within the casing 80. Therefore, by opening the vent valve 4, the negative pressure in the negative pressure chamber 9 is reduced by the introduction of atmospheric air into the negative pressure chamber 9 and the diaphragm 8 is pushed outwardly by the conical coil spring 7 thereby actuating the accelerator pedal in the direction to reduce the vehicle speed.
A first port of the safety valve 5 is communicated with the atmosphere by way of the air filter unit 14 in the same way as the vent valve 4 while a second port of the safety valve 5 is likewise communicated with the vacuum chamber 9 within the casing 80. By opening the safety valve 5, the negative pressure chamber 9 is rapidly communicated with the atmosphere. This safety valve 5 is opened when the action of the cruise control is to be stopped either as a voluntary action of the driver or as an automatic action when the control system has detected a certain condition.
These solenoid valves 3 to 5 are controlled by signals from the control circuit 15.
FIG. 2 shows the solenoid valve unit 1 of the above described actuator unit in greater detail. The casing 80 of the solenoid valve unit 1 is generally dish-shaped and is integrally provided with an extension 80a defining an open-ended box. The inner circumference of the open end of the extension 80a is provided with a step 86 for supporting a sealing gasket 18 as described hereinafter. Further, the four corners of the open end of the extension 80a are each provided with a threaded hole 87.
The closed end of the extension 80a opposite to the open end or the bottom of the extension 80a is provided with three holes 82 and 83 for receiving the second ports 29 of the valves 3 to 5 by way of O-rings 30 in an air-tight manner. (The corresponding hole for the vacuum valve 3 is hidden in FIG. 2.) The hole for the vacuum valve 3 is individually communicated with the vacuum chamber 9 while the holes 82 and 83 are communicated with the vacuum chamber 9 by way of a common passage 85 defined by a bulge 84 projecting from the bottom wall 80b of the extension 80a.
Each of the valves 3 to 5 comprises a solenoid 20 and a yoke 21 defining a magnetic circuit outside the solenoid 20 in addition to a valve member, a valve seat and a return spring which are shown only in FIG. 1 in a simplified manner. The yokes 21 are generally C-shaped shaped and their open ends are provided with tongues 22 which are passed through corresponding holes 23 and 24 of a plate 26 and crimped thereto. The plate 26 also serves as a part of the magnetic circuits of the three solenoid valves 3 to 5. As can be seen from FIG. 2, the holes 23 are elongated in shape and additionally receive a pair of small screws 42 which secure the plate 26 to an end cover 31 by being threaded into corresponding threaded holes 25 provided in the end cover 31. The end cover 31 is made of the same material as the casing 80 and defines an enclosed space for accommodating the solenoid valve unit 1 in cooperation with the extension 80a. The holes 24 are also elongated in shape and each receive a pair of tongues 22 belonging to two adjoining yokes 21. These holes 23 and 24 are thus shared either by two tongues or by a tongue and a screw. This not only reduces the work required for punching these holes as compared with the case of providing individual holes for different tongues and screws but also saves space by eliminating the problems involved in forming closely adjoining holes.
The coil wires of these solenoid valves 3 to 5 are connected to a circuit board 27 attached to a broader surface of the solenoid valve unit 1 and are appropriately wired to lead wires 28 which extend to the outside. The other or the first ports 3a and 41 of the solenoid valves 3 to 5 project through the plate 26. The first port 3a of the vacuum valve 3 is defined by an axially elongated member and is passed through a hole 32 provided in the end cover 31 with an annular sea1 member 49 made of polymer material fitted over the port member to assure the sealing requirements
The end cover 31 is further provided with a bulge 34 which accommodates an air filter unit 14. The air filter unit 14 is provided with an air filter holder 39 which is elliptic in shape and accommodates a pair of air filter elements 38. The side of the air filter holder 39 facing the end cover 31 is generally exposed and its outer circumferential edge directed towards the end cover 31 is pressed against the inner surface of the bulge 34 by way of a rubber gasket 40. Vertical walls 47 and 48 are provided in middle parts of the air filter holder 39 facing the end cover 31 so as to control the air flow from an air inlet tube 33 provided integrally with the bulge 34 to the two air filter elements 38. The other side of the air filter holder 39 is provided with a pair of holes 45 which are concentric to the filter elements 38 and are surrounded by concentric annular projections 46 projecting towards the valves 3 to 5. These holes 45 are fitted over the first ports 41 of the vent valve 4 and the safety valve 5 and O-rings 44 fitted inside the annular projections 46 are pressed against the plate 26 around the ports 41 and meet the sealing requirements.
Thus, when the small screws 42 are passed through the holes 23 in the plate 26 and threaded into the threaded holes 25 of the end plate 31, the air filter unit 14 is interposed between the plate 26 and the end cover 31.
Further, when the solenoid valve unit 1 including the end cover 31, the air filter unit 14 and the solenoid valves 3 to 5 is inserted into the extension 80a of the casing 80, the valve assembly 1 is guided by the ribs 92 and 93 and the pointed corners of the solenoid valve unit 1 as well as the rugged portions of the printed circuit board 27 are prevented from contacting the inner surface of the extension 80a. Since the ribs 92 and 93 contact predetermined definite surface areas the solenoid valve unit 1 which are preselected to be smooth, the insertion of the solenoid valve unit 1 into the extension 80a can be accomplished in an extremely smooth manner and there is no possibility of scraping off chips from the inner surface of the extension 80a. When the solenoid valve unit 1 is completely fitted into the extension, small screws 50 are passed through the holes 36 provided on the four corners of the end cover 31 and threaded into the threaded holes 87 provided in the open end of the extension 80a.
As the solenoid valve unit 1 is completely fitted into the extension 80a, the ribs 94 provided in the bottom wall 80b of the extension are forced into the gaps 19 between the neighboring yokes 21 of the solenoid valve unit 1 and the yokes 21 are thus precisely positioned and held securely at their predetermined positions. Therefore, even when the yokes 21 are not sufficiently rigid by themselves, they are held rigidly and securely once they are assembled into the extension 80a. Thus, the thickness of the yokes 21 can be minimized and the weight and the space requirements of the solenoid valve unit 1 can be reduced.
When the solenoid valve unit 1 is completely fitted into the extension 80a, small screws 50 are passed through the holes 36 provided on the four corners of the end cover 31 and threaded into the threaded holes 87 provided in the open end of the extension 80a.
FIGS. 3 through 5 show the air filter unit in greater detail.
As best shown in FIG. 5, the filter element holder 39 defines a pair of cylindrical receptacles 43 for accommodating the filter elements 38. The bottom surface of each of these receptacles 38 is provided with a step 43a defining a clover shaped depression 43b which is located around the hole 45 and extends radially from the hole 45 to the outer wall of the receptacle 43. The filter elements 38 are made of foam material such as urethane foam, and an additional filter element 38a made of filter paper is interposed between the bottom of the receptacle 38 having the hole 45 and the filter element 38 made of urethane foam for the vent valve 4. On the other hand, no such additional filter element made of paper is placed in the receptacle 38 for the safety valve 5.
This arrangement of the filter elements 38 and 38a is advantageous because the paper filter element 38a having a finer structure provides a high filtering capability for the vent valve 4 which is active throughout the time the cruise control device is operating while the air passage for the safety valve 5, which is activated only when the cruise control is to be stopped and is therefore relatively rarely operated, is obstructed only by the filter element 38 made of urethane foam which has a coarse structure and is therefore highly permeable so as to assure rapid introduction of air into the vacuum chamber 9 when required. Also, the clover shaped depression 43b is advantageous because the filter element 38 or 38b, as the case may be, presents substantially whole major surface thereof to the hole 45, and assures uniform distribution of air flow within the filter element so as to effectively utilize the whole filter elements 38 and 38a and eliminate the possibility of the occurrence of local clogging of the filter element 38 or 38a. This is particularly significant for the paper filter element 38a.
Further, since the filter element holder 39 is made of substantially transparent or semi-transparent plastic material and the paper filter element 38a is tinted to a conspicuous color such as red while the color of the filter elements 38 made of urethane foam is gray, it is easy to detect possible omission of the paper filter element 38 during the inspection process which is typically included in the assembly process of the actuator. Also, a flange 39a integrally provided to a side end of the filter element holder 39 is adapted to be fitted into a notch 34b defined in the end cover 31 and this assures the prevention of inadvertent inversion of the filter element holder 39 when fitting it into the end cover 31 during the process of assembling the actuator.
As best shown in FIG. 3, a small hole 43a extends from the external bottom surface of the filter element holder 39 facing the solenoid valve unit 1 externally of the annular projection 46 to the interior of the receptacle 43 receiving the filter element 38. This small hole 43a provides a passage for the breathing air into and out of the casing 80 resulting from the change in temperature. Since this breathing air passage is intercepted by the filter element 38, introduction of foreign matters into the casing 80 is prevented and the reliability of the action of the actuator is thus improved.
As can be seen from FIGS. 3 through 5 taken together, the vertical walls 47 and 48 project into a depression 34a provided in the end cover 31 and the air introduced from the air inlet tube 33 is guided to a space 39a defined between the two vertical walls 47 and 48 instead of being diverted to the filter elements 38 directly. As a result, relatively heavy foreign matters which are introduced from the air inlet tube 33 tend to settle in the space 39a and are prevented from reaching the filter elements 38 and thereby clogging the filter elements 38 rapidly. Preferably, the actuator is mounted to an external member in such an orientation that the air inlet tube 33 depend vertically from the casing 80 of the actuator or, in other words, as shown in FIG. 3. Therefore, lighter foreign matters will be trapped by the filter elements 38 and 38a while heavier foreign matters will be separated from the air flow in the space 39a and drop through the air inlet tube 33 out of the actuator
In this conjunction, it should be noted that the vertical wall 47 for the safety valve 5 is provided with a notch 47a for permitting a relatively free flow of air because the safety valve 5 is relatively rarely used and required to be capable of rapid introduction of air, and the clogging of the air filter 38 is therefore a relatively minor problem.
FIG. 6 shows the diaphragm unit 2 in detail. The casing 60 which is made of sheet metal such as aluminum plate press-formed into a frusto-conical shape and is crimped over the casing 80 of the solenoid valve unit 1 interposing the circumferential fringe of the diaphragm therebetween. The casing 60 is integrally provided with a plurality of stud bolts 70 for mounting the vacuum actuator to an external member. The diaphragm 8 is cup-shaped so as to be substantially complementary to the inner surface of the diaphragm unit casing 60. A flat middle portion 61 of this diaphragm 8 is interposed between a pair of discs 62 and 63 which are securely joined together by rivets 64. The inner disc 62 located inside the vacuum chamber 9 is substantially conformal to the flat middle portion of the diaphragm 8 while the other or the outer disc 63 is slightly greater than a central opening 65 provided in the central part of the diaphragm casing 60. A conical coil spring 7 is interposed between the inner disc 62 and the solenoid valve unit casing 80 and biases the diaphragm 8 in the direction to increase the volume of the vacuum chamber 9. The outer surface of the outer disc 63 is provided with a wire holder 10 consisting of a hollow projection which projects out of the central opening 65 of the diaphragm casing 60. This wire holder 10 is provided with a side slit 66 extending along the whole length thereof, a pair of triangular reinforcement ribs 69 extending between the edges of the slide slit 66 and the outer surface of the outer disc 63, and an inwardly directed flange 67 provided in the free end of the projection and defining a small opening 67a in its center. The side slit 66 extends into this small opening 67a. Thus, by passing an end of a control cable 68 provided with a knot consisting of a block attached to the free end thereof into the opening 67a by way of the side slit 66, the control cable 68 can be securely connected to the projection 10. The other end of the control cable 68 is connected to an accelerator pedal which is not shown in the drawings.
Thus, according to the present embodiment, the air introduced into the vacuum chamber 9 by way of the vent valve 4 is finely filtered with a combination of the two filter elements 38 and 38a and, thus, although the vent valve 4 is continually used, foreign matters are effectively prevented from entering the actuator. On the other hand, since the filter element 38 for the safety valve 5 consists solely of urethane foam and therefore permits a relatively unobstructed flow of air, the function of the safety valve 5 to rapidly introduce air into the vacuum chamber 9 can be assured. This coarser filtering of the filter element 38 for the safety valve 5 is permissible because the safety valve 5 is relatively infrequently operated and, thus, the cumulative amount of air flow passing through the safety valve 5 is much less than that of the vent valve 4.
Furthermore, since the filter elements 38 and 38a present relatively large surface areas for the air flowing into the holes 45 due to the presence of the clover shaped depression 43b, foreign matters contained in the air flow are trapped evenly by the whole regions of the filter elements 38 and 38a, and the durability of these filter elements 38 and 38a is therefore substantially improved. Additionally, the air resistance caused by the filter elements 38 and 38a against the air flow is also reduced because of their large surface areas presented to the air flow.
Although the present invention has been shown and described with reference to the preferred embodiment thereof, it should not be considered as limited thereby. Various possible modifications and alterations could be conceived of by one skilled in the art to any particular embodiment, without departing from the scope of the invention. | Disclosed is an air filter unit for a pressure actuator such as a vacuum actuator for a speed control of an automobile comprising a solenoid valve unit including a plurality of solenoid valves and a diaphragm unit including a diaphragm defining a pressure chamber, air pressure within the pressure chamber being adjusted by selective activation of the solenoid valves which communicate the pressure chamber with pressure sources of different pressure levels. A filter element holder defining a pair of receptacles for receiving filter elements therein is attached to the solenoid valve unit so as to intercept air flow from an external air source into the vacuum chamber by way of the solenoid valves. The filter element for a vent valve which is frequently used is finer in structure than that for a safety valve which is less frequently used and is required to be capable of rapid introduction of air into the vacuum chamber. Preferably, the end wall of the receptacle, having a hole which communicates the pressure chamber with the external relatively positive air source, is provided with a step defining a clover shaped space between the filter element and the bottom surface of the receptacle for increasing the surface area of the filter element presented to the air flow for reducing the flow resistance of the filter element and increasing the durability of the filter element through prevention of local clogging of the filter element. | 8 |
BACKGROUND
This application is the US national phase of international application PCT/FI2004/000586 filed 5 Oct. 2004 which designated the U.S. and claims benefit of Finnish Application No. 20031468 filed 8 Oct. 2003, the entire contents of both are hereby incorporated by reference.
The present invention is related to a method and apparatus for feeding chemical into a liquid flow. The method and apparatus of the invention are particularly well applicable to feeding of very small chemical volumes in precise amounts into large process liquid flows.
Naturally, there is practically an innumerable amount of prior art methods of feeding various chemicals into liquid flows. However, these methods may be divided into a few main categories as can be seen from the following. Firstly, it is quite possible to just let the liquid to be added flow freely into a second liquid without employing any special regulation or mixing means. This method of adding cannot be employed in situations where the mixing ratio or the uniformity of the mixing is important. Neither can it be employed in situations where the price of the chemical to be added is of significance. The next applicable method is to feed the chemical in a precise ratio to the liquid flow, whereby correct and economical dosage is obtained. However, even in this case one has to take into account that usually the dosage of the chemical is slightly excessive compared to the optimal dosage, because the mixing is known to be inadequate. The mixing may be improved, though, by feeding the chemical e.g. through a perforated wall of a flow channel, whereby at least the chemical to be mixed may be spread throughout the entire liquid flow. As the last example, a situation may be discussed, where the chemical is fed in a precise proportion either into the liquid flow upstream of the mixer or through the mixer itself. In that case, the efficiency of the mixing of the chemical into the liquid flow is totally dependent on the mixer design.
Finnish patent no. 108802 discusses as an essential case of mixing related to paper manufacture the mixing of a retention aid into fiber suspension flow flowing to the head box of a paper machine. In paper manufacture, retention chemicals are used especially in order to improve the retention of fines at the wire section of a paper machine. In the Finnish patent mentioned the mixing device is in fact a conical nozzle with an inlet for the retention chemical. The mixing device is functioning and efficient both in the mixing of retention chemicals and other chemicals in the short circulation of a paper machine and also in other applications in the paper and pulp industry. However, it has been noticed in connection with some applications that various solid substances carried with the feed and/or dilution liquid tend to accumulate in the device. In other words solid material tends accumulate in the device parts converging in the flow direction, which gradually harm the flow profile, the flow itself and in the end tend to clog the device. Fl patent application no. 20021350 describes a self-cleaning chemical feed nozzle. In other words when the nozzle starts to become clogged a change take place in its flow conditions which causes a reaction of the nozzle to open wider the cross-sectional flow area of the flow channel in which the solid material in question flows with the fiber suspension; as a result of this the solid particles attached to the channel can get loose from the nozzle and flow on.
In this kind of applications, i.e. feeding for example retention chemicals into a fiber suspension, the mixing devices and the nozzles described in the publications mentioned work well but in cases where only very small amounts of chemicals are needed in relation to the suspension flow to be fed, the operation of the these nozzles is not the best possible for example because they cannot guarantee an adequately homogenous mixing of the chemical into the process liquid flow because of the small volume of the chemical.
SUMMARY
In order to solve, among other things, the problem described above, a new type of a chemical feeding device has been developed the structure of which is very favorable in feeding small chemical amounts into a liquid flow. The feeding device according to the invention includes a thin pipe-like duct disposed preferably inside the feeding device/nozzle so that the desired amount, in this case as small an amount as possible, of chemical can be mixed evenly into the process liquid flow. The pipe-like duct feeding the chemical supplies the chemical into a special nozzle of the feeding device which is preferably designed to have a kind of an isolated mixing space where the chemical and mixing liquid supplied to the feeding device through an inlet of its own are mixed and from which they only after this mixing are fed through openings in the mixing space at first into the feeding liquid and after that aided by the feeding liquid mentioned to the flowing process liquid. The mixing and the dilution of the chemical to a chemical solution before it is fed to the process liquid flow pipe ensure uniform mixing of the chemical into the process liquid. As a result of this, the volume of the chemical to be fed into the feeding device can be of the order of even less than half a percent of the rest of the liquids supplied into the feeding device, which are the mixing liquid and the feeding liquid supplying the mixing liquid and the chemical into the liquid flow. If desired, several feeding devices according to the invention instead of one, may be disposed in connection with the process liquid flow duct.
The structure of the feeding device according to the invention, more precisely expressed the isolated mixing space provided at the end of the mixing liquid feed pipe, improves the mixing of the chemical also in another way. When hitting the wall of the isolated mixing space the liquid chemical is “dispersed” evenly to the whole interior of the isolated mixing space of the nozzle and is mixed and diluted more homogenously into the mixing liquid. In addition to this structure the feeding device can further include a kind of an additional counter piece which, when disposed in the middle of the mouth of the pipe-like duct feeding the chemical, further improves the mixing to the other liquids to be fed and further to the liquid flow to be fed.
The chemical can be fed into the feeding device according to the invention without separate dilution, in other words the dilution takes place with the mixing liquid in the isolated mixing space of the feeding device. This solution dispenses among other things with the need to use separate dilution vessels, reduces the consumption of fresh water and thus reduces the operation and maintenance costs. On the other hand, it is possible also to dilute the chemical before it is supplied to the feeding device if so desired.
The feeding device according to the invention may be used for example in the feeding of chemicals, such as for example TiO 2 , optical brighteners, paper dyes and silicates, into the flowing process liquid, only to mention a few chemicals. Thus the feeding device according to the invention is applicable in all processes into which the chemicals mentioned must be supplied, In particular when the amount of the chemical is very little compared with the total flow of suspension flowing to the process. As advantageous examples, only, of the processes may be mentioned for example fiber suspension flows of paper mills, thickening processes of various sludges, recycling fiber processes, bleaching processes and in general processes where feeding of chemical in particular in very small amounts into filtrate, fiber suspension, sludge or the like is necessary.
The mixing device according to the invention allows using as the feeding liquid with which the chemical is supplied into the process liquid, for example into fiber suspension, the same fiber suspension into which the chemical is to be fed. Of course also more dilute suspensions, various filtrates or corresponding or mere fresh water can be used as the feeding liquid in the feeding device of the publication. The mixing liquid may also be any liquid from the process itself of fresh water. Thus all the liquid obtained from another process stage that can be used in the feeding of the chemical, saves at the same time fresh water and thus for example reduces the consumption of fresh water of the mills.
Other characteristic features of the method and the feeding device of the invention are disclosed in the appended patent claims.
DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS
In the following, the method and the apparatus according to the invention are disclosed in more detail with reference to the appended figures, where
FIG. 1 illustrates a prior art chemical feeding apparatus;
FIG. 2 illustrates an other prior art chemical feeding apparatus; and
FIG. 3 illustrates chemical feeding apparatus according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
FIG. 1 illustrates schematically a mixing device according to a preferred embodiment of Fl patent no. 108802. The mixing apparatus 34 according to FIG. 1 is, in fact, a nozzle comprising preferably an essentially conical casing 50 , flanges 52 and 54 arranged into it and preferably, but not necessarily, placed at its opposite ends, and a conduit 56 for the retention chemical. The mixing apparatus 34 is connected by a flange 52 to a dilution medium pipe 44 and by a flange 54 to a fiber suspension flow duct. In the arrangement according to the figure, the casing 50 of the mixing apparatus 34 is converging from the flange 52 towards the flange 54 , an opening 58 of the mixing apparatus being located inside the flange 54 . The purpose of the conical form of the casing 50 is to accelerate the medium flow in the mixing apparatus 34 so that the velocity of the jet discharging from the mixing apparatus 34 into the fiber suspension flow is at least five times the velocity of the fiber suspension flow. In the embodiment according to the figure, the retention chemical feeding conduit 56 is preferably tangential in order to ensure that retention chemical discharging through the opening 58 of the mixing apparatus 34 into the fiber suspension flow is distributed homogeneously at least on the whole periphery of the opening 58 . Inside the mixing apparatus 34 there is a hollow member 60 arranged centrally inside the mixing apparatus 34 , into which member the retention chemical is guided from the conduit 56 . In other words, the conduit 56 pierces the conical wall 50 of the mixing apparatus 34 and further leads via the annular space between the cone 50 and the member 60 into the member 60 , at the same time preferably carrying the member 60 in its place. The member 60 is pierces in the axial direction by a hole 62 , into which mixing liquid is brought via a valve 164 and a duct 162 ; thus the mixing liquid can flow from inside the chemical flow to the fiber suspension flow duct. The retention chemical flow guided tangentially into member 60 turns in the form of a spiral flow towards the opening 58 of the mixing apparatus, where there is at the lower end of the member 60 (according to the figure) an annular opening 64 for the retention chemical, wherefrom the retention chemical is discharged as a fan-shaped jet into the fiber suspension together with the feed liquid discharging from outside the opening 64 and the mixing liquid discharging from the inside of the opening 64 through the hole 62 . The figure clearly shows that the retention chemical is not in any contact with the mixing liquid before it is discharged through the opening 64 into the fiber suspension flow duct.
FIG. 2 illustrates another prior art feed nozzle 34 . It comprises, starting from the bottom of the figure, in other words from the liquid flow duct 70 , an essentially cylindrical nozzle casing 80 the end of which facing the liquid flow duct has a conically converging portion 82 . The converging portion 82 ends at a central feed opening 84 , which continues to the direction of the flow duct 70 in apparatus 86 for attaching the feed nozzle 34 to the liquid flow duct 70 . The side wall of the nozzle casing 80 , preferably the cylindrical portion thereof, has been provided with an opening 88 communicating with a feed liquid duct connection 144 for supplying feed liquid into the mixing nozzle 34 . The end of the nozzle casing 80 opposite the flow duct 70 has been provided with a round central opening 90 and with a pressure medium cylinder 92 forming an extension of the nozzle casing 80 while the other end of the pressure medium cylinder 92 is the end 94 of the nozzle casing located opposite the flow duct. At the opposite end of the pressure medium cylinder 92 there is an end plate 96 with a central round opening 98 like in the upper end of the nozzle casing 80 .
Both chemical and mixing liquid feed apparatus 100 extend to the nozzle casing 80 from above through the openings 98 and 90 in the ends 96 and 94 mentioned above. These feed apparatus include among other things a chemical feed duct 102 which has a flow connection with the chemical conduit 56 and a mixing liquid feed duct 104 which in turn communicates with a mixing liquid feed conduit 162 , which in this embodiment is located centrally inside the chemical feed duct 102 ; the feed ducts 102 and 104 being attached to each other at the upper end. The chemical feed duct 102 is preferably cylindrical for the most of its length as in this embodiment it functions at the same time as a piston rod of the pressure medium cylinder 92 . A piston disc 106 sealed relative to the pressure medium cylinder 92 and secured to the outer surface of the chemical feed duct 102 has been provided to serve as the piston itself. Naturally both the ends 94 and 96 of the pressure medium cylinder 92 have been provided with suitable sealing to ensure the operation of the cylinder.
The chemical feed duct 102 has at the lower end of it, in other words at the end facing the fiber suspension flow duct 70 and extending inside the nozzle casing 80 , a conical converging portion 108 which is essentially located at the conical portion 82 of the nozzle casing 80 and the coning angle is of the same order as that of the conical converging portion 82 of the nozzle casing 80 . The mixing liquid feed duct 104 in turn runs centrally inside the chemical feed duct 102 and extends to a distance outside the conical converging portion 108 of the chemical feed duct 102 . The figure further illustrates how the chemical feed duct 102 continues as a cylindrical nozzle duct 110 after the converging portion 108 so that a narrow slot is created between the wall of the mixing liquid feed duct 104 and the nozzle duct 110 ; in the slot the velocity of the chemical flow is increased to the required level for feeding to the fiber suspension flow.
In the normal state the feed nozzle is in the operation position illustrated in FIG. 2 ; thus both the nozzle duct 110 of the chemical feed duct 102 and the openings 122 in the mixing liquid feed duct 104 are located outside the nozzle casing 80 essentially to the level of the wall of the fiber suspension flow duct. In the flushing position the pressure medium supplied to the pressure medium cylinder 92 via the opening 116 moves the chemical and mixing liquid feed apparatus 100 by means of the piston disc 106 upwards so that the distance between the conical portions 82 and 108 increases and the end 118 of the mixing liquid feed duct 104 rises so high that the feed liquid flow flushes all impurities or solid particles via the opening 84 from between the conical portions to the fiber suspension flow duct. After a certain time, preferably the flushing time is about 1-6 seconds, pressure medium is fed to the cylinder from the opening 120 in the opposite end of the pressure medium cylinder 92 , and the piston disc 106 presses the chemical and mixing liquid feed apparatus 100 back to the operation position. The function described above is guided either by pressure, the pressure difference or volume flow of the feed liquid.
FIG. 3 illustrates a preferred embodiment of the feed apparatus, i.e. feed nozzle 34 of the present invention. It comprises, starting from the bottom of the figure, in other words from the liquid flow duct 70 , an essentially cylindrical nozzle casing 80 the end of which facing the liquid flow duct has a conically converging portion 82 . The converging portion 82 ends at a central feed opening 84 , which continues to the direction of the flow duct 70 in apparatus 74 and 76 for attaching the feed nozzle 34 to the liquid flow duct 70 . The side wall of the nozzle casing 80 , preferably the cylindrical portion thereof, has been provided with an opening 88 communicating via a duct 144 and a valve 42 with the feed liquid feed duct for supplying feed liquid into the feed nozzle 34 .
A mixing liquid feed duct 142 forms together with a chemical feed duct 162 the cylindrical upper portion of the feed apparatus 34 . Both the feed ducts 142 and 162 extend inside the nozzle casing 80 up to the liquid flow duct 70 . The location of the end of the feed ducts is adjustable in relation to the liquid flow duct 70 so that the end of the ducts extends preferably inside the flow duct. The end of the nozzle casing 80 opposite the flow duct 70 is provided with an end part 94 having a round central opening 90 for the feed duct 142 . The upper portion formed by the feed duct 142 is provided with a flange 136 and a movable screw/nut connection 138 or a corresponding member by means of which the upper portion (feed duct 142 ) and the lower portion (nozzle casing 80 ) of the feed apparatus 34 are attached to each other. In addition to feature that the parts 136 and 138 secure the upper and the lower portions to each other the adjustable screw 138 may be used for adjusting the position of the mixing liquid 142 and the chemical feed duct 162 of the feeding device 34 in relation to the liquid flow duct 70 . The adjustability of the feed device 34 and the structure of securing means 74 and 76 allow the use of the feed device 34 with process liquid ducts 70 of various thicknesses, in other words the device can be secured to these ducts.
The side wall of the feed duct 142 , preferably the cylindrical portion thereof, at a location outside the end parts 94 and 136 , the nozzle casing 80 and the feed liquid feed opening 88 as seen from the flow duct 70 , has been provided with an opening 56 for the mixing liquid to be fed to the feed device 34 . The feed opening 56 communicates via a mixing liquid conduit 146 , which in this embodiment is preferably tangential in relation to the feed device 34 , and an adjustable valve 44 with the mixing liquid feed pipe for supplying mixing liquid into the feed device 34 .
The chemical feed duct 162 , which is preferably a very thin pipe for feeding small chemical volumes, extends in this embodiment of the invention to the feed device 34 from above. The feed duct 162 is also In this embodiment bent at a location above the feed device 34 to the same direction as the connections 144 and 146 for feed and mixing liquids. The volume of the chemical to be fed may be adjusted for example with a valve 46 located in the chemical feed duct 162 . The chemical feed duct 162 has been secured to an elongate outer end 22 of the feed device 34 with a securing means 20 . The feed duct 162 communicates with the mixing liquid feed duct 142 by being located in this embodiment centrally inside the mixing liquid feed duct 142 and extending close to the special nozzle part 150 of the feed duct 142 which nozzle part in turn is adjustable to extend inside the process liquid flow duct 70 .
In this embodiment of the invention the mixing liquid feed duct 142 has at the lower end of it, in other words at the end facing the fiber suspension flow duct 70 and extending inside the nozzle casing 80 , a conical converging portion 148 which is essentially located at the conical portion 82 of the nozzle casing 80 and its coning angle is of the same order as that of the conical converging portion 82 of the nozzle casing 80 . The conical converging portion 148 of the mixing liquid feed duct 142 does not extend quite to the lower end of converging portion 82 for the feed liquid but the feed duct continues preferably as a cylindrical duct 116 inside the feed opening 84 whereby the cross-sectional flow area between these parts reduces in the flow direction caused an increasing in the flow velocity of the feed liquid. The flow velocity of the mixture of the chemical to be fed into the process liquid flowing in the process liquid flow duct 70 and the feed liquid is at the feed moment at least five times the speed of the process liquid flow.
The cylindrical duct 116 at the lower end of the mixing chemical feed duct 142 ends at the nozzle part 150 which provides the mixing space 154 isolated from the feed liquid and the flowing process liquid required for the chemical mixing and from which the chemical solution (a mixture of chemical and mixing liquid) is at first fed via openings 152 to the feed liquid flow and further by means of the feed liquid in an even flow to the liquid flow duct 70 . The isolated mixing space 154 in the nozzle part 150 is formed for example of a cup-like “closed” end 156 of the mixing liquid flow duct 142 and of the openings 152 provided at its sides. The closed end 156 is impervious to the flow of liquid. The openings 152 have been provided in the wall of the flow duct 142 above the mixing space 154 of the nozzle part 150 . Via the openings 152 the mixing liquid and the chemicals mixed into it are discharged practically in a radial fan-like flow to the feed liquid. The openings 152 may have a round, angular or for example slot-like configuration only to mention a few examples. The thin pipe-like chemical feed duct 162 extends to the end 156 of the nozzle part 150 , preferably past the openings 152 . This embodiment guarantees a good chemical mixing result as the chemical jet hits the end of the nozzle part 150 and is from there dispersed evenly to the entire mixing liquid volume and further via openings 152 to the liquid flow duct 70 . The mixing and the dilution of the chemical thus take place before the feeding to the process liquid by means of the feed liquid. This ensures that precise chemical amounts are mixed into the whole cross-sectional flow area of the process liquid. According to another preferred embodiment of the invention a kind of an additional, for example conical, counter piece has been provided, if necessary, in the end of the chemical feed duct 162 quite in the center of it whereby, when hitting it, the chemical jet is dispersed and mixed even more efficiently. Another alternative is to design the end cup 156 of the duct 142 so that it divides the chemical flow coming from the duct 162 evenly to different sides of the duct 162 for example by providing the bottom of the end cup at a central position relative to the duct 162 with a conical or corresponding bulge converging towards the duct.
Preferably the nozzle part 150 of the mixing liquid flow duct 142 and the mixing space therein are located inside the process liquid flow duct 70 or at least in the close vicinity of the inner surface of the flow duct 70 mentioned so that the mixing of the chemical to the mixing liquid takes place 0.5 seconds, at the most, before the chemical solution is mixed with the process liquid. Compared with the situation illustrated in FIG. 3 , where the openings 152 are located just inside the wall of the process liquid flow duct 70 (illustrated schematically), the openings 152 may be located at the annular feed opening 84 for feed liquid, thus inside the duct portion 76 .
The function of the feed liquid discharging from the opening 84 of the feed device 34 is to give the chemical solution the required velocity which feeds the chemical solution efficiently across the whole cross-sectional flow area of the liquid flow duct 70 . The feed liquid hits mainly axially the chemical solution jet discharging from the openings 152 in an almost radial direction, increasing the velocity of the chemical and improving the mixing with the process liquid flowing in the flow duct 70 . The direction and penetration of the chemical jet are adjusted by adjusting the feed device 34 with the screw 138 and the feed pressure with valves 42 , 44 and 46 .
As may be seen from the above, a feeding device of a new type for feeding and mixing various chemicals in small, precisely predetermined amounts to process liquid flows has been developed. It should also be noted that although the above description generally discusses the use of the feed nozzle according to the invention particularly in connection with applications in wood processing industry the invention may be applied anywhere where chemicals need to be fed and mixed into a medium flow evenly and in precise amounts. Thus, the field of application and the scope of protection of the invention are defined by the appended patent claims, only. | A feeding device for feeding a chemical into a process liquid flowing through a process liquid flow duct, the feeding device includes: a feeding liquid duct having a discharge opening; a mixing liquid feed duct extending through the feeding liquid duct, a sidewall and a closed end wall, wherein the end wall extends beyond the discharge opening of the feeding liquid duct and extending into the process liquid flow duct; a mixing space adjacent the end wall and within the sidewall of the mixing liquid feed duct; a chemical feed duct extending through the mixing liquid feed duct and having a discharge opening proximate to the mixing space in the mixing liquid feed duct, and a mixture discharge opening in the side wall of the mixing liquid feed duct. | 3 |
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
A pizza is a food product of Italian origin, generally having a leavened dough base in the form of a flat disc with raised edges and having the upper face of the disc covered with a tomato paste and a meltable cheese. The pizza may have other ingredients, such as onions, mushrooms, salami slices, green peppers, etc. on top of the cheese. Some pizzas, called "Sicilian", are rectangular in shape, when viewed from above. A slice of pizza is generally called a "wedge". The pizza may be prepared by a food processor, frozen by the processor, packed in a cardboard box and sold,, at retail, in its frozen state. The user may simultaneously unfreeze and heat the pizza in a microwave oven. A microwave oven produces radio frequency energy which excites the molecules of the pizza and internally and rapidly heats it.
The user may, in some cases, remove the pizza from the cardboard container before placing the pizza in the oven. However, this may be difficult since the pizza crust may be partially frozen to the cardboard. More importantly, the crust may flake or the cheese may run over the rim of the pizza, requiring the oven to be cleaned. Since one of the major attractions of frozen pizza to the user is its convenience, the requirement to clean the microwave oven seriously detracts from that convenience.
Alternatively, the user may retain the pizza in the cardboard container and place both in the microwave oven if the container is small enough to fit in the oven, for example, if the container contains a slice of a large pizza or a small pizza. Retaining the pizza in the container during heating prevents soiling of the oven and permits the pizza to become unfrozen from the cardboard.
However, various problems may occur when the pizza is heated in its cardboard container. The pizza, especially if it has been frozen, contains a considerable amount of moisture. That moisture, under the rapid heating of the microwave oven, may turn into steam vapor. If the vapor cannot rapidly escape from the container, it may make the pizza crust moist and soggy, contrary to its desired property of crispness. In addition, if the bottom crust of the pizza is left in contact with the cardboard during heating, the crust may not be heated sufficiently or it may be heated unevenly or it may become soggy instead of becoming crisp.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,876,131 entitled "Wedge Shaped Carton", which names William Tolaas as inventor and Hoerner Corporation as assignee, shows a carton adapted to hold a frozen slice (wedge) of pizza. The carton has apertures in its bottom panel to permit the circulation of air during heating. The apertures are sealed by a strip of plastic film which is removed prior to heating. The carton bottom, during heating, is kept above the metal panel of the oven by means of the carton's side walls which extend below the level of the carton bottom.
FEATURES AND OBJECTIVES OF THE INVENTION
It is an objective of the present invention to provide a paperboard container for a pizza, or a slice thereof, which is to be heated in a microwave oven, which container permits the pizza to be heated while in the container, permits even heating of the crust without the crust sticking to the container and permits minimal contact between the pizza crust and the carton.
It is a further objective of the present invention to provide such a container which may be partially opened by the user, prior to heating the pizza, to leave only a minimal amount of paperboard material in contact with the bottom crust of the pizza.
It is a further objective of the present invention to provide such a container which does not require that a plastic film be removed from apertures before the pizza is heated.
It is a further objective of the present invention to provide such a container which may be easily and readily manipulated by the user to vent the container before the pizza is heated.
It is a further objective of the present invention to provide such a container which may be produced employing conventional machinery and methods and using a one-piece paperboard blank.
It is a feature of the present invention to provide a carton to contain a frozen pizza and a paperboard carton blank adapted to be erected into such a carton. The pizza may be heated while in the carton. The carton blank comprises a bottom panel having a plurality of openings, for example, four, of sufficient size to vent the pizza while it is being heated and permit minimal contact of the carton with the pizza crust. A first side panel is connected to the bottom panel by a fold line and a top panel is connected to the first side panel by a fold line. A second side panel is connected by a fold line to the top panel and a closure panel is connected to the second side panel by a fold line.
The closure panel includes, as portions thereof, a first and a second openable panel member. The openable panel members are formed by tear lines and fold lines and they are adapted to cover the openings in the bottom panel after assembly of the carton. A plurality of pairs of flaps are connected by fold lines at opposite sides of the panels to form closed carton ends. The blank also includes adhesive means to bond areas of the bottom panel to areas of the closure panel (outside of the openable panel members).
The carton blank may be erected into a carton, filled with a pizza and closed. When the pizza is to be heated, the openable panel members may be lifted from the bottom panel and will support the carton in a raised position in the oven.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
Other objectives and features of the present invention will be apparent from the following detailed description of the invention, which should be taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
In the drawings:
FIG. 1 is a top plan view of the paperboard blank of the present invention;
FIG. 2 is a perspective view of the carton of the present invention erected from the blank of FIG. 1 and after its bottom panel members have been opened;
FIG. 3 is a top plan view of a portion of an alternative embodiment of a paperboard blank; and
FIG. 4 is a perspective view of an erected carton showing the wall structure formed by the alternative embodiment of the blank shown in FIG. 3.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
The blank 10, from which the carton (container) is erected, is shown in FIG. 1. The blank 10 is a one-piece paperboard blank which may be formed, for example, from cardboard, using conventional die-cutting machinery.
The blank 10 comprises a first rectangular panel 11 having four openings 12-15 symmetrically arranged about its center portion 16. The openings 12-15 are preferably large compared to the size of the panel, so that there is minimal contact between the pizza crust and the carton while the pizza is being heated. The four openings 12-15 form four straps joined at, and supporting, the center portion 16.
The first panel 11 has four end flaps. One pair of end flaps 17,18 are connected to the first panel by respective fold lines 23,24 and the other pair of end flaps 19,20 are connected to the panel 11 by respective fold lines 25,26. The end flap 17 is opposite the end flap 19 and similarly the end flap 18 is opposite the end flap 20.
The panel 11 is connected to a first rectangular side panel 27 by a fold line 28. The first side panel 27 is connected to the top panel 29, a rectangular panel, by a score line (tear line) and fold line 30.
The first side panel 27 has opposite end flaps 31,32 connected to it at its opposite sides by respective fold lines 33,34. Similarly, the top panel 29 has opposite side flaps 35,36 connected to it at its opposite sides by respective fold lines 37,38.
The top panel 29 is connected to the second side panel 39 by score line and fold line 40. The second side panel is connected to the closure panel 41 by the fold line 42.
The second side panel 39 has opposite end flaps 43,44 connected to it at its opposite sides by respective fold lines 45,46. Similarly, the closure panel 41 has opposite side flaps 47,48 connected to it at its opposite sides by respective fold lines 49,50.
The closure (cover) panel 41 has a central opening 51 which is round in shape. The closure panel 41 has two openable panel members 52,53 which are openable like shutters on a window. The panel member 52 is formed by score line 54 (break-away or tear line) on both sides of opening 51 and opposite score lines 55,56. Similarly, panel member 53 is formed by score line 54 and opposite score lines 57,58. The panel members 52,53 are connected by respective fold lines 59,60 to the remainder of the panel closure 41. The fold lines 59,60 at each of their ends are divided to form respective triangular fold areas 63,64 formed by fold lines. The fold lines forming the triangular fold areas 63,64 and 65,66 make the panel members 52,53 sufficiently springy, i.e., resilient, so that the opened panel members may support the carton, see FIG. 2. The triangular fold areas help stabilize the carton so that its weight may be more positively supported. Another important advantage of the triangular fold areas 63-66 is that they help separate the pizza crust from the bottom panel by bowing out the straps of the bottom panel when the panel members 52,53 are lifted by the user.
The carton is erected and partially glued before the pizza is placed within it. For that purpose the carton blank 10 has glue (adhesive) areas, shown by speckled areas in the drawing, on the top surface of the flaps 31,32, 43 and 44. In addition, there are glue areas on both faces of the flaps 17-20, the glue areas on the undersides of the flaps 17-20 not being shown in FIG. 1.
The glue area 21 on panel 11 is adhered to the strip 61, which is an elongated area of closure panel 41 along fold line 42 and on the top surface of panel 41. Similarly, the glue area 22 on panel 11 is adhered to the elongated strip 62 on the top surface of closure panel 41.
The carton may be shipped in a flat state, ready for erection and insertion of the pizza, by bonding the areas 21,22 of panel 11 to their respective strips 61,62 of closure panel 41.
The carton is erected, from its flat state, at the location where the pizza is to be inserted. To erect the carton, the side panels 27,39 are placed perpendicular to the top panel 29 and one end closed, for example, by bonding flaps 17,18, 31 and 43 to the flaps 35,47. The pizza is inserted, with its bottom lying on the bottom surface of the bottom panel 11, and the open end of the carton is then closed, by bonding the flaps 19,20, 32,44 to the flaps 36,48.
The pizza is kept in the closed carton until it is to be heated. When the pizza is to be heated, the user inserts her fingers in the opening 51 and lifts the openable panel members 52,53 by separating the panel members 52,53 along their score lines 54,55,56 and 54,57,58 respectively.
The carton is then placed in the oven. The pizza is lifted above the oven shelf because it rests on the opened, and spread out, panel members 52,53, see FIG. 2. The vapor may escape through the openings 12-15, which openings were uncovered when the panel members 52,53 are lifted from the bottom panel 11.
An alternative embodiment of a portion of the paperboard blank is shown in FIG. 3, in which parts which are the same as in FIG. 1 are labeled with the same numbers and have the suffix "A".
In the embodiment of FIG. 3, a stronger carton structure is provided by utilizing additional flap portions 70A, 71A which are between, and join, the respective pairs of flaps 17A, 18A and 19A, 20A. The flap portions 70A, 71A add strength to the respective straps 72A, 73A of the bottom panel 11A to which they are connected. The pressure caused by the overimposition of the two outer flaps, when the ends of the carton are closed, is relieved by offset fold lines 23B and 25B and a pair of two parallel cuts defining a small strap area at each end of the flaps 70A, 71A. The small strap area between the pair of cuts 74A and the pair of cuts 75A, in the case of flap 70A, and the pair of cuts 76A and the pair of cuts 77A in the case of flap 71A, will buckle as the two over-imposed flaps 47 and 48, respectively, are folded over the flaps 70A, 71A, respectively, to close the ends of the carton. The flaps 47 and 48 will seat better if provided with additional pressure relieving cuts in fold lines 49 and 50 (not shown).
Referring now to FIG. 4, there is shown the wall structure formed by the blank of FIG. 3 when erected into a carton. The erected carton has a top wall 29, a bottom wall 11A, a panel closure 41, and side walls and flaps 35, 36, 39 and 27A. The strengthened side wall W is formed by upfolding the side flap 47 and sandwiching it between the outer side flap 35 and the inner flaps 17A and 18A (the latter of which is not visible in FIG. 4, but is disposed beneath flap 31A). The inner flap 17A is overlain by flap 43 connected to side wall 39. The flaps 35, 47, 17A and 43 are all adhesively secured together. The flap portion 70A between the parallel cuts 74A and 75A is not secured to the flap 47, and the flap portion 70A supports the strap 72A to which it is foldably connected. With the flaps 17A and 18A secured to the flap 47, and the flap portion 70A free of securement to the flap 47, the strap areas formed by the parallel cuts 74A and 75A, along with the flap portion 70A are free to buckle or flex, as shown in FIG. 4 to relieve stresses caused in the multi flap walls. It will be understood that the side wall W' is formed in a similar manner.
Since many changes and variations of the disclosed embodiments of the invention may be made without departing from the inventive concept, it is not intended to limit the invention otherwise than as required by the appended claims. | A carton erected from a one-piece paperboard carton blank permits a frozen pizza to be heated in a microwave oven while still in the carton. The carton has a bottom panel in contact with the pizza crust, the bottom panel having openings to permit venting of steam vapor during heating and the openings forming cross-straps to support the crust. The openings are sealed by a closure panel prior to heating and portions of the closure panel open like shutters on a window and are used, during heating, to support the carton above the oven shelf. | 8 |
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION AND DISCUSSION OF THE PRIOR ART
(A) Problems in General Temperature Measurement of Liquids
A method for readily measuring the temperature of liquids and slurries at positions other than at the surface of the liquid has been elusive. An example will serve to illustrate this problem.
Consider the difficulties in measuring the water temperature at the bottom of a lake fifty feet deep. Since thermometers, such as those based on liquid in glass, liquid crystals or bimetallic strips rapidly respond to temperature changes, they cannot be used to make this measurement. When these devices are lowered to the bottom of the lake and then raised to the surface for reading they quickly lose the temperature reading of the water at the bottom of the lake. The temperature recorded by these devices may reflect that of the intervening water or even of the air above the lake. In any event the recorded value is unreliable and does not reflect the temperature at the bottom of the lake.
The usual method for making such a temperature measurement is to lower a thermocouple to the bottom of the lake and to read the temperature using a suitable meter and power supply. This method is cumbersome and does not lend itself to ready and repeated use.
Besides being expensive, the equipment has the usual drawbacks associated with electrical contacts, long lengths of wire and useful life of electronic equipment at high humidity conditions. In addition, many of these environments can be very demanding in terms of physical stress (e.g. fishing boats) and corrosiveness (e.g. brines), particularly in windy conditions.
Another problem area of temperature measurement is with slurries where the suspended solids block the view of the temperature scale on the thermometer. Vats of paint, sewage, lakes of black brine, and rivers loaded with silt are some examples of these types of situations.
In these instances it is desirable to remove the thermometer from the liquid for reading. Cleaning of the thermometer may even be necessary. Normal thermometers lose their readings in just a few seconds on removal from such slurries.
Another problem area of temperature measurement is the area of corrosive and/or fuming liquids. Thermocouples are readily attacked by many corrosive liquids and strong fumes, such as acids, ammonia and caustic. Intensely smelling or volatile poisonous chemicals often discourage or prevent a person from making a close approach for a temperature measurement.
(B) Problems in Determining Optimum Fishing Waters Based on Temperature
It has been well established that fish seek out waters of a specific temperature, herein called the optimum temperature. Different species of fish prefer different temperatures. The range of preferred temperatures is from about forty degrees Fahrenheit for fish such as certain trout to about eighty degrees for certain tropical fish. Below this range fish do not take bait because they simply are not moving and feeding since they are cold blooded. Above this range the water is too warm and can be low in oxygen. Fish will not remain in this warm water for any significant length of time. This situation parallels that of humans who prefer the well known "comfort zone" of 72-78 degrees Fahrenheit. The effects of temperature on the habits of fish are an important part of Limnology, which is "the study of the behavior of lakes and other inland waters and of the various physical, chemical, meteorological, and biological conditions existing in them".
Temperatures of natural bodies of water are known to vary widely with the seasons, springs, currents, winds, amount of sunshine, time of day and ice coverage. This helps to make fishing exceedingly difficult since the fish move frequently in response to the ever changing water temperatures. Very often fisherman will spend hours trying to catch fish in waters which would not be expected to contain fish based on the water temperatures.
Fishing for crappie in the early spring is a classic example of this since the fish are feeding but are hard to find because there is still so much cold water present from the previous winter. Early spring warm air may mislead the fisherman since the water may still be too cold for crappie. Summer fishing conditions often create a similar situation in that most of the water is too warm for fish. This forces the fish into hard to find small pockets of cool water. Surface temperature readings, although easy to measure, are usually useless since they only indicate whether or not fish can be expected at the surface of the body of water. Fish are not normally close to the surface.
Normal thermometers simply respond too quickly to temperature to allow their use at other depths. The temperature readings of normal liquid in glass, liquid crystal and coiled spring type thermometers change quickly and significantly before they can be brought to the surface for reading. What is needed is a simple and reliable method to record water temperature at any depth. The present invention resolves this key need.
Although the temperature preferences of fish have been known for a long time it has not been possible for most fishermen to take advantage of this understanding since a good method has not been available to make the necessary measurements.
Devices representing the prior art in the area of water temperature measurement for the purpose of identifying optimum fishing waters are available through fishing equipment distributors such as E. HILLE CO. (page 29 of catalog No. 49) NETCRAFT CO.(page 15 of catalog #84-B) and CABELA'S (pages 80 and 81 of SPRING 1984 catalog). None of these devices is similar to the present invention. The addresses of these companies respectively are: CABELA'S, 812 Thirteenth Ave, Sidney, NB 69160; E. HILLE CO., P.0. Box 996, Williamsport, PA 17703; and THE NETCRAFT CO., 2800 Tremainsville Rd., Toledo, OH 43613. A discussion of this prior art follows.
Item #1D-10R9A on page 15 of the NETCRAFT CO. catalog and item #203-100-000 on page 80 of CABELA'S catalog are similar. These two devices consist of a liquid alcohol in glass type thermometer and a pressure sensitive metal valve. These devices function in a totally different manner than the device in the current invention. These devices measure temperature using a typical glass thermometer encased in a plastic tube. The valve allows water to enter the tube in an amount proportional to the depth and then the thermometer inside the tube reads the temperature of the water which entered the tube. This method of temperature measurement is sensitive to use methods. Therefore significant care in handling the device is required to avoid erroneous readings.
The device does not work in the important region from the surface down to about four feet since insufficient water enters the device to allow a temperature measurement. This is because of the low water pressure which exists at these shallow depths.
In addition the need for the metal pressure valve provides a fast cooling (or warming) effect once the device is removed from the depth of water in which a temperature measurement has been made and when it is handled or brought into the cool or warmer air.
Also, these devices become clogged with silt and mud when they strike the bottom during and before a measurement causing an erroneous reading when too much water enters.
A key problem in the use of this type of device is that it cannot be lowered past the depth to be measured since it would then allow too much water to enter. This results in erroneous depth and temperature readings.
Another problem with devices of this type is that fishermen rarely have the capability to measure depth accurately. Normally the depth "measurement" is so many reel cranks from the bottom or from the surface. Hence an absolute depth measurement is of little value to the fisherman.
These devices also require resetting before reuse which makes their use for repetitive measurements less attractive and slow.
A second type of device in the prior art (CABELA'S, page 80,#668-102-000) consists of a battery powered meter and thermocouple detector and a thirty foot cord. This device suffers from being too complicated for routine use, too awkward to use, susceptible to fouling and corrosion by the humid environment of fishing waters, and limited in both the depth and the information available to the user. It is also expensive. In addition, it is difficult for the fisherman to reproduce the depth read by the device with bait since it is totally separate from the fisherman's rod and reel.
A third type of device in the prior art (CABELA'S page 81,#317-100-000) is merely a temperature gauge with a detector which fits onto the bottom of a boat on which the meter is mounted. Obviously this device only can measure the surface water temperature which is of little value in determining where the waters are which are optimum for the type of fish being sought.
For example, on a lake in hot summer the fish will be at the thermocline which could be anywhere from five to about thirty feet below the surface depending on the length of the hot spell and other factors. The device will only give the surface temperature of say 80 to 90 degrees Fahrenheit which is of little value. This device is also very expensive.
The fourth type of prior art is the device offered by E. HILLE CO. (page 29 of catalog No. 49, part No. 2015). This device is just a normal thermometer in a rugged case. It is only useful for measuring the surface temperature of a body of water.
(C) REFERENCES
1. (a) Fundamentals of Temperature , Pressure and Flow Measurements" by Robert P. Benedict, John Wiley and Sons Inc. (New York, 1969).
(b) "Temperature Measurement" in the Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology, 19,774 (Kirk-Othmer, 1978).
2. (a) "The Fisherman's Encyclopedia" by Ira N. Gabrielson,Ed. Stackpole and Heck (New York, 1950), pp 231-244.
(b) Jerry Gibbs in Outdoor Life Nov. 1982 35.
(c) "Bass Like it Hot", Outdoor Life July 1983 88.
(d) "Survey of Marine Fishes of North Carolina" by Harden F. Taylor ,The University of North Carolina press, 1951, pp 21-36.
(e) "A History of Fishes" by J. R. Norman, Hill and Wang (New York, 1963), pp 266-275.
3. (a) "Liquid Crystals : The Fourth State of Matter" by Franklin D Saeva, Ed., Marcel Dekker Inc. (New York, 1983).
(b) "Liquid Crystals" in the Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology, 14 (Kirk-Othmer, 1978), 395ff.
(c) "Liquid Crystals : A colorful State of Matter" by G. H. Brown and P. P. Crooker, Chem and Engin. News, Jan. 1983 24.
(d) Physics Today 1982 35 25-73 (six review articles).
4. (a) Modern Plastics Encyclopedia 1984-1985, McGraw Hill Inc. (New York).
(b) Plastics Technology Annual Processing Handbook 1970-1971 16(10), Bill Publ., 1970.
(c) "Do It Yourself With Plastics" by Erich H. Heimann, Publ. E. P. Dutton and Co. Inc. (New York, 1975).
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
(A) GENERAL DESCRIPTION
The invention disclosed herein is a device which is useful for the measurement of temperature. The device is most useful for the measurement of temperature in certain situations where the usual temperature measurement methods either fail or would be very difficult to implement. The device is especially useful for the measurement of temperature of liquids whose depth, color or composition make temperature measurements of them difficult or impossible by normal means.
Examples of such difficult situations are water bodies such as lakes, river, oceans and streams at depths other than those at the surface or within reach. Other examples are municipal drinking water tanks, tanker trucks bearing liquid cargo, underground gasoline or kerosene tanks, sewage treatment plants, oil and water wells, vats and tanks of corrosive or fuming liquids and slurries, fermentation broths, etc.
The invention is especially useful as an aid to fishing. The device readily and simply identifies which waters have the best chance of containing fish. This connection is based on the scientific fact that fish seek out water of optimum temperature. This optimum temperature varies with the type of fish. As will be described this variation is readily provided for by the invention.
The device of this invention is composed of a temperature sensing part and a matrix part. As discussed below, the device may also contain other components which serve to make the device more convenient to use.
The device of the invention consists of a temperature sensitive device imbedded in a matrix which provides a useful heat flow pattern. Apparently the device exploits the difference in the thermal conductivities of air versus other media, such as water or slurries, to function.
Plastics are the preferred matrix material for most applications. The insulating and hydrophobic properties of plastics appear to be important also. The chemical and solvent resistance of certain plastics can provide additional useful variations.
Additional advantages of the device are that it is very simple to use and does not corrode or need batteries. It does not use wires or require resetting or contain moving parts or have depth limitations. In addition it does not require installation or accessories and is very durable. One or more of these features make this invention a marked improvement over the prior art.
(B) TEMPERATURE SENSOR
The temperature sensing part can be any of the well known stand alone devices for measuring temperature such as liquid in glass, liquid crystal ribbon, liquid-expansion or bimetallic strip. Even a thermocouple can be used.
All of these devices are normally used in conjunction with numbered scales off which the temperature is read using the temperature sensing component as a pointer. Thermocouples are usually used with analog or digital meters. Thermometers using these temperature sensors are well known in the art. Temperature sensors based on liquid in glass, bimetallic strip and liquid expansion have been known for a very long time.
The use of liquid crystals for the measurement of temperature is a fairly recent occurrence even though liquid crystals have also been known for many years. The category of liquid crystals which are most useful for temperature sensors is well known in the art as thermotropic liquid crystals. Thorough discussions are available in the literature. Reference 3a which discusses their use in temperature measurement and reference 3b discusses the various categories and other classifications of liquid crystals and references 3c and 3d which are concise reviews.
(C) THE MATRIX
The second component of the device of this invention, the matrix, works in conjunction with the temperature sensing component to produce the unique temperature measuring properties of this invention.
The matrix is preferably a clear, hydrophobic and thermally insulating material of sufficient thickness to impart the desired temperature response properties.
It is also preferable that this matrix has a specific gravity greater, than the bulk density or specific gravity of the medium whose temperature is to be determined.
The matrix can be made of glass or plastic or any combinations thereof.
The matrix is preferably a plastic since these are easier to mold and are more rugged than glass. Resins and the plastics prepared from them are described in the art.
Plastics which possess the above desired properties are the clear forms of polycarbonate (PC), polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA or acrylic), polystyrene (PS), flexible polyvinyl chloride (fPVC), cellulose acetate (CA), cellulose triacetate (CTA), ethyl cellulose (EC), allyl polyesters (AP), cellulose acetate propionate butyrate (CAPB), nitrile (N), amorphous nylon such as semicrystalline Nylon 6 or random polymer of Nylon 12 with cycloaliphatic and aromatic comonomers, random Nylon copolymers such as PA7030 (Upjon Co.). Transparent fluoroplastics such as polychlorotrifluoroethylene (PCTFE) and polyvinyl fluoride (PVF),(the fluoroplastics are marginally transparent even in fairly thin layers and are therefore not preferred).
Clear forms of polybutylene (PB), aromatic polyester (polyarylate), clear forms of alkyd polyester, polyethyene terephthalate polyester (PET), unsaturated polyester (UP), polyetherimide (PEI), transparent types of polyetheretherketone (PEEK), transparent types of high and low density polyethylene (HDPE<LDPE), transparent types of linear low density polyethlene (LLDPE), ionomer polyethlene (IPE), transparent forms of ethylene-acrylic acid (EAA) and ethlyene-methacrylic acid (EMAA), ethylene-ethylacrylate (EEA), ethylene-methacrylate (EMA), ethylene-vinylacetate (EVA), polymethyl pentene (PMP), polypropylene (PP) and crystal polystyrene (CPS). The translucent form of impact polystyrene (IPS) is not preferred since it is translucent.
Butadiene-styrene (BS) (polymers can be blended with compatible low transparency or opaque resins such as general purpose PS and SAN in widely varying ratios to obtain high clarity plastics.). Transparent forms of polyurethane (PU), vinylidene chloride polymers and copolymers (VDC), silicone, styrene-acrylonitrile (SAN), styrene-maleic anhydride (SMA) including terpolymers with butadiene, polysulfone, polyarylsulfone and polyether sulfone. Epoxy resin (ER), urea formaldehyde (UF) and melamine formaldehyde (MF) are also suitable.
Thermoset resins are preferred over thermoplastic resins when the higher processing temperatures required for thermoplastics cannot be tolerated by the temperature sensing component. Clear plastics are preferred over translucent ones.
It is sometimes possible to modify some opaque plastics by copolymerization with another monomer or additive to make them transparent. For example, transparent grades of ABS are made by using methyl methacrylate (MMA) as the fourth monomer. Modifications of this type are considered to be obvious extensions of the prior art of plastics processing.
Since plastics have a wide range of tolerances to solvents, and corrosive liquids, sunlight, etc, these factors would necessarily have to be taken into account in preparing a device for a specific application. These procedures would represent an optimization on the invention.
In a similar manner, a plastic needs to be chosen with a melting point above any temperature the device might experience in a particular application. Of course the temperature range of the temperature sensing component must be chosen according to the specific application also.
Some polymers could be made to function if a suitable transparent window is provided so that the scale of the internal temperature sensing component can be read. For example, such a window could be made of glass or a clear plastic.
Clear versions of flexible polyethylene (fPE) and high density polyethylene (HDPE) are usable also. However, since the specific gravity (0.92) of these two plastics is less than that of water (1.00) they would float on this liquid. A device made using these plastics would need to be weighted with lead or by some other means if it is desired to use the device in a water temperature measurement beneath the surface of the liquid.
Since many organic liquids have specific gravities in the 0.7 to 0.8 range, these plastics would be suitable for these liquids without any need for additional weight.
(D) THEORY OF OPERATION
The device consists of a temperature sensing element for temperature measurement in a matrix of the proper amount of hydrophobic insulation as discussed above. The unusual temperature response pattern of this device apparently relies on the differences in the thermal conductivities of liquids and air to function.
It has been found that when a temperature sensitive element is imbedded in a plastic matrix of sufficient thickness, an unexpected temperature response pattern develops. When the device is immersed into water, for example, the temperature can be seen to equilibrate within just a few minutes. However, on removing the device from the water it does not change its reading for a long time.
But if the device is inserted back into some water at a different temperature than the first it assumes this new temperature within seconds or just a few minutes.
This property is useful for the age old problem of measuring the temperature of water bodies at various depths. The device enables actual water temperatures to be taken at any depth without the use of cumbersome thermocouple wires or rapidly changing liquid filled glass thermometers or bimetallic strips.
Thus the present invention provides a reliable method for reading the temperatures of the liquids in a wide variety of situations.
It is simple to use and can be used repeatedly. It readily provides a method for measuring temperature in deep waters, slurries, corrosive or opaque liquids. To make such measurements the device is merely lowered, using any suitable line or rod, into the medium whose temperature is desired, such as the lake and opaque slurries referred to above. The device is allowed to hang at the position where a temperature measurement is wanted until thermal equilibration is attained. This may take from about thirty seconds to several minutes depending on the exact design of the device (see below). More time may be needed for very large devices and very large temperature differences.
The device is then rapidly withdrawn from the medium and the temperature at the depth where the thermal equilibration took place is read directly from the device. The device will hold this temperature for at least several minutes, again depending upon design. This is plenty of time for the user to record the temperature reading by visual observation.
Furthermore, the device is immediately ready for reuse without any further preparation. It is a significant feature of the invention that it readily thermally equilibrates in the medium being measured while at the same time it holds this temperature long enough in the air for a reading to be made.
Since temperature is a fundamental property of nature there is always a need for improvements in its measurement. This invention is a new method of temperature measurement. It enables the measurement of temperature in situations where the known methods either cannot be used or are very difficult to implement. Thus this invention also addresses a key need since temperature is a fundamental property of nature.
(E) APPLICATION OF THE INVENTION TO FISHING
The device is very useful for determining optimum fishing depths and locations.
It can be used at any depth merely by letting it down into the water attached to a line. In fact it is preferred that the device be lowered using a normal fishing rod and reel. The exact depth in which the measurement was taken is easily reproduced with bait since the number of reel cranks up from the bottom or down from the surface are easily counted and then reproduced.
The device can be used for both trolling and still fishing . It is useful in both fresh and salt water. It provides reliable information even in the presence of undercurrents, springs, and thermoclines. In fact it is useful for identifying these underwater features which strongly affect the habits of fish.
It does not require batteries or other sources of power. It is very durable and small in size which allows storage along with other fishing equipment, such as lures, hooks, corks etc., in a fishing tackle box making it always readily available. The device is not harmed nor its effectiveness diminished if it drops into the mud, sand etc.
After one use it is immediately ready to be used again and again. This is very desirable since a number of measurements may be necessary to identify the optimum area in which to fish. The device disclosed within uniquely provides all of the above features.
The problem in measuring temperature in order to identify the optimum waters for fishing is best described by using an example.
Suppose it is desired to catch rainbow trout in a lake 200 feet deep. From the literature it is known that the optimum temperature for rainbow trout is 61 degrees Fahrenheit. If one were to attach a normal thermometer to a line and lower it into the water looking for the depth where the water temperature is closest to 61 degrees Fahrenheit a problem would occur. It would be impossible to bring the thermometer back up to the surface and read it before the reading changes. The thermometer might have read 61 degrees Fahrenheit at that particular depth but it would warm or cool by the intervening water and air between the depth of measurement and the fisherman.
Alternatively, one could employ a thermocouple and battery powered gauge (see DISCUSSION OF PRIOR ART above). However these are cumbersome, limited by the length of wire, subject to corrosion of the gauge etc. In addition these devices are very expensive.
The present invention works in the following way.
A tape containing a temperature sensing component, such as a liquid crystal ribbon, is used to measure temperature. This tape is encased in enough clear resin (plastic) to control heat flow but not too much in order to avoid undesirably long thermal equilibration times.
This device is lowered into the body of water to be fished. Preferably this is done by attaching the device to the line of a normal fishing rod and reel and then lowering or casting it into the water as would be done normally with bait or a lure. After sufficient time has been allowed for the device to thermally equilibrate, from about thirty seconds to about five minutes depending upon the exact design, the device is quickly retrieved and the temperature is read. The fact that a reel is used makes retrieval almost trivial since there is no loose line to deal with.
This measurement is easy to make and can be done reliably since the resin provides sufficient insulation and hydrophobicity so that the device holds the temperature for at least several minutes in the air while it is being read by the fisherman. At least one thirty-second of an inch and preferably at least one sixteenth of an inch of insulating plastic should be provided between the temperature strip and the liquid of which the temperature is being measured, so that the intervening water between the depth of the water measurement and the surface doesn't change the reading in the time it takes to retrieve the device (normally less than one minute). The hydrophobic nature of the device prevents wetting by water. This prevents sudden cool off of the device by flash evaporation when the device is raised into the air from the water (wind chill).
THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1: Is a schematic illustration of one method of forming the device according to the present invention.
FIG. 2: Is a view of an alternative method of aforming the device of the present invention.
FIG. 3A: Is an illustration of Step 1 of preparation according to method B.
FIG. 3B: Is a schematic illustration of Step 2 of preparation according to method B.
FIG. 3C: Is a schematic illustration of Step 3 of preparation according to method B.
FIG. 3D: Is a schematic illustration of a device prepared according to method B.
FIG. 4A: Is an illustration of a mold for preparing devices according to method C.
FIG. 4B: Is a view with the temperature sensor to be used in method C.
FIG. 5: Is a finished device prepared according to method C.
FIG. 6A: Is a mold which may be used in method D.
FIG. 6B: Is a temperature sensor in which may be used in method D.
FIG. 6C: Is a finished device prepared using method D.
DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
(F) PREPARATION OF TEMPERATURE MEASUREMENT DEVICES OF THE INVENTION
This section provides some of the general procedures and considerations which bear on the actual preparation of suitable devices of the invention. This information in no way implies, or should be construed to imply, limitations on the design of the device. The procedures given are by no means the only way such devices can be prepared. Other methods will be obvious to one skilled in the art of plastics processing and molding.
Unsaturated polyester resins were used to prepare the devices in the PREPARATION METHODS section given below. Suitable resin can be obtained through retail outlets as "CLEAR LIQUID PLASTIC CASTING RESIN" available from Chemco Resin Crafts Co. of Dublin, CA 94568 (stock no. 00183). Another such resin is "ENVIRO TEX CASTING RESIN" from Environmental Technology Inc. of Fields Landing, CA 95537 (stock no. 5032). A third example of a suitable resin is GLASS-KOTE Clear Casting Resin from Plastic Sales and Manufacturing Co. Inc. of 3030 Cherry St., Kansas City, MO 64109.
A suitable catalyst for these polyester resins is methyl ethyl ketone peroxide. MODERN PLASTICS ENCYCLOPEDIA reference 4a, pages 160-162 discusses the available peroxides and their use. Methyl ethyl ketone was used in the preparations discussed below since it is excellent for room temperature applications. This material is also known as a hardener and is also available from Chemco Resin Crafts Co.
As discussed previously, many plastics are suitable and can be chosen to optimize performance for particular applications. Each resin has unique use and handling procedures. These are thoroughly described in the prior art.
Background references 4a-c adequately discuss resins and their handling and processing techniques for converting them to plastics. These references are also very useful in identifying suppliers for these resins and other materials involved in plastics production.
These same references contain copious amounts of physical and chemical property data on resins and the plastics derived from them. This data is very useful for the identification of resins which can be used to match the physical and chemical properties of the plastics to the specific application of the device. Examples of such properties include optical clarity, weather resistance, ease of molding, compatibility with information inserts and thermometer strips (e.g. melting point, cure temperature, mutual insolubility), chemical resistance to the liquid in which temperature measurements will be made.
Examples of properties which need to be considered in matching a device to a particular application are transparency, durability, a density greater than the liquid in which a temperature measurement is to be made, and a non-wetting and inert surface to prevent wind chill type cooling effects when the device is raised from the liquid. Therefore a hydrophobic surface is needed if the liquid is aqueous and a hydrophylic surface would be desired for measurements in nonpolar liquids such as gasoline, fuel oil, oil or petroleum.
Another property needed of the plastic is low thermal conductivity. All of the plastics mentioned above have adequately low thermal conductivity. Plastics filled with conductive fillers. for example with nickel powder, would not be desirable if the level of filler was great enough to impart electrical conductivity to the plastic. Good corrosion resistance to the medium the device is to be used in, and the ease of processability in preparing the device are also desirable properties of the plastic.
EXAMPLES
Below are listed procedures which were used to prepare devices according to this invention.
The unsaturated polyester resins described above were used in the preparations. Unsaturated polyester thermoset resin is composed of polymers of phthalic anhydride, maleic anhydride and glycols in styrene copolymer and solvent. Styrene usually composes about 45 to 50% of the total by weight. The version referred to as "gel coat" is the most preferred. The peroxide catalyst initiates the free radical polymerization chemical reaction which causes the styrene to polymerize and crosslink the unsaturated polyester causing the entire mass to harden to a clear and colorless thermoset plastic.
Preparation Method A is for the use of liquid crystal ribbon or coil spring temperature sensors. Preparation Method B is for the use of liquid in glass temperature sensors with a low maximum temperature.
Preparation Method B is most suitable in situations where there is some concern that the component within the matrix may not withstand the temperatures encountered in a rapid cure of the thermoset or in thermoplastic processing.
Preparation Method C and D are more suited for mass production.
1. PREPARATION METHOD A
The setup arrangement used for Method A is shown in FIG. 1. A sixty milliliter tapered polypropylene round tube (10), with a inside diameter of 1.014 inch at the bottom and 1.065 inch inside diameter at the top with a conical bottom (12) and a cap (14) was used as a mold. This mold produces devices of about the above tapered thickness and 4.20 inches total length with the conical portion equaling 0.563 inches of this length.
One pinhole (16) was drilled in the bottom of the tube and one pinhole (18) in the center of the cap. About two feet of monofilament line (20) was threaded through the hole (16) in the bottom of the tube.
Almost all of the line (20) is pulled through the hole (16) from the top of the tube. A knot (24) placed near the end of the line (20) below the bottom (16) of the tube prevents the end (26) of the line from going through the orifice (16) of the tube. Another knot (28) is tied on the line close to and outside of the orifice (22) of the tube. The line (20) is then taped down onto a surface (30) with tape strips (32) and (34).
A liquid crystal thermometer (36) containing desired information such as a list of optimum temperatures for game fish (38) and (40), is placed upside down under the line. The information strip (38) and (40) and thermometer (36) are glued to the line (20) at a distance up from the second knot (28) such that they will be recessed into the resin when the second knot (28) is pulled to the hole (16) in the bottom of the mold (10). Scotch tape can be used instead of glue or the glue may be as an adhesive on the temperature and/or information tape(s). The tapes (32) and (34) are removed enabling the thermometer (36) and information tapes (38) and (40) to become mobile.
The thermometer (36) and the tape(s) (38) and (40) are pulled into the mold (10) using the line extending from the bottom hole (16). A third knot (42) (FIG. 2) is tied in the line (20) on the outside of the bottom of the mold and next to the mold to support the mold subsequently and to stopper the pinhole (16) to prevent resin leakage.
A sufficient amount of the CHEMCO unsaturated polyester resin, described above, was added to a mixing container. Sufficient catalyst, for example benzoyl peroxide or methyl ethyl ketone peroxide, is added to the resin and the mixture was blended thoroughly and poured into the mold. Too much catalyst and too warm a temperature has to be avoided to prevent cracking of the device during curing. For the above mold, two ounces of resin and sixteen drops (at about 0.05 ml per drop) of methyl ethyl ketone peroxide and a room temperature of about 65 degrees Fahrenheit was found to give a good product.
Immediately after the catalyzed resin has been poured into the mold (10) the line (20) from the top of the mold is fed through the pinhole (18) in the cap (14) and then the cap is placed onto the mold (FIG. 2). The line portion (42) protruding through the cap is then tied to a suitable horizontal support being a vertical arm (46) and a base (48). The mold (10) is allowed to hang suspended in the air until it has cured (hardened). The mold is held in place by the knot (42). Hanging the mold (10 and 14) in this manner holds the thermometer straight in the mold.
Alternatively, a vacuum may be applied to the airspace above the resin to hasten the removal of trapped air which is present in the resin as bubbles introduced in the mixing step. These bubbles rise and leave unassisted if the cure rate isn't too fast.
Depending on the resin used, the amount of catalyst used and the curing temperature, a post cure heating may be desirable to avoid a sticky surface on the product. One half to two hours at 175 to 225 F. is sufficient to post cure the device produced by the above procedure. Addition of activator, normally cobalt naphthenate, may be used instead, as is well known in the art.
The device is then removed from the mold by removing the cap and then flexing the flexible plastic mold while holding the mold upside down. The molded part simply falls right out. The extraneous line and plastic are trimmed from the device [flashing].
For convenience, a hole can be drilled into the device, preferably in one end, and an eye screw to fit the hole drilled inserted to provide a hook on point for line in the use of the device (see for example FIG. 5 (110)). Alternatively a hole can be drilled through the device, preferable on either or both ends of the device for line attachment.
The device is now ready to use.
Devices which use liquid in glass temperature sensing components which have the capability to measure high temperatures can be prepared using PREPARATION A provided the maximum temperature experienced by the sensor during the curing of the resin does not exceed the temperature the liquid in glass sensor can withstand before breaking.
2. PREPARATION METHOD B
The procedure used to prepare devices in which the temperature sensor was liquid in glass with a maximum temperature reading of only 100 degrees Fahrenheit was as follows (FIGS. 3A, 3B, 3C and 3D).
The temperature sensor (50) comprising an liquid (alcohol) in glass thermometer (52) mounted on a stainless steel scale (54) was obtained from PENN PLAX INC. Garden City, N.Y., 11530), cat. no. T-SS. This thermometer is designed to measure temperatures over the 30 to 100 degrees Fahrenheit range. A stainless steel hook (not shown) was removed from this unit so that no heat conducting metal would protrude from the finished device (FIG. 3D).
The device was prepared in three steps. The first step (FIG. 3A) comprised mixing 20 drops of methyl ethyl ketone peroxide catalyst into five ounces of ENVIROTEX casting resin described previously. This mixture (58) was poured into a rectangular (5"×3"×1") mold (56). When this resin hardened sufficiently to easily support the weight of the temperature sensing component step 2 was performed.
In step 2 (FIG. 3B) the temperature sensing component (52) is placed onto the harden resin (58) prepared in step 1 (away from the edges). A second layer of resin (60), prepared by mixing only ten drops of catalyst with five ounces of resin, is poured over it. The lower use of catalyst slows the cure rate which prevents the temperature from becoming too which could break the temperature component. The rate of this layer can be very slow. Slight warming y enhances the cure rate. Caution is required if heating is used since it cannot exceed the usually mild temperature temperature maximum of the liquid glass thermometer, of about 110 degrees Fahrenheit in this case, which is the limit of the temperature sensor before it may break. Temperature sensors designed for higher temperatures will allow corresponding higher cure temperatures. A safer method is to perform step 3 after the second resin layer becomes firm.
Step 3 (FIG. 3C) consists of placing a thin layer (62) of highly catalyzed resin, prepared as in Step 1, on the second layer while it is still tacky. This layer cures quickly producing the desired hard surface and promotes the complete curing of the second layer (60 FIG. 3B). Since the third layer (62) is thin not much heat is produced. The third layer need only be as thick as the thinest pourable layer can be about 1/16"-1/8" or less. The finished device (50) is shown in FIG. 3D and consists of a temperature sensor (52) with a scale (54) embedded in a clear transparent matrix (64).
3. PREPARATION METHOD C
Devices representing the invention can be prepared using the more traditional method of casting plastic parts using a metal mold (FIG. 4) so long as certain modifications are implemented to accommodate the inclusion of the temperature sensing element.
An aluminum mold (80) was prepared in the usual fashion of pouring molten aluminum onto the desired mold shape made out of sand. This mold contained ten cavities (82) and consisted of two sections (84 and 90). The bottom half of the mold (84) (FIG. 4A) contained ten cavities each polished to a mirror-like finish and of the dimensions of 0.95" width by 0.48" depth by 4.6" long. The cavity can be any shape so long as it adequately encloses the temperature sensor to be added latter and allows removal of the device from the mold after casting.
The top half (90) (FIG. 4B) was identical to the bottom half except that slots (92) were cut in the top of the cavities which open the cavities to the air when the mold is assembled. These allow the introduction of the resin and escapage of trapped air. The cavities were polished to a mirror finish to impart a smooth glass-like finish to the device for good transparency.
This mold was used in the following manner. The bottom half (84) was laid flat and filled to about half with three ounces of catalyzed resin prepared from the GLASS-KOTE clear casting resin discussed previously. Clear green colorant was blended with the resin along with the catalyst to impart a pleasing clear blue color to the finished device. In using colorant it should be obvious that too much should not be added which could impared the reading of the temperature sensor.
After the resin thickens, the temperature sensor (96) is laid onto the surface of the partially cured resin. Only the positioning of one of the ten temperature sensors is illustrated in FIG. 4A.
A preferred procedure (FIG. 4C) is to first attach a 1/2"×4"×0.015" liquid crystal thermometer sensor (102) to one side (103) of a 1/2"×1/2"×4" acrylic rod (104). Useful information is then attached to one or more of the other sides. The ends of the rod were not used although they could be. This rod (104) containing the temperature sensor (102) was then laid onto the partially cured resin (108). A useful feature of the Procedure is that the square rod can easily be placed anywhere within the mold cavity (82). This can be used to position the attached liquid crystal temperature sensor at different locations to yield devices with a range of temperature response properties. The closer the temperature sensor is located to the edge of the mold cavity the thinner will be the layer of cured resin and therefore the faster the devices' temperature response will be. This is a useful method for controlling the temperature response properties of the device.
Once the temperature sensor has been positioned, the top half (90) of the mold (FIG. 4B) is added. The mold is clamped to prevent slippage. Catalyzed resin is then poured through the slots (92) until each mold cavity is full. It is useful to exercise care in pouring the resin to avoid trapping air.
The resin is then allow to cure or harden.
After hardening, the devices (FIG. 5 (100)) (ten devices for the mold illustrated in FIG. 4) are removed, de-flashed if necessary, and a eye screw (110) added at a suitable spot to facilitate the attachment of a line during use. FIG. 5 illustrates a finished device (100) prepared according to this procedure. As shown, information (106) on the optimum temperatures for some fish were included to facilitate the use of the device for fishing.
4. PREPARATION METHOD D
The preferred method used to prepare the devices of this invention was to use individual cylindrical polypropylene molds (FIG. 6A (116)). This provides a quick, flexible and simple method of device preparation in large quantities. This polypropylene mold (116) is a tube having a length of 4.5" and a diameter of 1.1" (124) just above a 0.6" high conical base (118) and 1.15" diameter at the top (122). The slight taper aids in removal of the molded part.
A 1/2" square acrylic rod (FIG. 6B (104)) was cut to a length of four inches and the ends were polished. A hole was drilled into the center of one end of the rod (104) using a #51 drill bit. A C20 eye screw (110) (NETCRAFT CO. was screwed into this hole such that 3/8" of the shank remained outside of the rod. This spacing is important for positioning the insert as described below.
A liquid crystal temperature sensor (102) is attached to one side of the rod using glue.
Any other desired information is then attached to the other sides of the rod (106).
Catalyzed GLASS-KOTE resin with colorant is slowly poured into the mold (116) to just over half full. The insert containing the temperature sensor (Entire assembly of FIG. 6B) is placed into the resin slow enough to avoid trapping air bubbles. The eye screw (110) provides a handle for positioning the temperature sensor at the location in the mold for the desired temperature response of the device.
Once positioned enough additional resin is added to top off the mold and completely cover the insert. The final liquid level should lie immediately beneath the ring of the eye screw. This mode of introducing the eye screw has the added advantage of being very secure It can be difficult to obtain a firm screw setting in highly crystalline thermoset plastic.
After the resin has substantially cured, the device is easily removed from the mold and is ready for immediate use. FIG. 6C illustrates the finished device.
The following examples serve to illustrate how the device of the invention is used to measure temperatures. These examples are for illustrative purposes only and in no way should be construed to imply limitations on the invention.
EXAMPLE I
The effectiveness of the device from EXAMPLE I was tested as follows.
Into a pan of lukewarm water (95.4 degrees Fahrenheit) was added a device prepared according to METHOD A which weighed 60.17 grams with a total volume displacement of approximately 55 milliliters and dimensions of 1.014 inches thick at the bottom, and 1.065 inches thick at the top with a conical bottom of 0.563 inches in length and with a total overall length of 4.20 inches. A stopwatch was started at the same time. This device required seven minutes for the temperature to rise from less than 66 degrees Fahrenheit to 82 degrees Fahrenheit. At this point the device was removed from the lukewarm water and into the air under a light cool breeze of about 66 degrees Fahrenheit. The device was not dried off.
The temperature recorded by the device remained at 82 degrees Fahrenheit for four minutes then started to drop very slowly (about one degree per three minutes). This is plenty of time for a person to read the temperature.
EXAMPLE II
In a comparison test, a liquid mercury thermometer was tested in the same manner and under the same conditions as the device of this invention used in EXAMPLE I. Mercury thermometers are well known in the art. The one used in this test had the dimensions of 5.583 inches total length, 0.259 diameter, 0.638 inches mercury bulb length, 0.428 inches capillary length and covering the temperature range of minus ten to one hundred and ten degrees Celsius and readable to about 0.2 degrees Celsius.
In this test it was found that the temperature reading immediately fell upon removing the thermometer from the bath thereby preventing the bath temperature from being read in this manner.
Therefore it can be concluded that only surface temperatures can be measured using a normal thermometer and even then it has to be held beneath the water while the temperature is being read.
EXAMPLE III
Another device was prepared using METHOD A except that a smaller mold was used (three and one-half inches long and five-eights inches thick). This resultant smaller device has a thiner plastic layer covering the temperature sensor. As will become clear below, it was found that thinner plastic layers provide a faster response time than devices with thicker plastic layers.
This device was tested under the same conditions as in EXAMPLE I. The results were (1) that the device was warmed to eighty degrees in less than two minutes. (2)
When the device was removed from the bath into the air the reading remained at eighty degrees Fahrenheit for five minutes. This is excellent performance since very little time was needed for thermal equilibration and yet the device held the temperature for plenty of time for the user to withdraw the device from the water and read it. When taken with EXAMPLE I this demonstrates that the temperature response times can be controlled by varying the thickness of the plastic layer between the temperature sensing component and the liquid in which a temperature measurement is to be made.
EXAMPLE IV
This EXAMPLE illustrates that all combinations of liquid crystal temperature sensitive tape and resin are not useful for the present invention.
Two molds, illustrated in FIG. 3, of the dimensions, one and one half inch by three inches by one half inch, was filled half way with catalyzed polyester resin. One mold was made of latex and the other of polypropylene. Temperature tapes covering the range of 86 to 98 degrees Fahrenheit were laid on the resin in each mold when it had substantially hardened. Both molds were then filled with catalyzed resin. The temperature tapes drifted up near the surface during the curing process so that only a fairly thin film of about 0.01 inches of resin resided between the tape and the air. Both of these devices were found to cool quickly, within a few seconds, on lifting them out of warm water at 98 degrees Fahrenheit into air at room temperature. At least about 0.30 inches and preferably about 0.10 inches of resin should reside between the air and the temperature sensor.
EXAMPLE V
This EXAMPLE illustrates that the device is useful for measuring the temperature of bodies of liquid in which the usual temperature measuring methods would either fail or would be very difficult to implement. The device used in this test was prepared according to METHOD B.
It was desired to measure the temperature at the bottom of the Missouri River near St. Charles, MO., in January. This river at this location is filled with suspended solids (silt) making the water opaque and with drifting ice flows. The bank of the river was covered with thin ice which prevented any close approach to the water. For the reasons discussed previously, this temperature measurement could not be made using normal liquid in glass, liquid crystal, bimetallic strip or liquid expansion based thermometers. The use of a thermocouple device would be highly impractical and expensive as discussed previously. A device of this invention prepared according to METHOD B measuring 5.862 inches long 2.876 inches wide and 0.975 inches thick with a 4.23 inch long alcohol in glass temperature sensor covering the temperature range of 30 to 100 degrees Fahrenheit centrally positioned in it, was merely attached to the line of a fishing pole and then cast into the river at the desired location for the measurement. The water was flowing rapidly and was about three feet deep. The device was allowed to lie on the bottom of the river until thermal equlibration was attained as determined by repeatedly quickly removing the device from the water and reading the temperature from the scale associated with the temperature sensing device imbedded within the device. These readings did not vary widely but showed the desired smooth decrease with time. Thermal equilibration was reached at 37.0 degrees Fahrenheit when the temperature reading no longer dropped with time.
The device was then pulled from the river and the temperature was followed with time to record how well it retained the temperature reading of the bottom of the river.
The data obtained are given in Table I.
TABLE I______________________________________Temperature response data for the devicetested in EXAMPLE I.TIME (minutes) TEMPERATURE (degrees Fahrenheit)______________________________________2 37.03 37.04 37.25 37.26 37.07 37.08 37.29 37.210 37.211 37.4______________________________________
It is clear from Table I that excellent temperature stability was achieved with the device despite the harsh environment the reading was made in.
EXAMPLE V-A
The device, used in EXAMPLE V held the 37.0 degrees Fahrenheit temperature reading for about one minute in sunlight. Of course this is still plenty long for a user to make a reading. However, if is desired that the device hold a reading for a long time it is preferred that the device be shielded from direct sunlight when sun radiation-absorbing plastics are used to prepare the device.
Since his device was made of unsaturated polyester resin it is important to shield it from the sun for the long period of the test since this resin strongly absorbs ultraviolet light from the sun. This can cause a significant warming rate.
EXAMPLE VI
The same device used in EXAMPLE V was used to measure the temperature of the Meramec River near Kirkwood, Missouri. The river contained much loose ice and it was desired to measure the temperature of the bottom of the river. The device was lowered into the river using monofilament line as in EXAMPLE V. The device was allowed to thermally equilibrate as in EXAMPLE V also. The water depth was about five feet. Table II lists the results obtained when the device was pulled from the river for reading. It is clear from this data that the device held the temperature of the bottom of the river for at least several minutes. This is plenty of time for the user to record the temperature.
TABLE II______________________________________Temperature response data for the devicetested in EXAMPLE II.TIME (minutes) TEMPERATURE (degrees Fahrenheit)______________________________________0 35.22 35.24 35.07 33.5______________________________________
EXAMPLE VII
A device was prepared using METHOD B and a simple rectangular mold (FIG. 3). The temperature sensing component was a liquid crystal tape sensitive over the 66 to 86 degrees Fahrenheit range instead of the liquid-in-glass thermometer shown in FIG. 3. A high cure rate was possible since the liquid crystal ribbon is very stable at the high cure temperatures.
The final device measured one and one-half by four by three quarters of an inch. This device was equilibrated in lukewarm water at 86 degrees Fahrenheit. About four minutes were needed for this equilibration.
On removing the device into the air at 66 degrees Fahrenheit the device held the 86 degree reading of the bath for at least four minutes and only changed to 85 degrees after five minutes.
EXAMPLE VIII
A device was prepared according to METHOD B containing an alcohol temperature sensing component.
This device measured two and three-fourths by five by one inch. This device was placed in a bath of water at 44 degrees Fahrenheit. This device held the temperature reading of the bath, 44 degrees Fahrenheit, for five minutes after removing it from the bath.
This is plenty of time to enable a user to read and record the temperature.
EXAMPLE IX
A device was prepared using METHOD B and a bimetallic strip as the temperature sensing component. The dimensions of this device was the same as that used in EXAMPLE VIII. This device required a fairly lengthy thermal equilibration time of about twenty-five minutes in a water bath at 86 degrees Fahrenheit. This was probably because of the insulating air gap around the bimetallic strip.
This device held the 86 degrees Fahrenheit bath temperature for at least five minutes on removing it from the bath.
This demonstrates the usefulness of this device for these types of measurements.
EXAMPLE X
This example illustrates how the device is used to aid in catching fish. At the lake of the Ozarks, Missouri the water temperature in the summer reaches about eighty degrees. A catch of two to four bass per day is normally a good catch. On a particular day the water temperature was 82 C. and no fish were encountered even after about six hours of fishing. The device prepared according to Method C was used to find water of the optimum temperature for bass (71 C.). This water was found near the mouth of a small spring fed stream entering the lake. In twenty minutes sixteen bass were caught by just one fisherman using artificial bait and just one rod and reel. Equivalent success was had by four fishermen in another boat very close (about fifty feet) nearby. | The device of the invention consists of a temperature sensitive device embedded in a matrix which provides a useful heat flow pattern. Apparently the device exploits the difference in the thermal conductivities of air versus other media, such as water or slurries, to function. Plastics are the preferred matrix material for most applications. The insulating and non-wettability properties of plastics may contribute to the observed useful properties as well. The chemical resistance of certain plastics can provide additional useful variations. The invention is especially useful as an aid to fishing. The device readily and simply identifies which waters have the best chance of containing fish. Other examples are municipal drinking water tanks, liquid cargo tanks, oil and water wells, etc. | 6 |
FIELD OF TECHNOLOGY
[0001] The present technology relates to a home appliance with a water inlet system and a method of operating a home appliance. More particularly, the present technology relates to a home appliance with a water inlet system and a method of operating the home appliance with the water inlet system.
[0002] Background
[0003] Water conducting household appliances need to admit water into the interior of the appliance and maintain operating conditions of the interior of the appliance at certain acceptable levels. For example, pressure in the interior of the appliance may have a maximum acceptable level and admitting pressurized water could potentially exceed the maximum acceptable pressure level. In a similar manner, heat generated inside the appliance may cause a pressure increase, e.g., by way of water turning into steam or heating gas in the interior.
[0004] Brief Summary
[0005] In order to avoid excessive pressures, it is desirable to prevent pressure in the interior of the appliance from exceeding acceptable levels. For example, it may be desirable to control or otherwise reduce water inlet pressure to acceptable levels, e.g., to atmospheric pressure. Likewise, it may be desirable to prevent steam or other heated gas in the interior of the appliance from increasing. It is also desirable to achieve these goals in a relatively low cost manner.
[0006] One way to control both the water inlet pressure and pressure generated from heated gases is to provide a vent to atmosphere. Such a vent is relatively inexpensive and reliable because no moving parts are required.
[0007] However, venting steam or other heated gas may be undesirable to the user of the home appliance because the steam or heated gas could cause damage to surrounding objects or cause other unwanted results.
[0008] An aspect of the present technology solves one or more problems of the prior art.
[0009] Another aspect of the present technology includes a device and method that prevents water entering an appliance from exceeding a predetermined level and prevents gas from escaping the appliance to the surroundings in an undesirable manner.
[0010] Another aspect of the present technology includes a water conducting household appliance comprising: a water inlet; a pressure reducer downstream of and in fluid communication with the water inlet; a water trap downstream of and in fluid communication with the pressure reducer; an expansion device downstream of and in fluid communication with the water trap; a treatment container downstream of and in fluid communication with the expansion device; and a condensation device downstream of and in fluid communication with the expansion device.
[0011] In examples, (a) the pressure reducer comprises a chamber with a vent connected to atmosphere; (b) the chamber comprises: a top with a flow passage connected to the water inlet; and a conduit extending downwards from the flow passage to an interior of the chamber, the conduit being smaller than a surrounding portion of the chamber and having an open, unconnected end, wherein the vent is above the open, unconnected end; (c) the water trap is below the open, unconnected end; (d) the condensation device comprises an expansion hose; (e) the expansion hose extends upwards from the expansion device; (f) the water trap forms a lowest portion of the chamber; (g) wherein the chamber is configured so that water entering the chamber from the inlet impinges on a side wall of the chamber at an acute angle before flowing into the water trap; (h) the acute angle is less than or equal to 45°; (i) the acute angle is less than or equal to 15°; (j) the treatment container is configured to wash dishes, (k) the treatment container comprises a rack for the dishes and a spray device to spray the dishes; and/or (1) the water trap comprises a water trap inlet, a water trap outlet and an intermediate flow passage and the water trap inlet and the water trap outlet are higher than the intermediate flow passage such that when water flows through the water trap a predetermined amount of water remains in the water trap to fill the intermediate flow passage and prevent gas from flowing through the water trap.
[0012] Another aspect of the present technology includes a household dishwasher comprising: a water inlet configured to connect the dishwasher to an external water supply; a pressure control device configured to prevent water entering the dishwasher from the water inlet from exceeding atmospheric pressure; a dish washing chamber configured to wash dishes; and a seal between the pressure control device and the dish washing chamber configured to prevent gas from flowing from the dish washing chamber to the pressure control device.
[0013] In examples, (a) the seal is a water trap in fluid communication between the pressure control device and the dish washing chamber; (b) the water trap comprises a water trap inlet, a water trap outlet and an intermediate flow passage and the water trap inlet and the water trap outlet are higher than the intermediate flow passage such that when water flows through the water trap a predetermined amount of water remains in the water trap to fill the intermediate flow passage and prevent gas from flowing through the water trap; (c) the pressure control device comprises a vent to atmosphere; (d) the seal is configured to prevent steam in the dish washing chamber from passing through the vent to atmosphere; (e) the pressure control device comprises a chamber with an opening connected to the water inlet and with a fluid connection to the seal; (f) the chamber comprises a wall that forms an acute angle with a central axis of the opening; (g) the opening is formed on an end of a tube extending into the chamber; (h) the tube extends from a top interior wall of the chamber; (i) the vent to atmosphere comprises a second opening in the chamber that is located above the opening; and/or (j) the pressure control device is configured to fluidly connect water in the pressure control device to atmospheric conditions surrounding the household dishwasher but prevent liquid water from passing through the vent to atmosphere.
[0014] Another aspect of the present technology includes a method of operating a water conducting household appliance, the method comprising: adding water to the appliance from a household water supply connected to the appliance; fluidly connecting the water to atmospheric conditions surrounding the appliance to control pressure of the water to be equal to atmospheric pressure while the water is added to the appliance; trapping a predetermined amount of the water; maintaining a connection between the predetermined amount of water and the atmospheric conditions; and using the predetermined amount of the water to prevent steam generated in the appliance from escaping the appliance to the surrounding atmosphere through the connection.
[0015] Another aspect of the present technology includes a household appliance comprising: a water inlet configured to connect the appliance to an external water supply; a pressure control device configured to prevent water entering the appliance from the water inlet from exceeding atmospheric pressure; a treatment container configured to treat household items with water; and a seal between the pressure control device and the treatment container configured to prevent gas flowing from the treatment container to the pressure control device.
[0016] Other aspects, features, and advantages of this technology will become apparent from the following detailed description when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, which are a part of this disclosure and which illustrate, by way of example, principles of this technology.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0017] FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a water conducting household appliance;
[0018] FIG. 2 is a perspective view of a water conducting household appliance with a door in a closed position;
[0019] FIG. 3 is a perspective view of a water conducting household appliance with a door and interior components omitted;
[0020] FIG. 4 is a front view of an inlet device with a cover omitted to view the interior of the inlet device;
[0021] FIG. 5 is a front view of an inlet device with a water trap and with a cover omitted to view the interior of the inlet device;
[0022] FIG. 6A is a front view of an inlet device with a water trap and with a cover omitted to view the interior of the inlet device;
[0023] FIG. 6B is a front view of an inlet device with a water trap and with a cover omitted to view the interior of the inlet device;
[0024] FIG. 6C is a front view of an inlet device with a water trap and with a cover omitted to view the interior of the inlet device;
[0025] FIG. 6D is a front view of an inlet device with a water trap and with a cover omitted to view the interior of the inlet device;
[0026] FIG. 7 is a front view of an inlet device with a cover in place.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
[0027] The following description is provided in relation to several examples which may share common characteristics and features. It is to be understood that one or more features of any one example may be combinable with one or more features of the other examples. In addition, any single feature or combination of features in any of the examples may constitute additional examples.
[0028] Throughout this disclosure, terms such as first, second, etc. may be used. However, these terms are not intended to be limiting or indicative of a specific order, but instead are used to distinguish similarly described features from one another, unless expressly noted otherwise. Terms such as substantially and about are intended to allow for variances to account for manufacturing tolerances, measurement tolerances, or variations from ideal values that would be accepted by those skilled in the art.
[0029] Throughout this disclosure, the terms left side and right side are used. These terms are only intended to provide relational orientation with respect to one another. Any two opposed sides can be a right side and a left side and by changing to an opposed viewpoint, right versus left will be changed. Thus, right side and left side should not be considered limiting and are used only to distinguish their relationship to one another.
[0030] FIG. 1 illustrates a water conducting household appliance (e.g., a dishwasher 10 ) with a treatment container 15 and a door 20 . Inside the treatment container 15 there may be a device for holding dishes (e.g., a rack 25 ) and a device for treating items inside the treatment container 15 (e.g., a spray device 30 ). Any number of racks and spray devices can be included, but only one spray device 30 and two racks 24 are illustrated for simplicity. The spray device 30 is illustrated as a rotary arm, but any type of spray device may be included. The treatment container 15 is thus configured to wash dishes.
[0031] FIG. 2 illustrates the dishwasher 10 from a side perspective view with the door 20 in a closed condition and a water inlet device 100 mounted on an exterior side wall 35 . An inlet hose 105 and an expansion hose 110 are connected to the water inlet device 100 . A first end 115 of the expansion hose 110 is illustrated as connected to the water inlet device 100 . A second end 120 of the expansion hose 110 is open to atmosphere and may be connected to a water collection tray (not illustrated). The water collection tray may be provided to collect any water that may flow out of the second end 120 .
[0032] FIG. 3 illustrates the dishwasher 10 from another side perspective view where the door 20 , rack 25 and spray device 30 are omitted to more clearly view an outlet 125 of the water inlet device 100 . The outlet 125 provides fluid communication between the water inlet device 100 and the treatment container 15 . The outlet 125 is approximately one-third of the way up an interior wall 40 of the treatment container 15 . The outlet 125 may be located at any height that is convenient.
[0033] FIG. 4 illustrates a related water inlet device 100 . The water inlet device 100 is illustrated with a cover removed so that the internal features are visible.
[0034] The water inlet device 100 includes a fluid inlet 130 illustrated as a hose barb. Any connection suitable for fluid such as water may be provided. The fluid inlet 130 fluidly connects to a flow passage 135 downstream of the fluid inlet 130 . The flow passage 135 extends upwardly and may be substantially vertical along a first section 140 , although the first section 140 may be positioned other than vertically. At a top end of the first section 140 , the flow passage 135 includes a bend 145 . The bend 145 is illustrated as an approximately 180° bend. Other bend angles may be included and may depend on the orientation of the first section 140 . Extending from the bend 145 is a conduit 150 extending into a first chamber 155 through a top wall 160 of the first chamber 155 . Thus the first chamber 155 is downstream of the flow passage 135 . The conduit 150 is illustrated as relatively short, but other relatively longer conduits may be employed. As illustrated, the flow passage 135 is in the form of an inverted “J.”
[0035] A first vent opening 165 and a second vent opening 170 are illustrated within the first chamber 155 . The first vent opening 165 and the second vent opening 170 are illustrated on opposite sides of the conduit 150 , with a lowest portion of the vent openings 165 , 170 being at the same height as an end 175 of the conduit 150 . The conduit 150 may extend lower than a lowest portion of the vent openings 165 , 170 . As illustrated, the conduit 150 is smaller than a portion of the first chamber 155 immediately surrounding the conduit 150 . The vent openings 165 , 170 may be located in other locations that tend to prevent water from flowing out of the vent openings 165 , 170 but allow communication with atmospheric conditions. Although two vent openings 165 , 170 are illustrated, a single vent opening or three or more openings may be provided. When water flows into the first chamber 155 , the vent openings 165 , 170 control the water pressure to be the same as the surrounding atmosphere. In this way, the first chamber 155 and the vent openings 165 , 170 function as a pressure regulating device.
[0036] The first chamber 155 includes an angled wall 180 that is angled with respect to a central axis 185 of the end 175 . The angled relationship between the angled wall 180 and the central axis 185 may help to reduce noise generated when water enters the first chamber 155 . When water impinges at an acute angle, any noise generated may be decreased.
[0037] An opening 190 is provided towards a lowest point of the first chamber 155 so that the first chamber 155 is in fluid communication with a second chamber 195 downstream of the first chamber 155 . The second chamber 195 may function as an expansion device or expansion chamber. The second chamber 195 is in fluid communication with the outlet 125 (not illustrated in FIG. 4 ) which provides fluid communication with the treatment container 15 downstream of the second chamber 195 . The second chamber 195 is illustrated as substantially circular in cross-section, although any convenient shape may be used.
[0038] A condensation port 200 is illustrated as extending upwards substantially vertically, although other orientations are possible. For example, the condensation port 200 could be oriented to form an angle with vertical, e.g., any angle that allows fluid to flow downwards to the second chamber 195 . The condensation port 200 is thus downstream of the second chamber 195 . The condensation port 200 provides fluid communication with the second chamber 195 and connects with the first end 115 of the expansion hose 110 . By way of the outlet 125 and the second chamber 195 , steam that forms in the treatment container 15 is allowed to rise upwards into the expansion hose 110 , cool, condense and drain back into the treatment container 15 . This configuration may prevent excessive pressure from being generated in the treatment container 15 .
[0039] The vent openings 165 , 170 may also allow steam to exit the treatment container 15 , but steam exiting at the vent openings 165 , 170 may not be desirable.
[0040] FIG. 5 is largely similar to FIG. 4 , so like reference numbers may be assumed to be the same as described with reference to FIG. 4 . FIG. 5 differs from FIG. 4 in two ways.
[0041] First, angled wall 180 a forms a smaller angle with central axis 185 . For example, the angled wall 180 a may form an acute angle that may be 30°, 15°, or less with the central axis 185 . As illustrated, the angle is about 10°.
[0042] Second, a water trap 205 is illustrated in fluid communication between the first chamber 155 and the second chamber 195 . Alternatively, the water trap 205 may be considered a lowest portion of the first chamber 155 . Viewed another way, the water trap 205 may be considered to have an inlet, an intermediate flow passage and an outlet downstream of the first chamber 155 .
[0043] The water trap 205 may act as a seal that prevent steam from exiting through the vent openings 165 , 170 . When water flows in through the water inlet device 100 , a predetermined amount of water remains in the water trap 205 . The predetermined amount of water is defined based upon a volume of the water trap that is below a lowest point of the outlet 125 . When water is trapped in this manner, the water in the water trap 205 is able to resist pressure generated in the treatment container 15 and prevent steam or other gases from flowing backwards through the water trap 205 and out of the vent openings 165 , 170 . Due to the condensation port 200 being open to atmospheric conditions by way of the expansion hose 110 , the water trap 205 only has to provide resistance to back pressure generated by the amount of pressure drop in the expansion hose 110 in order to prevent steam or other gases from flowing out of the vent openings 165 , 170 . However, the amount of back pressure may be substantially zero because the only flow through the expansion hose 110 under normal operating conditions should be due to expansion from heating in the treatment container 15 , which should be minimal. Gas may also flow outwards through the expansion hose 110 when water flows into the treatment container 15 via the water inlet device 100 . However, the water trap 205 may not need to resist back pressure per se in this scenario because water flowing through the trap should overcome any pressure resistance in the expansion hose 110 .
[0044] The relative locations of the water trap 205 and the angled wall 180 a may provide for an arrangement that prevents or reduces noise generated by water entering the water inlet device 100 . For example, when water impinges on the angled wall 180 a after exiting the conduit 150 , the water may enter the water trap in a relatively quiet manner. If the water impinges on water in the water trap directly instead of on the angled wall 180 a , splashing may occur that generates more noise than if water impinges on the angled wall 180 a.
[0045] FIGS. 6A, 6B, 6C and 6D illustrate alternate configurations of the water inlet device 100 . These alternate configurations are similar to that illustrated in FIG. 5 except for the location of the water trap 205 . In each of these figures, the water trap 205 is in a central portion of the first chamber 155 . As a result of this location, water entering the first chamber 155 impinges on a second angled wall 210 before flowing through the water trap 205 , along the angled wall 180 and through the opening 190 .
[0046] In FIG. 6A the water trap 205 is similar to that illustrated in FIG. 5 in that the water trap 205 includes only a single outlet. The water trap 205 as illustrated in FIGS. 6A, 6B and 6C has two outlets on the left and right sides, respectively. The water trap 205 illustrated in FIGS. 6C and 6D is further differentiated by a raised portion that effectively creates a water trap for both of the left and right outlets. The configurations illustrated in FIGS. 6A, 6B, 6C and 6D were tested and found to have a lower flow rate capability than that illustrated in FIG. 5 , which can accommodate a flow rate of 2.5 liters per minute or more.
[0047] FIG. 7 illustrates the water inlet device 100 with a cover 215 in place. The cover 215 encloses the various open passages illustrated in FIGS. 4-6D . Alternatively, the water inlet device 100 could be fabricated without the cover 215 , i.e. as a single unitary piece with internal flow passages. The number of components used to fabricate the water inlet device 100 should be chosen for convenience and ease of manufacture. The water inlet device 100 could be made out of any number of components and still be within the spirit of the technology described herein.
[0048] FIG. 7 also illustrates a first hose support 220 and a second hose support 225 . These hose supports may be omitted or included as convenient. For example, the second hose support 225 may support the expansion hose 110 in the configuration illustrated in FIG. 2 .
[0049] While the present technology has been described in connection with several practical examples, it is to be understood that the technology is not to be limited to the disclosed examples, but on the contrary, is intended to cover various modifications and equivalent arrangements included within the spirit and scope of the technology. | A household appliance includes a water inlet configured to connect the appliance to an external water supply; a pressure control device configured to prevent water entering the appliance from the water inlet from exceeding atmospheric pressure; a treatment container configured to treat household items with water; and a seal between the pressure control device and the treatment container configured to prevent gas flowing from the treatment container to the pressure control device. | 3 |
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0001] 1. Field of the Invention
[0002] The invention relates to a valve arrangement of the type having a valve housing with an inlet and an outlet and with a flow regulator which is arranged in the housing so that a movement of the housing relative to the flow regulator can be performed, so a proportional variation of the flow is achieved.
[0003] 2. Description of the Prior Art
[0004] In U.S. Pat. No. 5,845,633, a valve arrangement of the above type is described. The object of that valve arrangement is to dose small amounts of nitric oxide to a breathing gas, the gas being supplied to a patient for medical purposes. The valve housing is here a tube-shaped container in which the flow regulator in the form of a tube-shaped membrane is arranged, with the container and the end side of the membrane which being turned towards the breathing gas being made of a material which does not allow nitric oxide to pass through. The membrane is connected via a gas tube with a source for nitric oxide. The tube-shaped membrane is made using a material which allows nitric oxide through, e.g. TeFlon®. The tube-shaped membrane is also removably arranged in the container. The nitric oxide source is suitably regulated so that a constant pressure is prevalent in the membrane tube. This results in a constant difference in partial pressure for nitrogen oxide on the in- and out-side of the membrane tube. Diffusion from the inside of the membrane tube to the breathing gas, which depends on the size of the membrane tube's diffusion surface, is obtained. The dosing is regulated by exposing a suitable portion of the total diffusion surface. The exposure of the diffusion surface occurs by taking a suitable part of the surface out of the container. This described ventilator arrangement is only related to dosing of nitrogen oxide.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0005] An object of the invention is to provide a valve arrangement of the type described above which is related to regulating the micro-flow for different sorts of gases as well as different sorts of liquids.
[0006] The above object is achieved in accordance with the invention by a flow regulator having a porous body to block the flow between the inlet and the outlet except for through the porous body wherein, through relative movement, a progressive variation of an outer surface of the porous body is obtained, the outer surface being in flow-contact with the outlet. By organizing the valve according to the invention, and particularly because of the porous body through which a gas or a liquid can pass, a universal valve is obtained for micro-flows, that allows such flows can to be easily be dosed.
[0007] In an embodiment of the valve arrangement according to the invention, the valve housing has a first part containing the inlet, the first part having a sealing surface towards which at least a part of the porous body's outer surface lies, and a second part having the outlet, wherein the second part's inner diameter is larger than the body's outer diameter, and the relative movement is a displacement of the body between the first and the second part. By a gradual displacement of the porous body within the second part of the valve housing, the dosing of gas or liquid is increased.
[0008] In another further embodiment of the valve arrangement according to the present invention, the porous body has a first non-porous end part, which is turned towards the second part of the ventilator housing, and that the first part is dimensioned so that the non-porous end part can be placed in the first part of the ventilator housing. In this way, when the porous body has been displaced to a location where the non-porous end part is placed in the first part of the valve housing, the body's entire outer surface lies towards the sealing surface in the first part, so the valve arrangement is closed.
[0009] In Another embodiment of the valve arrangement according to the invention, the porous body is provided with at least one channel, the opening of which lies in the body's second end part which is turned towards the inlet. In this way gas or liquid can more quickly reach the porous body's interior and so have shorter routes through the pores to the outer surface of the body.
DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0010] FIG. 1 is a longitudinal section through a valve arrangement according to the invention, in a closed position.
[0011] FIG. 2 shows the valve arrangement of FIG. 1 in a partially opened position.
[0012] FIG. 3 shows the valve arrangement of FIGS. 1 and 2 in a completely opened position.
[0013] FIG. 4 is a longitudinal section through a further embodiment of a valve arrangement according to the present invention.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
[0014] In FIG. 1 , a valve arrangement 1 is shown in longitudinal section which is designed to regulate micro-flows for different sorts of gases. The valve arrangement 1 has a valve housing 2 with an inlet 3 , one or more outlets 4 and a flow regulator 5 in the form of a porous body which is displaceably arranged in the housing 2 along a central axis 8 .
[0015] With this valve arrangement, gas can flow through the inlet 3 into the valve housing 2 and to reach the porous body 5 . The gas then passes over pores 20 in the body 5 to the outer surface 9 of the body 5 , so gas can be emitted through the outlets 4 . This will be described in detail below.
[0016] The valve housing 2 can be divided into a first part 6 and a second part. The inlet 3 is arranged in the first part 6 . The inner diameter of the first part 6 of the housing 2 is dimensioned so that the outer surface 9 of the porous body 5 lies tight to the inner wall 10 of the housing 2 , the inner wall 10 here serves serving as a sealing surface.
[0017] In the second part 7 of the ventilator housing 2 , the outlets 4 are arranged. The inner diameter of the second part 7 is larger than the outer diameter of the porous body 5 . The porous body 5 has a first non-porous end part 11 , which is turned towards the second part 7 of the housing 2 . The porous body 5 is provided with a channel 12 , the opening of which lies in the second end part 14 of the porous body 5 , which end part 14 is turned towards the inlet 3 .
[0018] The end side 16 of the second part 7 of the housing 2 is provided with a through-passage opening 17 , through which an actuator 15 in the form of a straight peg extends, the opening 17 preferably being arranged so that the actuator 15 is displaceable along the central axis 8 .
[0019] A spring 19 is placed between the second end part 14 of the porous body 5 and the inner wall 18 in the first part 6 of the housing 2 , which is turned towards the end part 14 .
[0020] In FIG. 1 , the porous body 5 , with help of the actuator 15 pushing towards the body's non-porous end part 11 , has been displaced in the ventilator housing 2 along the central axis 8 so that the entire body 5 is placed in the first part 6 of the housing 2 , the spring 19 in this position being compressed. Because of the inner wall 10 that seals against the entire jacket surface 9 of the body 5 , and because of the first non-porous end part 11 of the body 5 which has an axial sealing function, the valve in this position is closed
[0021] In FIG. 2 , it is shown that the porous body 5 by the action of the spring 19 and the actuator 15 has been displaced in the direction towards the second part 7 of the housing 2 , so a part of the jacket surface 9 of the body 5 has been exposed between, as earlier described, the inner diameter of the second part 7 of the housing 2 is larger than the outer diameter of the body 5 . In this way, gas comes from pores 20 in the body 5 which results in the exposed jacket surface 9 being in flow-contact with the outlets 4 .
[0022] In FIG. 3 , it is shown that the porous body 5 has been displaced to a position where the valve arrangement 1 is completely open. In this position a maximum jacket surface 9 of the body 5 is exposed. In this way, a maximum number of pores 20 , resulting in the exposed jacket surface 9 of the body, have flow-contact with the outlets 4 . Only a few pores 20 have been depicted in the Figures.
[0023] The channel 12 described in connection with FIG. 1 serves to easily and quickly distribute the gas in the porous body 5 .
[0024] In FIG. 4 , a further example of a valve arrangement 21 for regulating micro-flows for gases is shown in longitudinal section. In the description of this valve arrangement 21 , the same reference numerals as in FIGS. 1-3 have been used as much as possible.
[0025] The valve arrangement 21 has a valve housing 2 with an inlet 3 and an outlet 4 , and a flow regulator 5 in the form of a porous body. The interior of the housing 2 is dimensioned so that the body 5 can only rotate around the central axis 8 by the action of the actuator 15 , which is solidly fixed to the body 5 . The outer surface 9 of the body 5 is for the most part provided with a coating which serves as sealing layer for gases. Only a smaller surface 23 is exposed. The inner wall 10 of the housing 2 has in connection with the outlet 4 a recess 22 which extends along part of the outer surface of the body 5 . By turning the body 5 so that the surface 23 is in front of or partially in front of the recess 22 , the pores 20 resulting in this surface have more or less flow-contact with the outlet 4 . When the body 5 has been turned to a position where the sealing layer completely covers the recess 22 , the valve arrangement 21 is closed. Even this valve arrangement 21 can preferably be provided with a channel 12 in the porous body 5 , the benefits of which have been described above.
[0026] Due to the relative movement between the housing 2 and the porous body 5 , described in connection with FIGS. 2, 3 and 4 , a progressive variation of the outer surface of the porous body 5 is achieved, which surface is in flow-contact with the outlets 4 , so an extremely careful micro-dosing of gas can be achieved.
[0027] The valve arrangements according to the invention described herein can also regulate micro-flows for liquids.
[0028] The valve arrangements described can also be used in connection with anaesthetic systems. In this way, an anaesthetic liquid can be supplied to the valve housing, the liquid being vaporized in the porous body, with the body preferably being heated so that the liquid will more easily be vaporized.
[0029] Although modifications and changes may be suggested by those skilled in the art, it is the invention of the inventor to embody within the patent warranted heron all changes and modifications as reasonably and properly come within the scope of his contribution to the art. | A valve arrangement has a valve housing with an inlet and an outlet and a flow regulator including a porous body that is displaceable in the valve housing between the inlet and the outlet. The porous body blocks flow between the inlet and the outlet except for flow through the porous body. The displacement of the porous body between the inlet and the outlet proportionally varies a size of an outer surface of the porous body that is exposed to the outlet, thereby regulating fluid flow between the inlet and the outlet. | 0 |
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Field of the Invention: This invention relates to power tongs for making up or breaking apart the drill tools used in oil and geologic drilling engineering and is particularly adequate for make-up and break-apart operations on drill pipes, drill collars and kellys. The power tongs includes an upper tong and a lower tong each being swivelly connected with the other. Each tong is provided with a pair of hydraulically or pneumatically powered tong dies being capable of moving toward or away from each other synchronously to grip or release drill tools.
Description of the Prior Art: Conventionally, suspended B-type tongs have been used in oil drilling engineering as the equipment for making up or breaking apart drill tools. Their operations concern hazardous and heavy manual labour, and various types of power tongs have then been developed to replace some of the operations of B-type tongs. Among these power tongs, the representative ones are TW-60 model produced by U.S. company Varco and that made known to the public by the U.S. Pat. No. 4,060,014. Their common feature consists in accomplishing the make-up and break-apart tasks with large torques, excluding the function of completing the same mission with small torques unless they are used in combination with a separate spinner having the above-mentioned function. The main disadvantages of existing power tongs are as follows:
1. A hand-operated latching door or similar fittings provided at the mounth of each tong.
2. Operations for replacements of components needed when the sizes of drill tools vary; no automatic adaptability to this variation.
3. More limitation to the eccentric wear of joints of drill tools.
4. More complexity and massiveness.
5. More valves needed when operated and hence less effectiveness presented.
6. A special system for moving the power tongs such as a power hoist or a moving pedestal needed.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of the present invention is to provide suspended power tongs including upper and lower tongs each having a pair of gripping devices. The way said upper and lower tongs connect with each other enables them to swivel relatively clockwise or counterclockwise from their coincident positions around a fixed axis (the axis of drill tools) over a certain angle under the guide of a guiding device to complete the movements for making up or breaking apart joints of drill tools.
Another object of the present invention is to provide supercharged gripping devices mounted on both upper and lower tongs to offer large forces so as to grip joints of drill tools sufficiently and thus to ensure reliable transmission of the large torques exerted when making up or breaking apart. The supercharged gripping devices can even automatically adapt the variation of the size of the drill tools gripped and accurately grip drill tools without adjustment when the size of drill tools being changed. The gripping or releasing action of two opposite movable tong dies can be realized synchronously by means of a synchronizing machanism.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a combinatory torque-generating unit enabling upper and lower tongs to swivel relatively and offering normal makeup or break-apart torques with larger ones at the beginning of break-apart operation.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a compact pull-in locating device used to haul power tongs to grip drill tools accurately.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a control system consisting of hydraulically powered units and pipings to enable power tongs to be operated according to predetermined procedures.
A still further object of the present invention is to provide locking devices in both upper and lower tongs to enable them to be operated individually or jointly.
The last object of the present invention is to provide adjustable devices making tong dies have certain flexibility to have tong bodies evenly pressured and adapt automatically the irregular joints of drill tools caused by eccentric wear.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1a is a perspective view of the power tongs of the present invention;
FIG. 1b is an elevational view of the power tongs of the present invention;
FIG. 1c is a top plan view of the present invention;
FIG. 2 is an exploded perspective view of the main components of the present invention;
FIG. 3 is a schematic view of the layout of the supercharged gripping device;
FIG. 4 is a schematic view of the synchronizing machanism of gripping fluid cylinder;
FIG. 5 is a horizontal section view of the torqueing fluid cylinder;
FIG. 6a is a schematic view of the torqueing cylinder suspension device from the direction indicated by arrow A in FIG. 1b;
FIG. 6b is a section view along line D--D in FIG. 6a;
FIG. 7 is a schematic view of the reversion of the torqueing cylinder;
FIG. 8 is schematic view of the upper and lower tongs swivelling relatively;
FIG. 9a is a schematic view of the mounting of the roller ram suspension device on the lower tong body along line B--B in FIG. 1a;
FIG. 9b is a section view along the line C--C in FIG. 14 (not shown the pull-in locating device);
FIG. 10 is a schematic fluid circuit for the power tongs;
FIG. 11a is a schematic vertical section view of the cock;
FIG. 11b is a section view along the line E--E in FIG. 11a;
FIG. 12a is a schematic top plan view of the pull-in locating device;
FIG. 12b is a section view along the line G--G in FIG. 12a;
FIG. 13 is a schematic view of the configuration of the hand-operated hydraulic lock.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT
FIG. 1 is a schematic view of a preferred embodiment of the supercharged power tongs of the present invention. The power tongs are suspended near the well head. An upper tong (1) and a lower tong (2), both with substantially identical configuration are swivelly connected by a roller ram suspension device (4) funtioning as a linking and guiding attachment. Provided at the front of each tong is a pair of relatively extendable and retractable tong dies (33) directly powered by a pair of gripping fluid cylinders. Even mounted on each tong is a supercharger fluid cylinder (8) with the function to distribute the pressurized fluid coming from the hydraulic source to two gripping fluid cylinders and, when necessary (after gripping jaws have gripped joints of drill tools), supercharge the fluid in the gripping fluid cylinders thus increasing the gripping forces on joints of drill tools and isolating the passage between two gripping fluid cylinders of the same tong. At the end of the power tongs is a combinatory torque-generating unit (50) enabling upper and lower tongs to swivel relatively and offering torques for make-up or break-apart. The piston extension of torqueing fluid cylinder (5) is pivotally mounted on the end of lower tong (2) and the cylinder itself pivotally connected with the end of upper tong (1) through a suspension device (6). Thus, when fluid cylinder (5) is filled with pressurized fluid, its movement causes upper and lower tongs to swivel relatively in a direction to complete make-up operation. When upper and lower tongs are at initial aligned position, fluid cylinder (5) can be turned 180 degrees horizontally. Thus, when pressurized fluid enters fluid cylinder (5) again, upper and lower tongs will swivel relatively in another direction to complete break-apart operation. At the beginning of break-apart operation, assist fluid cylinder (10), mounted at the end of torqueing fluid cylinder(5), may offer extra push to increase the break-apart torques. Mounted above the upper tong is a compressed-air powered pull-in locating device comprising mainly an air cylinder with its piston extension being provided with a pneumatically powered gripping head. When operating, workers may drag over the pull-in locating device manually and align it with the drill tools to be gripped and then switch in the air supply to grip the drill tools--at this moment the air enters the hauling air cylinder to have the suspended power tongs peneumatically dragged to the drill tools for engaging in make-up or break-apart operation. The whole power tongs are connected to a separate hydraulic source provided with a control system through pressureresistant hoses.
The supecharged gripping device shown in FIG. 3 includes a pair of gripping fluid cylinders (3) mounted on tong body (1a, 2a) and working synchronously and a supercharger fluids cylinder supercharging the fluid circuit of the gripping fluid cylinders. The supercharged gripping devices used for upper and lower tongs are identical, with the following two remarkable features: firstly, gripping any joints of drill tools within a specified range (for example 3 inch to 8 inch) without the need for replacements of any components so avoiding the trouble, often encountered in field service, of replacing components for gripping devices and being time-saving when gripping cross-over subs; secondly, applying supercharging technique to the local fluid circuit of gripping fluid cylinders (3) with high pressure up to, for example, 1000 bars or more to achieve required gripping forces--this plays an important part in making the whole power tongs compact.
To transmit large torques required for make-up operation, or more especially for break-apart operation (for example, 10000 kg .fm), large gripping force needs to be put out by the gripping fluid cylinders. If conventional design were adopted, large diameters of the gripping fluid cylinders would be needed thus greatly increasing the volume and weight of the gripping fluid cylinders (3) and that of the power tongs on the whole. The supercharger fluid cylinder (8) described in the present invention supercharges the fluid circuit of gripping fluid cylinders (3) to grip the joints sufficiently after cylinders (3) grip joints of drill tools beforehand under the action of the pressurized fluid from the fluid pump. Supercharger fluid cylinder (8) of the supercharged gripping device adopts the supercharging arrangement of plunger-pair type. In the supercharger fluid cylinder is a plunger chamber (106) with smaller diameter and a coaxial piston chamber with larger diameter. These fluid openings (84, 85, 86) are located at the front, near the middle and at the end (near the piston chamber) of the plunger chamber respectively. The movable piston assembly in the supercharger cylinder is a component shaped like a stepped shaft with a plunger (88) at one end fitting fluid-tightly against the plunger chamber, a piston (882) in the middle fitting fluid-tightly against the piston chamber and small diameter stroke-displaying rod (881) at the other end. The displaying rod keeps projecting from the small packed hole at the back of the cylinder.
The fluid flow enters working chambers (31) and (32) of the gripping fluid cylinders through fluid openings (86) and (84) (85) under the system pressure, before the supercharger fluid cylinder actuates, to have the gripping fluid cylinders (3) extended out to complete the prgripping of joints of drill tools. Then, by switching master control vlave (37) (the switching principle will be described in detail in another part relating to the fluid circuit), the pressurized fluid flow of the system comes through fluid opening (87) and supercharging plunger (88) starts moving forward closing fluid opening (86) to supercharge working chambers (31) and (32) of the gripping fluid cylinders. When supercharging plunger (88) moving forward further, the working chambers (31) and (32) of the gripping fluid cylinders are isolated to avoid the floating of the two gripping fluid cylinders. Supercharging plunger (88) moves forward and the supercharging process continues until achieving the balance of the supercharging forces, for example, arriving at the position shown by the dash-and-double-dot line. Supercharger fluid cylidner (8) can be mounted on the side plated of tong body (1a, 2a) or other suitable place.
FIG. 4 illustrates the synchronizing mechanism. Two gripping fluid cylinders (3) of each tong, when extending or retracting, may lost synchronism for reasons of different resistance and so forth. The synchronizing mechanism of the present invention consists of wire rope and pulleys. The machanism consists of a pair of synchronizing pulleys (93) and (94) mounted on the bottom face of tong body (1a, 2a), a pair of fixing blocks (91) and (92) attached to the tong dies (33) and two lengths of synchronizing wire rope (95) and (96). When gripping fluid cylinders (3) wholly retracted, synchronizing wire ropes (95) and (96) can be set in the way that one end of synchronizing wire rope (95) is attached to fixing block (92) on the right tong dies and the other end is around clockwise right synchronizing pulley (93) to come to fixing block (91) on the left tong dies and fixed there with proper tension; and one end of the other synchronizing wire rope is attached to fixing block (91) on the left tong die and the other end is around counterclockwise left synchronizing pulley (94) to come to fixing block (92) on the right tong die and fixed there with the same proper tension. Therefore, whatever either of two gripping fluid cylinders (3) extends out first, the opposite one of two gripping fluid cylinders (3) will surely be pulled over through synchronizing wire ropes (95) and (96); on the other hand, whenever either retracts first, the opposite one will be pulled back. Thus, the air of forced synchronism is obtained.
Referring to FIG. 2 and 9, we now describe the roller ram suspension device connecting upper and lower tongs. To keep the tong mouth centres of upper and lower tongs (1) and (2) steadily on a vertical axis and make upper and lower tongs (1) and (2) swivel relatively about the connecting line of tong mouth centres (0, 0') as an axis (see FIG. 2), used in the present invention is a roller ram suspension device (4) for connecting upper and lower tongs (1) and (2). The semicircular ram is fastened on lower tong (2) by bolts (48) and its circle centre is coincident with tong mouth centre (0') of the lower tong Three rollers (41), with centreing effect, are united by a roller supporter (44) and roll on semicircular ram (42) around tong mouth centre (0') of the lower tong. Three buffering rubber rings (43) jacketing each of three roller axles (45) are respectively set in three locating recesses (12) under web (110) of the upper tong body. Three roller axles (45) pass through three holes (13) in upper tong body (1a), and washers (49) and springs (46) are put on these axles before they are screwed up with check nuts (47). The three holes in upper tong body (1a) are coaxial with three locating recesess (12) under web (110) of upper tong body (1a). The diameters of three holes (13) are larger than those of roller axles (45) passing through the holes and smaller than those of three locating recesses (12). The positioning of three locating recesses (12) should ensure that tong mouth centre (0) of upper tong (1) and tong mouth centre (0') of lower tong (2) are on the same verticle centre line after upper and lower tongs (1) and (2) are assembled together. And the centre line of the axle hole at tong end (11) of the upper tong body is aligned with the centre line of the upright rod hole at tong end (21) of the lower tong body. Thus, when the tong mouths of power tongs are unloaded, upper and lower tongs (1) and (2) can swivel relatively around the axis of one and the same hypothetical drill tool by means of roller ram suspension device (4). When the tong mouths are loaded with drill tools for normal make-up or break-apart operations, upper and lower tongs (1) and (2) can swivel around the axis of the drill tools. In ideal situation, there should be no lateral pressure on roller ram suspension device (4). When making up or breaking apart eccentrically worn drill tools, the uncoaxiality of the tong mouths of upper and lower tongs, caused by gripping the eccentrically worn joints with power tongs, can be compensated by the compressive deformation of three buffering rubber rings (43).
Self-adjustable arrangement is provided for each gripping device (see FIG. 3). Set between gripping fluid cylinders (3) and tong dies (33) are rubber cushions (34) not only to even the forces on the tong bodies and shield the tong dies, but also to make tong dies (33) engage in adaptive self-adjustment thus assuring the even and secure gripping of joints of drill tools when gripping the irregular joints caused by eccentric wear and so forth.
All the joints of drill tools used in drilling engineering are with taper-threaded connections and sealed by shoulder faces thus making the torques required for breaking appart joints of drill tools maximal. And the break-apart torques required, after joints having been broken apart a certain angle, will reduce sharply. The present invention provides a compact combinatory torque-generating unit to adapt itself to above-mentioned situation. FIG. 5 illustrates that the combinatory torque-generating unit includes a torqueing fluid cylinder (5) and an assist fluid cylinder (10) and that how the fluid circuit is connected
The fluid flow simultaneously enters working chamber (52) of torqueing fluid cylinder (5) through fluid opening (51) and working chamber (105) of assist fluid cylinder (10) through hollow passage (103) in piston rod (102) of assist fluid cylinder (10). Therefore, within the range of the working stroke of the assist fluid cylinder, when piston rod (102) of the assist fluid cylinder is against piston piston (53) of torqueing fluid cylinder (5), the push put out by the torqueing fluid cylinder will be the maximum being equal to the sum of the pushes from assist fluid cylinder (10) and torqueing fluid cylinder (5). In addition, because restoring chamber (104) of assist fluid cylinder (10) and restoring chamber (54) of torqueing fluid cylinder (5) are connected by passage (55), both the working and restoring operations are conducted automatically without the necessity of any valves or other special operation. The present power tongs have rotation angle of 45 degrees for make-up or break-apart operations and the stroke of assist fluid cylinder (10), when breaking apart, corresponds the working rotation angle of about 15 degrees. Torqueing fluid cylinder (5) provides torques for normal make-up or break-apart operations while assist fluid cylinder (10) puts out certain torques only during breaking apart to fulfill the requirement of breaking apart with large torques.
The present power tongs provide a reversing device for altering action direction of torqueing fluid cylinder (5) to easily realize switching over make-up or break-apart procedures and facilitate operators' manipulation. FIG. 6 illustrates a reversable suspension device (6) of torqueing fluid cylinder (5) which being mounted at the end of power tongs. When the torqueing fluid cylinder wholly retracted, upright axle (62) in the axle hole at tong end (11) of upper tong body (1a), upright rod (20) in the upright rod hole at tong end (21) of lower tong (2) and ball bearing (57) on the piston of torqueing fluid cylinder (5) which being jacketed on the journal of upright rod (20) are coaxial vertically. Thus, torqueing fluid cylinder (5) may freely rotate 180 degrees as shown in FIG. 7. Mounted symmetrically on both sides of torqueing fluid cylinder (5) is a pair of lug pivots (56) with lug flanges (61) then being attached to the suspension device (6), thus torqueing fluid cylinder (5) may swivel to certain extent in a vertical plane around the axis of lug pivots (56). Upright axle (62) of suspension device (6) is pivotally erected in the axle hole at tong end (11) of upper tong body (1a) and held by locking key (64), key cap (63) and elastic retainer (65); ball bearing (57) on the piston (58) is jacketed on the journal at the upper end of upright rod (20) and held by the locking key (203), key cap (202) and elastic retainer (204); and the lower end of upright rod (20) is put in the axle hole at tong end (21) of lower tong body (2a) and held by elastic retainer (201). Because of the coaxility of the above arrangement, torqueing fluid cylinder (5), in its restored state, may easily turn 180 degrees horizontally and reverse the directions of the torques put out from torqueing fluid cylinder (5). Torqueing fluid cylinder (5) and suspension device (6) are connected together through lug pivots (56) horizontally arranged on torqueing fluid cylinder (5). When extending out, piston rod (58) of the torqueing fluid cylinder may cause upper and lower tongs (1) and (2) to swivel relatively around the axis of drill tools to achieve the purpose of making up or breaking apart. FIG. 7 and FIG. 8 illustrate the break-apart state. As shown in FIG. 7, if torqueing fluid cylinder (5) is turned to the dash-and-double-dot position along the arc arrow, the making-up operation can also be done according to the same working principle above-mentioned, but with upper and lower tongs swivelling in the direction opposite to that of the breakapart operation.
A hand-operated hydraulic lock, as shown in FIG. 13, is provided with each of the fluid circuits of gripping fluid cylinders (3) of upper and lower tongs. The hydraulic lock can be preset for its engagement or release whereby upper and lower tongs can realize optional separate operations. As shown in FIG. 13, the hand-operated hydraulic lock consists mainly of valve body (351), valve poppet (352), push rod (353), release handle (354), spring (355) and operating handle (68). Balance hole (357) in valve poppet (352) balances the hydraulic pressure of chamber (356) against that of chamber (358) to have the compressing force partially balanced, which exerts on valve poppet 352 when the hydraulic lock locks up, thus saving the effort during hand release operation. FIG. 13 illustrates the engagement state of the hydraulic lock, and the position shown in the figure by the dash-and-double-dot lines gives the release state preset by the hydraulic lock.
FIG. 10 gives the scheme of the fluid circuit of the power tongs. By taking the break-apart operation as an example, the relationship between the fluid circulation and the movements of the power tongs are explained as follows (the restored position of the power tongs is taken as the reference state):
The pressurized fluid from hydraulic pump (p) flows into master control valve (37) which can be mounted directly on a tong body or other place desired. The master control valve is a Y-type three-position-four-way valve. When the valve spool is at its intermediate position, the pressurized fluid simultaneously flows into two high pressure hoses (A) and (B) communicated to the power tongs. At this moment, time-delay valve (36) is closed--time-delay valve (36) is of the feature that when the pressurized fluid is supplied dually by hoses (A) and (B) or singly by hose (B), the valve will stay at its close position. As can be seen from FIG. 10, when the pressurized fluid is supplied dually by hoses (A) and (B), there is no output from outlet (a) of the time-delay valve (36) so that no pressurized fluid enters working chamber (51) of torqueing fluid cylinder (5) and restoring chamber (54) of torqueing fluid cylinder (5) is communicated with pipe (B). So torqueing fluid cylinder (5) continues to stay at the restored state. By opening hand-operated hydraulic lock (35), chamber (106), chamber (109) and restoring chamber (108) of supercharger fluid cylinder (8) are filled with pressurized fluid and the pressures in all the chambers are the same. Therefore, the restoring force acting on the left side of piston (882) of supercharger fluid cylinder (8) is larger than the force pushing piston (882) leftward in working chamber (109). This holds securely the supercharging plunger at the restored position, also keeps holse (A) being fluid communicated with working chambers (31) and (32) of gripping fluid cylinders (3) and makes each gripping fluid cylinder in the state of differential connection.
Under the condition of supplying pressurized fluid through dual hoses (A) and (B), the pressures in working chambers (31), (32) and the restoring chambers (107) and (111) of gripping fluid cylinders (3) are identical. But since the effective piston areas in the working and restoring chambers are different and the gripping fluid cylinders are in the state of differential connection, the gripping fluid cylinders can be extended out speedily to push tong dies (33) forward to complete pre-grippig movements.
When the pressure signal (not shown) given out after the pre-gripping operation of the gripping fluid cylinders causes master control valve (37) to switch automatically to position I whereby hose (A) still supplies pressurized fluid and hose (B) connects to the tank, following variations will occur:
When hose (B) communicates with tank (38), the fluid pressure in restoring chamber (108) of supercharger fluid cylinder (8) falls. And the pressurized fluid from hose (A) continues to enter working chamber (109) through hand hydraulic lock (35). The supercharging plunger becomes unbalanced and moves foreward to supercharge supercharging chamber (106) and working chambers (31) and (32) of gripping fluid cylinders (3). As can be seen from FIG. 10, during supercharging, plunger (88) first closes fluid opening (86) communicating fluid from hope (A) with supercharging chamber (106) and next closes fluid opening (85) communicating to working chamber (32) of the gripping cylinder on the right-hand side until the supercharging force gets balanced. Experiments have shown that it necessitates only 0.1-0.2 second to achieve the supercharged gripping. The regulation of the open time of time-delay valve (36) must match the time required for the supercharged gripping. This can be realized by making adjustment through the throttling portion in time-delay valve (36).
The maximizing of break-apart torques and the limiting of make-up torques of torqueing fluid cylinder (5) are mainly accomplished through the effects of the cock (67) and shuttle valve (69). Cock (67) is controlled by the working direction reversing mechanism of torqueing fluid cylinder (5) and mounted on the top of suspension device (6) of the torqueing fluid cylinder. As seen in FIG. 11, a driving arm (621) is provided with upright axle (62) and used to turn valve plug (671) through driving plate (672) of cock (67) when the torqueing fluid cylinder being turned. And as seen in FIG. 10, during breaking apart, valve plug (671) of cock (67) is in the `off` state, and pipe (d) and shuttle valve (69) are not fluid communicated. Still, as known from FIG. 10--the scheme of the fluid circuit, when time-delay valve (36) opens, the pressurized fluid flows into working chamber (51) of torqueing fluid cylinder (5) through pipe (a) and at the same time flows into working chamber (105) of assist fluid cylinder (10) through inner passage of the piston rod of assist fluid cylinder (10); restoring chamber (54) of torqueing fluid cylinder (5) and restoring chamber (104) of assist fluid cylinder (10) are fluid communicated with tank (36) through hose (B). Therefore, the force output of torqueing fluid cylinder (5) will equal to the product between the fluid pressure and the sum of piston (53) area of torqueing fluid cylinder (5) and the effective piston area of assist fluid cylinder (10). This force may produce the maximum torque, for example, up to 10000 Kfg.m or more for the breaking-apart operation of the power tongs.
As the torque-generating device turns 180 degrees horizontally for the implementation of the make-up procedure, see FIG. 11, driving arm (621) on upright axle (62) of fluid cylinder suspension device (6) drives valve plug (671) of cock (67) to turn 90 degrees to be in the on state (see FIG. 10) (Valve plug (671) is attached to driving plate (672) provided with a 90 degree idle stroke groove (673) so that valve plug (671) may always turn 90 degrees only, no matter when reversing torqueing fluid cylinder (5) from its break-apart position to its make-up position or doing the opposite). At this moment, the pressurized fluid from hose (A), firstly passing through pipe (d) and cock (67) and then opening shuttle valve (69), flows from pipe (s) into restoring chambers (54) and (104) of torqueing fluid cylinder (5) and assist fluid cylinder (10) to create a back pressure. When time-delay valve (36) opens, another stream of the pressurized fluid from hose (A) flows into working chambers (51) and (105) of torqueing fluid cylinder (5) and assist fluid cylinder (10) through pipe (a) underneath. So it can be seen that, since the fluid pressures in working chamber (105) and restoring chamber (104) of assist fluid cylinder (10) are equal, and the effective areas are equal too, assist fluid cylinder (10) is ineffective at this moment. And since the pressures in working chamber (51) and restoring chamber (54) of torqueing fluid cylinder (5) are also equal and the only effective area by which the pushing force can be delivered under the fluid pressure is the piston area smaller than the piston area of the torqueing fluid cylinder--for example, the piston rod area is 60%-70% of the piston area, the making up torques are consequently smaller--for example, the maximum torque output is about 4000-5000 Kfg.m. Thus, this makes making up torques have safe limitation to satisfy the required standard of the making up torques for the drill tools with normal sizes thus protecting joints of drill tools from damaging by the overtorqueing due to misoperation. The whole working process is completed automatically without any specially operated valves. So the present power tongs is very simple, convenient and practical. What needs to be explained further is: When it is needed in special cases (such as breaking apart left-hand threaded joints) that the power tongs provide larger make-up torques than that given by the above-mentioned limitation, the present invention may conveniently utilize the feature of 90 degree idle stroke groove (673) in driving plate (672) of cock (67) to turn valve plug (671) of cock (67) 90 degrees more manually, before workers operating the power tongs for making up (breaking apart the left-hand threaded drill tools), to have cock (67) closed again, that is, to have the torque limitation eliminated thus satisfying the large making up torque requirement in special cases
After finishing making up or breaking apart operation, the valve spool of master control valve (37) is set to position II; hose (A) is connected with tank (38) and hose (B) supplies the pressurized fluid. At this moment, time-delay valve (36) is closed and torqueing fluid cylinder (5) and assist fluid cylinder (10) are restored.
By pushing handle (68) of hand-operated hydraulic lock (35) to release the lock--the check valve in hand-operated hydraulic lock (35) being pushed open, the fluid return passage of supercharger fluid cylinder (8) becomes opened and plunger (88) of supercharger fluid cylinder (8) gets restored. Along with the restoring of plunger (88) of supercharger fluid cylinder (8), the passage from hose (A) to working chambers (31) and (32) of gripping fluid cylinders (3) becomes unblocked. And thus gripping fluid cylinders (3) get restored under the pressure in restoring chambers (107) and (111). Two hand-operated hydraulic locks (35) can be separately or pairwise preset to release positions, that is, can be used optionally to control upper tong (1) or lower tong (2). If both hydraulic hand-operated locks (35) are preset to the release positions, all the execution machanisms of the power tongs will restore at the same time during the restoring operation of the power tongs. This optional control may satisfy various requirements raised by drilling technology. For example, it is very convenient to repeat making-up or breaking-apart many times, to break apart in combination with rotary tables or to restore after making up or breaking apart only once and to get the power tongs clear away.
FIG. 12 illustrates the pull-in locating device (7) powered by compressed air. It includes a yoked ram (71), a pair of gripping jaw air cylinders (73) symmetrically mounted on both sides at the front of yoked ram (71), an air cylinder (74) is sleeved on upright rod (15) of upper tong body (1a) by means of pedestal (75) which is provided with a pair of supporting palms (77) on both sides. The concave-outward semi-cylindrical surfaces of palms (77) are against the profiles of two springs (46) of roller ram suspension device (4) so that there is certain flexibility in this kind of locating system. The cylinder body of hauling air cylinder (74) is slidably mounted in guide sleeve (16) of air cylinder pedestal (75) and fastened by check nut (17). Mounted on both sides of air cylinder pedestal (75) are four guiding rollers (79) with channeled guiding rails (76) riding on them; guiding rails (76) are formed open inward by bending the both sides of the slim longitudinal portion of the yoked ram stem. Therefore, yoked ram (71) can briskly slide on guiding rollers (79). Piston rod (78) of hauling air cylinder (74) is a hollow pipe only in tension and an air passage as well. Air inlet end (18) of piston (78) is attached to yoked ram (71) and connected with working chambers (28) of gripping jaw air cylinders (72). gripping jaws (19) and pistons (191) of gripping jaw air cylinders (72) are attached together to make a whole. Gripping jaws (19) and piston rods (191) are prevented from free rotation by sliding keys (192) in piston rods (191) to make gripping jaws (19) remain horizontal constantly. The orientation of the mouth of yoked ram (71) is in accordance with those of the mouthes of upper and lower tongs (1) and (2); when at the initial position, mouth centre (o") of yoked ram (71) is on the extention of the connecting line between centres (o) and (o') of upper and lower tongs (1) and (2). Once the operators easily pull out yoked ram (71), that is, piston rod (78) of hauling air cylinder (74) to have the ram aligned with drill tools (see FIG. 1) and set air switch (73) on the working position (see FIG. 12), the compressed air, from inlet (300) through pipe (26), enters chambers (28) of gripping jaw air cylinders (72) to push piston rods (191) to have drill tools gripped by gripping jaws (19). At the same time, the compressed air, through pipe (301) and air passage (27) in piston rod (78), enters chamber (29) of hauling air cylinder (74). Under the action of the compressed air, piston (25) and piston rod (78), that is, yoked ram (71) retract. Since the pull-in locating device is mounted on upper tong (1) (see FIG. 1), once the gripping jaws get hold of drill tools, the power tongs freely suspended will be directionally pulled to drill tools and capable of self-centreing. The utilization of this device makes accurate positioning and easy operation.
The present invention is of the following advantages: When using the power tongs of the present invention for making up or breaking apart joints of drill tools of various sizes, no necessity for replacing any components or imposing additional operation thus making the operational work simple and convenient and the effectiveness enhanced; automatically limiting make-up torques to effectively avoid the damage of drill tools caused by the excessive torques during making up; simplicity of the configuration; automatically completing entire operation according to the predetermined procedures thus greatly reducing the operation time; less weight, low cost and reliable work. | A supercharged power tongs for making up or breaking apart drill tools used in oil or geologic drilling engineering is designed to take the place of B-type tongs. Supercharger and assist fluid cylinders are adopted in the gripping and torqueing devices respectively which are completely new provisions. An automatic make-up torque limitator is built in the control system. A pull-in locating device is used for moving the power tongs. This invention is particularly adequate for make-up and break apart operations on drill pipes, drill collars, kellys and lifting subs when the sizes of these drill tools vary from time to time, with no necessity for replacements of any components. | 4 |
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Technical Field
This invention relates to truss inspection systems and, more particularly, to an automated truss inspection system for inspecting metal plate connected wood trusses which includes a truss presence detector, a bar code scanner, a truss structure sensor array, a metal sensor array, a rotary pulse generator and a computer to analyze the data received from the detectors, construct an X-Y coordinate outline image of the truss under inspection and compare the image to the ideal model of the truss under inspection to determine the acceptability according to codes and practices of the industry of the truss under inspection.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The popularity of prefabricated components has steadily increased from the time such methods of construction were introduced. In componentized housing, all of the various structural elements of the house (walls, floor trusses and roof trusses, etc. . . . ) are constructed at a remote factory and then shipped to the location where the house is being built. At the location for the house, the prefabricated components are assembled and connected to one another to form the completed structure.
Among the more commonly produced prefabricated components are wood trusses, which may be used to form either or both of the roof and floor support structures in the componentized structure. Wood trusses are commonly constructed by arranging the various elements of the truss, including chords and web members, in the desired shape in a set of jigs in an assembly line process. The truss elements are then connected to one another by metal nailer plates which are pressed into the wood at each intersection of the various elements and ejected from the jig and pressed by a finishing roller. In this manner, the truss structure is formed.
Because of competitive forces, it is imperative to automate the process for such trusses to minimize manufacturing costs.
At present in non-automated truss construction, the lumber is laid out by hand in a set of jigs on the conveyor rollers and the studded metal plates are partially inserted into the wood at the intersection of the various elements. The entire structure is ejected from the jig and then passed through "finish rollers" which press the metal nailer plates into the wood by sandwiching the truss between two large metal rollers. However, it is still necessary to provide an inspector to inspect the wood truss after it passes through the finish rollers. The inspector makes sure that the wood truss is of the proper shape and that all of the metal plates are in place at the intersections of the truss elements. There are two of the many code-pertaining details that the inspector must check. It is important to realize that the inspector is only human, however, and that he or she may not catch each and every imperfection in the truss during the limited time provided for inspection. Specific problems encountered in the inspection of trusses are missing studded metal plates, missing structural members, the truss shape being misaligned, etc. Obviously, it is relatively simple to catch missing structural members, but as the studded metal plates are on both sides of the truss, an inspector may not catch a missing metal plate on the underside of the truss, particularly in new manufacturing systems which never expose one side of the truss prior to stacking, banding and preparation for shipment. Even harder to catch is the truss structure being misaligned, as even a small variance from preferred dimensions can render the truss unsuitable for construction purposes. Therefore, there is a need for an automated truss inspection system which is capable of performing the same function as an inspector yet does so to a greater degree of accuracy.
Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide an automated truss inspection system.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an automated truss inspection system which includes a truss presence detector, a bar code scanner, a truss structure sensor array, a metal sensor array, a rotary pulse generator and a computer to analyze the data received from the detectors and sensors, construct an X-Y coordinate outline image of the truss under inspection and compare the image to the ideal model of the truss under inspection to determine the acceptability of the truss under inspection per building codes and industry practices.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an automated truss inspection system which can be mounted adjacent the finish rollers of the truss assembly line to provide a final inspection for trusses coming off the assembly line.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an automated truss inspection system which will compare the truss under inspection with the ideal model of the truss under inspection to determine any dimensional or positional irregularities, etc., and should irregularities appear, stop the conveyor/press and notify the operator of the device.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an automated truss inspection system which operates quickly and independently of any human overseer yet functions with a high degree of accuracy.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an automated truss inspection system which can be adapted for use with present manufacturing assembly line systems.
Finally, an object of the present invention is to provide an automated truss inspection system which is safe in use and quick and efficient in operation.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The automated truss inspection system for inspecting metal plate-connected wood trusses of the present invention includes a base structure having a truss feed end and a truss exit end. A truss presence detector is mounted on the base structure adjacent the truss feed end for detecting the presence of a truss and a bar code scanning device is likewise mounted on the base structure for scanning the truss to determine the model of truss being inspected. Mounted on the base structure intermediate the truss feed end and truss exit end is a truss structure sensor array for detection of truss structure and absence thereof and a metal sensor array for detection of the presence/absence of metal, specifically the metal nailer plates. Also, a distance measuring device is provided for measuring the rate of travel of the truss toward the truss exit end. In the case of a rotary pulse generator, it is preferably mounted on the finish roller in contract with one of the finish rollers. An analyzing and comparing device such as a computer is operatively connected to the truss presence detector, the bar code scanning device, the truss structure sensor array, the metal sensor array and the distance measuring device, each of which transmits data to the analyzing and comparing device. The analyzing and comparing device analyzes data from the truss presence detector, the bar code scanning device, the truss structure sensor array, the metal sensor array and the distance measuring device to construct an X-Y coordinate outline image of the truss under inspection, the image then being compared to the ideal model of the truss under inspection to determine acceptability of the truss under inspection per codes and practices.
The present invention thus provides an automated truss inspection system which is superior to the antiquated visual inspection practices found in the prior art. The present invention is specifically designed to construct an outline image of the truss under inspection to verify that the truss is of the correct size and shape, includes all structural elements which should be present and meets other mandatory design criteria. Furthermore, the present invention detects the presence/absence of metal, particularly the presence or absence of the nailer plates which join the structural elements of the truss to one another. If it is determined that the truss is defective for any reason, the present invention halts the conveyor system until the problem is corrected. With such an automated system, the speed and efficiency of the assembly line may be greatly increased. Therefore, it is seen that the present invention provides a substantial improvement over the antiquated visual inspection practices heretofore used.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 is a diagrammatic side sectional view of the automated truss inspection system of the present invention;
FIG. 2 is a top plan view of the present invention showing a metal plate-connected wood truss on the conveyor rollers;
FIG. 3 is a top plan view of a wood truss scanned by the present invention showing the various angles and axes used to compute the dimensions of the wood frame;
FIG. 4 is a flow chart which diagrams the decision-making process of the present system;
FIG. 5 is a flow diagram showing how the computer interfaces with the various data input devices;
FIG. 6 is a top plan view of the present invention showing a different type of truss being scanned; and
FIG. 7 is a perspective view of the present invention showing the organization of the various elements, but for the rotary pulse generator shown in FIG. 1.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT
The automated truss inspection system 10 of the present invention is shown in its preferred embodiment in FIGS. 1-6 as including a sensor support structure 12 which preferably consists of a plurality of vertical support bars 13 (FIG. 7) mounted on left and right conveyor roller supports 14a and 4b. The various sensors are mounted on the vertical support bars 13 as shown in FIG. 7. Mounted on vertical support bars 13 are upper and lower sensor groups 16 and 18. The upper sensor group 16 includes an array 20 of metal detecting proximity switches 22 and an array 28 of photosensors 30.
Metal detecting proximity switches 22 detect the presence/absence of metal nailer plates 200. It is preferred that the metal detecting proximity switches 22 be vertically aligned to sense metal directly beneath each of the switches 22 and that the switches 22 be arranged in a line extending perpendicular to the direction of travel of the wood truss 100 thus forming array 20. While the exact number of proximity switches 22 is not critical to the present invention, it is critical that there be a sufficient number of proximity switches 22 to obtain detailed resolution of the nailer plates 200 on the wood truss 100. For this reason, it is preferred that there be at least one metal detecting proximity switch 22 per inch along the array 20. In a preferred embodiment, the width of the array 20 should be between four and fourteen feet in order to accommodate conventional sized wood trusses 100, although it is preferred that the array 20 extend substantially the entire distance between roller supports 14a and 14b.
Similar to that described in connection with upper sensor group 16, lower sensor group 18 includes an array 24 of metal detecting proximity switches 26 and an array 28 of photosensors 30. Each of the switches 26 is focused upwards to detect metal nailer plates 200 on the underside of the truss 100 passing thereabove. It is preferred that the upper array 20 and the lower array 24 be substantially similar except for the proximity switches 22 in the upper array 20 aiming downwards and proximity switches 26 in the lower array 24 aiming upwards. In this manner, metal nailer plates 200 on both the upper and lower surfaces of the wood truss 100 may be detected.
As shown in the preferred embodiment, lower sensor group further includes an array 28 of photosensors 30, array 28 being aligned generally parallel with array 24 such that array 28 is generally perpendicular to the direction of travel of wood truss 100. The photosensors 30 operate to detect the presence/absence of the typically wood members of the truss 100. It is preferred that the photosensors 30 be present in array 28 at a density of at least one photosensor 30 per inch, although use of a greater density of photosensors 30 is possible. The closer together the photosensors 30 are in array 28, the more accurate will be the data received from the photosensors 30 regarding location of truss elements using presently available technology.
Mounted in the upper group 16 directly above array 28 of photosensors 30 is an array 32 of reflectors 34 which cooperate with array 28 of photosensors 30 to reflect light into the photosensors 30 such that when the reflected light is interrupted by the presence of a truss element, the associated photosensor 30 may register the presence of the truss element thereabove.
In the preferred embodiment, the metal detecting proximity switches 22 and 26 may be of a commercially available type such as model number 11A-3015-BPKG manufacturers by Efector, Inc. of Exton, Pa., and the photosensors 30 may be of a commercially available type such as model number CP18LDND2 manufactured by Microswitch, a Honeywell division. Other types of metal detecting proximity switches and photosensors may be employed with the present invention which is not limited to the specific types of proximity switches and presence detectors described above.
As shown best in FIG. 1, sensor support structure 12 is mounted adjacent a set of conveyor rollers 36 on which wood truss 1OO is positioned. The conveyor rollers 36 are preferably part of a truss assembly line (not shown) such as is commonly found in wood truss manufacturing facilities. The present invention is thus designed to be used with already existing truss manufacturing assembly lines, as well as installed with newly fabricated truss manufacturing assembly lines.
Mounted adjacent the sensor support structure 12 is a truss presence photosensor 38 (FIGS. 1, 2 and 7) and reflector 39 assembly which scans the area in front of the sensor support structure 12 approximately one inch above the conveyor rollers 36 to detect the presence of a wood truss 100. When a wood truss 100 is slid over the conveyor rollers 36 towards the sensor support structure 12, the light beam extending between the truss presence photosensor 38 and reflector 39 is blocked, thus signaling the presence of a truss 100. Of course, any truss presence detecting device may be used with the present invention, so long as the presence of a truss may be detected.
Mounted forwardly of the sensor support structure 12 is a bar code scanner 40, which is preferably a commercially available bar code scanner, which scans the oncoming wood truss 100 and reads the bar code label 42 on the truss 100 to determine the model of truss being inspected. Of course, the location and type of bar code scanner is not critical to the invention, so long as the bar code scanner 40 correctly identifies the model of truss being inspected.
Rearwards of the sensor support structure 12 are the finish rollers 44 and 46, which advance the truss along the conveyor rollers 36. Finish rollers 44 and 46 are used to firmly seat the various truss elements of the wood truss 100 by finally inserting each of the nailer plates 200 as the nailer plate contacts the finish rollers 44 and 46. The finish rollers 44 and 46 are important not only because they finally assemble the wood truss 100, but because the finish rollers 44 and 46 advance at a generally constant rate of speed. To register this generally constant rate of speed, the present invention utilizes a rotary pulse generator or encoder which frictionally engages the lower finish roller 46, as shown in FIG. 1. As finish roller 46 rotates, then, rotary pulse generator 48 is rotated in the opposite direction due to the frictional contact with finish drive roller 46. The speed of this rotation is then measured to determine the speed at which wood truss 100 is traveling on the conveyor rollers 36. It is preferred that the rotary pulse generator generate a count of at least 100 counts per inch of motion of the wood truss 100 to provide sufficient resolution for the computer system 50.
Each of the sensing devices described above is electrically connected to the computer system 50, which in the preferred embodiment may be a standard IBM compatible personal computer or the like. FIG. 5 shows a block diagram showing the connections between the various sensing devices and the computer. To the left side of FIG. 5, it is seen that each of the arrays 20, 24 and 28 are connected to digital input optoisolated multiplex boards 52, 54 and 56. Examining multiplex board 52, we see that array 20 of metal detecting proximity switches 22 is connected to multiplex board 52. Each of the proximity switches 22 is connected to a separate input on the multiplex board 52 such that the output of each proximity switch 22 can be individually sampled. As the metal detecting proximity switches 22 are binary devices (either ON or OFF), the multiplex board 52 transmits a different 16-bit block depending on which of the proximity switches 22 register the proximity of a metallic substance, such as a nailer plate 200. In this manner, based on the particular 16-bit block being sent to the computer from multiplex board 52, the computer 50 recognizes the location of the detected metal nailer plate.
Likewise, multiplex board 54 is connected to array 24 and multiplex board 56 is connected to array 28, each of which transmits a similar 16-bit block to the computer 50 when a wood truss 100 is being scanned. It is believed that 16-bit blocks of data should be sufficient to communicate the ON/OFF states of the various sensors 22, 26 and 30, although the data block size is not crucial to the present invention, and, in fact, it may be more efficient to assign each sensing unit 22, 26 and 30 a separate data bit, the resulting large data block being transferred to the computer 50 in 16-bit blocks to guarantee that each multiplex board 52, 54 and 56 will be sampled generally continuously.
As also shown on FIG. 5, the rotary pulse generator 48 and bar code scanner 40 each transmit data to the computer system 50 through the appropriate data interface. In this manner, the bar code of the truss under inspection may be accessed by the computer system 50 and the travel speed of the truss 100 may likewise be accessed by the computer system 50.
The functioning of the present invention may be best understood by viewing the computer scan routine flowchart shown in FIG. 4, with reference to the top plan views of FIGS. 2 and 3. The computer system 50 polls the truss presence photosensor 38 to determine if a wood truss 100 is about to enter the automated truss inspection system 10. So long as a truss is not entering the system 10, the computer continues to poll the truss presence photosensor 38. As soon as the presence of a truss is registered by the truss presence photosensor 38, the computer 50 polls the bar code scanner 40 which scans the bar code 42 on the truss 100 to determine the model of truss being inspected. If the bar code 42 on the wood truss 100 cannot be read or is flawed, the computer 50 stops the conveyor rollers 36 by disengaging the conveyor drive motor controls 58 (FIG. 5) and activates an alarm horn 60 or the like to signal the operator that the truss 100 being scanned is faulty in some manner.
Once the bar code 42 is read successfully, the rotary pulse generator 48, photosensors 30 and metal detecting proximity switches 22 and 26 are repeatedly polled and the information stored in computer memory as the truss 100 moves past the sensor arrays 20, 24 and 28. Of course, the speed at which the polling is done varies with the speed of the truss 100. For example, at a truss travel speed of 90 feet per minute, and a desired "X" resolution of 1/16th of an inch, approximately 300 scans per second would be needed. The length dimensions of the truss 100 may thus be computed by knowing the truss travel speed and scanner location. The resolution of the "Y" coordinates is determined by the number and spacing of proximity switches 22 and 26 and photosensors 30. As was discussed previously, it is preferred that at least one sensor per inch be used, although providing a greater number and frequency of sensors will result in greater accuracy in determining the position of the various truss elements.
The polling of the various arrays 20, 24 and 28 continues so long as the truss presence photosensor 38 senses the presence of a truss 100. As soon as the truss 100 has passed the detecting area of the truss presence photosensor 38, the photosensor 38 signals the computer system 50 that all data concerning the presently scanned truss 100 has been entered into the computer 50. The computer 50 then collates the received data to construct an X-Y coordinate outline image of the truss under inspection. This is done by analyzing the location of the various wood elements of the truss 100 and the location of the metal nailer plates 200 disclosed by the metal detecting proximity switches 22 and 26 and photosensors 30, in combination with the speed of the truss disclosed by the rotary pulse generator 48. By analyzing the data received from the various arrays 20, 24 and 28 and the rotary pulse generator 48, the X-Y coordinate outline image of the truss 100 under inspection may be constructed.
The resulting outline image can be "moved" to the base line 62 as shown in FIG. 3, by subtracting the shortest distance from the base line 62 to the truss 100 from all truss Y dimensions. Following movement of the truss outline image to the base line 62, angles A and B may be constructed. The measurement for angle A is given by the X axis distance from the front point 68 of the truss 100 to the widest point 70 on the truss 100 and the Y axis distance from the base line 62 to the widest point 70 of the truss, then taking the arctangent of the Y axis distance divided by the X axis distance will give the measurement for angle A. Likewise, taking the X axis distance from front point 68 of truss 100 to end point 72 of truss 100 and the Y axis distance from base line 62 to end point 72 of truss 100, then taking the arctangent of the Y axis distance divided by the X axis distance will result in a measurement for angle B. The difference between angle A and angle B determines the truss pitch which is an important measurement in determining whether truss 100 is within tolerance limits. Other dimensional calculations may be made in a similar manner to that described above in connection with the truss pitch.
Also, the proper placement of the metal nailer plates can be verified by overlaying the X-Y coordinate outline image of the truss 100 under inspection with the metal nailer plate pattern derived from the metal detecting proximity switches 22 and 26. In this manner, missing, misaligned or improperly sized hailer plates may be detected.
If the truss 100 under inspection is found to be defective in any critical characteristic, the computer 50 disengages the conveyor drive motor controls 58 and sounds an alarm horn 60 or the like to notify the operator that the truss 100 under inspection is faulty. At this point, the human operator may either override the stop conveyor signal or remedy the problem with the truss 100 under inspection. In that event, the computer 50 awaits the response by the human operator telling the computer 50 to reengage the conveyor drive motor controls 58 thus forwarding the truss 100 to the finish rollers 44 and 46.
On the other hand, if the truss is found to be within tolerances, the production report file will be updated and the computer readied to scan the next truss. It is preferred that the production report file be a standard inventory file within the computer system 50 for keeping track of the number of trusses made, the type of trusses, number of parts used, lumber sizes, etc. . . . However, it is most important that the computer system 50 be capable of calculating the various measurements and dimensions of the truss 100 under inspection to determine the acceptability of the truss 100.
While the present invention has been described with some degree of particularity, it is to be understood that numerous modifications, additions and substitutions may be made to the structure and elements of the present invention which still fall within the intended broad scope of the appended claims. For example, the size and number of proximity switches 22 and 26 and photosensors 30 may be varied to obtain the desired Y axis resolution. Also, the sensor support structure 12 may be formed integrally with the "finish rollers" such that the entire structure may be installed as a single unit, thus increasing plant start-up efficiency. Also, the exact location and arrangement of elements described above may be modified so long as the utility of the present invention is not damaged.
There has thus been set forth and described an automated truss inspection system which accomplishes at least all of the stated objectives. | An automated truss inspection system for inspecting metal plate connected trusses includes a base structure having a truss feed end and a truss exit end, a truss presence detector and a bar code scanner. A truss structure sensor array and at least one metal sensor array are situated intermediate the truss feed end and truss exit end for detection of truss structure and absence thereof and detection of the presence/absence of metal, respectively. Finally, a rotary pulse generator is included for determining truss speed and distance traveled. All of the scanning and measuring devices are operatively connected to an analyzing and comparing device such as a computer which analyzes data received from those devices and constructs an X-Y coordinate outline image of the truss under inspection, the image then being compared to the ideal model of the truss under inspection to determine acceptability of the truss. | 6 |
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
[0001] This invention is related to the field of design automation of VLSI chips, and more particularly, to a method of reducing the complexity of a floorplanner by solving the mix of large blocks and cell placement while preserving the accuracy of the floorplanner.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0002] With the increasing size and complexity of VLSI (Very Large Scale Integrated) circuit designs, the physical design task of floorplanning is gaining more relevance in today's design methodologies. These designs consist of a mix of large cells (the height of the object spanning over several circuit rows) and smaller ones. A VLSI design is represented by a netlist consisting of a set of blocks, large and small, interconnected by nets. (Nets can be viewed as wires or interconnections that link the various blocks in the design). A block may be a hard block, whose area and shape are already fixed, or a soft block consisting of smaller cells, and whose area and shape are flexible. Examples of large hard blocks are register arrays, memories, and the like. The blocks may also be small leaf level gates within the design, commonly referred to as leaf level cells. Floorplanning determines the best placement of the large blocks. Blocks that are to be placed on the layout by the floorplanner are termed “floorplan objects of interest” or simply large blocks
[0003] A typical approach to determine the best location of large blocks in a netlist consisting of a mixture of large blocks and small leaf level cells is to first group the smaller leaf level cells into large blocks. By way of example, the original netlist (consisting of large blocks and small leaf cells) is transformed, by performing some sort of clustering/partitioning, into a netlist consisting of large blocks.
[0004] Given a flat VLSI netlist, the step of creating flexible blocks from small leaf cells in the design amounts to creating a level of hierarchy therein. This step is achieved by grouping a set of cells into a separate flexible block. Grouping introduces extra floorplan objects of interest into the design. This type of explicit hierarchy creation has its own drawbacks since it introduces extra steps in the design process, potentially increasing the turnaround time (TAT) of the design.
[0005] When a transformed netlist is made of large blocks or floorplan objects of interest, the task of determining their locations on the layout can be done manually based on the design's architectural constraints or automatically. In the latter case, algorithmic techniques for global optimization are used, such as simulated annealing driven by a cost function that minimizes objectives like the total wire length between the large blocks. The term simulated annealing is derived from an analogous physical process of heating and then slowly cooling a substance to obtain a strong crystalline structure. In simulated annealing, the minimum cost function corresponds to the ground state of the substance. The simulated annealing process lowers the temperature in slow stages until the system “freezes”, after which no further changes occur. To apply simulated annealing, the system is initialized with a particular configuration. A new configuration is constructed by imposing a random displacement. If the energy of the new state is lower than the previous one, the change is accepted unconditionally and the system is updated. If the energy is greater, the new configuration is accepted probabilistically. More details regarding this technique are found in the article “Optimization by Simulated Annealing” by Kirkpatrick, Gellatt and Vecchi, published in the 1983 edition of Science. Subsequent placement of the leaf level cells is sensitive to the quality of the floorplan (location of large blocks in the design). Thus, achieving a good initial floorplan is critical for obtaining high quality final placement solutions.
[0006] Conventional floorplanning uses a representation wherein intermediate leaf levels cells are clustered to form the nodes of the netlist amounting to the previously stated creation of a hierarchical level. However, these do not describe a methodology wherein the abstracted cells are represented as abstract interconnections with constraint annotations (that helps to preserve the potential signal path behavior of the design), and which efficiently drives the optimization floorplanning algorithm with a path based abstract interconnection representation. (Abstract interconnections are referred as such because they do not exist in the given netlist, but are introduced in the present invention in order to account for intermediate leaf cells and related nets that were removed from the original netlist. Abstract interconnections will also be referred to hereinafter as abstract hyper-edges or abstract nets. A hyper-edge is a known term used in graph theory to indicate a connection between multiple nodes in a graph).
[0007] Simulated annealing has been used in the art as an effective floorplanning algorithm because of its ability to handle various constraints, such as block shapes, I/O constraints, etc. This technique belongs to a class of algorithms called “hill-climbing algorithms” that have the ability of finding near-optimal solutions to the problem on hand. However, the algorithm requires vast amounts of computational resources and is inherently slow. The algorithm is an iterative improvement algorithm. In each iteration, several solutions are generated by perturbing the initial solution. Then, the quality of the solutions is evaluated, the measure of quality forming the basis for their acceptance or rejection. A cost function is finally used to compute this measurement.
[0008] Some reasons for the inherent slowness of the annealer arise from the near-exhaustive nature of the solution space being contemplated, and from the time taken for evaluating the quality of the solution. The floorplanner that is used in the abstraction based flow is based on simulated annealing. In this context, novel techniques to reduce the complexity of an annealing based floorplanner working within a path based abstraction flow will also be described in the present invention hereinafter.
[0009] Referring to FIG. 1, the outline of a conventional physical design methodology is shown. The chip physical design step starts with floorplanning. The task of floor-planning results in associating coordinate locations to floorplan objects of interest on the two-dimensional region representing the chip layout.
[0010] Upon completion of the floorplanned design, the next step of placement results in associating specific coordinate locations for all remaining design objects in the netlist (other than the floorplan objects of interest). The objective is to arrive at valid locations for the floorplan objects of interest, in order that subsequent steps of the chip physical design may be successfully completed. Present techniques are known to be ineffective in optimizing a floorplan design.
OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION
[0011] Thus, it is an object of the invention to provide a method to optimize the floorplan of a VLSI chip using a path based hyper-edge representation.
[0012] It is another object to provide a framework consisting of a path oriented abstract representation of detailed VLSI design netlists alongside with mechanisms for generating them efficiently, and appropriate techniques for interfacing with, and for driving optimization based floorplanning algorithms
[0013] It is still another object to improve the efficiency of the floorplanner by reducing the complexity of an annealing based floorplanner working within a path based abstraction flow.
[0014] It is a further object to execute the abstraction phase by abstracting the leaf level logic (to reduce the solution space of the floorplanner) and reintroduce them in the form of floorplan constraints (to account for the presence of the leaf level logic while determining the location of large blocks).
[0015] It is yet another object to achieve by way of abstraction a significant improvement in the performance of a simulated annealing based floorplanner.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0016] In a first aspect of the invention, there is described an abstraction based methodology to floorplanning. The abstraction method employs a hybrid, controlled path enumeration approach to generate a model that is used by the floorplanner. The abstraction methodology retains all the floorplan objects of the model that are of interest, while the abstracted cells in the input netlist are represented as directed hyper-edges with constraint annotations. The representation of abstracted cells as attributed hyper-edges, instead of complex (i.e., hierarchical) blocks, helps to preserve the signal path oriented behavior of the design, communicating it to the floorplanner. The physical design task of floorplanning is typically unaware of the structure of design netlist that is being floorplanned. The path based abstraction technique of the present invention also provides structural properties (path information between specific floorplan objects of interest) of the netlist to the floorplanner. This is done without any significant sacrifice in the quality of the resulting solutions.
[0017] The concept of path based netlist abstraction and net bundling are an essential aspect of the abstraction process. Netlist abstraction (described above) prunes the solution space by identifying objects of interest from the netlist and determining the connectivity between them. The net-bundling step significantly reduces the time taken for evaluating the floorplan solution quality by efficiently handling the connectivity information between objects of interest.
[0018] In another aspect of the invention, there is provided a method for optimizing a floorplanner for a design netlist representation of an integrated circuit (IC) chip that includes the steps of: a) generating an abstract netlist; b) bundling the abstract netlist resulting in a reduced abstract netlist; c) generating constraints for the floorplanner; and d) modeling the constraints in the floorplanner to place floorplan objects of interest on the chip layout.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0019] These and other objects, aspects and advantages of the invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of the invention when taken in conjunction with the accompanying figures.
[0020] [0020]FIG. 1 is an overview of a conventional physical design flow, consisting of the steps of floorplanning, placement and routing.
[0021] [0021]FIG. 2 shows the overall flow of the path abstraction based floorplanning in the context of an overall physical design methodology, according to the present invention.
[0022] [0022]FIG. 3 a is an illustrative design netlist, consisting of four floorplan objects of interest, eight leaf level cells and nine nets connecting these design objects.
[0023] [0023]FIG. 3 b shows the result of applying the path based netlist abstraction technique to the design netlist of FIG. 3 a before bundling.
[0024] [0024]FIG. 3 c shows the result of applying net bundling, and the final annotated abstract netlist according to the invention, on the portion of the design netlist described in FIG. 3 a . FIG. 3 d shows the result of floorplanning the abstract netlist.
[0025] [0025]FIGS. 4 a - 4 c show a detailed view of the abstract netlist generation step of FIG. 2, according to the invention.
[0026] [0026]FIGS. 5 a - 5 c show a detailed view of the net bundling step which results in generating the bundled abstract nets.
[0027] [0027]FIG. 6 shows an illustrative example of net tracing.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
[0028] [0028]FIG. 2 shows the overall flow of the path abstraction based floorplanning in the context of an overall physical design methodology, according to the present invention.
[0029] For clarity sake, the inventive steps are placed within the context of a conventional physical design flow (FIG. 1). The main steps are highlighted within a dashed box shown on the top right hand side of FIG. 2. From the input design netlist, an abstract/virtual model of the netlist is constructed. The floorplanning step uses the virtual model of the netlist (instead of the detailed design netlist) and constraints computed by the floorplan constraint generation step in order to determine locations for the floorplan objects of interest. The coordinates of the floorplan objects as determined by the floorplanner make use of the virtual model to update locations of the objects in the original design netlist. The remaining physical design steps, i.e., placement and routing, utilize floorplan information from the updated design netlist.
[0030] The virtual model of the design netlist will be referred to hereinafter as “annotated abstract netlist”, “annotated abstract hypergraph” or, simply, “abstract netlist”. Objects are referred to as nodes or vertices, and the connections, hyper-edges. Nodes of the “annotated abstract hypergraph” (representing a virtual model of the design netlist) are designated “floorplan objects of interest” and hyper-edges are referred to as connections between floorplan objects of interest. (Note: A hypergraph is a data structure that represents a set of objects and connections linking them). The hyper-edge is also provided with annotations (or attributes) associated with it, with the annotations representing attraction and repulsion constraints (which are used by the floorplan optimization algorithm) between objects that are connected by the hyper-edge. (The terms abstract netlist and abstract hypergraph may be used interchangeably).
[0031] Referring to FIG. 3 a that illustrates a sample design netlist, boxes referenced by L1, L2, L3 and L4 denote the “floorplan objects of interest”, whose locations on the chip are to be determined by floorplanning. Circles identified as D1, D2, D3, D4, D5 and D6 denote the dust logic or leaf cells in the netlist. Lines referenced by N1, N2, N3, N4, N5, N6, N7, N8 and N9 represent nets or connections between design objects in the netlist.
[0032] Referring back to the dashed box on the top right hand corner of FIG. 2, the process of creating the virtual model of the detailed design netlist, consists of an abstract netlist generation step followed by net bundling. Construction of the virtual model is initiated when the abstract netlist generation step is applied to the illustrative example design netlist. Floorplan objects of interest are identified in the original design netlist, a process referred to as “marking”. For the example of FIG. 3 a , the marked floorplan objects of interest are design objects L1, L2, L3, and L4.
[0033] The abstract netlist generation step consists of a tracing algorithm that is executed on the original netlist. The tracing algorithm starts from a floorplan object of interest searching for a path leading to another object of interest. A path (i.e., a sequence of design objects, such as leaf cells or dust logic—cells other than the marked floorplan objects of interest) and real interconnections (or nets) in the original netlist) begins at a floorplan object of interest and ends on a second floorplan object of interest. In the present example, the path shown is a sequence starting in floorplan object of interest L1, proceeding through N1, D1, N3, D2, and N5, ending in the floorplan object of interest L2. The abstract netlist generation step identifies all the paths in the design netlist between marked floorplan objects of interest. All the paths that are identified as a result of the abstract netlist generation step for the example netlist in FIG. 3 a are:
[0034] Path 1: L1, N1, D1, N3, D2,N5, L2:
[0035] Path 2: L1, N1, D1, N3, D3, N6, L2:
[0036] Path 3: L1, N2, D4, N4, D5, N7, L2:
[0037] Path 4: L1, N2, D4, N4, D5, N7, L3:
[0038] Path 5: L1, N2, D4, N4, D6, N8, L3:
[0039] Path 6: L4, N9, D6, N8, L3.
[0040] The result of applying the abstract netlist generation step on the design netlist is shown in FIG. 3 b . The step of identifying all the paths between floorplan objects of interest may result in multiple paths between the same two floorplan objects of interest. Hereinafter, paths having the same starting and ending floorplan objects of interest will be referred to as “parallel” paths or connections. Parallel paths can be advantageously grouped by way of net bundling to reduce the total number of connections in the abstract netlist that is generated.
[0041] The task of net bundling is performed immediately following the execution of the tracing algorithm in the abstract netlist generation step. Applying net bundling to the result of the abstract netlist generation step generates the final “annotated abstract hypergraph” or “annotated abstract netlist” as shown in FIG. 3 c . Multiple parallel connections (paths) existing between floorplan objects of interest (FIG. 3 b ) are collapsed into a single connection or abstract hyper-edge, having a width that corresponds to the number of individual paths that were merged. By way of example, in FIG. 3 b , the three connections between L1 and L2 are merged into a single annotated abstract hyper-edge (connection—with the corresponding path count and unique cell count annotations). Annotations on abstract hyper-edges consist of two parts and provide the following information: 1) the total number of paths between the two objects of interest, and 2) the number of cells on the longest path between objects of interest. The latter may contain information such as the total number of unique cells among all the paths between two objects of interest.
[0042] Still referring to FIG. 3 c , the first abstract hyper-edge, denoted by AN1 connects cell L1 and L2. The annotation (#Paths=3, #Cells=5) on abstract net AN1 is formed by the previously described merging of paths 1, 2, and 3. The second part of the annotation denoted by #Cells=5 denotes the list of cells D1, D2, D3, D4, and D5, resulting from merging paths 1, 2, and 3. In an alternate representation, the second part of the abstract hyper-edge annotation, may also be expressed in terms of the total area of the cells instead of the count, without any loss of generality.
[0043] Interpretation of Abstract Netlist by the Floorplanner:
[0044] The next step generates floorplan constraints using the abstract netlist created in earlier steps. As previously described, the goal of floorplanning is to find locations for all the floorplan objects of interest identified in the abstract netlist. Connectivity between floorplan objects of interest serves as one aspect of the constraints for the floorplanner. These constraints dictate how close the floorplan objects of interest should be, i.e., the “attraction” constraints between them. Another aspect of the constraints is to model the space needed for the design objects not present in the abstract netlist. These space requirements are modeled as “repulsion” constraints between floorplan objects of interest.
[0045] As mentioned earlier, the simulated annealing engine serves as a basis for the floorplannner. Practitioners of the art will readily realize that other optimization techniques may be used for this purpose as well as for placing objects of interest. The objects are floorplanned such that the attraction constraints draws them in close proximity to each other when placed on the chip layout. Each attraction constraint is modeled as a connection with a weight proportional to the number of paths between the objects of interest (determined during the abstract netlist generation step). The floorplanner then minimizes the length of the connections representing the attraction constraints. Repulsion constraints are modeled by the artificial area expansion of the floorplan objects of interest. With reference to the abstract netlist shown in FIG. 3 c , the area of the floorplan objects of interest L1 and L2 are expanded to account for the design objects: D1, D2, D3, D4, and D5, that were removed during the netlist abstraction step.
[0046] Information related to connections between floorplan objects of interest is provided to the floorplanner by the abstract netlist. This is illustrated in FIG. 2, where the arrow leaving the oval represents the abstract netlist to the floorplanner. Annotations on the abstract hyper-edges of the abstract netlist are used in the floorplan constraints generation step, to obtain the aforementioned attraction and repulsion constraints that are directly used by the floorplanner. In FIG. 2, this is shown by the arrow between the output of the floorplan constraint generation step to the floorplanner. The output of the floorplanner are locations of the floorplan objects of interest on the chip layout. For the example illustrated in FIG. 3 a , the floorplan is shown in FIG. 3 d . Therein, floorplan objects of interest L1, L2, L3 and L4 are assigned locations (x1, y1), (x2, y2), (x3, y3), and (x4, y4) on the two-dimensional layout of the chip.
[0047] Hereinafter, details pertaining the main objectives of the invention, such as abstract netlist generation, net bundling, floorplan constraint generation and floorplanning steps will be described.
[0048] Creation of the Abstract Netlist:
[0049] In this section, the main algorithm that creates an abstract netlist from a given design netlist will be explained with reference to the dashed box in the top right hand corner of FIG. 2.
[0050] The abstract netlist generation step starts following a description of the algorithm. Shown in FIG. 4 is a top level view of the abstract netlist generation algorithm. There are two distinct phases in the abstract netlist creation process, namely:
[0051] Marking phase, where floorplan objects of interest are identified in the design netlist, and
[0052] Abstract network generation or tracing phase, wherein paths between floorplan objects of interest are identified as abstract or virtual interconnections between objects.
[0053] The result of the marking phase is a list of design objects: the marked object of interest list. The network generation phase accepts the list of floorplan objects of interest and computes the set of paths among the floorplan objects of interest. The output of the abstract network generation phase is a list of abstract hyper-edges (or abstract nets representing the paths). The abstract hyper-edge is a data structure consisting of the following information:
[0054] Source floorplan object of interest;
[0055] Destination floorplan object of interest;
[0056] List of unmarked objects (design objects in the netlist that are not floorplan objects of interest), existing in the path between the source and destination floorplan objects of interest;
[0057] Number of paths between source and destination; and
[0058] The abstract network generation phase performs a path enumeration starting from each of the marked floorplan objects of interest. Path enumeration is known to be a problem that increases exponentially. In order to limit the complexity of the problem, the abstract network generation algorithm is provided with parameters to control the execution of the algorithm. These will be discussed hereinafter along with the abstract network generation algorithm.
[0059] Marking Phase:
[0060] The marking phase refers to the process of identifying floorplan objects of interest in the original design netlist. Classes of objects/individual objects are identified and marked on the original netlist. The classes of objects most commonly supported are: latches, IOs, macros, large objects, and fixed objects. Individual objects of interest may also be marked in a given design netlist (i.e, an abstract netlist includes marked objects of interest falling into more than one of the categories).
[0061] The marking process can be static or dynamic. For the static case, objects of interest are predetermined and the subsequent network generation algorithm does not have any control over which objects of interest are to be marked (i.e., start/stop points for the abstract network tracing algorithm). For the illustrative netlist shown in FIG. 3( a ), the design objects L1, L2, L3, L4 are identified as floorplan objects of interest. The output of the marking phase for this example is the list of floorplan objects of interest (<L1, L2, L3, L4>) which is used by the next phase of abstract network generation. This illustrates static marking, where the list of floorplan objects of interest are not changed, remaining the same throughout the process of floorplan object of interest identification (marking), abstract network generation (tracing), and the like. Static marking is the most commonly used mode of performing the marking process.
[0062] Static Marking:
[0063] Cells are marked by the function:
[0064] markCells(CELLTYPE),
[0065] where CELLTYPE is {IO, MACRO, LATCH, LARGEOBJECT, FIXED}.
[0066] This function marks all the cells that fall within a particular type of cell. The function identifies a large object based on the number of circuit rows occupied by it; a macro, by the presence of any child elements within; IO and latches based on their cell property. Once identified, these cells are tagged in the design netlist to be objects of interest. The result of the marking process is shown on the top right hand side of FIG. 4 b . Therein is shown the illustrative design netlist introduced in FIG. 3 a following the marking process. In FIG. 4 b , the marked floorplan objects of interest, i.e., L1, L2, L3, L4, are depicted by dashed boxes. Cells are also individually marked. Typically, for the floorplanning, I/Os, macros and large objects are marked to be of interest. (These are the objects whose location on the layout needs to be determined by the floorplanner).
[0067] Dynamic Marking:
[0068] In the case of static marking, the list of identified floorplan objects of interest are not modified during the marking process. In addition to the floorplan objects of interest, one may also determine that some design objects (not identified to be a floorplan object of interest) need to be marked as additional floorplan objects of interest in order to improve the abstract netlist being generated. The identification of these additional floorplan objects of interest based on properties of the design netlist is referred to as “Dynamic Marking”. The basic property used for identifying additional floorplan objects of interest requires that the total number of inputs and outputs from a single design object exceed a pre-defined threshold. (if certain design objects in the netlist have a high number of pins associated with them). If this property is satisfied and the design object satisfying this property has not already been marked, then the additional design object becomes a primary candidate for marking.
[0069] Network Generation Phase:
[0070] This phase refers to the task of generating the abstract network between objects of interest that were marked in the previous phase. The basic network generation algorithm is a modified depth first search on the design netlist. The algorithmic process, GenerateAbstractNetwork, addresses the main abstract netlist (hypergraph) generation as follows:
[0071] INPUT: Design Netlist, Vector of Marked Floorplan Objects of Interest.
[0072] OUTPUT: Abstract Netlist—Vector of Abstract Hyper-edges
Algorithm GenerateAbstractNetwork (DesignNetlist netlist, FOI- Vector foiVector) 1. START 2. IF nodeVector is not empty THEN a. FOR each design object d in nodeVector I. d.visited = FALSE b. END FOR 3. END IF 4. nodeVector = { } 5. abstractHyper-edgeVector = { } 6. hyper-edgeVector = { } 7. FOR each foi in foiVector DO a. FOR each net n incident to foi DO i. hyper-edgeVector = traceNets(n, foi) ii.abstractHyper-edgeVector = abstractHyper- edgeVector + hyper- edge Vector b. END FOR 8. END FOR 9. END
[0073] The algorithm ‘generateAbstractNetwork’ accepts the design netlist and a vector of marked floorplan objects of interest. The vector is a standard data structure that contains a list of elements of a given type. It provides random access to elements, allows for a constant time insertion, removes elements at the end of the vector, and provides linear time insertion and removal of elements at the beginning or in the middle of the vector. A vector can, generally, be viewed as having the same meaning as a linked list. More information regarding vectors can be found in a C ++ Text, like “The C ++ Programming Language” by Bjarne Stroustrup.
[0074] Steps 2-6 of the algorithm are initialization steps. Each design object has a flag referred to as “visited” associated with it. The flag is set during the recursive tracing algorithm traceNet, if the particular design object was visited during the process. The nodeVector is a vector of design objects (which are not floorplan objects of interest) that were abstracted in the process of searching for a path to other floorplan objects of interest from the starting floorplan object of interest (foi). This nodeVector is constructed as a result of executing traceNet on each of the floorplan objects of interest belonging to the vector containing the objects of interest. Step 7 addresses the main loop that encompasses the list of floorplan objects of interest, executing the traceNet for each net connected to the floorplan object of interest. The result of executing traceNet is the creation of a vector of abstract hyper-edges representing alternate paths from certain floorplan objects of interest to other floorplan objects of interest. The list of hyper-edges obtained from a single call to traceNets is merged into the global list of abstract hyper-edges, represented by the variable abstractHyper-edge Vector. Step 7 ii illustrates the merging step.
[0075] For the example illustrated with reference to FIG. 3( a ), following completion of the marking process, the input to generateAbstractNetwork is a vector containing the four floorplan objects of interest L1, L2, L3, L4. TraceNet is executed for each of the objects. For instance, for object L1 (FIG. 3 a ), in Step 7 of GenerateAbstractNetwork, there are two calls made to traceNet, one to net N1, and the other to net N2. The first call traceNet(L1, N2) results in a vector of abstract hyper-edges. Referring to FIG. 3 b , the vector of abstract hyper-edges contains two paths: path1 and path2. The second call to traceNet with floorplan object of interest L1, traceNet(L1, N2) (i.e., with net N2) results in a vector of abstract hyper-edge containing path3.
Algorithm traceNet(Net n, FOI startFoi) 1. BEGIN 2. IF n is a special net THEN a. Return 3. ENDIF 4. IF (logicLevels > LogicDepthComtraint) THEN a. Return 5. ENDIF 6. FOR each design object d belonging to net n DO a. IF d is a floorplan object of interest THEN i. Create abstract hyper-edge h ii. h.source = startFoi iii. h.destination = d iv. h.cluster = activePathVector v. h.numpaths = 1 vi. hyper-edgeVector = hyper-edge- Vector + h b. ELSE IF (d.visited = = TRUE) THEN i. loopCount = loopCount + 1 c. ELSE /* d is an unmarked design object in the netlist */ i. logicLevels = logicLevels + 1 Ii. Insert d into activePathVector iii. Insert d into node Vector iv. d.visited = TRUE v.FOR each net n1 connected to d DO 1. traceNet(n1, startFOI) vi. END FOR vii. logicLevels = logicLevels −1 viii. Remove last element from the active- PathVector d. ENDIF 7. END FOR 8. END
[0076] The above process traceNet recursively traces the nets for each marked floorplan object of interest, with the intent of finding paths between objects of interest. Certain controls exist with which the user controls the overall recursive tracing process. The user can opt to ignore tracing from special nets. Clocks or scan nets having a very large fan-out are examples which the user may ignore while creating the abstract netlist. Other commands may be used to control the tracing that imposes a limit on the logic depth. If this constraint is set by the user, then the tracing algorithm identifies only those paths (between the floorplan objects of interest) having the total number of unmarked design objects thereon to be less than the constraint specified by the user. Steps 2, 4 of traceNet implement these controls in the tracing process. The variable logicDepthConstraint in step 4 reflects the user defined logic depth constraint. If the current number of logic levels (kept track of in the variable logicLevels by the tracing process in Algorithm traceNet) exceeds this constraint, then the tracing process is brought to a stop.
[0077] The FOR loop in step 6 addresses each design object connected to the net. The IF statement in Step 6 a checks whether the design object is a floorplan object of interest. If the answer is Yes, then an abstract hyper-edge (path) is established between startFoi (the floorplan object of interest with which the tracing process started) and d (the current design object). Referring to FIG. 3 b , this step of the algorithm creates an abstract hyper-edge (path1 in FIG. 3 b ) between L1 and L2, and sets the list of unmarked design objects (that have been abstracted away) on this abstract hyper-edge to be equal to D1 and D2. The variable activePathVector denotes the set of unmarked design objects that are currently in the path (abstract hyper-edge) being constructed by the tracing process. Each design object has a “visited” boolean attribute associated with it. This attribute indicates whether the design object was already reached and identifies that a loop was detected, which would then be ignored. The way of breaking loops among design objects is shown by the ELSE IF statement in Step 6 ( b ) of traceNet. Step 6 c shows the step of recursive stepping through unmarked design objects (non-floorplan objects of interest) of the netlist. The algorithm at Step 6 c implies that the current design object d is not a floorplan object of interest, and that it is not a loop. In the sub-steps following Step 6 c , the design object d is marked as visited, saved into activePathVector and nodeVector, and a recursive call is made from each net connected to the design object d, thereby seeing through or ignoring the non-floorplan objects of interest during the tracing process.
[0078] [0078]FIG. 6 a shows an input hypergraph with marked vertices {A, B, C, D}. The top-level abstract network generation algorithm accepts such a hypergraph with marked vertices, invoking the recursive net tracing algorithm for each of the vertices A, B, C, D. Each vertex has the attribute visited. If it is set, it is an indication that the particular design object was visited during the recursive tracing.
[0079] Saving design objects being recursively stepped through into a “node vector” and resetting their visited attribute before calling TraceNet for the next marked floorplan object of interest in the top-level function ensures that all the paths between the floorplan objects of interest are represented in the final abstracted hypergraph. In the example of FIG. 6 a , during the creation of abstract hyper-edges (A, C) and (A, D) in the first call of traceNet(A, E1), intermediate nodes 1 , 2 , 3 are marked visited. Had the node vector color resetting not been used, then the path (A, D) through nets E4, E6 and intermediate design object 4 , would not have be found. This is because the net tracing algorithm starting from node B stops at node 3 , as this node would already have been marked as visited. This example illustrates why a conventional depth first traversal is inadequate for the abstract hypergraph generation problem being solved by the abstract network generation algorithm presented herein.
[0080] The result of the abstract network generation algorithm is a vector of abstract hyper-edges that are represented as path1, . . . , path6, in FIG. 3 b . The annotations on these abstract hyper-edges are used by the floorplan constraint generation phase to generate the constraints that drive the floorplanner. Thus, making the floorplanner aware of the intermediate logic that was abstracted allows the floorplanner to account for the real estate required to place the abstracted intermediate cells.
[0081] The next section describes the net bundling technique. Net bundling step identifies parallel connections and reduces the number of abstract hyper-edges in the network generated by the netlist abstraction process. Furthermore, during this process it generates the final annotations on the abstract hyper-edges.
[0082] Net Bundling:
[0083] Once the abstract netlist is generated, other abstract nets or connections between the same sets of floorplan objects of interest may be put in place. For example, in FIG. 3 b , the abstract netlist generation step created three abstract nets or interconnections between the floorplan objects of interest L1 and L2. A widely used metric to drive/evaluate a floorplanner is provided by the total interconnect wirelength (TWL). During the process of annealing, objects are moved around on the chip layout and the wirelengths are recomputed after each move to evaluate the quality of the floorplan. When a floorplan object is moved from its original position to a new position, the length of the nets connected to that object is no longer valid. In order to evaluate the goodness of this move, the length of the nets belonging to that object is recomputed. If the object contains a large number of terminals, then the process of recomputing the nets significantly increases the run-time. In order to reduce the run-time of the wirelength estimation and of the annealing algorithm, the concept of net-bundling is introduced. Net-bundling identifies “parallel edges” (connections) in the abstract netlist (or hypergraph) of the given design and bundles them as a single edge. Parallel connections are defined as connections in the netlist that link the same set of floorplan objects of interest. Referring to FIG. 3 b , paths P1, P2 and P3 span between floorplan objects L1 and L2. Thus, these paths are parallel edges. The three paths can be merged into one (represented by AbstractNet AN1 in FIG. 3 c ). The formation of a single annotated hyper-edge: AN1 from three separate abstract nets denoted by path1, path2, and path3 is shown in FIGS. 5 b and 5 c.
[0084] Assuming that each path Pi is associated with a weight W Pi . The weight reflects the criticality of the path. Then, the total weighted wirelength for all the paths between the floorplan objects L1 and L2 is:
WL (L1,L2) =L P1 W P1 +L P2 W P2 +L P3 W P3 ,
[0085] where L P1 , L P2 and L P3 represent the length of the paths P1, P2 and P3, respectively.
[0086] In order to compute WL (L1,L2) without using net (or path) bundling, three multiplications and two additions are required. However, with net bundling, the three paths are represented as a single path bundle Pb with a weight W pb such that
W pb =W P1 +W P2 +W P3 .
[0087] The wirelength of path Pb is the same as that of paths P1, P2 and P3. Thus, the total weighted wirelength using path bundling is calculated as:
WL (L1,L2) =L pb W pb ,
[0088] resulting in a only one multiplication. It can be seen that this result is the same as the one obtained by resorting to net bundling, except for certain redundant computations that were removed and which, in turn, reduced the time required for computing the wirelengths.
[0089] INPUT: List of Abstract Hyper-edges from Abstract Netlist Generation: ilist
[0090] OUTPUT: List of Abstract Hyper-edges with updated annotations after bundling: olist
Algorithm Net-Bundling 1. BEGIN 2. olist[0] = ilist[0] 3. olistSize = 1 4. FOR (ctr1 = 0; ctr1 < sizeof(ilist); ctr1++) a. ParallelEdgeFound = FALSE b. FOR (ctr2 = 0; ctr2 < olistSize; ctr2++) i. IF (isParallel(ilist[ctr1], olist [ctr2]) THEN 1. olist[ctr2] = MergeHyper-edges (ilist[ctr1], olist[ctr2]) 2. ParallelEdgeFound = true 3. break ii.END IF c. END FOR d. IF (parallelEdgeFound = = FALSE) THEN i. olistSize++ ii.olist[olistSize] = ilist[ctr1] e. ENDIF 5. END FOR 6. END
[0091] The above algorithm provides an overview of net bundling. The input to this process is a vector of abstract hyper-edges that was created by the abstract netlist generation process. This is denoted by the variable ilist. The function isParallel accepts two abstract hyper-edges (e.g., path1, path2 in FIG. 5 b ) and checks whether the source and destination of both abstract hyper-edges is the same. If they are, it returns TRUE; otherwise, it returns FALSE. The MergeHyper-edges function in step 4.i.1 of the net bundling procedure accepts two abstract hyper-edges that are parallel, and increments the path count annotation between the source and destination floorplan objects of interest, merging the two lists of unmarked objects that occur on the hyper-edges being combined. Merging is achieved by removing duplicate design objects between the hyper-edges being merged. The cell count is correspondingly set by the size of the merged list of abstracted design objects. Referring to FIGS. 5 b and 5 c , net bundling results in generating the bundled abstract nets AN1, AN2, and AN3 along with the annotations from the list of paths: path1, path2, . . . , path6, that were generated by the abstract network generation step.
[0092] Floorplan Attraction-Repulsion Constraint Generation:
[0093] The abstraction model modifies the original netlist in two ways. Firstly, it reduces the number of objects seen by the floorplanner, i.e., the number of objects requiring to be floorplanned are fewer than the number of placeable objects in the design. Secondly, the abstraction model removes nets from the original netlist and adds new nets in the abstract netlist seen by the floorplanner.
[0094] Following is described a method of modeling changes so that the floorplanner can be driven effectively.
[0095] Modeling the Abstract Nets as Attraction Constraints:
[0096] The attraction between two floorplan objects depends on: 1) the number of paths between two objects, and 2) the number of objects abstracted out between them. The larger the number of paths, the higher the attractive force between the floorplan objects. However, if a large number of objects is abstracted between objects, then the attraction force loses some of its effectiveness. Thus, the attractive force F A(i,j) between two objects i and j is directly proportional to the number of paths (Np), and inversely proportional to the number of objects (Na) abstracted between them. Thus, if K A is a proportionality constant, then the force equation becomes:
F A(i,j) =K A ( Np/Na )
[0097] Assuming K A =1, the attraction constraints for the example shown in FIG. 3 c become
F A(L1,L2) =3/5=0.60
F A(L1,L3) =2/3=0.67
F A(L4,L3) =1/1=1.00
[0098] Modeling the Abstracted Objects as Repulsion Constraints:
[0099] Objects that are abstracted are real design objects that share the placement area with the floorplan objects of interest when the chip is completed. (An object in the design that is not a floorplan object of interest is referred to as an abstracted object) Thus, it is important to keep this factor in mind when floorplanning with an abstract netlist. If these objects were not considered, it is possible to generate a floorplan purely based on attraction constraints, and the floorplan objects may end being placed abutting with each other. This is an unsatisfactory solution and, thus, space must be allocated for the placement of objects that are abstracted out.
[0100] Allocation of space for abstracted logic is achieved by considering the area of design objects abstracted out. The total area of all the design objects that were abstracted in a path P is added, and proportionally distributed among the floorplan objects on that path. Alternatively, one may temporarily increase the size of the floorplan objects to account for the area of the abstracted objects. The area increase of the floorplan objects is proportional to the respective original areas. Since the abstracted objects appear in multiple paths, only a fraction of their areas for each path in which they appear will be distributed. Otherwise, more space is allocated than needed for the objects abstracted out. Thus, for e.g., if an abstracted object ai having an area Aai appears in three paths, then, an area is allocated equaling Aai/3 for each path where it appears.
[0101] Let A (i,j) be the sum total of the fractional area of all the objects abstracted out between floorplan objects i and j contained in path P. Let Ai and Aj be the original areas of the objects i and j, respectively. The area of objects i and j increases as follows:
Ai′=Ai +( Ai /( Ai+Aj )) A (i,j)
Aj′=Aj +( Aj /( Ai+Aj )) A (i,j)
[0102] where Ai′ is the increased area of object i.
[0103] The increased areas for the objects L1 and L2 from path1 in FIG. 3 b becomes
A L1 ′=A L1 +( A L1 /( A L1 +A 1,2 )) A
A L2 ′=A L2 +( A L2 /( A L1 +A 1,2 )) A
[0104] where A is the fractional area of the two objects D1 and D2 abstracted out in the path1 between objects L1 and L2.
[0105] Each floorplan object thus get its area increased based on the objects abstracted out in each path which starts or ends with it. During floorplanning, the optimizer sees the increased size of the floorplan objects and generates a floorplan with spaces between them. A subsequent placement program can then place the abstracted out objects in the spaces created by the floorplanner.
[0106] Simulated Annealing Based Floorplanning:
[0107] A solution to the floorplanning problem is positioning all the floorplan objects of interest on the chip layout. A multi-constrained floorplan optimization technique refers to a method of finding a placement solution for the floorplan objects of interest that optimizes a number of cost objectives. An important cost objective for a floorplanner is to minimize the total interconnection length. In the present case, attraction constraints introduced by the abstraction model are represented by weighted interconnection lengths. Also, for a given solution, the arrangement of the floorplan objects can be such that two or more of them may overlap. It is typical for any floorplanner to model the overlap score into the set of cost functions that are minimized. Overlaps are minimized as well. Thus, the cost function has two objectives to be minimized, which are: 1) attraction constraints represented as weighted interconnection lengths, and 2) the total overlaps. The cost function CS is represented for a given floorplan solution s as
C
s
=K
L
L+K
O
O
[0108] where K L and K O are constants, L is the total weighted interconnection length (of the abstraction constraints) and O, the total overlap score. Note that in this framework other constraints (such as timing, displacement, and the like) may be added to the cost function as well.
[0109] Simulated annealing can be advantageously used for the underlying floorplanner. Its randomized optimization allows modeling multiple constraints to drive the solution process. The annealing process begins with a random initial solution. The solution is then perturbed a large number of times to converge on a better solution that minimizes the cost objective. The final converged solution is shown to be for many instances near-optimal. The annealer accepts all the solutions that improve their quality, although it may also accept with some probability solutions that degrade the quality. This is the main reason for the annealing process to succeed. During early stages of annealing, larger perturbations are made to the solution and larger degradations are accepted. As the technique progresses, the perturbations become smaller and the accepted degradations become more stringent as well. The resulting solution provides location information of all the objects of interest having a high quality for a given cost objective (i.e., the total weighted interconnection length and overlaps are minimal). A subsequent verification step certifies the position (remove any remaining overlaps) of the floorplan objects. Thus, simulated annealing achieves an optimal arrangement of the floorplan objects of interest obtained with an awareness of the intervening objects that were abstracted out. The floorplan objects are then fixed in the chip layout and the placement tool is invoked to place other design objects on the chip layout. The result of floorplanning for the example shown in FIG. 3 a is the arrangement of the floorplan objects of interest on the layout illustrated in FIG. 3 d.
[0110] While the presented invention has been described in terms of a preferred embodiment, those skilled in the art will readily recognize that many changes and modifications are possible, all of which remain within the spirit and the scope of the present invention, as defined by the accompanying claims. | An abstraction based multi-phase method for VLSI chip floorplanning is described. The abstraction based approach provides a solution to macro floorplanning in the presence of leaf level intermediate logic, and achieves it without loss of accuracy in the results. Annotations generated during abstraction are presented as floorplanning constraints which account for the abstracted data. The floorplanning and placement algorithms handle detailed netlists consisting of large blocks and small leaf level cells in an efficient manner. The abstraction based approach phases out by abstracting the leaf level logic (thus reducing the solution space of the floorplanner) and reintroducing them in the form of floorplan constraints (to account for the presence of the leaf level logic while determining the location of large blocks). The abstraction and bundling phases achieves a significant improvement in the performance of a simulated annealing based floorplanner. The overall concept of driving a floorplanning algorithm with a path based hyper-edge representation also helps to provide structural information about the netlist to the floorplanner. | 6 |
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to anti-decoupling arrangements for connectors of the type in which coupling is achieved by means of a coupling nut, and more particularly to an anti-decoupling arrangement for an electrical connector that uses a ratchet mechanism to limit rotation of the coupling nut in the decoupling direction and a spiral lock clutch to permit free rotation of the coupling nut in the coupling direction. Still more particularly, the invention relates to improvements on the anti-decoupling arrangement disclosed in copending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/391,458, filed Sep. 8, 1999, incorporated by reference herein.
2. Description of the Related Art
A typical connector to which the present invention may be applied includes a connector shell containing electrical contacts and an internally threaded coupling nut rotatably mounted on the connector shell. The connector shell is coupled to a corresponding externally threaded mating connector by means of the coupling nut in such a manner that electrical contacts in the mating connector engage the electrical contacts in the connector shell. The coupling nut is held on the connector shell by one or more retaining rings and/or spring washers that are designed to captivate or press a radial flange of the coupling nut against a corresponding flange or shoulder on the connector shell.
Because the frictional anti-locking force generated by engagement between the coupling nut and connector shell in such an arrangement is insufficient to prevent the coupling nut from rotating in a decoupling direction as a result of vibrations or shocks, compromising seals and possibly affecting the integrity of the electrical connections between contacts, it is conventional to include an additional anti-decoupling mechanism in connectors likely to be used in environments where vibrations or shocks are likely to occur, such as in military high-performance aircraft and other vehicles. The simplest and most common method of preventing unintended decoupling as a result of shocks or vibrations has been to include in the connector a metal ratchet spring having protrusions or dimples at the center of the beam, the ratchet spring being permanently attached to the inside diameter of the threaded coupling nut. The connector shell is provided with ratchet teeth on its outer diameter, which are engaged by the ratchet spring.
One problem with this type of coupling is that the discrete detent positions do not necessarily lie in phase with the fully clamped position of the ring, such that even slight vibrations can cause the ring to back off slightly, which can cause sealing problems. In addition, the detent members in this configuration have very little effective surface area, causing rapid wearing away of the teeth on the ratchet wheel each time the connector is mated or unmated.
A solution to the problems of wear and phasing of the ratchet teeth and detents is described in copending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/391,458, which is directed to various improvements in a spiral lock clutch anti-decoupling mechanism originally proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,536,048. The anti-decoupling mechanism described in the copending patent application includes a spiral lock clutch that permits free running in the coupling direction, a spring ring, and a tooth wheel all surrounding a connector shell and captured between a snap-ring on the connector shell and an inwardly extending flange on the coupling nut. The tooth wheel includes extensions or knurls that cooperate with corresponding slots or surfaces of the coupling nut to prevent relative rotation between the coupling nut and the tooth wheel, while the spring ring includes spring tines that engage radial cuts in the tooth wheel to permit ratcheting of the tooth wheel relative to the spring ring. The spring ring, in turn, is locked against rotation relative to the spiral lock clutch. During coupling, turning of the coupling nut causes corresponding turning of the tooth wheel. Since the spiral lock clutch is arranged to unwind and permit free running in the coupling direction, the engagement between the spring tines on the spring ring and the radial cuts is not subject to any ratcheting force and the spring ring and spiral lock clutch turn freely with the coupling nut and tooth wheel. During uncoupling, on the other hand, the spiral lock clutch winds tightly against the connector shell, preventing rotation of the spiral lock clutch and spring ring. In order to permit the coupling nut to rotate, a sufficient force must be applied to the coupling nut to permit ratcheting of the spring ring relative to the tooth wheel, i.e., to permit the spring tines to glide over the teeth formed by the radial cuts in the ratchet wheel.
The above-described anti-decoupling arrangement has the advantages, relative to the anti-decoupling arrangement described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,536,048, of attaining a high uncoupling torque due to the use of multiple tines or beams on the spring ring attached to the spiral lock clutch, control of the coupling torque through appropriate choice of the spiral lock clutch, spring tines, and tooth configuration, and simplified assembly to the connector shell by fitting all of the components over the shell, angularly orienting the components, and holding them in place with a retaining ring. Nevertheless, the above-described anti-decoupling mechanism still could benefit from the following improvements:
(i) a greater degree of adjustment of the de-coupling torque;
(ii) a still higher de-coupling torque than can be achieved with the prior arrangement;
(iii) smoother non-binding operation; and
(iv) a less critical assembly method.
These improvements are achieved by modifying the anti-decoupling device described in the copending patent application so that the clutch mechanism and the ratchet mechanism operate completely independently of one another in a non-interfering manner, and in particular by:
(i) arranging the ratchet assembly cantilever beams so that they operate radially outwardly rather than axially; and
(ii) eliminating the ratchet assembly detent ring (i.e., the toothed wheel) used in the prior anti-decoupling arrangement in favor of serrations formed into the inner diameter of the coupling nut.
These modifications not only reduce the number of components and also provide mechanical advantages that increase the range of possible decoupling torques, but they also eliminate any interference between the coupling nut shoulder and the back side of the spiral wound clutch band so as to provide a smoother coupling feel and a more positive and stronger clutch grip, eliminate press fits or keyed components that complicate assembly, permit a stronger and more easily assembled attachment of the spring ring to the spiral wound clutch, reduce tolerance build-up between components (due to the smaller number of axially stacked components), and make it possible to more easily disassemble the anti-coupling mechanism for repair or torque adjustment.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is accordingly a first objective of the invention to provide an electrical connector anti-decoupling mechanism of the type including a spiral lock clutch and ratcheting mechanism arranged to permit free running in the coupling direction and ratcheting in the decoupling direction, and that provides increased decoupling torque.
It is a second objective of the invention to provide an electrical connector anti-decoupling mechanism of the type including a spiral lock clutch and ratcheting mechanism arranged to permit free running in the coupling direction and ratcheting in the decoupling direction, and that provides a more adjustable decoupling torque.
It is a third objective of the invention to provide an electrical connector anti-decoupling mechanism of the type including a spiral lock clutch and ratcheting mechanism arranged to permit free running in the coupling direction and ratcheting in the decoupling direction, and that provides a smoother coupling feel by eliminating interference between the coupling nut shoulder and the back side of the spiral wound clutch band.
It is a fourth objective of the invention to provide an electrical connector anti-decoupling mechanism of the type including a spiral lock clutch and ratcheting mechanism arranged to permit free running in the coupling direction and ratcheting in the decoupling direction, and that provides a stronger clutch grip by eliminating interference between the coupling nut shoulder and the back side of the spiral wound clutch band.
It is a fifth objective of the invention to provide an electrical connector anti-decoupling mechanism of the type including a spiral lock clutch and ratcheting mechanism arranged to permit free running in the coupling direction and ratcheting in the decoupling direction, and that requires fewer complex components.
It is a sixth objective of the invention to provide an electrical connector anti-decoupling mechanism of the type including a spiral lock clutch and ratcheting mechanism arranged to permit free running in the coupling direction and ratcheting in the decoupling direction, and that permit easier and less costly assembly due to the elimination of press fits or keyed components.
It is a seventh objective of the invention to provide an electrical connector anti-decoupling mechanism of the type including a spiral lock clutch and ratcheting mechanism arranged to permit free running in the coupling direction and ratcheting in the decoupling direction, and in which attachment of a spring ring to the spiral lock clutch is made stronger and yet easier to assemble.
It is an eighth objective of the invention to provide an electrical connector anti-decoupling mechanism of the type including a spiral lock clutch and ratcheting mechanism arranged to permit free running in the coupling direction and ratcheting in the decoupling direction, and reduces deviation in decoupling torque by reducing the number of components and therefore lower tolerance build-up between the components.
It is a ninth objective of the invention to provide an electrical connector anti-decoupling mechanism of the type including a spiral lock clutch and ratcheting mechanism arranged to permit free running in the coupling direction and ratcheting in the decoupling direction, and that suffers from less wear in the ratchet assembly due to the beam tip shape and detent form resulting from the radial rather than axial engagement between the parts of the ratchet mechanism.
It is a tenth objective of the invention to provide an electrical connector anti-decoupling mechanism of the type including a spiral lock clutch and ratcheting mechanism arranged to permit free running in the coupling direction and ratcheting in the decoupling direction, and in which tolerance of a spring ring portion of the ratcheting mechanism is easier to control due to being flat stamped with no forming of the cantilever beams required.
It is an eleventh objective of the invention to provide an electrical connector anti-decoupling mechanism of the type including a spiral lock clutch and ratcheting mechanism arranged to permit free running in the coupling direction and ratcheting in the decoupling direction, and that can be disassembled without any special tools and without destroying any of the components of the mechanism, allowing for field repairability and torque adjustments.
These objectives are achieved, in accordance with the principles of a preferred embodiment of the invention, by providing an anti-decoupling arrangement for an electrical connector (as well as an electrical connector incorporating such an anti-decoupling arrangement) which consists of just three operative components: a spiral lock clutch, at least one spring ring, and ratchet teeth or serrations formed on an inside surface of the coupling nut. The ratchet teeth are in the form of serrations formed into the inside diameter of a recessed area of the coupling nut in which all of the components reside, and each spring ring is a self-supporting ring that has spring cantilevers with engaging tines of a given number located around its outer circumference, the engaging tines engaging the serrations in a radial direction. The engaging tines thus provide a torque/ratchet mechanism when they glide over the radial cuts of the tooth ring in the uncoupling direction.
In order to assemble the anti-decoupling mechanism of the invention, the coupling nut may be assembled to the shell so that it bottoms out shoulder to shoulder, and subsequently the spiral clutch band is assembled onto the shell at a position spaced from but near a shoulder extending from the shell. If a groove is provided, the clutch band may be assembled in the groove. A tapered shaft is fitted over the rear of the plug shell to temporarily enlarge the spiral lock clutch band, allowing it to slide over the rear of the shell and down into the first groove. The spring ring or rings are then assembled onto the spiral lock clutch by aligning respective complementary interengaging structures on the spring ring or rings and on the spiral lock clutch band, the complementary interengaging structures including, by way of example and not limitation, a slot in each spring ring and a small hook like bend on the end of the spiral lock clutch band. Those skilled in the art will of course appreciate that the order of assembly may be varied within the scope of the invention, for example, by first assembling the spring ring or rings to the plug shell, and then assembling the clutch.
In operation, when the coupling nut is turned in a coupling or mating direction, the serrations on the coupling nut engage the spring tines and cause each spring ring to also turn in the coupling direction, which causes the spiral lock clutch to turn in the coupling direction. Turning of the spiral lock clutch in the coupling direction causes it to unwind from the connector shell and freely rotate, thus permitting coupling to occur without any resistance from the anti-decoupling mechanism.
On the other hand, when the coupling nut is rotated in an unmating or decoupling direction, the spring tines are pushed by the serrations to rotate in the uncoupling direction, causing the spiral lock clutch to tighten and prevent further rotation of the spring ring, the tines of which are then ratcheted over the teeth of the tooth ring to provide resistance to uncoupling.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 is an isometric view showing an electrical connector anti-decoupling arrangement constructed in accordance with the principles of a preferred embodiment of the invention.
FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional side view of the electrical connector and anti-decoupling arrangement of FIG. 1.
FIG. 3 is an isometric view showing details of a coupling nut for use in the anti-decoupling arrangement of the preferred embodiment.
FIG. 4 is an isometric view showing details of a spring ring for use in the anti-decoupling arrangement of the preferred embodiment.
FIG. 5 is an isometric view showing details of a plug shell for use with the anti-decoupling arrangement of the preferred embodiment.
FIG. 6 is an isometric view showing details of a spiral lock clutch for use in the anti-decoupling arrangement of the preferred embodiment.
FIG. 7 is an isometric view showing an electrical connector anti-decoupling arrangement constructed in accordance with the principles of a second preferred embodiment of the invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
As illustrated in FIGS. 1-3 and 5, a connector having an anti-decoupling mechanism constructed in accordance with the principles of a preferred embodiment of the invention includes a plug connector shell 8 having a front mating section corresponding to the one illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 4,536,048, incorporated herein by reference. Between the front and rear section of the plug connector shell 8 is a flange or shoulder 9 having a rear surface 10 which faces a collar or flange 11 extending radially inwardly from the coupling nut 12.
The illustrated connector shell 8 and coupling nut 12 have the general configuration of a type of connector known as the "Series III" connector, including such features as polarizing keys 13, and a standard Tri-start thread 14 on the coupling nut 12. However, although the anti-decoupling arrangement of the preferred embodiment is especially suitable for use in the Series III connector, which is designed to be used in harsh environments (the standards therefor being specified in standard shell sizes 9-25 according to MIL-C-38999/26D, dated May 7, 1990), those skilled in the art will appreciate that the principles of the invention are not limited to Series III connectors, but rather are applicable to any cylindrical connectors having threaded couplings and a need for an anti-decoupling arrangement.
To the rear of the flange 9 of connector shell 8 and collar 11 of coupling nut 12 is a spiral lock clutch 19, illustrated in detail in FIG. 6. Spiral lock clutch 19 is preferably in the form of a wound radial spring band surrounding the shell 13. The spiral lock clutch may be loosely captured in a groove 27 situated rearwardly of flange 9, although it is also within the scope of the invention to omit groove 27, and includes a small hook like bend or tab 20 extending from one end 21 of the band in a transverse direction relative to the principal plane of the band so as to project rearwardly of the band when the band is assembled to the plug shell 8.
Tab 20 is arranged to engage a slot 22 extending from an inside diameter of a spring ring 23 such that when the spring ring 23 is fitted onto the plug connector shell 8 and oriented so that slot 22 aligns with tab 20, spring ring 23 and end 21 of the band are thereby locked against relative rotational movement. Except for the tab 20, spiral lock clutch 19 may be similar to the spiral ring disclosed in the above-cited copending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/391,458. Although illustrated as a tab 20 on the spiral lock clutch 19 and a slot 22 on the spring ring 23, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the means by which clutch 19 and ring 23 are locked together against relative rotational movement may take a variety of forms, such as a tab on clutch 19 and a slot, notch, or groove situated away from the inside diameter of the spring ring 23, a slot in the clutch and tab on the spring ring, a weld joint, or any other suitable joining structure.
Spring ring 23 includes, in addition to slot 22, a plurality of spring tines or beams 24 arranged to flex in a radial direction, as shown in FIG. 4. Spring beams 24 include, at their distal ends, radially outwardly extending angled sections or detents 25 arranged to cooperate with corresponding serrations 26 formed into the inside surface of coupling nut 12 to provide a ratcheting effect, as described below, when the spring ring 23 is fitted over plug shell 8 such that the serrations surround the spring ring. Unlike the spring ring described in the above-cited copending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/391,458, spring ring 23 of the preferred embodiment is completely planar in construction and therefore can be more easily manufactured. In addition, as illustrated in FIG. 7, the planar construction and radial engagement of beams 24 with serrations 26 permits multiple spring rings 23',23" of the same or different thickness to be stacked upon one another as a way to adjust torque without having to change the design of any of the other components of the anti-decoupling mechanism. Although two spring rings are illustrated, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the number of spring rings may be increased to three or more without departing from the scope of the invention.
Coupling nut 12 preferably takes the form of a standard coupling nut, with the addition of serrations 26, and is held on the plug shell 8 by a cover ring 28 and standard retaining ring 29 situated in a second groove 30, completing the anti-decoupling mechanism. It will of course be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the combination of a cover ring and retaining ring may be replaced by any suitable retention mechanism, including a non-standard retaining ring that extends outwardly far enough to engage the coupling nut.
Because detents 25 can engage the serrations 26 anywhere along their axial length without affecting the engagement force and therefore the decoupling torque, the invention provides for a much greater axial tolerance in positioning the spring ring 23 or rings 23',23" and the spiral lock clutch 19, and a much simpler structure overall, than is possible in the anti-decoupling mechanism described in copending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/391,458, which is why the spiral lock clutch can be loosely fitted into groove 27 or simply positioned over the outside surface of the plug shell 8, and why the adjustment of the torque is a function solely of the number of spring rings 23,23',23 ", the configuration of beams 24 and detents 25, the shape of serrations 26, and the configuration and number of turns of the spiral lock clutch 19, eliminating the dependence of the decoupling torque on axial positioning and permitting a greater range of torque adjustments.
The anti-decoupling mechanism of the preferred embodiments illustrated in FIGS. 1-7 may assembled to the connector, as follows:
(i) The coupling nut is assembled onto the shell such that it bottoms out shoulder to shoulder, with radially inwardly extending flange 11 facing radially outwardly extending flange or shoulder 9.
(ii) A tapered shaft is then fitted over the rear of the plug shell to temporarily enlarge the spiral lock clutch band 19, allowing it be to slide over the rear of the shell and down into the first groove 27.
(iii) The spring ring 23 or rings 23',23" is/are then assembled onto the spiral lock clutch 19 by aligning tab 20 on clutch 19 with slot 22 on spring ring 23, so that the spring ring 23 or rings 23',23" and the clutch 19 are held angularly by engagement between the tab 20 and slot 22.
(iv) Finally, cover ring 28 is positioned on the shell so as to capture the coupling nut 12, and retaining ring 29 is fitted into the second groove 30 to entrap the entire anti-decoupling assembly. Of course, these steps may also be varied without departing from the scope of the invention, which is defined solely by the appended claims.
The connector thus assembled operates as follows: When the coupling nut 12 is rotated in the mating or coupling direction, serrations 26 exert a torque on cantilever beams 24 and detents 25, rotating the spring ring 23 or rings 23',23", which in turn rotates the spiral lock clutch 19 in a direction that causes the clutch to unwind from the plug connector shell 8 and freely rotate relative thereto. As a result, the coupling nut can be rotated with a light torque to secure the coupling nut 12 to a mating connector.
When a torque is applied to the coupling nut 12 in the decoupling direction, the cantilever beams 24 and detents 25 of the spring ring 23 or rings 23',23" against the opposite faces of the serrations 26, causing the spring ring or rings to attempt to rotate the spiral lock clutch 19 in the decoupling direction. This decoupling torque locks the clutch and spring ring or rings to the plug connector shell. When the decoupling torque applied to the coupling nut exceeds a threshold (preferably above the value of any vibration or shock induced torques to which the connector is subject), since the spring ring 23 or rings 23',23" is/are locked against rotation by the spiral lock clutch 19, the serrations 26 are forced to ratchet over the cantilever beams 24, thereby permitting the coupling nut 12 to be decoupled from the corresponding externally threaded portion of the mating connector.
Having thus described a preferred embodiment of the invention and variations of the preferred embodiment in sufficient detail to enable those skilled in the art to make and use the invention, it will nevertheless be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the illustrated connector and decoupling arrangement may be further varied or modified by those skilled in the art.
For example, the type of connector to which the decoupling arrangement of the preferred embodiment is applied may be freely modified, as may such details as the nature of the complementary interengaging surfaces between the coupling nut and the plug connector shell (i.e., flanges 9 and 11) or the structures that lock the spring ring 23 to the spiral lock clutch 19.
Each of these variations and modifications, including those not specifically mentioned herein, is intended to be included within the scope of the invention, and thus the description of the invention and the illustrations thereof are not to be taken as limiting, but rather it is intended that the invention should be defined solely by the appended claims. | An anti-decoupling arrangement for an electrical connector (as well as an electrical connector incorporating such an anti-decoupling arrangement) is made up of just three operative components: a spiral lock clutch, at least one spring ring, and ratchet teeth or serrations formed on an inside surface of the coupling nut. The ratchet teeth are in the form of serrations formed into the inside diameter of a recessed area of the coupling nut in which all of the components reside, and each spring ring is a self-supporting ring that has spring cantilevers with engaging tines of a given number located around its outer circumference, the engaging tines engaging the serrations in a radial direction. The engaging tines thus provide a torque/ratchet mechanism when they glide over the radial cuts of the tooth ring in the uncoupling direction, and stay engaged which forces the spiral lock clutch to expand and slide smoothly over the plug shell with minimal torque in the coupling direction. | 7 |
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0001] 1. Field of the Invention
[0002] The invention relates to a composition, in particular to a pressure sensitive adhesive composition, suitable for application to human or animal skin, to a method for preparing such compositions and the use of such compositions for the preparation of a wound dressing or a adhesive wafer for an ostomy appliance or the use of the compositions for securing of and sealing around ostomy bandages, for securing wound dressings, for securing of devices for collecting urine, wound-drainage bandages, orthoses and prostheses and for protection skin areas and parts of the body against pressure, impacts and friction and to wound dressings or ostomy appliances comprising such compositions.
[0003] In particular, the invention relates to hydrophilic pressure sensitive adhesives or hydrogel adhesive having an optimised degree of adhesion to moist and wet skin and mucous membranes and furthermore having an optimised cohesiveness during and following hydration.
[0004] Furthermore, the invention relates to the use of the compositions of the invention for coating of medical appliances, such as catheters to be inserted into a body cavity. Other embodiments of the invention are foams prepared from the compositions of the invention and electroconductive hydrogels based on the composition of the invention.
[0005] 2. Description of the Related Art
[0006] Pressure sensitive adhesives for fixation of medical devices on human skin, for wound treatment, for drug delivery and for a variety of medical, cosmetic and industrial uses comprising hydrophilic elements, are known
[0007] Thus, U.S. Pat. No. 6,576,712 Feldstein et al. discloses a hydrophilic pressure sensitive adhesive composition comprising a hydrophilic polymer and a complementary short-chain plasticizing agent such as polyethylene glycol wherein the hydrophilic polymer and plasticizing agent are capable of hydrogen bonding or electrostatic bonding to each other.
[0008] A commonly used pressure sensitive adhesive composition for application to skin comprises an adhesive elastomeric matrix having water-absorbing, swelling particles, the so-called hydrocolloids, dispersed therein.
[0009] WO 98/48858 discloses a pressure sensitive adhesive composition suitable for application to human or animal skin comprising a conjugated diene polymer, a polyvinyl pyrrolidone polymer or a polyvinyl pyrrolidone vinylacetate copolymer, optionally one or more hydrocolloids and optionally a physically cross-linked elastomer selected from block-copolymers comprising styrene and one or more butadienes.
[0010] GB 2 064 556 describes compositions capable of forming a hydrogel without being dissolved and the use thereof for burn- and wound dressings, coatings for catheters and surgical sutures, soft contact lenses, implants for delivery of medicaments at controlled rates, and other articles coming into intimate contact with body tissues or cavities. These hydrogel forming compositions comprises a water soluble poly(vinylpyrrolidone) and a water insoluble copolymer formed from hydrophobic water-insoluble ethylenically unsaturated monomer, an ethylenically unsaturated monomer containing an acid group and optionally a hydrophilic ethylenically unsaturated monomer free from acidic groups.
[0011] According to GB 2 064 556, the compositions described therein behave as a physical mixture and possess thermoplastic properties. Microphase domains of water-insoluble material dispersed in the continous phase of water soluble poly(vinyl pyrrolidone) has been observed in the electron microscope. In order for the composition to have satisfactory mechanical properties in hydrated from the size of the micro domains should not be more than 4,000 Å and should preferably be below 1000 Å.
[0012] GB 2 086 400 describes compositions of the same type as GB 2 064 556.
[0013] The compositions according to the invention differs from the composition described in GB 2 064 556 and GB 2086 400, in that it contains an amphiphilic block copolymer with distinct hydrophobic and hydrophilic polymer blocks instead of a copolymer with an random sequence of monomers.
[0014] According to the present invention a hydrogel forming composition, e.g. a pressure sensitive adhesive, with high water absorption, improved integrity (improved cohesive properties) and mechanical strength has been provided.
[0015] A further advantage of the compositions of the invention is that they are thermoplastic.
[0016] The compositions are also useful, for example, in iontophoretic systems, biomedical electrode fabrication, wound healing, skin care, transdermal drug delivery systems and other medical, pharmaceutical and cosmetic products that adhere to the skin or other body surfaces.
[0017] The adhesive composition of the invention absorbs and transports moisture very efficiently and quickly absorbs the moisture present on wet skin. The adhesive composition of the invention is therefore particularly useful on wet skin.
[0018] Another advantage obtained by the pressure sensitive adhesive compositions of the invention is improved adhesion to wet or moist skin or tissue as well as mucosa, which means that these new adhesive formulations have increased wet tack properties compared to ordinary hydrocolloid adhesive or acrylic adhesive.
[0019] The adhesive compositions of the invention may also be used for securing ostomy appliances to the skin and for sealing around an ostomy, for securing wound dressings or wound drainage bandages to the skin, especially for securing devices for collecting urine to the skin, or for securing orthoses or prostheses to the skin. The ostomy appliances or wound dressings may be any such product known per se and may be prepared in a manner analogous to the preparation of similar products with conventional adhesive compositions.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0020] The present invention provides a composition comprising one or more hydrogel-forming hydrophilic homopolymers or heteropolymers and one or more amphiphilic block-copolymers comprising hydrophobic polymer blocks being incompatible and hydrophilic polymer blocks being compatible with the hydrogel-forming hydrophilic homopolymers or heteropolymers.
[0021] In a particular embodiment of the invention, the composition is a pressure sensitive adhesive.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PRESENT INVENTION
[0022] The amphiphilic block-copolymer containing a block being compatible with the hydrogel-forming hydrophilic homopolymers or heteropolymers and a block being incompatible with the same will provide a degree of physical cross-linking of the hydrogel-forming hydrophilic homopolymers or heteropolymers. When using diblock amphiphilic copolymers the physical association of hydrophobic end blocks in separate domains will provide a considerable increase and control of the viscosity of the composition and when using tri-block amphiphilic copolymers the physical cross-linking will provide a pronounced cohesion effectively stabilising the hydrogel and enabling the removal thereof essentially without leaving remains on the skin.
[0023] As used herein physical cross-links mean reversible cross-links based on segregation of domains caused by secondary interactions between the polymer chains. These secondary interactions include hydrogen bonding and ionic bonding, but not covalent bonding.
[0024] Unlike covalent cross-links, physical cross-links may be broken when heated and established again upon cooling. This allows the material to be processed, and recycled.
[0025] As used herein compatible means the ability for two or more molecules to homogenously associate in a single phase.
[0026] As used herein incompatible means the inability of two or more molecules to homogenously associate in a single phase.
[0027] The hydrophilic homopolymer or heteropolymer useful in the composition according to the invention, should suitably be a hydrophilic homopolymer or heteropolymer which provide a very effective wet tack on human skin rendering it suitable for application on humid skin or exuding wounds, or on moist skin around a stoma. Either the hydrogel forming homopolymer of heteropolymer has in itself adhesive properties (intrinsic adhesive properties) or the hydrogel forming homopolymer of heteropolymer is compounded with a tackyfier or plastiziser which provide or improve the adhesive properties of the composition.
[0028] The hydrophilic homopolymer or heteropolymer is suitably a cellulose derivative, a polysaccharide, polyvinyl-pyrrolidone, polyvinyl alcohol, polycarboxylic acid polyacrylic acid, poly(methyl vinyl ether/maleic anhydride), poly(meth)acrylic acid, polyethylenglycols (PEG), polyamides, polyacrylic amides and derivatives or blends of these polymers, or hydrophilic copolymers prepared from the same type of monomers as the above mentioned polymers.
[0029] Preferred, the hydrophilic homopolymer or heteropolymer is a poly-vinylpyrrolidone polymer or a copolymer containing vinylpyrrolidone.
[0030] PVP types useful as hydrogel forming hydrophilic homopolymers or heteromers are:
PVP Molecular weight* Supplier ViviPrint 540 cross-linked ISP PVP K-90 1.000.000-1.500.000 ISP and BASF PVP K-30 45.000-60.000 ISP and BASF PVP K-25 28.000-34.000 ISP and BASF PVP K-15 7.000-11.000 ISP and BASF PVP K-12 2.000-3.000 BASF PVP/VA S ISP and BASF 630copolymer *The molecular weights (Mw) of the PVP polymers was given by the manufacturer and is determined by light scattering.
[0031] Other preferred hydrophilic homo- or heteropolymers are acrylic acids or copolymers containing acrylic acid, such as hydrophilic copolymers of a poly(methyl vinyl ether/maleic anhydride) or poly(methyl vinyl ether/maleic-acid).
[0032] The ability of polymers based on acids, such as acrylic acid, to absorb water and transport water (water and vapour permeability) is highly pH dependent. Such polymers has to be neutralised with a base before use in order to obtain a polymer capable of absorbing and transporting sufficient amounts of water. Suitable, the pH should be around 7 in order to achieve the desired properties with such polymers.
[0033] Specific hydrogel forming hydrophilic polymers are the polymers selected from the group consisting of Luvicross® (ia crosslinked and thus insoluble vinylpyrrolidone homopolymer), Luviskol® VA 37 E, Luviskol® VA 55 I VP/VA Copolymer, Luviskol® VA 64 Powder and Luviskol® VA 73 E (all copolymers of vinylpyrrolidone and vinylacetate), Luvitec® VPI 55 K 72 W a vinylpyrrolidone/vinylimidazole and Luvitec® VPC 55 K 65 W (a vinylpyrrolidone/vinylcaprolactam copolymer), Luvicap® EG (a Polyvinylcaprolactam polymer from BASF), Luviset P.U.R. (a neutralized anionic polyurethane polymer), Luviquat Hold, Polyquaternium-46 (a copolymer of vinylcaprolactam (VCap), vinylpyrrolidone (VP) and quaternized vinylimidazole), Luviquat PQ 11 PN, Polyquaternium-11 (a quaternized copolymer of vinylpyrrolidone (VP) and dimethylaminoethylmethacrylate (DMAEMA), Luviquat UltraCare, Polyquaternium-44. Luviquat Care, Polyquaternium-44. Luviquat HM 552 Polyquaternium-16, Luviquat Style Polyquaternium-16, Luviquat FC 370 Polyquaternium-16, Luviquat FC 550 Polyquaternium-16 and Luviquat Excellence Polyquaternium-16 (all copolymers of vinylpyrrolidone (VP) and quaternized vinylimidazole), Polyquaternium-16 and Polyquaternium-44 (copolymers of vinylpyrrolidone (VP) and quaternized vinylimidazole (QVI), or Pluracare® F 68 NF, Poloxamer 188. Pluracare® F 87 NF, Poloxamer 237. Pluracare® F 108 NF Poloxamer 338. Pluracare® F 127 NF. Poloxamer 407, Pluracare® L 44 NF and Poloxamer 124 (all block copolymers and synthetic copolymers of ethylene oxide and propylene oxide) and polymethylvinylether
[0034] A preferred group of hydrophilic homo- or heteropolymers are polymers having intrinsic adhesive properties such as for example, polymethylvinylethers.
[0035] In other cases it is necessary to add a tackyfier and/or a plastiziser in order to achieve the desired adhesive properties.
[0036] Suitable tackifiers are:
[0037] Eastman AQ1045 with a 4500 cp melt viscosity, Eastman AQ1350 with a 35000 cP melt viscosity, Eastman AQ1950 with a 95,000 cP melt viscosity, Eastman AQ14000 with a 400,000 cp melt viscosity (all from Eastman Chemical Company), Nevex 100 aromatic (Neville Chemical Co. Pittsburgh, Pa.), Benzoflex 352 Solid Benzoate Ester Plasticizer, Benzoflex 9-88 Liquid Plasticizer (both from Velsicol Chemical Corporation), C5-C9 tackyfier resin (Arkon P 90, Arakawa), C5 resins such a EASTOTAC™ H-100W, hydrogenated C9 hydrocarbon Resins such as REGALITE™ R1125, partial hydrogenated C9 aromatic resins such as REGALITE™ S5100 and REGALREZ™ 6108), pure monomer styrene-based resins such as REGALREZ™ 1094, Cellolyn 21-E Synthetic Resin, Foral 85-E Ester of Hydrogenated Rosin, Foralyn 110 Ester of Hydrogenated Rosin, Pentalyn H-E Ester of Hydrogenated Rosin. Permalyn 2085 Synthetic Resin, Staybelite Ester 3-E Ester of Hydrogenated Rosin Staybelite Resin-E Partially Hydrogenated Rosin (all from Eastman Chemical Company), Lutonal® A 25 Lutonal® A 50, 50% in Ethanol and Lutonal® I 60, 80% In Mineral Spirits. Lutonal M40 (all from BASF), Vistanex™ LM or OPPANOL® (also from BASF),
[0038] For some applications it is preferred that the adhesive composition of the invention comprises a plasticizer for the hydrophilic homopolymer or heteropolymer in order to ensure optimum elastic and plastic moduli for the intended use as soft skin or mucosa adhesives. This is especially the case when the hydrophilic homopolymer or heteropolymer is a polymer of a relatively high degree of polymerisation.
[0039] Suitable, the hydrophilic plasticizers for use in the adhesive compositions of the invention are selected from polyethylene glycol (e.g. PEG 300, PEG 400), propylene glycol, dipropylene glycol, glycerol, glycerol diacetate (diacetin), glycerol triacetate (triacetin), triethyl citrate (Citrofol Al), acetyl triethyl citrate (Citrofol All) and water.
[0040] When using a plasticizer in the adhesive compositions of the invention, it is preferably selected from the group consisting of polyethylene glycols, such as PEG 400, and water.
[0041] When preparing the adhesive composition of the invention, the plasticizer is suitably added in an amount of from 20 to 50% by weight of the total weight of the desired composition, i.e. before use.
[0042] According to the invention, the amphiphilic polymer contains hydrophobic blocks incompatible with the hydrogel-forming hydrophilic homopolymers or heteropolymers. When preparing the adhesive composition of the invention, the amphiphilic polymer is suitably added in an amount of from 10 to 90%, preferably 10-80% or most preferred 10-90% by weight of the total weight of the desired composition, i.e. before use.
[0043] Amphiphilic block polymers consist of a non-polar polymeric chain covalently linked to a polar polymeric chain. More particularly the polar chain end of the polymer must be water-soluble or water swellable and take up at least a content of 300% w/w, preferably at least 500% w/w of water based on dry matter, if taken alone. The non-polar chain preferably does not take up more than 10% w/w of water based on dry matter when submersed in water.
[0044] Suitably, monomer units polymerised to form the hydrophobic blocks are identical or essentially identical and the monomer units polymerised to form the in the hydrophilic block(s) are identical or essentially identical, or the monomer units polymerised to form the in the hydrophilic block(s) are different monomer units (e.g. as a copolymer).
[0045] In a particular embodiment, the monomer units polymerised to form the in the hydrophobic blocks are identical or essentially identical and the monomer units polymerised to form the hydrophilic block(s) are different monomer units (e.g. as in a copolymer).
[0046] In another embodiment, the hydrophilic block(s) is prepared from identical monomer units or essentially identical monomer units and the hydrophobic block(s) is prepared from identical monomer units or essentially identical monomer units, or the hydrophobic block(s) is prepared from different monomer units. In a particular embodiment the hydrophilic block(s) is prepared from identical monomer units or essentially identical monomer units and the hydrophobic block(s) is prepared from different monomer units.
[0047] According to still another embodiment, the hydrophobic block(s) is prepared from identical monomer units or essentially identical monomer units and the hydrophilic block(s) is prepared from identical monomer units or essentially identical monomer units.
[0048] The amphiphilic block co-polymers are made from two or more blocks of hydrophilic monomers or hydrophobic monomers. The polymers may for instance be a diblock having a structure AB, where A is a hydrophobic block and B is a hydrophilic block or a triblock having a linear structure ABA where A is a hydrophobic block and B is a hydrophilic block, or alternatively have the form of a multi block or three or multi arm star-shaped copolymer structure, containing A and B blocks. Suitably, the amphiphilic block co-polymer is a diblock AB or a triblock ABA, mpst preferred the amphiphilic block co-polymer is a triblock copolymer ABA.
[0049] The incorporation of amphiphilic block copolymers having long hydrophobic end blocks into the adhesive composition of the invention improves the cohesion dramatically compared to the incorporation of conventionally used associative thickeners.
[0050] Due to the physical cross-linking, the amphiphilic block copolymers maintain a high cohesion in the adhesive during and following hydration and water absorption.
[0051] The hydrophobic block(s) of the amphiphilic block-copolymer will constitute separate physically cross-linked domains being incompatible with the continuous hydrophilic phase. Thus, in an adhesive containing a styrene-acrylic acid or a styrene-vinylpyrrolidone block copolymer the hydrophobic styrene blocks is incompatible with the domains formed by the hydrogel forming hydrophilic homopolymer or heteropolymer, fx acrylic acid or polyvinylpyrrolidone. The hydrophobic polystyrene blocks form discrete domains, which act as physically cross-links.
[0052] Hydrophobic monomers for preparing the A block are suitably monovinyl aromatic monomers which typically contain from about 8 to about 18 carbon atoms such as styrene, alpha-methylstyrene, vinyltoluene, vinylpyridine, ethylstyrene, t-butylstyrene, isopropylstyrene, dimethylstyrene, and other alkylated styrenes, or the hydrophobiv monomers for use in block A are (meth)-acrylic esters, or vinyl esters.
[0053] Alternatively, the A block may be prepared from ethylenically unsaturated monomers chosen from butadiene, chloroprene, (meth)acrylic esters, vinyl esters such as vinyl acetate, vinyl versatate and vinyl propionate; or vinyl halides such as vinyl chloride, and vinyl nitriles.
[0054] “(Meth)acrylic esters” is used in the present context to designate esters of acrylic acid and of methacrylic acid with optionally halogenated, e.g. chlorinated or fluorinated, C 1 -C 30 straight or branched alcohols, preferably C 1 -C 18 alcohols. Examples of such esters are methyl acrylate, ethyl acrylate, propyl acrylate, n-butyl acrylate, isobutyl acrylate, 2-ethylhexyl acrylate, lauryl acrylate, tert.butyl acrylate, methyl methacrylate, ethyl methacrylate, n-butyl methacrylate and isobutyl methacrylate.
[0055] Suitable vinyl nitriles are those having from 3 to 12 carbon atoms, such as, in particular, acrylonitrile and methacrylonitrile.
[0056] It also considered an embodiment of the present invention to replace styrene completely or partly by derivatives thereof such as alpha-methylstyrene or vinyltoluene.
[0057] Thus, the hydrophobic part A of the amphiphilic block copolymer may suitably be a polystyrene, a poly alpha-olefin such as polyethylene, polypropylene, poly-1-butene or polyisobutylene, a poly acrylate, a polyvinylether, a polyacetate, a polysiloxane, a hydrophobic polyester or similar polymers conventionally used in pressure sensitive adhesive formulations.
[0058] For use in accordance with the present invention it is suitable that the hydrophobic block(s) of the amphiphilic polymer comprises polymerised styrene, i.e the block consists essentially of polymerised styrene or the block consists of a copolymerised styrene monomer with other hydrophobic monomers.
[0059] In a suitable alternative embodiment of the invention the hydrophobic block(s) of the amphiphilic polymer comprises polymerised acrylic acid ester monomers, i.e the block(s) consists essentially of polymerised acrylic acid ester or the block(s) consists of copolymerised acrylic acid ester monomers and other hydrophobic monomers.
[0060] In a further embodiment of the invention the hydrophobic block(s) of the amphiphilic polymer comprises hydrophobic blocks of a polymerised vinylic unsaturated aliphatic hydrocarbon monomer comprising from 1 to 6 carbon atoms. Preferred and commercially readily available are polymerised vinylic unsaturated hydrocarbon monomers, comprising 4 carbon atoms, polybutylene and polyisobutylene being most preferred.
[0061] The most preferred hydrophobic blocks are blocks consisting essentially of polystyrene, polymethylmethacrylate, polybutylacrylate, or poly-2-ethylhexylacrylate.
[0062] Alternatively, the amphiphilic block copolymer comprises different hydrophobic blocks A, e.g a block of styrene and a block of a hydrophobic polyacrylic acid ester.
[0063] A hydrophobic plastiziser may be added to the adhesive composition of the invention.
[0064] Suitable hydrophobic plasticizers for use in the adhesive compositions of the invention are e.g. camphor, castor oil, dibutyl phthalate, dibutyl sebacate, dioctyl adipate (DOA), dioctyl adipate (DOP), acetyl tributyl citrate (Citrofol BII), santicizer 141, Santicizer 148, Santicizer 261, Sebacic acid, and Tributyl citrate (Citrofol BI).
[0065] The hydrophilic blocks of the amphiphilic block copolymer which is compatible with the hydrogel matrix of a given adhesive may be any type of polymer having the same chemical structure as the hydrophilic matrix of the adhesive, or having the same type of chemical structure (PVP, acrylate), or having physical properties that allow the block to coexist in the same phase as the hydrogel forming hydrophilic homo- or heteropolymer matrix.
[0066] The hydrogel forming hydrophilic polymer (e.g. polyacrylic acid or polyvinyl-pyrrolidone) domains in such adhesives typically contain a plasticizer and may furthermore, if desired, contain tackifying resins and will generally be softer than the more crystal-like hydrophobic (fx polystyrene) domains.
[0067] Due to the phase separation and formation of a physically cross-linked polymer system by the hydrophobic blocks of the amphiphilic block copolymer, comprising styrene or other hydrophobic blocks, and their covalent bonding to blocks of one or more hydrophilic blocks in the amphiphilic block copolymer, which are capable of forming hydrogen bonding or electrostatic bonding to the hydrogel-forming hydrophilic homopolymers or heteropolymers, i.e. the matrix forming polymers, the risk of exudation separation is reduced or even eliminated.
[0068] Thus, in one embodiment of the invention in which the hydrogel-forming hydrophilic homopolymer or heteropolymer is a polyvinylpyrrolidone, the hydrophilic block of the amphiphilic polymer must be compatible with polypolyvinylpyrrolidone or optionally with polyvinylpyrrolidone compounded with a plasticizer.
[0069] In another embodiment of the invention in which the hydrogel-forming hydrophilic homopolymer or heteropolymer is a carboxylic acid or acrylic acid polymer, the hydrophilic block of the amphiphilic polymer must be compatible with the hydrogel phase comprising the polycarboxylic or polyacrylic acid polymer.
[0070] The hydrophilic part of the amphiphilic block copolymer (B block) may be any type of polymer compatible with the hydrogel-forming hydrophilic homopolymers or heteropolymers and incompatible with the hydrophobic block of the amphiphilic block co-polymer, that will be able to absorb significant amounts of water.
[0071] Hydrophilic monomers useful for preparing the B block are for example ethylenically unsaturated monocarboxylic and dicarboxylic acids, such as acrylic acid, methacrylic acid, itaconic acid, maleic acid and fumaric acid; and monoalkyl esters of dicarboxylic acids of the type mentioned above with alkanols, preferably alkanols having from 1 to 4 carbon atoms and their N-substituted derivatives (amides), amides of unsaturated carboxylic acids, such as acrylamide, methacrylamide, N-methoxyacrylamide or methacrylamide, and N-alkylacrylamides; ethylenic monomers containing a sulphonic acid group and ammonium or alkali metal salts thereof, for example vinylsulphonic acid, vinylbenzenesulphonic acid, alpha-acrylamidomethylpropanesulphonic acid and 2-sulphoethylene methacrylate; amides of vinylamine, especially vinylformamide or vinylacetamide; and unsaturated ethylenic monomers containing a secondary, tertiary or quaternary amino group, or a heterocyclic group containing nitrogen, such as, for example, vinylpyridines, vinylimidazole, aminoalkyl(meth)acrylates and aminoalkyl(meth)acrylamides such as dimethylaminoethyl acrylate or methacrylate, di-tert.butylaminoethyl acrylate or methacrylate and dimethylaminoacrylamide or dimethylaminomethacrylamide. It is also possible to use zwitterionic monomers such as, for example, sulphopropyl(dimethyl)-aminopropyl acrylate.
[0072] Suitable, hydrophilic polymer blocks in the amphiphilic block copolymers for use in accordance with the present invention are PEG (polyethylene glycol), poly ethylene oxide, PVP (polyvinyl pyrrolidone), polyacrylic acid, salts of polyacrylic acid, salts of polymers of composed of acids such as maleic acid, polyvinyl alcohol, hydrophilic polyurethanes, poly hydroxyethylmethacrylate (HEMA), polyethyleneglycol(meth)acrylate, polyethoxypolyethyleneglycol(meth)acrylate, polymethoxyethyl(meth)acrylate, polyethoxy(meth)acrylate, poly 2-dimethylaminoethyl(meth)acrylate (DMAEMA) and poly 3-dimethylamino-propylmethacrylamid (DMAPMA), carbohydrates or gelatins.
[0073] The hydrophilic block(s) in the amphiphilic block copolymers may also be prepared from different monomers, or oligomers, for example the monomer or oligomers used for the preparation of the above mentioned hydrophilic polymer blocks, or monomers selected from acrylic acid, maleic acid, hydroxyethylmethacrylate (HEMA), vinylpyrrolidone (NVP), polyethyleneglycol(meth)acrylate, ethoxypolyethyleneglycol(meth)acrylate, methoxyethyl(meth)acrylate, ethoxy(meth) acrylate, 2-dimethylamino-ethyl(meth)acrylate (DMAEMA) and 3-dimethylaminopropylmethacrylamid (DMAPMA), in order to impart desired properties (e.g Tg and modulus) into the polymer. Suitably, the hydrophilic block(s) may be a copolymer of neutralised acrylic acid, such as sodium acrylate and hydroxyethylmethacrylate (HEMA), vinylpyrrolidone (NVP), polyethyleneglycol(meth)acrylate, ethoxypolyethyleneglycol(meth)acrylate, methoxyethyl(meth)acrylate, ethoxy(meth)acrylate, 2-dimethylamino-ethyl(meth)acrylate (DMAEMA) or 3-dimethylaminopropylmethacrylamid (DMAPMA). Thus, the hydrophilic block may also be a random copolymer.
[0074] As used herein (meth)acrylate means acrylate and methacrylate.
[0075] It is also possible to have a number of hydrophobic monomers, present in the hydrophilic blocks, e.g. in order to impart desired properties into the polymer, as long as the presence thereof provide a hydrophilic block that will be able to absorb significant amounts of water and which is compatible with the hydrophilic homo- or heteropolymer and incompatible with the hydrophobic block(s) of the amphiphilic block copolymer(s).
[0076] Likewise, it is possible to have a number of hydrophilic monomers, present in the hydrophobic block(s) as long as the presence thereof provide a block which is incompatible with the with the hydrophilic homo- or heteropolymer and compatible with the hydrophobic block(s) of the amphiphilic block copolymer(s).
[0077] The hydrophilic block preferably has a minimum molecular weight of about 500 in order to be able to form separate hydrophilic domains in the adhesive composition.
[0078] Suitably, the hydrophilic block(s) of the amphiphilic block copolymer has a molecular weight of at least 1000, preferably between 1000 and 300.000, more preferred between 50.000 and 300.000.
[0079] Preferably the molecular weight is higher than 1000 in case of end blocks and 5000 in case of midblocks
[0080] The size or molecular weight of the hydrophobic block A does not appear to be a limiting factor for the use of an amphiphilic block copolymer for the purpose of the present invention, as long as the hydrophobic block is sufficiently large to form a physical separation of the hydrophobic and hydrophilic phases in the adhesive composition, i.e. hydrophobic domains or phases are formed.
[0081] Generally, the hydrophobic block(s) of the amphiphilic block copolymer has a molecular weight of at least 1000, preferably between 1000 and 500.000, more preferred between 1000 and 300.000, more preferred between 1000 and 100.000, or most preferred between 1000 and 50.000.
[0082] Preferably, hard hydrophilic blocks (i.e. polymers with low Tg) have a smaller size than softer hydrophilic blocks (i.e. blocks with a higher Tg). For hard hydrophobic blocks, such as styrene blocks, the molecular weight of the block is typically between 10.000 and 20.000 and for soft blocks, such as butylacrylate, it is suitable between 50.000 and 100.000.
[0083] A person skilled in the art will be able to select the appropriate size for the hydrophobic block(s) in view of the size of the hydrophilic block(s) and vice versa.
[0084] Preferred amphiphilic block copolymers to be used in accordance with the present invention are such wherein the A domain is a thermoplastic polymer end block of a mono vinyl aromatic homo polymer, preferably one having at least two different molecular weight end blocks in the copolymer (e.g., one A block of about 1000 to about 50,000 number average molecular weight and a B block of about 1000 to about 500,000 number average molecular weight), where the B domain is a hydrophilic end block polymer or the mid polymer block in case of a triblock copolymer.
[0085] Preferred the amphiphilic block copolymer is a triblock copolymer ABA having the hydrophilic block B as the midblock.
[0086] In yet another preferred embodiment of the present invention the amphiphilic polymer is an amphiphilic polyurethane block copolymer. Suitable amphiphilic polyurethanes for the purpose of the present invention are ESTANE T5410 from NOVEON (B. F. Goodrich), Tecophilic HP93A100, Tecogel 500 or 2000 from Thermedics Polymer Products, or HydroMed D640 from CardioTech International Inc.
[0087] Amphiphilic or hydrophilic block copolymers for use in accordance with the present invention may be functionalised for further reactions like graft copolymerisation, cross-linking or for further polymerisation by inclusion of suitable functional groups.
[0088] The functional groups may be attached to the ends of the main chains or as side chains. The functional groups may e.g. be unsaturated vinyl groups containing double bonds for further polymerisation. The functional groups may furthermore be photo initiators attached to the block copolymers for UV-polymerisation or for cross-linking. The functional groups may be hydroxyl, primary or secondary amine groups for further reactions with isocyanate for the formation of polyurethane based block copolymers or for cross-linking with isocyanate.
[0089] Suitable amphiphilic block copolymers for the purpose of the present invention are a poly(styrene-b-acrylic acid-b-styrene) (P3000-SMS with Mn 2000-65000-2000), poly(methyl methacrylate-b-methacrylic acid-b-methyl methacrylate) (P1483-MMAMAAMMA) and poly(styrene-b-ethylene oxide-b-styrene) (P2525-SEOS with Mn at 950048000-9500) all available from Polymer Source 124 Avro Street, Montreal, Quebec H9P 2X8, Canada as well as commercially available amphiphilic block copolymers from Rhodia and Atofina.
[0090] Amphiphilic block copolymers useful according to the invention may be prepared by a number of methods, such as free-radical polymerisation controlled by xantates, dithioesters, dithiocarbamates, iniferters, iodine degenerative transfer, tetraphenylethane derivatives, or organocobalt complexes, or by polymerisation using nitroxide precursors, atom transfer free-radical polymerisation (ATRP) and group transfer polymerisation.
[0091] These methods with references are mentioned in US Patent publication 2004/0030030.
[0092] The compositions according to the invention may also comprise a cohesion-promoting component such as polyacrylic acid or polycarboxylic acid, acrylic acid copolymers or associative thickeners.
[0093] Associative thickeners are polymers that are based on water-soluble polymers. They can be acrylate polymers, cellulose ethers or, polyethylene-glycol. They are capped with water-insoluble hydrophobic groups like fatty alcohols, for example. In water solution or in emulsion, these polymers form a network that increases the viscosity. The water-soluble backbone polymer is dissolved in water. The hydrophobic caps are adsorbed onto the hydrophobic emulsion polymer particles, or they form micelle structures with hydrophobes from other polymers. As each associative thickener polymer contains at least two hydrophobic caps, the result is a three-dimensional network within the emulsion. This increases the viscosity. Mainly the high- and mid-shear viscosity is affected.
[0094] Thickeners are suitably STABILEZE® 06 & QM, GANTREZ®, polymethyl vinyl ether/maleic anhydride copolymers from ISP, Aculyn™ 28 from Rohm and Haas. NEXTON® or Natrosol® Plus CS both hydrophobically modified hydroxyethylcelluloses from HERCULES, or Carbopol homopolymers and copolymers such as Noveon AA1 and Pemulen TR 2 from Noveon.
[0095] Such cohesion promoting component is suitably added during preparation of the adhesive composition in an amount of up to 15% by weight of the total weight of the composition prepared, i.e before use.
[0096] Still further, the compositions according to the invention may also comprise conventionally used extenders or fillers such as polysaccharides like CMC, antioxidants, fibres, salts, clay, buffers, or pigments in an amount up to 30% of the total weight of the composition prepared.
[0097] The appropriate amount of the different ingredients in the adhesive composition of the invention is best expressed by listing the amounts of the various ingredients used for the preparation of the adhesive. The amounts will more or less correspond to the amounts in the final adhesive composition although a minor variation in the amount of water (before use) may cause small or minor changes the percentages of the various ingredients in the composition. Thus, the adhesive of the invention may suitably be prepared from:
[0098] At least 5% w/w of a hydrogel forming hydrophilic homopolymer or heteropolymer;
[0099] 10-90% w/w, preferably 10-50% of an amphiphilic block copolymer;
[0100] 0-20% w/w of a tackifier resin
[0101] 0-30% w/w of a plastiziser for the hydrophobic phase
[0102] 0-50% w/w of a plastiziser for the hydrophilic phase.
[0103] For the preparation of the composition of the invention, the hydrogel-forming hydrophilic homopolymers or heteropolymers are suitable added in an amount from 5 to 80%, preferably 10-80% by weight of the total weight of the desired composition, i.e. before use.
[0104] The compositions according to the invention may be processed in analogy with conventional methods for preparing thermoplastic adhesives. The preferred method will be by hot melt processes. This includes blending in hot melt mixers like Z-blade mixers, single or double barrel extruders, planet-mixers or equivalent equipment followed by a coating or moulding step to given substrates or release liners. Alternatively the composition may be cast form a solution at suitable release liners or backings and added any net or non-woven for reinforcing or improving handling. Still further the composition may be foamed, coated or formed into any desired thickness or shape. A general outline of preferred mixing and coating technologies that may apply for the invention can be found in D Satas “Handbook of Pressure Sensitive Adhesive Technology” 3rd edition 1989 (Satas & Associates) chapter 38: Coating Equipment.
[0105] Preferred methods of mixing and production of hydrophilic pressure sensitive adhesive are batch mixing in high shear Z-blade type of mixers, continuously in single or double screw extruders or by casting from solvent solutions.
[0106] The composition of the invention may be foamed and foamed adhesives are especially interesting as they may provide improved moisture handling properties, improved adhesion to flexible and/or uneven substrates and potentially improved skin compatibility.
[0107] The foamed compositions may be characterised by porosity, stability, open/closed or mixed cell structure and cell size distribution. The higher the porosity, the softer and more flexible a foam is produced with minimal consumption of polymer composition. It is preferred that the porosity is between 10 and 80%, and more preferred between 40 and 70%. Open cells will yield a higher moisture absorption and transmission rate. Closed cells will provide the best physical stability. Foamed adhesive with small sized cells may be preferred.
[0108] The foamed compositions may be produced by conventional methods, such as mechanical introduction and dispersion of a suitable expanding moiety, e.g. compressed air, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, argon or other gasses or low boiling point liquids. Suitable equipment may include the “FoamMelt®” and “FoamMix®” machines available from the Nordson Corporation.
[0109] The foamed compositions may alternatively be produced by compounding the composition with a suitable chemical blowing agent, which may generate gas bubbles by a variety of mechanisms. These mechanisms include, but are not limited to chemical reaction, thermal decomposition or chemical degradation, volatilisation of low boiling materials, expansion of gas filled materials or by a combination of these methods.
[0110] The term chemical blowing agent is used herein to cover the use of single or multiple component chemicals in a mixture or paste. Suitable chemical blowing agents include the carbonates of alkali metals, such as ammonium carbonate, ammonium bicarbonate, sodium carbonate, sodium bicarbonate, and calcium carbonate. Improved gas generation may be obtained by preparing a mixture of carbonates of alkali metals and various organic acids. Other suitable blowing agents includes expanding spheres such as “Expancel®” available from Akzo Nobel.
[0111] The foamed composition of the invention may be coated on to a substrate or otherwise shaped by a wide number of possible processes including reverse roll coating, slot die coating and different moulding techniques such as injection and vacuum moulding. The foamed composition may by further shaped by e.g. cutting or bevelling and it may be laminated onto other materials. The foamed composition may be coated into thin layers, as well as it may be moulded into three-dimensional structures.
[0112] Wound dressings or other dressings comprising the adhesive composition of the invention may be prepared by coating or laminating the adhesive composition to a film, for example a polyurethane film or any other film material which is conventionally used for dressings.
[0113] Likewise, the composition of the invention may be coated or laminated on any medical appliance or part of a medical appliance or device to be attached to the skin of a living being.
[0114] Compositions according to the invention, including the adhesive composition of the invention, will, when subjected to an excess amount of water, for example by immersing the composition into water and leaving it there, in some cases for an extended period of time, gradually loose its adhesive properties and instead achieve a highly slippery surface as the content of water in the composition increases. Even after prolonged immersion in water or aqueous solution, the composition of the invention does not fall apart, but forms a hydrogel held together by a strong cohesion.
[0115] This is not a problem during use of the composition of the invention as an adhesive composition, for example for a wound dressing or sealing around a stoma, where the amount of fluid is considerably lower.
[0116] A composition of the invention may, when it contains so much water or aqueous solution that the composition has a slippery surface may be used as a slippery hydrophilic coating for medical appliance to be inserted into natural or artificial body cavities of a living being.
[0117] Thus, according to further embodiment, the invention relates to a medical appliance, such as for example a surgical suture, a cathether or a guidewire, for introduction into a natural or artificial body cavity of a living being, where at least the part of said appliance to be inserted into said body cavity comprises a composition according to the invention.
[0118] On one embodiment, the medical appliance carries the composition of the invention as a coating at least on its outer surface.
[0119] The coating may be applied to the medical appliance using techniques known for coating of e.g. catheters. Injection moulding of more than one layer as described in WO 03/002325 may be used for coating of a catheter with a composition of the invention. Co-extrusion represents another possibility.
[0120] In another embodiment, the part of the medical appliance to be inserted into said body cavity, as such, is made of the composition of the invention. Said part of the medical appliance, for example a catheter, may be made by injection moulding as described in WO 03/002325. Extrusion is also a possibility.
[0121] Following preparation of said medical appliance comprising a composition according to the invention, the composition is swelled in water of an aquesous solution to a degree where a slippery surface is achieved. The aqueous solution may contain an osmolality increasing water-soluble compound as described for example in EP 991702.
[0122] The aqueous solution may also contain a humectant as well as diethylene glycol, glycerol, and propylene glycol.
[0123] The coating on the medical appliances as mentioned above may be applied to the appliance using conventional techniques. The coating of the medical appliance for obtaining a slippery surface, as mentioned above, may also be in the form of a foam.
[0124] The use of hydrogel as electroconductive compositions are described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,699,146, EP 85 327 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,593,053.
[0125] The adhesive composition of the invention may also be used as an electroconductive composition for attaching an electrically conductive member to a selected surface, such as mammalian tissue.
[0126] Thus, in another embodiment, the composition of the invention is an electrically conductive composition comprising a composition according to the invention as well as an aqueous solution of a salt, such as KCl, NaCl, sodium sulphate, potassium sulphate, ammonium acetate, magnesium acetate or magnesium sulphate.
[0127] The invention also relates to an electrode for establishing electrical contact with a surface comprising an electrically conductive member and an electrocoductive composition according to the invention, preferably an adhesive composition of the invention, adapted to be in contact with the skin of a living being.
[0128] The electrode is suitably a electrosurgical return electrode, a transcutaneous electrical nerve stimaultion electrode or an EKG monitoring electrode. any of claims 1 - 22 as well as an aqueous solution of a salt.
[0129] As mentioned, the hydrogel forming compositions according to the invention may be useful for drug delivery, and delivery of other active ingredients, including ionophoretical delivery as described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,593,053.
[0130] This opens for a combined medical treatment of wounds and an easy and sterile application of the active ingredients. Incorporating active ingredients into the adhesives of the invention enables local administration of active compounds in a wound. The active ingredient may suitable be a cytochine such as growth hormone or a polypeptide growth factor in which may exercise an effect on the wound, other medicaments such as bacteriostatic or bactericidal compounds, e.g. iodine, iodopovidone complexes, chloramine, chlorohexidine, silver salts such as Alphasan 2000 or 5000 (sodiumhydrogen-silver-zirconiumphosphate), sulphadiazine, silver nitrate, silver acetate, silver lactate, silver sulphate, silver-sodium-thiosulphate, silver chloride or silver complexes, zinc or salts thereof, metronidazol, sulpha drugs, and penicillins, tissue-healing enhancing agents, e.g. RGD tripeptides and the like, proteins, amino acids such as taurine, vitamins such ascorbic acid, enzymes for cleansing of wounds, e.g. pepsin, trypsin and the like, proteinase inhibitors or metalloproteinase inhibitors such as Illostat or ethylene diamine tetraacetic acid, cytotoxic agents and proliferation inhibitors for use in for example surgical insertion of the product in cancer tissue and/or other therapeutic agents which optionally may be used for topical application, pain relieving agents such as lidocaine, chinchocaine or non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS) such as ibuprofen, ketoprofen, fenoprofen or declofenac, emollients, retinoids or an agents having a cooling effect.
[0131] Thus, the present invention also relates to compositions of the invention, including compositions of the invention in the form of a foam, containing a pharmaceutically active ingredient, e.g. an antibacterial agent as well as dressings, including would dressings comprising such a composition.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
[0132] The invention is now explained more in detail in the examples below. As all suitable modifications and equivalents may be resorted to, and the examples are not to be considered as limiting the scope of the invention set forth in the appended claims.
EXAMPLE 1
Comparative Example
[0133] As a reference a water soluble hydrophilic adhesive without Amphiphilic block copolymers 30.5 grams of PVP K-90, 3.5 grams of Pemulen TR2and 31.5 grams of PEG 400 were mixed as a premix. Initially the premix of the plastizicing glycols, the PVP and the cross-linked polyacrylic acid were added and mixed in a Brabender mixer at 60 degrees C. for 30 minutes for obtaining a macroscopically homogeneous mixture. The hot adhesive from the mixing chamber was moulded into a sheet of 1 mm thickness between two sheets of silicone paper.
EXAMPLE 2
Preparation of an Adhesive Composition According to the Invention
[0134] 3.5 grams of PVP K-90, 17.5 grams of PVP K-25, 3.5 grams of Pemulen TR2 and 28 grams of PEG 400 were mixed as a premix. Initially the premix of the plastizicing glycols, the PVP and the cross-linked polyacrylic acid were added and mixed in a Brabender mixer at 100 degrees C. for 10 minutes. Then 17.5 grams of the amphiphilic polyurethane (Tecogel 2000) were added slowly in order to ensure complete mixing of the components. After 20 minutes' mixing a macroscopically homogenous mixture was obtained. The hot adhesive from the mixing chamber was moulded into 1 mm thickness between two sheets of silicone paper.
EXAMPLE 3
Preparation of an Adhesive Composition According to the Invention
[0135] 3.5 grams of PVP K-90, 17.5 grams of PVP K-25, 3.5 grams of Pemulen TR2 and 28 grams of PEG 400 were mixed as a premix. Initially the premix of the plastizicing glycols, the PVP, and the cross-linked polyacrylic acid were added and mixed in a Brabender mixer at 150 degrees C. for 10 minutes. Then 17.5 grams of amphiphilic polyurethane (ESTANE T5410) were added slowly in order to ensure complete mixing of the components. After 20 min. mixing a macroscopically homogenous mixture was obtained. The hot adhesive from the mixing chamber was moulded into 1 mm thickness between to sheets of silicone paper.
EXAMPLES 4-9
[0136] Adhesive compositions of the invention having the compositions in grams of the constituents as described in table 2 were prepared in analogy with the procedure described in example 3.
TABLE 2 Constituent Ex. 4 Ex. 5 Ex. 6 Ex. 7 Ex. 8 Ex. 9 PVP K-90 3.5 3.5 3.5 0 0 0 ViviPrint 540 0 0 0 3.5 3.5 3.5 PVP K-12 17.5 0 0 17.5 0 0 PVP K-15 0 17.5 0 0 17.5 0 PVP K-30 0 0 17.7 0 0 17.5 Pemulen TR-2 3.5 3.5 3.5 3.5 3.5 3.5 T5410 17.5 17.5 17.5 17.5 17.5 17.5 PEG 400 28.0 28.0 28.0 28.0 28.0 28.0 In total (grams) 70 70 70 70 70 70
EXAMPLE 10
[0137] The adhesive compositions produced according to Examples were evaluated with respect to tack, release to finger, hardness, and transparency according to a scale from 0 to 5 having the significance stated in Table 3 below, The colour was also evaluated. The test methods used were to following:
[0000] Tack
[0138] The adhesive piece (2.5*2.5 cm*1 mm) is gently pressed between the thumb and the forefinger.
1. First with dry fingers 2. Subsequently with moist fingers, dabbed on a moist sponge
[0141] If the fingers stick to the adhesive when removing them again, it is estimated as high tack—the character 5, and on the contrary if there is no tack the character given is 0.
[0000] Release
[0142] In continuation of tack it is estimated how much adhesive is left on the forefinger and the thumb when the adhesive is removed. The fingers are gently pressed together again, and if there are a lot of residues it will be felt as high tack and estimated with a high number. On the contrary, if there are no adhesive residues on the fingers—there is no tack, and consequently a low character is given.
TABLE 3 Rating 0-5 Rating 0 5 Tack No tack High tack Release to finger No release High release
[0143] The compositions prepared in Examples 1-9 were evaluated by a skilled person according to the rating above and the ratings are stated in the below tables A1-A3.
TABLE A-1 Rating Property Ex. 1 Ex. 2 Ex. 3 Tack dry/wet 5/3 5/2 4/3 Release to finger dry/wet 2/2 2/2 1/1
[0144]
TABLE A-2
Rating
Property
Ex. 4
Ex. 5
Ex. 6
Ex. 7
Ex. 8
Ex. 9
Tack dry/wet
5/3
5/2
4/3
5/2
5/3
3/2
Release to finger
2/2
2/2
1/1
2/2
1/2
1/1
dry/wet
EXAMPLE 11
Method for the Preparation of an Adhesive Composition According to the Invention
[0145] 3.5 grams of PVP K-90, 17.5 grams of PVP K-25, 3.5 grams of Pemulen TR2 and 28 grams of PEG 400 is mixed as a premix. Initially the premix of the plastizicing glycols, the PVP, and the cross-linked polyacrylic acid is added and mixed in a Brabender mixer at 120 degrees C. for 10 minutes. Then 17.5 grams of the amphiphilic block copolymer (Poly(styrene-b-acrylic acid-b-styrene)) is added slowly in order to ensure complete mixing of the components. After approx. 20 min. mixing a macroscopically homogenous mixture is obtained. The hot adhesive from the mixing chamber is moulded into 1 mm thickness between to sheets of silicone paper.
EXAMPLE 12
Method for the Reparation of an Adhesive Composition According to the Invention
[0146] 3.5 grams of PVP K-90, 17.5 grams of PVP K-25, 3.5 grams of Pemulen TR2, and 28 grams of PEG 400 is mixed as a premix. Initially the premix of the plastizicing glycols, the PVP, and the cross-linked polyacrylic acid is added and mixed in a Brabender mixer at 120 degrees C. for 10 minutes. Then 17.5 grams of the amphiphilic block copolymer (Poly(methyl methacrylate-b-methacrylic acid-b-methyl methacrylate)) is added slowly in order to ensure complete mixing of the components. After approx. 20 min. mixing under reduced pressure a macroscopically homogenous mixture is obtained. The hot adhesive from the mixing chamber is moulded into 1 mm thickness between to sheets of silicone paper.
EXAMPLE 13
Method for the Preparation of an Adhesive Electroconductive Composition According to the Invention
[0147] 3.5 grams of PVP K-90, 17.5 grams of PVP K-25, 3.5 grams of potassium chloride, and 28 grams of de-ionized water is mixed as a premix. Initially the premix of the plastizicing water and the PVP is added and mixed in a Brabender mixer at 70 degrees C. for 10 minutes. Then 17.5 grams of the amphiphilic block copolymer (Poly(styrene-b-ethylene oxide-b-styrene)) is added slowly in order to ensure complete mixing of the components. After approx. 20 min. mixing to a macroscopically homogenous mixture is obtained. The hot adhesive from the mixing chamber is moulded into 1 mm thickness between to sheets of silicone paper. | A pressure sensitive adhesive composition comprising one or more hydrogel-forming hydrophilic homopolymers or heteropolymers and one or more amphiphilic block-copolymers comprising hydrophobic polymer blocks being incompatible and hydrophilic polymer blocks is useful, for example, in transdermal drug delivery systems and other medical, pharmaceutical and cosmetic products that adhere to the skin or other body surface. | 0 |
This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/000,307 filed on Oct. 25, 2007 and incorporated herein in its entirety by reference. This invention claims prior The invention relates to a snare device for capturing an object and/or for cutting a tissue comprising at least one twisted loop of memory shaped material, the loop being housed in and movable relative to a hollow member, especially a catheter to be deployed and retracted into the hollow member, and to a method for retrieving an object from a human or animal body employing such a snare device and a method for cutting a tissue by use of such a snare device. The disclosed device relates to retrieval devices for use in surgery. More particularly, the disclosed device relates to a design and assembly for intravascular object retrieval or for retrieving objects from internal body cavities. Further, the device also relates to cutting a tissue within a human or animal body.
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
Background of the Invention
Evolving medical procedures and new technologies have provided medical professionals with an ever widening array of procedures and equipment for repair and assessment of vascular problems in patients. Most such modern investigative and repair devices employ catheters and guide wires which are maneuvered through the femoral artery and communicated to the heart for viewing and repairing unnatural blockages or openings present. Diagnosing the problem with a patient involves generally the injection of radiological dyes to ascertain the current or actual state of the medical problem. Subsequently, repair can involve any number of procedures such as installing stents or PFO closure devices.
As in any art where structural and other mechanical devices are positioned remotely to the control device therefore, on occasion a loss of control of the maneuvered device or unexpected dismounting thereof can leave any number of foreign objects dangerously loose in the vascular system of the patient. Such devices may include loose or detached PFO closure components, loose or detached stents, diagnostic electrodes, broken wires, and any number of loose components. As the technology and equipment evolves for vascular intervention, so does the number of potential loose objects which might endanger the patient.
If a loose object or component is detected, a number of methods are conventionally employed to retrieve it. A first approach to retrieval is surgery on the patient. This choice is not favored since an incision is formed proximate to the site of the loose object and subsequently the surgeon must cut away surrounding tissue to reach the loose object.
As can be discerned, this would not be the plan of choice to most physicians if other means were available to retrieve the object. This is because cutting away the tissue of the organ in question causes injury to the patient which subsequently must be repaired by sutures. Damage to the tissue being dissected is highly possible as is the potential for dissecting important nerves or unseen blood vessels. The subsequent healing process can take many weeks and further the patient conventionally must undergo general anesthesia which in itself has risks to the patient. This approach is expensive due to the use of operating rooms and the patient recovery time.
A currently more favored approach is seeking out the loose object using a catheter communicated through the appropriately sized blood vessels for a removal and recovery of the object. Or, the device may be inserted through a tissue wall to the site of the recovery. Since the patent is in a cath-lab or similar setting, general anesthesia is not necessary and because the surgeon need not make tissue incisions, the risk to the patient is lessened as is recovery time.
Conventionally, in this type of retrieval action, a catheter, with some type of object engaging distal end or tip is communicated through the appropriated blood vessel to the site of the loose stent, tool, or other loose object. In the same manner as implant viewing of the site, a fluoroscope is employed to view the distal end capture device approaching and engaging the loose object. Once sufficiently proximate to the loose object, the capture device is positioned to engage the loose object using the fluoroscope. Once the engaging distal end of the catheter is secured to the targeted object, the catheter is translated from the vascular system pulling the object along with it from the body.
However, conventional object engaging tools can themselves cause problems or be very hard to employ. One such engagement component uses a hook-shaped tool which, much like fishing, is positioned to hook onto the loose object and once hooked up, the object is dragged from the vascular system. Hooks, however, can become dislodged as they frequently depend on the force of the wire to which they are engaged during removal, to stay engaged to the object. A reverse translation of the retrieval wire can dislodge the hook. Further, hooks do not fare well in a reverse engagement of the loose object since when pulled by their engaged guide wire, the hook will reverse itself and can become dislodged.
Further, hooks by their nature are designed to engage things when their lead wire is pulled with force. The hook can therefore easily miss its target and engage surrounding tissue which will cause damage thereto and could require surgery for removal. Finally, while hooks work well on larger objects and objects with passages to engage the hook, short and small objects relative to the hook size can be hard to engage and very easy to dislodge.
Yet another conventionally employed object retrieval device employs jaws such as those on forceps to clamp onto the loose object at the distal end of a catheter and control wire for the jaws. Because of the mechanics involved in rotating jaws around an axis, the size of these devices can be much too large for many vessels and much like pliers or vice-grips, the jaws only hold the object so long as the force of the grip exceeds the force of dragging it from the body.
A more recent device employed for grasping loose objects in the body or vascular system is a snare or open loop or lasso. These devices ensnare around the loose object and are then closed or constricted to a forced grip on the object by translation of a control wire in the catheter.
An example of a loop device for object retrieval is taught in U.S. Pat. No. 5,171,233, (Amplatz) which discloses a catheter engaged loop from the distal end of a catheter. This device is maneuvered to the site of the loose object and then the planar loop is deployed in a plane between 45 and 135 degrees relative to the axis of a proximal member comprising two parallel wires and over the end of the object being retrieved. The shape memory material forms a loop intended to encircle the object and then the loop wires can be translated back into the axial cavity in the catheter thereby tightening the loop around the object and pulling it against the distal end of the catheter in a tight fit for retrieval. While the engagement may be tight, this can cause a problem during removal as the catheter must negotiate many turns. If the object is in a fixed engagement against the distal end of the catheter at an odd angle to the center axis of the catheter, maneuvering around tight turns becomes a problem such as by potential injuries to vascular tissue from dragging the object at such an angle out of the body.
Further, the cited preferred ninety-degree deployment of the planar loop in its attempt to encircle an object is severely impeded if the object, such as a stent, is engaged to wall tissue in the artery. This can make it difficult or impossible to actually engage the loose object. As such, an unmet need exists for a snare type capturing device for retrieval of loose objects in the vascular system or other parts of the body. Such a device should be capable of engagement with the many types of objects which can become loose in the body.
DE 198 42 520 C2 discloses a device for grasping objects, in particular foreign objects, agglomerates, stones or other organic deposits or accumulations from human or animal vessels or body cavities. The device has an elongate proximal section and a distal section which is provided with a noose, the noose consisting of a flexible elastic material. The device has an at least partly two-ply noose. The device can be converted from this initial configuration into a second configuration in cooperation with an elongate tubular device at least partly enveloping the instrument or device, where the noose is angled at least in its initial configuration at a predetermined angle from the long axis of the elongate proximal section. According to this prior art one noose part is closed and the other is formed either partly surrounding the latter or partly inscribing in the latter. Because of the double-surrounding of objects or particles these can be have a variety of dimensions and shapes and can be held more firmly as compared to the instrument disclosed in DE 195 14 534 C2, when retracted into a catheter,
The latter prior art discloses a snare device with an elongate proximal part and a distal part in the shape of a snare of flexible super-elastic material. In the side view of this instrument the distal part is bent relative to the axis going through the longitudinal proximal part bent first to one side and afterwards in the shape of a U to the opposite side. There is only one open or closed snare provided according to this prior art.
A further instrument for grasping objects from the inside of a human or animal body is disclosed in DE 37 17 657 A1 wherein a snare is provided which is retractable into a tubus and because of its self-elasticity opens when pushed out of the tubus. This snare or loop can be closed by use of a pulling wire which is provided at the snare or loop. By pulling the pulling wire the opening of the loop or snare is partly closed in order to hold an object in the loop. The pulling wire is, thus, connected to the loop in the longitudinal direction of the loop by further using a transverse wire connected transverse to the loop inside of the same.
Further, EP 1 404 237 B1 discloses a device for grasping objects from a human or animal body, comprising a first part for grasping the object and a second part for holding the grasped object wherein the first part comprises at least two branches where the distal ends of at least some of the branches are provided with snares running from the branches and wherein the snares circumscribe the second part of the device mentioned as an extraction basket. At least some of the distal ends of the snares are intertwisted to build a net with a cell-structure which can hold the grasped object inside the second part of the extraction basket.
DE 20 2007 006 619 U1 discloses a medical instrument with an operable snare type device for grasping and holding of tissue at the distal end of a handle wherein the snare type device is provided as a cutting device for cutting the grasped tissue. In a first embodiment the snare is provided as a cutting wire, the wire having a sharp edge for cutting. The snare is retracted into a handle and can be deployed out of it. It is further disclosed to provide a monopolar cutting instrument powered by a high frequency current. Therefore, this prior art document discloses to cut a tissue either by use of a cutting wire or by use of high frequency current the cutting wire is delivered with.
A similar device is the polypectomy snare as disclosed in WO 2007/000452 A3. A surgical cutting device comprises a traction/push element which is guided into a bushing and used to transfer a traction or pushing force from an actuation device arranged on one end of the bushing to a loop which is arranged on the other end of the bushing. By this force the loop may be arranged in a storage position wherein the loop lies in an extended position in the bushing and in a user position wherein the loop lies in an expanded opening in front of the bushing. The loop itself is formed by two V-shaped expansion limbs in the user position, partially in and in front of the bushing. The limbs are resistant to bending at least in the direction which is transverse in relation to the opening plane as a loop arc which can be connected to the respective free ends of the expansion limb in order to improve the handling of the surgical cutting device. An electrical contact is provided connectable to a current generator to deliver current to the cutting polypectomy snare.
Also known are snare devices having an injection device as especially disclosed in EP 0997 106 B1. This instrument comprises a snare directly connected to a distal end of an injection needle extending at the distal end of a catheter in a deployed position. This snare may also be provided as a monopolar cutting wire which may be delivered with a current for being able to cut a polypus by electrical current delivered through the wire. This prior art also discloses to cut a polypus only by the snare not being delivered with electrical current but constricting the polypus until it is cut from the rest of the tissue.
Further, as mentioned such a device for object retrieval should provide a loop which is adapted to easily encircle the object sought, and which provides for a more flexible engagement of the captured object, with the catheter, to allow the object to move during the retrieval process to circumnavigate tight spaces in the vascular system without harm. Since piercing of tissue might be required to reach a lost object, such a snare should preferably have structure to allow puncturing of tissue. Finally, such a device should have sufficient length to encircle any lost object, making it easy to capture.
Therefore, an object of this invention is the provision of a retrieval component for the capturing of objects, especially also tissue or inorganic components, from a human or animal body.
An additional object of this invention is the provision of such a retrieval component that is formed in memory imparted loop or snare.
Another object of this invention is to provide a snare device which can be used for securely grasping or capturing an object and for cutting a tissue without use of electrical current as well as a method for retrieving an object from a human or animal body and a method for cutting a tissue by use of such an improved snare device.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The problem is solved for a snare device for capturing an object and/or for cutting a tissue according to the preamble of claim 1 by providing a locking wire for being translated through the at least one loop to capture an object between part of the loop and the locking wire extending through the loop and/or for puncturing the tissue and/or for cutting the tissue by the loop as combined with the locking wire the locking wire piercing the tissue at a second aperture distant from a first aperture at least part of the loop extends through the locking wire being translated through the loop and engaging with the same and retracting the loop into the hollow member such that the tissue is cut between both of the apertures. The problem is also solved by providing two loops connected by twisting, one of the loops being the smaller one and one being the larger one and wherein the plane of the smaller loop is provided with an angle of about 120□ to 170□ to the axis of the hollow member and the plane of the larger loop is provided with an angle of about 10° to 60° to the plane of the smaller loop. Further, the problem is solved by providing two loops connected by twisting and a sheath, the sheath extending to the proximal end of the at least one loop, surrounding part of a wire or wires of the loop or loops and being angled or curved and the loops being deployable such that the smaller one extends between the halves of the larger loop. The problem is further solved by a method for retrieving an object from a human or animal body employing a snare device deployable from a hollow member, especially a catheter, and retractable into the hollow member, the snare device comprising a twisted loop with at least two loops and a twisted area connecting both loops when deployed in the side view the planes of the loops are angled one to the other and to the direction of the hollow member, and comprising a locking wire housed in the hollow member, comprising the steps of:—encircling the object by the curved area such that both loops are provided next to the object,—extending the locking wire through at least one of the loops,—retracting the loops into the hollow member such that the object is held between part of the loops and the locking wire, and—retracting the locking wire together with the loops and the held object into the hollow member. Further, the problem is also solved by a method for cutting a tissue by use of a snare device deployable from a hollow member, especially a catheter, and retractable into the hollow member, the snare device comprising a twisted loop having at least two loops and a twisted area connecting both loops when deployed in the side view the planes of the loops are angled or parallel one to the other and the twisted area is radially distant from the hollow member, and comprising a locking wire housed in the hollow member, comprising the steps of:—piercing the tissue with a first aperture and extending the at least one loop through the first aperture to place the twisted area generally within the first aperture,—piercing the tissue with a second aperture and extending the locking wire through the second aperture and through the at least one loop the locking wire extending as a prolongation of the hollow member,—retracting the at least one loop into the hollow member and thereby cutting the tissue with a cut between both apertures. Developments of the invention are defined in the dependent claims.
The foreign body capturing component or snare device, respectively, and system herein described and disclosed features a memory shaped wire snare or loop engaged to or made as one part with a translatable control wire and which is collapsible for translation through a conduit or a hollow member like a catheter, a sheath or a similar type device. The control wire engaged at or provided as one part with a first end of the snare runs to a surgeon-manipulatable actuator at a proximal end of the catheter allowing the surgeon to control the translation of the control wire and snare. The snare is likewise translatable and, thus, deployable from within the distal end of the catheter housing it, and, once so deployed, if not used to capture a loose object, may be translated or retracted, respectively, back into the axial cavity of the catheter from which it was deployed. One or more wires, especially two wires, may extend proximally from the proximal end of the at least one loop of the snare device and may be used as control wires to especially retract the loops into the hollow member, e.g. a catheter.
Preferably, two loops are provided one of which being the smaller one and one being the larger one the loops being connected via a twisting area. By providing such two loops connected by twisting an optimal extent of each of the loop parts or the newly built two loops—e.g. a smaller one and a larger one—is adjustable. In principle, both loops may also be essentially identical as regards their dimensions. The snare device or retrieval component, respectively, that may be provided as a kit of different shaped loops or snares may, thus, be employed with a hollow member, e.g. a catheter, having a locking wire common to all snares of the kit.
Preferably a sheath is provided extending to the proximal end of the at least one loop and surrounding the wire or wires. The sheath may be straight and/or angled and/or curved in a distal area. By being straight it is easy to push and direct the extended loops together with the sheath through the catheter. By being angled or curved it is possible to deploy the proximal loop not with an angle to the sheath which is the normal case with a straight sheath but as a prolongation of the angled or curved sheath. The shape of that loop may, thus, be changed.
It is further possible that two loops connected by twisting and a sheath are provided the sheath extending to the proximal end of the at least one loop, surrounding part of a wire or wires of the loop or loops and being angled or curved and the loops deploy such that the smaller one is the proximal one extending between the halves of the larger loop. It is still possible to extend a locking wire through the distal loop since this loop may extend in the direction of the sheath with its distal end. Further, a grasping or capturing of an object may be easier in hollow spaces of a human or animal body where a stiffer element than a loop is more comfortably placed and held in place during the grasping or capturing procedure. Furthermore, because of the deployment of the distal loop in the direction of the catheter and sheath, respectively, the dimension of such a snare device is smaller than in case the distal loop deploys away from the catheter and sheath in an angle to the proximal loop as described above. Therefore, such a snare device having a smaller dimension can excellently be used in small hollow spaces in a human or animal body especially for grasping or capturing objects.
Using the described techniques according to the present invention, the device may be employed in vascular procedures such as stent implantations, as well as in open surgeries, endoscope surgeries, or intrauterine therapies of complex cardiovascular diseases. Essentially it may be employed any surgery where retrieval of a lost object is required. In all such surgeries, the resulting retrieval of the loose object is handled with minimal invasive techniques. During deployment, as the loop is pushed from the distal end of the catheter, the memory shape material forming the curved or serpentine-shaped loop, will immediately begin to curve to its memorized shape. This curving effect may be employed to guide the snare to a wraparound capture of the loose object. Once so captured, the locking wire is deployed from the distal end of the catheter and through the loop to hold it around the object as the loop or snare may be retracted into the catheter, especially by use of a control wire.
So engaged to the loop, the captured object will be somewhat flexibly engaged at the distal end of the catheter or generally the hollow member allowing it to move as the catheter is withdrawn. This means for hinge-like engagement, helps prevent injury to tissue if the captured object is elongated and traverse to the axis of the catheter.
The snare is pre-formed of shape memory material to form an encircling loop which may be placed in a fixed removable engagement around the object being retrieved by the or a further locking wire. It is, thus, an advantage of the present invention that such a snare device or engagement component, respectively, employs a unique wire locking system which allows for a flexible engagement at the distal end of the catheter during removal.
It is further advantageous to provide, when deployed, the plane of the smaller loop with an angle α of about 120° to 170°, especially about 150°, to the axis of the hollow member or the locking wire, respectively, for capturing of an object. The plane of the larger loop can advantageously be provided with an angle β of about 10° to 60°, especially about 30°, to the plane of the smaller loop for the capturing of an object. By such a configuration the snare device can encircle an object very securely and it is easy to further hold the object by use of the locking wire extending through the distal loop of the snare device, especially.
For cutting a tissue the plane of the smaller loop and the larger loop can be provided essentially parallel to one another to be placed on both surfaces of the tissue. It is then possible to define the length of the cut by the dimension of the loops, especially the smaller loop. The extent of the smaller loop between the distal end of the catheter or a sheath surrounding the proximal ends of the loop can be adapted or changed to define the length of the cut to be provided in the tissue. As just mentioned above, after puncturing the tissue by the snare and extending one loop on each side of the tissue and further puncturing the tissue by the locking wire and extending the same through the distal loop the loops are retracted into the hollow member, e.g. catheter. Thereby, the loops are pulled in the direction to the locking wire such that the tissue is cut from the puncturing opening the snare runs through to the puncturing opening the locking wire runs through.
The deployable snare features a memorized shape which will wrap around a lost or loose object in the body as the control wire translates the snare from the distal end of the catheter. Such a device should be easily deployed and viewed during the capture process and also during the above described cutting process. Therefore, it is advantageous to provide a marker at the loop, especially the smaller loop, for making the loop visible under visualization means. Visualization of the deploying snare component and resulting capture of a loose object would be possible by fluoroscope, or MRI, or other means for electronic visualization of the snare which can contain an x-ray's marker, echographic marker or magnetic resonance marker.
Further, as just described, the disclosed device has the additional benefit of being able to puncture through tissue adjacent to the distal end of the deployed catheter. This is accomplished by the leading edge of the loop being a pointed portion provided such that it can be used for puncturing the tissue. The pointed leading end on the snare projects from the distal end of the catheter first on deployment. A hole can thus be punched through tissue. Additionally, the device may be employed to cut tissue adjacent to the distal end of the deployed catheter. In this action, once the snare has pierced the tissue wall it folds or curves to an angle away from the axis of any control or locking wire or the catheter.
After puncturing the tissue wall by the pointed portion of the loop the locking wire can be projected from the catheter and pierce the tissue wall, as just described above, for cutting the tissue. A subsequent retraction of the loop, causes a cut in the tissue between the loop piercing the tissue, and the locking wire pierce point of the tissue.
With respect to the above description then, it is to be realized that the optimum dimensional relationships for the parts of the invention, to include variations in size, materials, shape, form, function and manner of operation, assembly and use, are deemed readily apparent and obvious to one skilled in the art, and all equivalent relationships to those illustrated in the drawings and described in the specification are intended to be encompassed by the present invention.
Therefore, the foregoing description and following detailed description are considered as illustrative only for the principles of the invention. Further, since numerous modifications and changes will readily occur to those skilled in the art, it is not desired to limit the invention to the exact construction and operation shown and described, and accordingly, all suitable modifications and equivalents may be resorted to, falling within the scope of the invention.
These together with other objects and advantages which will become subsequently apparent reside in the details of the construction and operation as more fully hereinafter described and claimed, reference being had to the accompanying drawings forming a part thereof, wherein like numerals refer to like parts throughout the description.
As such, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the conception, upon which this disclosure is based, may readily be utilized as a basis for designing other methods and systems for carrying out the several purposes of the present invention of a loop or snare-based object retrieval system for surgery. It is important, therefore, that the claims be regarded as including such equivalent construction insofar as they do not depart from the spirit and scope of the present invention. The present invention provides these and other features that will be apparent upon review of the following.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIGS. 1A-1C show a first embodiment of a snare device according to the present invention as a perspective front view, as detail side view and in a top view, and with a control wire extending to a proximal loop twisted to a distal loop;
FIGS. 2A-2H show a side view and perspective side views, a top view and perspective top views, a perspective front view, and a detail side view of a second embodiment of a snare device according to the present invention provided with a locking wire;
FIGS. 3A-3F show side views of the deployment of a third embodiment of a snare device according to the present invention;
FIGS. 3G-3I show three perspective views of the snare device of the third embodiment as shown in the deployed status in FIG. 3F ;
FIGS. 4A-9A show the capturing and grasping process of an object with the snare device according to FIGS. 2A-2H as a side view;
FIGS. 4B-9B show the capturing and grasping process of FIGS. 4A-9A in a front view;
FIGS. 10-21 show the capturing and grasping process of an object with the snare device according to FIGS. 1A-C in side views;
FIGS. 22A-44C show perspective views of the piercing and cutting an incision process of a tissue layer or wall by use of the snare device according to FIGS. 2A-2H .
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
Before explaining at least one embodiment of the invention in detail it is to be understood that the invention is not limited in its application to the details of construction and to the arrangement of the components set forth in the following description or illustrated in the drawings. The invention is capable of other embodiments and of being practiced and carried out in various ways. Also, it is to be understood that the phraseology and terminology employed herein are for the purpose of description and should not be regarded as limiting.
Referring now to the drawings in FIGS. 1A-44C , wherein similar parts are identified by like reference numerals, there is seen generally in all of the figures a snare device 10 formed of a twisted loop of memory shaped material. On deployment from a catheter (not shown in FIGS. 1A-C ), the memory shaped material forming the snare twists and contracts to form the shape as shown in the figures. The wire forming the snare twists and crosses over to form a smaller loop 14 and a larger loop 12 . At least in the embodiment as shown in FIGS. 1A-2H at the leading edge of the larger loop 12 and the first component to translate from the catheter is a pointed portion 16 . As noted, this pointed portion 16 may be employed to puncture tissue during deployment of the snare.
As shown in the front view of FIG. 1A the snare device 10 comprises a control wire 34 having two ends extending to the overlapping loops 12 , 14 and provided of one part with the wire of these loops 12 , 14 wherein the loops are provided at the distal end of the wire halves. The control wire 34 is provided for controlling the deployment and retracting of the snare device out of and into the catheter 26 being shown in FIGS. 2A-2H . The control wire 34 ends extend to the proximal end of the smaller loop 14 which is twisted at its distal end in area 15 to build the larger loop 12 . At the distal end of the larger loop 12 the pointed portion 16 is provided.
As may especially be seen from the detail side view in FIGS. 1B , 2 A and 2 D the loops 12 , 14 have a snake or goose neck type shape where the smaller loop 14 is bent away from the longitudinal extent of the control wire 34 or the catheter 26 , respectively, and the larger loop 12 is bent back to the opposite side. Thus, both loops as regarded in the side view or as regarding their planes after deployment are angled one to the other and to the longitudinal extent of the catheter 26 or the control wire 34 . As may also be seen from these figures the loops 14 and 12 are connected by a curved section 13 —in the side view—which means that the loops 14 and 12 are twisted and in addition bent or curved in that section 13 . According to FIGS. 1A-C , this is also the section where the twisted area 15 is provided.
The twisting of the wires of both loops 14 and 12 may best be seen from the top view in FIG. 1C . From this figure also the specific shape of the pointed portion 16 may be seen which is built by the wire of loop 12 by forming a noose but not twisting the wires at the proximal end of the noose. According to this embodiment the noose extends in the same plane of loop 12 as may be seen from FIG. 1B . However, it is also possible that the noose extends angled to this plane.
Referring now to FIGS. 2A-2H , according to this embodiment of snare device 10 the control wire parts are provided in catheter 26 and the loops 12 , 14 are shown in a deployed status being very similar or identical with the deployed status of the snare device as shown in FIGS. 1A-C . Especially FIG. 2D depicts an angle orientation of the snare device showing that the plane of the smaller or first loop 14 is angled to the longitudinal axis of the catheter 26 by angle α and that the plane of loop 14 is also angled to the plane of loop 12 by angle β. The angle α may be in the range of about 120° and 170° and the angle β can be in the range of about 10° to 60°. Herewith it is meant that each and every value is possible for the angle between the catheter 26 and the plane of the loops 14 and 12 , especially an angle of α=150°, 149°, 148°, 147°, 146°, 145° etc. or 151°, 152°, 153°, 154°, 155° etc. and β=30°, 31°, 32°, 33°, 34°, 35° etc. or 29°, 28°, 27°, 26°, 25°, etc. Also an angle α=150.15° or an angle of β=31.26° or any other angles are possible.
The main difference between FIGS. 1A-C and FIGS. 2A-H is that a locking wire 18 is provided in FIGS. 2A-2H extending through the catheter 26 in the direction of the longitudinal axis of the catheter. The loops 12 , 14 are, thus, also angled to the locking wire 18 . The locking wire 18 extends through the larger loop 12 only, defining a section 19 where an object can be captured between part of loop 12 , loop 14 and the locking wire 18 . This will be further explained with regard to FIGS. 4A to 9B .
In FIGS. 3A-3I another embodiment of the snare device is shown where the smaller loop 14 is the distal loop and the larger loop 12 is the proximal loop and where no pointed portion is provided. Further, a sheath 20 is provided surrounding the control wire ends of the loops. The sheath is helically wound around the control wire ends of the loops 12 , 14 . It is angled in its distal part such that the proximal larger loop 12 is automatically also angled to the longitudinal axis of the catheter without being shaped with such an angle itself. The loops may be adjusted by the sheath and/or by the control wire.
The distal smaller loop 14 deploys back to the sheath to extend partly parallel to the angled part of the sheath 20 as may best be seen from FIG. 3G . In the front view of the sheath in FIG. 3H it may be seen that the larger loop 12 opens in the shape of two “V”s and the smaller loop 14 also opens in an angled shape homologous to the “V”s of the larger loop 12 . From the top view in FIG. 3I it is clear that in the top view the smaller loop 14 extends within the larger one and that the wire is twisted in the area of connection to the larger loop 12 .
FIGS. 3A-F show the steps of deployment of this snare device 10 , where it may be seen that first the distal end of the smaller loop 14 deploys out of the catheter 26 . Afterwards the rest of the smaller loop 14 deploys ( FIGS. 3B-3D ) and also the twisted area 15 . By further pushing the sheath 20 and the loops out of the catheter 26 also the larger loop 12 deploys, which may be seen in FIGS. 3E and 3F . The larger loop 12 in principle engages the distal end of the smaller loop 14 when both loops are deployed. The fully deployed shape of the snare device 10 may be seen in FIG. 3G .
FIGS. 4A to 9B show the capturing or grasping process of an object 22 by use of the snare device 10 . The object 22 is shown as a longitudinal helically wound element having eyelets at both ends. The shown object is only one possible example for such an object which may be grasped from a human or animal body by use of the snare device 10 . The object may have any other shape and dimension as well. The object is encircled or enveloped by the snare device being disposed between both loops 12 , 14 as shown in the side view in FIG. 4A and in the front view in FIG. 4B . After encircling or enveloping the object by both loops 12 , 14 the locking wire 18 is extended through deployed loop 12 to secure the object within built section 19 . This step is shown in FIGS. 5A and 5B .
For removing or retrieving the object one (the surgeon) pulls on the sheath 20 or, in case no sheath is provided, on at least one of the two ends of the control wire 34 . By pulling the loops into the catheter 26 the shape of the loops 12 , 14 and the section 19 is amended and the snare device tightens around the object 22 . This is shown in FIGS. 6A , 6 B, 7 A, and 7 B.
The locking wire 18 prevents the distal end of loop 12 , especially the pointed portion 16 , from returning to the catheter axial cavity. If the axial cavity of the catheter 26 is of sufficient diameter, the object 22 , may be retracted into the catheter 26 as depicted in FIGS. 8A and 8B . FIGS. 9A and 9B show the fully retracted status of the snare device where only the catheter 26 is shown. The object 22 when being retracted into the catheter 26 is folded such that the axial cavity within the catheter 26 needs to be at least double the diameter of the object 12 to be grasped.
The capturing process of an object by use of the snare device 10 may also be provided without use of the locking wire 18 . The steps of such a grasping or capturing process are shown in FIGS. 10 to 21 . Contrary to the process as shown in the preceding FIGS. 4A to 9B the object 22 is captured by the loop 12 where the loop plane is disposed essentially perpendicular to the object's extent. In the first step in FIG. 10 loop 12 is moved near the object 22 in order to surround the same by the loop as may be seen in FIG. 11 . After surrounding the object 22 at one part the loops 12 , 14 are retracted into the sheath 20 first and into the catheter 26 afterwards. When retracting loop 12 into the sheath 20 the angle between loop 12 and sheath 20 becomes larger such that the loop surrounds the object essentially at its center then as may be seen in FIGS. 14 to 17 . The object 22 is then held at area 3 by the pointed portion 16 of loop 12 . By further retracting the loops into the catheter 26 the object is folded at area 3 and retracted into the catheter until being fully removed especially from a hollow space in a human or animal body. These steps are shown in FIGS. 18 to 21 .
In another function provided by the unique two loop formation of the snare device comprising the locking wire 18 , the device may be employed for both puncturing and cutting tissue as shown in FIGS. 22A-44C . As depicted in various modes of this operation, the catheter 26 and sheath 20 are maneuvered to a tissue wall 24 and the pointed portion 16 of the snare is projected from the distal end of the sheath 20 or catheter 26 . This formed pointed portion 16 and the translation from the catheter 26 and the sheath 20 thereby provide a means for puncturing of tissue walls. Especially also the sheath 20 may be provided with a tapering distal end being able to puncture the tissue. FIGS. 22A-C show the puncturing step by use of the sheath 20 and the pointed portion 16 of loop 12 . Thereafter the sheath 20 or the catheter 26 and/or the snare formed of the two loops 12 and 14 , may be translated through an aperture 28 formed in the tissue wall 24 by the sheath 20 and the pointed portion 16 .
In a second operation, the device is employable for cutting an incision 32 . In this operation, after the sheath 20 is passed through the aperture 28 the larger loop 12 of the snare is deployed on the opposite side of the tissue 24 as regards the catheter 26 starting with the pointed portion 16 of loop 12 (see FIGS. 23B-C ). When deployed the plane of loop 12 first is provided in an angle to the sheath or catheter and to the tissue differing from about 90° as shown in FIGS. 24A-C . Afterwards, when loop 12 is further deployed the plane of loop 12 is essentially parallel to the plane of tissue 24 (see FIGS. 25A-C ).
The distal end 21 of sheath is translated through the aperture 28 such that it is distant from the tissue surface. Because of the angle provided between the planes of loops 12 and 14 when further pushing loops 12 and 14 out of the sheath 20 or catheter 26 the plane of loop 12 is acute angled to the tissue plane. The pointed portion 16 of loop 12 may contact the tissue surface as may be seen from FIGS. 26B and 26C .
Afterwards sheath 20 is retracted through the aperture 28 back into catheter 26 such that plane of loop 12 will become parallel to the tissue surface again now having a small distance to the tissue surface, only (see FIGS. 27A-C ).
When further pushing smaller loop 14 out of the sheath 20 or catheter 26 this loop deploys on the opposite side of tissue 24 with an angle to the tissue and to the plane of loop 12 . The sheath 20 or catheter 26 , respectively, is moved to a position such that loop 14 may deploy in its memorized shape. This position may be e.g. substantially centered as regards the larger loop 12 oriented perpendicular to the plane of the larger loop 12 resting on or above tissue 24 . An easy means for measurement is provided by the smaller loop 14 which in the embodiment as shown in FIGS. 1A and 1B is approximately half the size of the larger loop 12 .
As shown in FIGS. 30A-C the sheath 20 is then pushed versus the tissue 24 such that both loops 12 , 14 are provided essentially parallel to the tissue surface having only a small distance to the tissue surface.
Once so positioned, the locking wire 18 is translated toward and through the tissue 24 thereby puncturing a second aperture 30 through the tissue. The locking wire 18 is translated such that its distal end 17 projects past the tissue 24 as shown in FIGS. 31A-32C .
Thereafter, sheath 20 as well as possibly provided wire 34 for acting on the loops are translated back into the catheter 26 a distance. Thus, the plane of loop 14 is again angled to the tissue surface as may especially be seen from FIGS. 33A and 33B . By further retracting the loops into the sheath and catheter loop 12 will move over the tissue surface ( FIGS. 35A-C ). During this translation, the pointed portion 16 of the larger loop 12 will abut against the locking wire 18 stopping the translation progress. Both loops 12 , 14 are stretched and they are pulled away from aperture 28 toward aperture 30 as may be seen in FIGS. 36A-37C .
Subsequently, the force of wire 34 being pulled into the sheath 20 or catheter 26 , respectively, will cause the wire forming the snare to cut an incision 32 between the first aperture 28 and the second aperture 30 . This is step by step shown in FIGS. 38A-40C . The pointed portion 16 still encircles locking wire 18 and loop 12 extends parallel to the locking wire 18 . By further retracting the loops into the sheath 20 the sheath is moved versus the tissue again until pointed portion 16 is fully pulled to the distal end 21 of the sheath on that side of the tissue ( FIGS. 41A-C ). After retracting the loops into the sheath also the locking wire 18 is retracted as shown in FIGS. 42A-44C . When retracting the locking wire 18 the pointed portion 16 of loop 12 is still positioned at the distal end 21 of sheath 20 .
Once so cut, the device may be removed and the incision employed as necessary such as for communication of a larger surgical instrument therethrough.
A marker may be placed e.g. at the center portion of the smaller loop 14 . The marker is visible using x-ray or fluoroscope, or other electronic means of visualization. This marker gives the surgeon a target to both wrap the serpentine snare around an object 22 to be grasped or captured, and also to employ the locking wire 18 into and through a portion of at least one of the loops 12 and 14 , once the object 22 is encircled. To remove the object 22 , once the locking wire 18 is deployed properly, the control wire or wires 34 communicating through the catheter to the snare are retracted. Two ends of wire 34 forming the loops and ending proximally at the surgeon are preferred in a continuous path forming the snare as this gives the surgeon the ability to pull upon either side of the snare during the capture of the object 22 and thus gives more options. Since the control wire 34 translates first through one of the loops forming the snare, as it is retracted, it will tighten around the object 22 being retrieved since the loop or loops contract around the object 22 .
The method and components shown in the drawings and described in detail herein disclose arrangements of elements of particular construction and configuration for illustrating preferred embodiments of structure of the present snare for capture of objects and cutting of incisions in a human or animal body. It is to be understood, however, that elements of different construction and configuration, and using different steps and process procedures, and other arrangements thereof, other than those illustrated and described may be employed for providing a surgical retrieval device and method in accordance with the scope of protection as defined by the following claims.
As such, while the present invention has been described herein with reference to particular embodiments thereof, a latitude of modifications, various changes and substitutions are intended in the foregoing disclosure, and will be appreciated that in some instance some features of the invention could be employed without a corresponding use of other features, without departing from the scope of the invention as set forth in the following claims. All such changes, alternations and modifications as would occur to those skilled in the art are considered to be within the scope of this invention as broadly defined in the appended claims.
Further, the purpose of the abstract of the invention, is to enable the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and the public generally, and especially the scientists, engineers, and practitioners in the art who are not familiar with patent or legal terms or phraseology, to determine quickly from a cursory inspection the nature and essence of the technical disclosure of the application. The abstract is neither intended to define the invention of the application, which is measured by the claims, nor is it intended to be limiting, as to the scope of the invention in any way.
REFERENCE NUMERALS
3 area
10 snare device
12 larger loop
13 curved section
14 smaller loop
15 twisted area
16 pointed portion
17 distal end of locking wire
18 locking wire
19 section
20 sheath
21 distal end
22 object
24 tissue wall
26 catheter
28 aperture
30 aperture
32 incision
34 control wires | A snare device for capturing an object or for cutting tissue in the body of a human or animal. The device employs at least one twisted loop of memory shaped material housed in and movable relative to a hollow member such as a catheter. The device and method of employment is particularly well adapted for retrieving objects from internal body cavities and cutting tissue therein. | 0 |
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
This is a continuation application of U.S. application Ser. No. 12/603,836 filed Oct. 22, 2009 which claims priority to German Patent Application No. DE 10 2008 060 863.7 filed Dec. 9, 2008 both of which are incorporated herein in their entireties.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Technical Field
The invention relates to a system and a method for securing the communication of components within self-service automats, in particular automated teller machines.
2. Discussion
Self-service automats often have a series of components that have to be linked to each other. Usually, these automats have a standardized PC platform that meets special security requirements. Keypads, cash dispensing automats, card readers, monitors and other devices are connected to this PC platform (motherboard), by USB interfaces for example.
These automats further include the possibility of connecting to another computer so that a maintenance engineer, for example, can connect to the self-service automat using his laptop.
A situation of this type exists, for example, when the engineer would like to test the money dispensing unit. Using a test program that is installed on the laptop, he can connect to the dispensing unit in order to dispense bills for test purposes. In addition, instances are known in which persons use this technology in order to procure cash in an unauthorized fashion. This latter is achieved by circumventing or manipulating physical security mechanisms.
Furthermore, security-sensitive cases are known in which a person using a USB tracer (a device that listens in on the traffic on the USB interface) switches to the line of the dispensing unit and the PC for the purpose of analyzing control commands, manipulating them and re-entering commands overheard in order to obtain cash in an unauthorized manner in this way. Furthermore, cases are known in which a person using a USB tracer interposes himself between the line for the card reader and the PC in order to obtain card data in an unauthorized manner.
The present invention is not categorically restricted to USB; however, USB is a dominant standard for peripheral devices on computers so that in what follows the discussion will center essentially on USB. However, it should be noted that all other connecting standards that may similarly be wireless and follow a similar concept to USB, are to be covered by the invention.
USB is a serial-bit bus, the individual bits of the data package are transmitted sequentially. Data transmission takes place symmetrically over two twisted wires, one of which transmits the data signal unchanged, the other the inverted signal. The signal receiver creates the voltage differential between the two signals; the voltage swing between levels 1 and 0 is consequently twice as great, irradiated interference is largely eliminated. This increases transmission security, suppresses interference and improves electromagnetic compatibility. Two additional wires are used for the power feed to the attached devices. By using only four strands in one cable, said strands can be made thinner and more economically than with parallel interfaces. A high data transmission rate can be achieved at relatively low cost since it is not necessary to transmit several signals with identical electrical and chronological profiles.
The bus specification provides for a central host controller (master) that assumes coordination of the connected peripheral devices (the slave clients). Theoretically, up to 127 different devices can be connected to the host controller. Only one USB device can be connected to a USB port at a time. If several devices are to be connected to a host, a distributor (hub) must handle the connection. The result of using hubs is the creation of tree structures that all end in the host controller.
In spite of its name—Universal Serial Bus—the USB is not a physical data bus. In a bus of this kind, several devices are connected in parallel to one line. The designation “bus” refers to the logical networking, the actual electrical implementation is carried out using only point-to-point connections.
A USB stack on which the appropriate USB drivers for the devices sit is used to manage information and data transmitted over the USB bus. The USB stack is responsible for the assignment of information to the individual device drivers.
FIG. 1 shows a stack structure of this kind for two devices. The left column represents the stack structure for a system PC that basically controls the automated teller machine. The RM3 device is a peripheral device that is connected to the system PC over a USB bus for example. This peripheral device may be, for example, an automated teller machine or a card reader in which in turn an operating system is similarly located that manages the USB interface. It can be seen that the system PC has a JDD (Java device driver) layer that is responsible for loading the drivers. Below said JDD is located an object request broker (ORB). The USB transport layer, which in turn sits on the USB driver, is located below said ORB.
It must be noted that the USB technology has no form of security functions so that the manipulations described above can occur.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of the present invention is to ensure the security of a connecting channel that connects a main control unit (PC module) to peripheral devices. In real terms, the authenticity and the confidentiality of messages on this channel are realized using a combination method. A further object is to provide error tolerance and to prevent old messages from being re-entered.
The preferred embodiment of the invention concerns methods for securing the communication of components within self-service automats that are connected to each other via a bus system. Such components may be the main board (usually a PC-based motherboard), the card reader, the keypad, the cash dispensing system, screen, etc. A basic distinction is made between an active component (transmitter) and a passive component (receiver). These components are preferably connected by a serial bus system, such as the USB bus. Naturally, no restriction regarding the bus system should exist. Both wireless and wired bus systems can be used. With the USB bus system, for example, encryption is not specified by the standard so that said encryption has to take place at the transport level of the bus system. In so doing, the data are exchanged as tuples (C, A, R, N, Z). The tuple may be configured as a binary record in different forms. The data can also be transmitted in a different sequence or in separate packages. The tuple is intended solely to express the logical relationship. In this tuple, C are the message data M encoded with an encryption key, A are the message data M authenticated with an authentication key, R represents the role of a component on the bus system as active or passive participant (transmitter or receiver), N represents a message counter, Z represents a session counter. The function of the session counter is to see that the key is changed regularly for a new session. Known algorithms can be used on both sides for implementation. Examples from the prior art are:
AES, DES and any other block ciphers in corresponding operating modes. Details are known to one skilled in the art. In a further embodiment, the above named tuple is expanded so that it now reads (C,A,R,N,Z, {circumflex over (N)}, {circumflex over (Z)}), where {circumflex over (N)} is a message counter of the Δ-last messages N, {circumflex over (Z)} is a last session counter of the Δ-last messages. Through Δ, it can always be specified that the last messages in the transmission are allowed be lost without the need to inform the application layer above it. The transmitter of a channel notes the session number {circumflex over (Z)} and message number {circumflex over (N)} of the last Δ-last messages and, in addition to the pair (N, Z), also sends the pair ({circumflex over (Z)} {circumflex over (N)}) as the current session counter in each message so that a check is possible at the receiver. If fewer than Δ messages have now been lost, no error message is generated. This is always possible when redundancies in data transmission exist. The Δ can be set as a parameter, e.g. by the layer above. A loss of information can occur, for example, when cables are pulled out or other manipulations are carried out to the connection.
The security measures are based on a key for authentication and a key for encryption. Keys are used that are created when the self-service automats are produced and assembled, and filed securely in the components.
The keys can be filed in a Trusted Platform Module (TPM), for example, such as is known commercially. The Trusted Platform Module (TPM) is a chip that, as part of the TCG specification (formerly TCPA), restricts computers or other devices that can execute the commands of the TPM. This serves the purposes of license protection and data protection (privacy) for example. The chip is the equivalent of a permanently installed smartcard with the important difference that it is not tied to a specific user (user instance) but to a single computer (hardware instance). Besides its use in PCs, the TPM can be integrated into PDAs, mobile telephones, and entertainment electronics. A device with TPA can no longer be used counter to the interests of the hardware maker, the operator of the licenses or the owner of data by means of software that carries out the commands of the TPM. A benefit for the individual user of a computer is not defined, except in protection against misuse by unauthorized third parties.
The chip is passive and cannot affect either the booting process or operation directly. It contains an unambiguous code and serves to identify the computer.
Authentication is made on the basis of a known authentication algorithm by A:=Auth[K auth R ,N,M,|M|], where K auth R is the result of a secure key generation procedure using a common key K and C:=ENC[K enc R ,Z,N,M], where K enc R is the result of a secure key generation procedure using a common key K. In the preferred embodiment, said keys are determined by a hash function. Details can be found farther below.
To ensure that no data of any kind is lost, a message counter is used that is incremented up to a predetermined natural number at each transmission.
In detail, the following steps should be carried out when transmitting, check whether the message counter N<N max , if this is given, set N:=N+1.
When receiving, the following steps are performed, assuming that the last session counter is Z and the last message counter is N .
Check whether session number Z≦Z max , Check whether message number N≦N max Compare the tuples (Z,N) and ( Z , N ), if more than Δ messages have been lost, an error is generated, otherwise, Carry out decryption Carry out authentication
At the receiver, the decryption is carried out as follows M′:=DEC[K dec R ,C]; authentication is given if A=A′ where A′:=Auth[K ver R ,N,M′,|C|],
The method can be used with self-service automats that were mentioned previously, where the component may be both the receiver and the transmitter. Usually, the communication is bi-directional so that receiver and transmitter assume both functions.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
The figures show possible embodiments that are not to be construed in a restrictive sense but are intended only to improve understanding of the invention.
FIG. 1 shows the stack structure of two self-service components, in this case, a system PC is involved on the one side and an RM3 card reader on the other side;
FIG. 2 shows the communication of the devices from FIG. 1 across the layers of the software;
FIG. 3 shows communication over the USB bus system;
FIG. 4 shows the encrypted communication over the bus system;
FIG. 5 shows the steps when generating the common key when the PC motherboard is started up, and when filing in the TPM;
FIG. 6 shows the steps from FIG. 5 for the card reader;
FIG. 7 shows the initialization of the keys between the card reader and the PC.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
The encrypting model is explained in detail below for a better understanding.
In the first step a description is given of the designator or variables for the secure channel protocol:
A, B
Participants in the protocol
R ε {A, B}
Designator of the active protocol participant
R′ ε {A, B} \ {R}
Designator of the passive protocol participant
N max
Maximum number of messages per session
Z max
Maximum number of sessions
HASH [ . ]
Cryptographically secure hash function, for example
SHA 1, SHA 256, MD5, etc.
AUTH [ . ]
Cryptographically secure message authentication,
for example by means of HMAC, CBC,
MAC ISO9797-1
ENC [ . ]
Cryptographically secure encryption procedure, for
example by means of AES, DES,
K
Common, long-life key of A and B
A → B
Session in which A sends messages to B
B → A
Session in which B sends messages to A
Z A→B A
Session counter of A for the session
A → B (persistent)
Z B→A A
Session counter of A for the session
B → A (persistent)
Z A→B B
Session counter of B for the session
A → B (persistent)
Z B→A B
Session counter of B for the session
B → A (persistent)
N A→B A
Message counter of A for the session A → B
N A→B B
Message counter of B for the session A → B
N B→A A
Message counter of A for the session B → A
N B→A B
Message counter of B for the session B → A
Δ ε N
Tolerated length of a sequence of messages that
do not reach their recipient
Functions can be derived from the RC4 algorithm, Temporal Key Integral protocol, MD2, MD4, MD5, SHA, RIPEMD-160, Tiger HAVAL Whirlpool, LM hash NTLM (hash). RSA, AES, etc. can be used as encrypting procedures.
Basically there is a data dependency. After all the messages sent from transmitter A have arrived at the respective receiver B, the following conditions apply:
A
B
K
=
K
Z A→B A
= (≧)
Z A→B B
Z B→A A
= (≦)
Z B→A B
N A→B A
= (≧)
N A→B B
N B→A A
= (≦)
N B→A B
This table means that the common key is identical, the session counter is the same or greater. If packages are lost, or if the key was just incremented, the session counter may be higher, the same applies to the message counter.
Basically, two cases have to be differentiated. In the first case, a package loss is not allowed (thus Δ=0) in the second case a package loss is allowed because of redundancy (Δ≧0)
Case Δ=0
First a common session counter is calculated
Entry: Common key K, role Rε{A,B}
Session Sε{′A→B′,′B→A′}, session counter Z S R
KS S R :=HASH[K,‘ENC’,S,Z S R ]
KA S R :=HASH[K,‘AUTH’, S,Z S R ]
If R=A and S=′A→B′
1. K enc A :=KS S R 2. K auth A :=KA S R
If R=A and S=′B→A′
1. K dec A :=KS S R 2. K ver A :=KA S R
If R=B and S=′A→B′
1. K dec B :=KS S R 2. K ver B :=KA S R
If R=B and S=′B→A′
1. K enc B :=KS S R 2. K auth B :=KA S R
When starting a new session, the following must be taken into account:
Entry: Common key K, role Rε{A,B},
Session Sε{′A→B′,′B→A′} (i.e. data from A towards B and vice versa) new session counter Z 1. Z S R :=Z//default Z=Z S R +1 2. Calculate common session key 3. N R→R′ R :=0
Send message:
Entry: Message M, role Rε{A, B}, message counter N R→R′ R , session counter Z R→R′ R
1. Check message counter N R→R′ R <N max 2. Increment message counter N R→R′ R :=N R→R′ R +1 3. Z:=Z R→R′ R 4. N:=N R→R′ R 5. A:=AUTH[K auth R ,N,M,|M|] 6. C:=ENC[K enc R ,N,M] 7. Send (C, A, R, N, Z)
Receive message:
Entry: Cipher text C. authentication A, role Rε{A, B}, message number N,
Session number Z, message counter N R′→R R session counter Z R′→R R 1. Check session number [Z≦N max ], [Z≧Z R′→R R ]→start new session 2. Check message number [N≦N max ;], [N=N R→R′ R +1] 3. Calculate M′:=DEC[K dec R , C,N] 4. Calculate A′:=AUTH [K ver R ,N,M′,|C|] 5. Check A=A′
In the following, the protocol for Δ>0, in which packages are allowed to be lost because of the redundancy in the higher layer will be described.
In the following it is to be permissible that sequences from Δ>0 of successive messages may be lost during transmission without an error being displayed. The transmitter for a channel notes the session number {circumflex over (Z)} and message number {circumflex over (N)} of the last Δ messages and also includes in each message, in addition to the pair (current session counter, current message counter), the pair ({circumflex over (Z)},{circumflex over (N)}). The receiver on the other side notes the session counter Z and message counter N of the respective last message that it received. In order to check whether a sequence of more than Δ successive messages has been lost, the receiver compares the pairs ({circumflex over (Z)},{circumflex over (N)}) and ( Z , N ) component by component. It can then decide whether, after the last message received, the transmitter sent still more than Δ many messages or not.
Start new session
Entry: Common key K, role Rε{A,B},
Session Sε{′A→B′,′B→A′} 1. Z S R ←Z S R +1//larger jumps should not be permitted 2. Calculate common session key 3. N S R :=1//Initialization of message counter
The following steps are performed at the transmitter.
Send message
Entry: Message M, role Rε{A, B}, message counter N R→R′ R , session counter Z R→R′ R
Old message counter for the Δ-last message {circumflex over (N)} R→R′ R Last session counter for Δ-last message {circumflex over (Z)} R→R′ R
Steps that run
1. Check message counter N R→R′ R <N max , otherwise start new session 2. Advance message counter N R→R′ R :=N R→R′ R +1 3. A:=AUTH [K auth R ,N R→R′ R ,Z R→R′ R ,{circumflex over (N)} R→R′ R ,{circumflex over (Z)} R→R′ R ,|M|,M] 4. C:=ENC [K enc R ,Z,N,M] 5. Send (C, A, R, N R→R′ R Z R→R′ R ,{circumflex over (N)} R→R′ R ,{circumflex over (Z)} R→R′ R )
The following steps are performed at the receiver.
Receive message:
Entry: Cipher text C, authentication A, role R,
Current message counter N R→R′ R , current session counter Z R→R′ R Δ-last message counter {circumflex over (N)} R→R′ R , Δ-last session counter {circumflex over (Z)} R→R′ R Last session counter Z , last message counter N
Steps that run
1. Check session number [Z≦Z max ] 2. Check message number [N≦N max ] 3. Compare tuples ({circumflex over (Z)} R→R′ R , {circumflex over (N)} R→R′ R ) with ( Z , N )→ error, more than Δmessages lost 4. Calculate M′:=DEC[K dec R , C,N] 5. Calculate A′:=AUTH[K auth R , N R→R′ R , Z R→R′ R , {circumflex over (N)} R→R′ R , {circumflex over (Z)} R→R′ R ,|M|,M] 6. Check A=A′
In the following, the Figures that were mentioned above will be described in more detail. FIG. 1 shows a system PC that is connected over a USB interface to a peripheral device, in this case a card reading device, or alternatively to a cash dispensing device (RM3). The system PC has different layers. First, the USB driver that sits directly on the hardware must be named. Then, above that is the USB transport layer that serves to transmit data and at which level encryption takes place. Above that, is an object request broker (ORB). A Java driver manager (JDD/Java device driver) is disposed thereon in turn. Furthermore, there is an encryption module that has access to a session key and thus prepares a secure channel. The session key is derived from a base key. The card reading device in turn similarly derives its session key from a base key and has a similar structure.
FIG. 2 shows the data flow between the two devices with reference to FIG. 1 . Up to the USB transport layer, the data are unencrypted in order to have them encrypted by the encryption module. Then these data are transmitted encrypted in order for them to be decrypted again at the receiving device.
FIG. 3 shows the USB data connection with the different active and passive alignment of the components. This session EP 0 is, for example, unencrypted. Sessions EP 1 and EP 2 are encrypted, where the PC is the client (passive) and the RM3 is the server (active). Sessions EP 3 and E 4 in turn are similarly encrypted, where here the PC is the active participant and the card reading device is the passive participant.
On the basis of FIG. 3 , FIG. 4 shows the encrypted information that is exchanged between the devices, where an appropriate encryption key and an authentication key are used. Details are described above.
FIGS. 5-7 shows the generation of the common key K that is generated at the time the apparatus is originally assembled.
FIG. 5 shows the initialization of the PC with a TPM module. On the basis of a PKI (public key infrastructure), an authentication key is generated, and said key is then signed publicly. Then the public key and a suitable certificate are imported. Then the root certificate is imported from the PKI. All this information is deposited in the TPM.
In the RM3 module, or in the chip card reader, a key pair is generated, and a request is made to the PKI to certify a public key. Then this public key is certified, and in the next step said key is imported again into the component of the self-service automat. Further, the CA root certificate of the PKI is imported. After both components have been prepared, said components are connected to each other, and the steps described in FIG. 7 are performed. A technician authenticates himself to the system and requests the system to carry out a key initialization. Then the components communicate with each other. The two components exchange their certificates and inspect said certificates. If it turns out that the certificates are correct, a secret base key is transmitted in code. The above named algorithms build on this common base key. | Method to secure the communication of components within self-service automats that are linked to each other by a bus system, having a transmitter and a receiver, characterized in that data are exchanged as tupels (C,A,R,N,Z) on the transport layer of the bus system where
C are the message data M encrypted with an encryption key, A are the message data M authenticated with an authentication key, R represents the role of a component on the bus system of active or passive participants, N represents a message counter, Z represents a session counter. | 7 |
This application is a continuation of application Ser. No. 550,759, filed Nov. 10, 1983, now abandoned.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to semiconductor material processing and in particular to III-V semiconductor material processing.
2. Art Background
Low temperature alternatives to conventional chemical vapor deposition processes have been sought for the deposition of materials such as III-V semiconductor thin films utilized in a variety of device fabrication procedures. Low temperature processes, i.e., processes involving temperatures lower than 500 degrees C., offer the advantage of allowing deposition of a film without substantially affecting previously deposited layers containing materials that undergo compositional and/or phase changes at relatively low temperatures.
One approach being pursued in an attempt to achieve low temperature deposition involves the use of photo-stimulated techniques. In these techniques, electromagnetic radiation from a source such as a laser or a high intensity lamp is utilized to induce a chemical reaction in a gas that is present at the substrate upon which deposition is desired. Such radiation induced processes have fallen generally into two categories. In the first category, an ultraviolet lamp has been utilized in attempts to induce dissociation in a deposition gas, e.g., a metal organic compound, through photodecomposition to produce semiconductor material. However, as reported by Aylett and Haight (Materials Research Society Symposium, Boston, November 1982, paper I5.4), the use of an ultraviolet lamp in conjunction with organometallic materials such as (CH 3 ) 3 InP(CH 3 ) 3 leads only to the formation of indium droplets or alternatively to indium phosphide whiskers.
In a second approach directed to the deposition of III-V materials, a laser such as a Nd-YAG laser (532 nm) is utilized to irradiate a substrate in the presence of a deposition gas such as a composition including trimethyl gallium and arsine (AsH 3 ). The laser is chosen so that its wavelength intensity is centered at energies that are not absorbed by the gas but that are instead absorbed by the substrate to produce surface heating. This heating, as reported by Roth et al (Materials Research Society Symposium, Boston, November 1982, paper I6.2), pyrolyzes the trimethyl gallium and the arsine, resulting in gallium and arsenic entities that combine to form a gallium arsenide deposit. Although by this approach gallium arsenide, rather than gallium droplets, is obtained in deposition regions substantially larger than whisker size, the process induces substantial substrate heating and in fact is essentially the same as other high temperature approaches. Thus, although there are processing advantages potentially available through the utilization of photo-stimulated processes, the procedures pursued have not yielded satisfactory results for III-V materials or are, in fact, not low temperature techniques.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Low temperature deposition of compound semiconductor materials, such as III-V semiconductor materials, that allows the production of useful semiconductor devices has been achieved by utilizing a specific radiation induced process. In particular, a high intensity source of electromagnetic radiation is employed, together with a deposition gas (rather than or in addition to a substrate) that absorbs this radiation. The intensity of the actinic radiation is maintained at a sufficiently high level so that multiphoton dissociation processes in the deposition gas are induced. For example, by irradiating a gas including an adduct of (CH 3 ) 3 In and P(CH 3 ) 3 and a separate source of P(CH 3 ) 3 with an ArF excimer laser (193 nm center wavelength), multiphoton processes are induced, and low temperature deposition of indium phosphide is produced on a substrate region adjacent to the illuminated portion of the gas.
Through the invention, not only is low temperature, i.e., temperature below 500 degrees C., deposition of compound semiconductor materials achieved, but also deposition occurs at quite nominal rates, e.g., at a rate greater than 100 Å/min. Additionally, through the use of this process, abrupt junction formation is achievable. This result is accomplished by irradiating a deposition gas of a first composition to produce one material layer, extinguishing the radiation, introducing a second deposition gas, and again irradiating to produce a second material layer.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING
The FIGURE is illustrative of an apparatus suitable for use of the invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
The advantages of the inventive process involve the utilization of an incident flux of electromagnetic radiation that induces dissociation in the deposition gas through multiphoton absorption to form a compound semiconductor material, e.g., a III-V semiconductor material such as indium phosphide, gallium arsenide, and ternaries and quaternaries based on chemical combinations of indium, gallium, arsenic, aluminum, and phosphorus. In this context, multiphoton or multiple photon absorption is defined as a total photon absorption by the absorbing molecule and its fragments of two or more photons to induce partial or complete dissociation of the absorbing molecule in at least 0.01 percent of the irradiated gas molecules. Thus, for example, if trimethyl indium is present in the deposition gas, light having a wavelength of 193 nm induces a multiphoton process that leads to fragments such as indium atoms.
The intensity of light required to induce multiple photon dissociation processes is quite significant and should be substantially higher than that required to produce dissociation through pathways involving single photon absorption. In particular, for typical gases such as organometallic gases, power densities in the range 0.1 MW/cm 2 to 10 GW/cm 2 over a time period of at least a picosecond are required to produce the desired multiphoton dissociation. To satisfy this criterion, the power density is computed only for wavelengths within the incident electromagnetic radiation spectrum at which entities in the deposition gas containing atoms ultimately to be incorporated in the material to be deposited have an absorption coefficient greater than 10 l/mole/cm. Entities within the deposition gas for the computation include both molecules and molecular fragments. Absorption coefficients are measured by well-known techniques, such as described in J. G. Calvert and J. N. Pitts, Jr., Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 1966. Generally, for energy densities below 0.1 MW/cm 2 , multiphoton processes are not substantially induced, while for energy densities above 10 GW/cm 2 , undesirable by-products are produced.
The desired energy flux to induce multiphoton processes is typically produced by employing a pulsed laser source. The repetition rate (i.e., the exposure time) and the extent of beam focus determine the fragment level available for layer formation. Generally, for levels sufficient to produce advantageous deposition rates, e.g., typically those greater than 0.1 μm/hr, repetition rates in the range 0.1 Hz to 10,000 Hz are utilized with the beam sufficiently focused to obtain power densities as described above. (It is possible that other processes such as single photon dissociation are also occurring during the inventive process. However, to obtain the desirable results of the invention, fragments from multiphoton dissociation should result in at least 50 percent of the layer formation at a deposition rate of at least 0.1 μm/hr.)
The concentration of the gas in the vicinity of the deposition substrate also affects the deposition process. If the concentration is too low, an insufficient quantity of deposition fragments if produced, and therefore an extremely low deposition rate is obtained. If the concentration is too high, incident light is absorbed relatively far from the substrate, with a resulting substantial decrease in the level of deposition fragments reaching the substrate surface. Thus, the concentration of the deposition gas should be chosen so that the absorption of at least 1 percent of the incident light that is capable of inducing dissociation through multiphoton processes occurs in a region within 1 cm of the deposition surface. (Although heating of the substrate is not required for the invention, heating of the substrate by, for example, radio frequency generators, high intensity lamps, or resistive heaters, to temperatures in the range 100 degrees C. to 500 degrees C. is at times advantageous because of the improved properties of the film, e.g., enhanced surface diffusion leading to improved epitaxy for III-V semiconductor films.)
The components of the deposition gas are chosen to yield fragments that combine to yield the desired semiconductor material. Typically, trialkyl metals and/or trialkyl pnictides are employed where the alkyl group is generally either ethyl or methyl. For example, to yield suitable fragments containing a Group III atom, materials, e.g., organometallic compounds such as trialkyl metals, e.g., (CH 3 ) 3 In, (CH 3 ) 3 Al, and (CH 3 ) 3 Ga are utilized to, for example, produce upon irradiation indium, aluminum, and gallium containing fragments. (Often an adduct of (CH 3 ) 3 In and (CH 3 ) 3 P is employed rather than (CH 3 ) 3 In alone since the latter is pyrophoric while the former combination is not.) Sources of the Group V atom such as phosphorus and arsenic atoms are obtained by fragmentation of gases, e.g., (1) PH 3 and/or trialkyl pnictides such as P(CH 3 ) 3 and (2) AsH 3 and/or trialkyl metals such as As(CH 3 ) 3 , respectively. Thus, for example, in indium phosphide is the desired deposited material, then deposition gas constituents such as (CH 3 ) 3 In and P(CH 3 ) 3 are utilized. If gallium arsenide is the desired material, then deposition gas constituents such as Ga(CH 3 ) 3 and As(CH 3 ) 3 are utilized. Similarly, if a ternary such as indium gallium arsenide or gallium aluminum arsenide is to be formed, deposition gas constituents such as (CH 3 ) 3 In, (CH 3 ) 3 Ga, and (CH 3 ) 3 As, or (CH 3 ) 3 Al, (CH 3 ) 3 Ga, and (CH 3 ) 3 As, respectively, are used, while if a quaternary such as indium gallium arsenide phosphide is desired, combinations such as (CH 3 ) 3 In/(CH.sub. 3) 3 Ga/P(CH 3 ) 3 /As(CH 3 ) 3 are employed.
The ratio of the Group III atom containing constituent to the Group V atom containing constituent also influences the material obtained. Indeed, for ternaries and quaternaries, the ratio of the various gas constituents determines the precise stoichiometry of the deposited material. Typically, there is no method of a priori determining the precise gas ratio that will yield a desired stoichiometry. A control sample is utilized to determine the constituent ratio that yields the desired deposited layer stoichiometry.
Once the desired material is deposited, the device is completed by conventional techniques. The following examples are illustrative of the subject invention.
EXAMPLE 1
Deposition was performed on irregular sized substrates having surface areas of approximately 2 cm 2 and whose major surface was in the (100) plane. The substrates were cleaned by sequentially immersing them in boiling chloroform, boiling acetone, and boiling methanol. The substrates were then rinsed with deionized water and dipped for approximately 10 seconds in a 1:10 by volume solution of HF in water. The substrates were then etched by immersing them in a 10:1:1 solution which included sulfuric acid, H 2 O 2 (50 percent), and water. The substrates were maintained in this etchant for 5 minutes and then rinsed by sequentially subjecting them to five 10-second agitated immersions in deionized water. The substrates were then again immersed in the aqueous HF solution and then blown dry in dry nitrogen.
The substrates were inserted on the sample holder of the apparatus shown in the FIGURE. This apparatus included a sample holder, 15, an excimer laser light source (193 nm), 10, suprasil™ window, 30, and a heater, 25. The apparatus was then evacuated through port, 70, to a pressure of approximately 20 mTorr. A flow of helium of approximately 140 sccm was introduced through port, 5. After approximately 5 minutes, a flow of hydrogen at a rate of approximately 150 sccm was introduced through inlet, 40. The sbstrates were heated to a temperature of 100 degrees C. using heater, 25. A flow of approximately 30 sccm of trimethyl phosphine was established and initially run through a tube which bypassed the reactor. Similarly, a flow of helium at the rate of approximately 86 sccm was passed through a bubbler containing an adduct of trimethyl indium and trimethyl phosphine held at approximately 50 degrees C. The helium flow exiting the bubbler was also initially routed to bypass the reactor. After these two flows were established, they were combined and introduced into inlet, 40, together with the initial hydrogen flow. (The total pressure was approximately 2 Torr.) Within 5 seconds of this introduction, light from the excimer laser was introduced through window, 30, and made incident in the region above the substrate. This excimer laser had a pulse rate of approximately 5 Hz, was focused to a beam spot size of approximately 2×4 mm, and had a peak power of approximately 10 MW/cm 2 . The laser illumination was continued for approximately 30 minutes and then terminated. Within 5 seconds of the termination of illumination, the deposition gases were again routed so that they bypassed the reactor. The hydrogen gas flow was then terminated and the substrate removed from the chamber. A continuous specular layer of indium phosphide having a stoichiometry of 1:1 was obtained. This layer had no carbon or oxygen impurities as measured by Auger spectrometry. The thickness of the layer was approximately 800 Å.
EXAMPLE 2
The procedure of Example 1 was followed, except a gallium arsenide deposition substrate was utilized. The gallium arsenide substrate was cleaned by sequential treatment with chloroform, acetone, and methanol and then by immersion in a 1:10 hydrogen chloride aqueous solution. | A low temperature procedure for depositing III-V semiconductor materials that offers the possibility of higher deposition rates together with abrupt junction formation has been found. This process involves the irradiation at a deposition substrate with a high power density radiation source of deposition gases such as organometallic materials, e.g., trimethyl gallium and trimethyl indium. By utilizing a sufficiently high power density, multiphoton processes are induced in the deposition gas that, in turn, lead to advantageous deposited materials. | 8 |
CROSS-REFERENCE To RELATED APPLICATION
[0001] This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/874,934, filed on Sep. 6, 2013 in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the entire content of which is incorporated herein by reference.
FIELD
[0002] Aspects of embodiments of the present invention relate to a polyester fabric, a method of manufacturing a polyester fabric, and a method of manufacturing an article of clothing.
BACKGROUND
[0003] The textile manufacturing industry has for many decades been involved in heavy environmental pollution. This is mainly related to the need to color (dye) fabrics with chemicals, which in traditional dyeing methods are applied with dye stuffs put into dye baths and then dyeing by immersing the fabric into the colored water. The dye bath process is repeated multiple times for each dye lot, with the wastewater of each dye bath becoming wastewater. The cotton industry has relied on this way of coloring textiles over many decades, generating enormous amounts of wastewater. In discovering the very negative side effects of polluting wastewater, increasingly stringent regulations for wastewater treatment requirements have been demanded by governments and populations.
[0004] Synthetic fabrics such as polyester have in addition to the above problem also been faced with color migration issues from dyeing, such as “bleeding color” from one product to another in the washing machine or one panel to the other on a garment style, or bleeding into the printed ink numbers on the back of an athletic wear (e.g., a basketball shirt).
[0005] As such, there has long been a need for a textile manufacturing process, in particular, in the athletic performance and team wear industry, to reduce the use of water and to overcome migration of color.
SUMMARY
[0006] Aspects of the present invention are related to the manufacturing processes along the whole supply chain, from source of raw material to end product.
[0007] Recycled polyester materials have emerged to be applied increasingly to consumer product manufacturing in the recent past. Such products are made by using polyester raw chips derived from recycled polyesters often without much restriction of the source of the recycled polyester materials. Such widely available recycled polyester raw materials contain crude impurities. Using such crude open source recycled polyester materials reduces the possibility of desirable performance of the filament fiber formed and hence any useful finishing application in base layer clothing category articles. According to an aspect of the present invention, in making base layer textile clothing materials, key steps have been identified along the entire supply chain manufacturing processes for the fabric to be developed with the specifically desired characteristics.
[0008] Filament fiber is originally produced from the recycled polyester chips and is subsequently cut into short staple fibers, and then spun into yarns (from the short staple fiber). The yarns are usually quite coarse (too coarse to be worn), and in order to be useful require a new process to produce a fabric soft enough to wear.
[0009] The present invention facilitates the use of polyester materials, such as recycled polyester materials, into a much softer fabric, making it suitable for the end use of a variety of base-layer garments, such as underwear, T-shirts, polo-shirts, etc., while achieving a much more environmentally friendly production process by a dramatic reduction of water, energy and chemical use, compared to traditional and current fabrics production methods.
[0010] To begin, this new process uses polyester raw chips, such as polyester raw chips narrowly selected and obtained from recycled polyester bottles. The bottles must be well cleaned in order to get consistent and high-quality recycled polyester chips. Alternatively, the polyester raw chips may be obtained from polyester bottles or polyethylene terephthalate (PET) chips. The polyester raw chips are loaded in a large tank where a melting and bleaching process is carried out at 260-285° C. After the bleaching process, pigment color chips are loaded into the tank and melted together at 260-285° C. in the filament fiber formation stage to obtain already colored filament. Then the fiber is extruded at 270-285° C. from the spinneret in the form of colored filament.
[0011] The filament fiber will be well oiled and drawn to achieve optimal strength. The filament is then softened at normal temperature and then heat set to stabilize its properties. This is then followed by crimping the fiber. The crimping process is by mechanical molding to give crimp to the original straight filament. After that, the curled fiber will be heat set again and cut into proper size, for example 38 mm in length. The polyester staple fiber with inherent color is then formed. A number of color matching challenges have been overcome by engineering modifications to the very sensitive and difficult filament color matching process. Normal recycled polyester fibers are colored with available primary color raw chips so the colors are very limited and not able to hit specific colors. The process of the present invention involves mixing of primary color pigment raw chips with high sublimation resistance colorant under the monitor of Data Color CMC evaluation to control the LAB value so as obtain delta E value within 1.0 against specific color standard.
[0012] The staple fiber with inherent color will go through a combing process to become slivers and will then be drawn to make roving on a roving frame. Roving will be attenuated and twisted to form knitting yarn with higher twist at 370-390 twist factor instead of a normal 300-320 twist factor on the spinning frame so as to achieve better piling and cleaner surface. This polyester knitting yarn therefore achieves an inherent color with less hairy surface and higher strength. A single yarn spun under a normal twist factor of 320 has yarn strength of 350 CN, whereas, according to embodiments of the present invention, under a twist factor of 370-390 a much higher yarn strength of 400 CN is obtained for achieving a soft hand feel in the finishing process.
[0013] The now already colored staple fiber has been spun into yarn with a modified spinning technique by applying it higher twist factor of 370-390 instead of the normal 320 to give much stronger, cleaner, less hairy and softer yarn. These yarns are then knitted into a lightweight fabric with desirable stretch and recovery performance. The elongation at weft direction is set at 130% and wrap direction at 60% and recovery is over 96% under ASTM D2594 testing method. The above steps in coloring yarn have now completely eliminated the need for the heavy polluting traditional dyeing process.
[0014] The lightweight inherently colored knitted fabric of the present invention is then put through a customized washing process. A normal dyeing process takes much higher temperature at 130° C. and exhaustion time of about 7 hours, whereas according to the present invention, the fabric is pretreated and rinsed under low temperature of 45-55° C. and short washing time of 15-20 minutes so as to give a soft and comfortable hand feel as the much shorter washing cycle at much lower temperature causes less degradation on the hand feel of the fabric. In order to retain this soft hand feel, the polyester fabric is put through a sterner in a differently engineered way. Normal polyester fabric dyed with disperse dye which has a sublimation problem needs to be pre-heat set at a high temperature of 195° C. and then must wash away the unfixed dyestuff, and stentering is needed a second time. The polyester fabric according to the present invention is colored with pigment which has no sublimation problem, and the fabric only needs to be heat set once at 190-195° C. instead of two times. After the washing process chemicals are applied for specific functionality of a given fabrication: moisture wicking, anti-odor and anti-bacterial agents may be applied in a customized engineered manner, such as using silver-polymer and curing in the beat setting process for a specific functionality of withstanding home laundering more than 50 times, and the stenter process is also modified as explained above, compared to the standard. First, a lower temperature than standard is applied in the stenter process. Then, the fabric is only run through the sterner one at the modified temperature (versus the traditional polyester fabrics requiring and being subjected to the extremely high heat of the stenter process two times in order to stabilize the fabric but oftentimes also hardening the fabric in the process). All of the above engineering modification steps to the finishing process in combination with the careful selection of raw material chip at the best grade and yarn making and knitting process combine to produce and maintain a soft hand feel in an inherently colored fabric, with now far superior colorfastness (because the color is locked inside the yarn) resulting in a highly commercially viable and environmentally friendly base layer garment.
[0015] The present invention involves using several different polyester fabrics of different constructions as well as different functional finishes, in order to form a customized garment product to meet end users' specific wearing requirements. The end user will enjoy a garment product with improved colorfastness, without the need to use any water at all in the fabric dyeing process, resulting in a significant saving in water, energy, chemicals with lower emissions of toxic gases and other waste products polluting our environment.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0016] The novel features of this invention, both as to its structure and its operation, will be best understood from drawings, taken in conjunction with accompanying description, in which similar reference characters refer to similar parts, and in which:
[0017] FIG. 1 is a simplified schematic view of production equipment for manufacturing polyester clothing in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention;
[0018] FIG. 2A is a flowchart that outlines a process for manufacturing a polyester knitted fabric with inherent color and assembling it into an article of clothing, according to an embodiment of the present invention;
[0019] FIG. 2B is a flowchart that outlines a process tot manufacturing polyester fabric, according to an embodiment of the present invention;
[0020] FIG. 3A is a front view of a men's underwear constructed from a combination of polyester fabrics made using a method of the present invention;
[0021] FIG. 3B is a rear view of the men's underwear illustrated in FIG. 3A ;
[0022] FIG. 3C is a front view of a women's underwear constructed twin a combination of polyester fabrics made using a method of the present invention;
[0023] FIG. 3D is a rear view of the women's underwear illustrated in FIG. 3C ;
[0024] FIG. 3E is a front view of a T-shirt constructed from a combination of polyester fabrics made using a method of the present invention; and
[0025] FIG. 3F is a rear view of the T-shirt illustrated in FIG. 3E .
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
[0026] FIG. 1 is a simplified schematic view of production equipment 10 for manufacturing articles of polyester clothing, or recycled polyester clothing, such as a men's or women's underwear or T-shirt illustrated in FIGS. 3A-3F , in accordance with one or more embodiments of the present invention. In one or more embodiments, the production equipment 10 includes a polyester fabric manufacturing section 11 where a finishing polyester fabric 26 with required function is manufactured, a material warehouse 28 where the fabric 26 and other accessories 27 are held, a cutting station 29 where one or more polyester fabric 26 and accessories 27 are cut into desired shapes and sizes, and a sewing station 30 where the fabric 26 and accessories 27 are assembled to produce articles 31 of polyester clothing, such as C1, C2 and C3 in FIGS. 3A-3F .
[0027] In the embodiment illustrated in FIG. 1 , the polyester fabric manufacturing section 11 includes a polyester chip formation machine 13 for making polyester chips 14 from polyester bottles 12 , a polyester fiber machine 15 to produce polyester fiber 17 in proper size, a yarn spinning frame 18 which will produce proper yarn 19 for knitting, a circular knitting machine 21 , a washing machine 23 , and a stenter 24 .
[0028] Polyester bottles 12 go through a process of cleaning, drying, and rue then chopped into small pieces and melted to form the polyester chips 14 by the chip formation machine 13 . Because the polyester chips 14 contain much less impurities and are more consistent in terms of source of raw material, a stronger staple fiber is produced which facilitates spinning of finer yarns to produce lighter weight fabric which is strong yet soft, such as for an end use of intimate garments such as underwear and T-shirts.
[0029] The polyester raw chips 14 are mixed with pigment chips 16 (which have color), melted at 260-285 degrees Celsius, extruded through a spinneret at 270-285 degrees Celsius, oiled, crimped, and finally cut into staple fiber of a dimension, such as 1.5D×38 mm. So the polyester staple fiber 17 (e.g., recycled polyester staple fiber) formed has the inherent color from the pigment chips 16 .
[0030] Then, the colored polyester fiber 17 will go through the modified combing process in which one additional combing process is added to achieve better alignment of fiber along the yarn to give a smoother surface on the sliver and in which a drawing ratio is slightly reduced by 20 percent so that the size of the sliver formed under such combing process is finer than sliver of other normal recycled polyester, e.g., due to the stronger fiber 17 formed by better quality raw chips 14 . Again, unlike a comparable process, more than one sliver (e.g., two to three, depending on final yarn size specification) are drawn into the roving frame with modified draft ratio of 20 percent reduction to form a softer roving. The roving is then spun under higher twist (above 800 tpm, or twist per minute) to make the proper count of knitting yarn 19 on the spinning frame 18 , for example, 40s 100% polyester yarn in green color. The yarn formed as a result of the modified combing, roving and spinning processes as described above is much softer, cleaner, less hairy, and much stronger. Then the polyester yarn 19 will be knitted into polyester fabric 22 on the circular knitting machine 21 . The polyester knitted fabric 22 (e.g., recycled polyester knitted fabric) formed already has color and there is no need to dye the fabric under a traditional dyeing process. As a result, the polyester knitted fabric 22 produced under the present invention avoids many hours (e.g., seven hours) of severe high temperature and chemical treatment during the traditional dyeing process. The polyester knitted fabric 22 is able to maintain a much cleaner surface, softer hand feel and better physical performance in all respects.
[0031] After knitting, the polyester knitted fabric 22 which already has color will be washed in the washing machine 23 , such as an open width washing range, in order to get rid of the dirt and oil obtained from the previous process. It is very much different from the washing process of normal polyester fabrics which require a traditional dyeing method as fabric after dyeing has to go through a prolonged washing process of 6 hours inside the overflow dyeing machine at 130° C. According to an embodiment of the present invention the fabric is washed under low temperature of 45-55° C. and short washing time of 15-20 minutes.
[0032] After washed and de-watered, the fabric 22 will directly go into the stenter 24 for heat-setting at 190-195° C. at a speed of 20 meters per minute to get the finished polyester fabric 26 with stable dimension and weight. In an embodiment of the present invention, the fabric 22 only goes through the sterner 24 once, while comparable recycled polyester fabrics which require the traditional dyeing process have to go through a stenter at least two times as the grey fabric has to be washed before dyeing, and has to go through the stenter to get stabilized in dimension at a high temperature of 195 degrees Celsius to minimize distortion during the prolonged dyeing process. And after the dyeing process, the comparable dyed fabric has to go through stenter once again at a temperature of 180 degrees Celsius. The additional high-temperature stenter process, to a certain extent poses damage to the polyester fiber and contributes to harsh hand feel on the comparable recycled polyester fabrics.
[0033] Some functional chemical agents 25 , such as wicking, anti-bacterial, anti-odor, etc., can be added onto the fabric during the stentering process to obtain the functional finished polyester fabric 26 .
[0034] The finished polyester fabric 26 is now ready to be utilized in the final manufacturing of desired articles of polyester clothing, such as articles C1 C2, C3 in FIGS. 3A-3F . The material warehouse 28 holds one or more fabrics 26 and other accessories 27 which are to be used in making polyester clothing. Then one or more polyester fabrics 26 and accessories 27 will be cut into proper sizes and shapes in the cutting station 29 . The cut fabric panels and accessories will be moved to the sewing station 30 and assembled into articles 31 of polyester clothing, such as C1, C2, C3.
[0035] FIG. 2A is a flowchart that outlines a process for manufacturing a finished polyester knit fabric 26 (e.g., a recycled polyester knit fabric) and assembling one at more of the fabrics 26 with proper accessories into a desired articles of clothing, according to an embodiment of the present invention.
[0036] Step 201 involves obtaining polyester chips from polyester bottles, such as recycled polyester bottles. Alternatively, the polyester chips may be PET chips. Step 202 involves producing the colored line polyester fiber from chips mixed with pigment chips. The pigment chips bring the inherent color to the fiber, and this color is permanently fixed inside the fiber during extrusion, so this fiber has Very good colorfastness properties versus fabric produced under a traditional dyeing process, as does the yarn and fabric made from this fiber, that is, colorfastness to washing AATCC61-2A at grade 4.5 or greater, colorfastness to perspiration AATCC15-2006 at grade 4.5 or greater, colorfastness to water AATCC 107 at grade 4.5 or greater, colorfastness to hot press AATCC 117 at grade 4.5 or greater, dye transfer in storage AATCC 163-2007 90° C. for hours at grade 4.5 or greater, colorfastness to crocking AATCC 8-2013 at grade 4.5 or greater.
[0037] Step 203 involves spinning polyester yarn with this polyester fiber with inherent color. In this step, special combing, roving and spinning techniques as described above are used to get better yarn which is softer, cleaner less hairy, and has better strength. Step 204 involves knitting the polyester fabric with the polyester yarn. Because this polyester yarn from step 203 has inherent color, the knitted fabric has inherent color too. Also, this polyester yarn can be knitted with other yarn or spandex to get a special pattern or elasticity, such as jersey, rib, interlock, pique, and double knit constructions. Step 205 involves washing the knitted fabric to remove oil and dirt. Step 206 involves heat-setting the fabric on a stenter. The knitted fabric will be heat-set at 190-195° C. at the speed of 20 meters per minute. Functional chemical agents, such as wicking, anti-bacterial, and anti-odor, can be added into the tank on the stenter, so that the polyester fabric can have the desired function after stentering.
[0038] Step 208 involves cutting the finished fabrics and other accessories (obtained from step 207 ). In this step, the fabrics and accessories will be cut into right sizes and shapes according to the pattern of the clothing, such as shown in FIGS. 3A-3F . Different parts of the clothing may use different constructed and finished fabric according to the requirements. For example, a certain area may need anti-bacterial fabric, and a certain area may need mesh construction to achieve better air permeability. Step 209 in assembling the polyester fabric cut panels into desired clothing.
[0039] FIG. 2B is a flowchart that outlines a process tot manufacturing a polyester knitted fabric (e.g., a recycled polyester knitted fabric) with inherent color, according to an embodiment of the present invention. Step 210 involves cleaning and drying polyester bottles. Because the raw material may be selected from cleaned recycled polyester bottles, the recycled polyester raw materials have much less impurities and more consistent quality in terms of uniqueness of raw material source. Step 211 involves cutting the cleaned bottles to make the polyester chips, such as recycled polyester chips. Step 212 involves melting the chips together with pigment chips and extruding the polyester filament fiber. So, the polyester filament fiber has the inherent color which is permanently fixed inside the fiber, which leads to good colorfastness properties of the fabric. Step 213 involves drawing the fiber to get extra strength to the fiber and cutting the fiber into polyester staple fiber of proper size, for example 38 mm in length. Step 203 involves spinning the polyester staple fiber into yarns for knitting.
[0040] Step 204 involves knitting the colored polyester yarn on circular knitting machine. The polyester yarn can be knitted with spandex to get elasticity or with other yarn to get special pattern or structure. Step 205 involves washing fabric in open wider washing range or overflow dyeing machine at 45-55 degrees Celsius for 15-20 minutes after heating the water to 45-55 degrees Celsius. After washing, the fabric is dewatered before the next step. Step 206 involves heat-setting the knitted polyester fabric on a stenter. During this step, the fabric may be finished with wicking, anti-bacterial, and other chemical agents to get the finished polyester fabric with color and with proper function.
[0041] FIGS. 3A to 3F are illustrations of a polyester men's underwear, a polyester women's underwear C2, and a polyester T-shirt C3, respectively. FIG 3 A is it front view of a men's underwear boxer C1, and FIG. 3B is a rear view of the underwear boxer C1 FIG. 3C is a front view of a women's underwear C2, and FIG. 3D is a rear view of the underwear C2, FIG. 3E is a front view of a T-shirt C3, and FIG. 3F is a rear view of the T-shirt C3. Fabric article 32 is a kind of finished fabric 26 having a specific construction and with wicking finish while fabric article 33 is another kind of finished fabric 26 but having a different construction and with wicking, anti -bacterial and anti-odor finish as according to specific locations and needs on garment C1, C2, and C3, respectively.
[0042] The manufacturing process of the garments C1, C2, and C3 involves getting the fabric articles 32 and 33 , as well as accessories 27 from the materials warehouse 28 , cutting both fabric articles 32 and 33 , as well as the accessories 27 , in the cutting station 29 according to their desired shapes and sizes cut garments C1, C2, and C3, respectively, and an assembly station 30 were all the different cut panels of fabric articles 32 and 33 together with the accessories 27 are sewn together according to the design to produce the desired articles of polyester clothing C1, C2, and C3.
[0043] Although the drawings and accompanying description illustrate some exemplary embodiments of the present invention, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that the novel aspects of the present invention may also be carried out by utilizing alternative structures, sizes, shapes, and/or materials in embodiments of the present invention. Also, for example, while methods are described, herein with respect to “steps,” this is not intended to limit the present invention. That is the above description of some exemplary embodiments is not intended to limit the steps to being performed in the order described herein or to preclude the omission or addition of one or more steps.
[0044] The preceding description has been presented with reference to various embodiments of the invention. Persons skilled in the art and technology to which this invention pertains will appreciate that alterations and changes in the described structures and methods of operation can be practiced without meaningfully departing from the principles, spirit, and scope of this invention. | A method of manufacturing a polyester fabric with inherent color, the method including: providing a polyester fiber with inherent color; spinning polyester yarn from the fiber with inherent color; knitting the colored polyester yarn into knitted fabric which can combine with other yarn according to a requirement; wishing the colored polyester fabric and heat-setting the fabrics with add-on functional finish to the fabric. The providing of polyester fiber with inherent color may include: cleaning and drying polyester bottles; recycling polyester chips from clean bottles; mixing chips with pigment evenly and melting the chips with pigment; extruding the filament fiber with color; and drawing and cutting filament fiber into staple fiber. Further aspects of the present invention are directed to a colored polyester fabric and a method of manufacturing an article of clothing, using a colored polyester fabric produced using the above-described method. | 3 |
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to discs and associated components intended principally, although not necessarily exclusively, for cleaners of liquid-containing vessels and more particularly to automatic pool cleaners having discs with rigidized fins or other protrusions.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
U.S. Pat. No. 5,421,054 to Dawson, et al., commonly-owned with this application, illustrates examples of discs having flexible fins. The fins extend upward beyond the peripheries of the (generally planar portions of the) discs. As noted in the Dawson patent, these fins “assist [the disc] in maneuvering over many objects (such as drains, lights, valves, and nozzles) projecting from internal surfaces of pools.” See Dawson, col. 2, 11. 59-61. Because located at the peripheries of discs, the fins also “contact most protrusions before the remainder[s] of” the discs. See id., 1. 63.
Commonly-owned U.S. Pat. No. 5,465,443 to Rice, et al. discloses additional examples of discs having flexible fins. Pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/708,925 of Moore, et al. describes yet additional sample discs with flexible fins. The finned portions of these discs typically form the forwardmost structure of their associated pool cleaners, so that they usually contact protrusions and other obstacles in advance of the remainders of the cleaners. Stated in the Moore application is that the fins “provid[e] sufficient rigidity to [the] disc to enable it to ride over various objects, including many drains, lights, valves, and other nozzles, projecting from internal surfaces of pools.” See Moore, p. 8, 11. 20-22.
In these and other discs having fins (or similar outwardly-extending protrusions), the fins and generally planar portions of the discs are usually integrally formed. The fins of the Dawson and Rice patents, for example, may be molded together with generally planar portions of the corresponding discs. Fins of the Moore application, likewise, may be molded together with the forward section of the disc.
Lacking, therefore, from these patents and application is any discussion of outwardly-extending protrusions that comprise multiple pieces. Similarly lacking is any discussion of adaptors for the fins to accommodate circumstances in which the coefficient of friction of, e.g., the leading edge of the disc needs to be decreased or when lateral bending of the fins needs to be discouraged. Also not specifically addressed is any mechanism for enhancing integrated movement of the fins and planar disc sections when desired.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention includes components configured to resolve the foregoing issues. Among these components are separate members, or covers, for the fins or other protrusions. Facially resembling false fingernails in some embodiments, the covers may be placed onto fins and removed therefrom as needed. Presently-preferred versions of the covers are made from material (a) more rigid and (b) having lower coefficient of friction than the fins, hence both discouraging lateral bending of the fins and decreasing frictional contact with surfaces when certain obstacles or walls are encountered by a corresponding disc operating within a pool. Versions of the covers also may contact planar portions of the disc adjacent the fins, resulting in more coordinated upward movement of the fins and planar portions in selected circumstances.
A cover of the invention may, if desired, be molded or otherwise formed in a single piece, with a generally horizontal portion and an upwardly-curved, generally vertically-oriented portion. The interior of the cover is hollow, allowing it to slide onto (over) and receive a fin. Frictional contact between the fin and interior of the cover may retain the cover in place, especially (although not exclusively) when the fin has non-uniform width.
Included as part of the generally horizontal portion of the cover may be a lower cut-out into which the generally planar portion of a disc is fitted. So fitting the planar portion permits the cover to contact both a fin and the planar portion, allowing the cover to influence motion of both portions of the disc jointly. The lower cut-out also arguably helps guide the fin for receipt by the hollow receiving portion of the cover.
It thus is an optional, non-exclusive object of the present invention to provide covers for protruding portions of discs.
It also is an optional, non-exclusive object of the present invention to provide covers that are separable from the discs, which covers may be added or removed as necessary or desired.
It is a further optional, non-exclusive object of the present invention to provide covers made from material of greater rigidity than the protruding portions of discs with which they are associated.
It is, moreover, an optional, non-exclusive object of the present invention to provide covers made from material having lower coefficient of friction than the protruding portions of discs with which they are associated.
It is another optional, non-exclusive object of the present invention to provide covers which, when in use, retain associated protruding portions of a disc via frictional fit.
It is an additional object of the present invention to provide automatic swimming pool cleaners including discs with which the covers may be used.
Other features, advantages, and objects of the present invention will be apparent to those of requisite skill in appropriate fields with reference to the remaining text and drawings of this application.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 is an isometric view of a cover of the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a worm's-eye view of the cover of FIG. 1 .
FIGS. 3-4 illustrate placement of covers such as that of FIG. 1 onto discs.
FIG. 5 shows portions of an automatic pool cleaner having a disc onto which covers such as that of FIG. 1 may be seated.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
Depicted in FIGS. 1-4 is exemplary member or cover 10 of the present invention. Presently preferred versions of cover 10 are one-piece structures molded into a rigid shape. In particular, cover 10 typically is designed to be substantially harder (i.e. more rigid) than 80 A Shore, the typical hardness of its associated disc 14 . Alternatively, cover 10 may comprise more than one piece.
Whether a one- or multi-piece structure, cover 10 may include generally vertically-oriented portion 18 and generally horizontal portion 22 . As shown in FIGS. 1-4 , portion 18 may extend upward from portion 22 . Portion 18 also may be curved, generally matching the shape of leading edges 26 of fins 30 spaced radially about disc 14 (see FIGS. 3-5 ). If protrusions shaped other than fins 30 extend outward beyond periphery 34 of disc 14 , portion 18 may, of course, be shaped differently than as shown.
Generally vertically-oriented portion 18 may comprise wall 38 and, at upper end 42 , cap 46 . Wall 38 has generally U-shaped cross-section, thus forming hollow area 50 into which fin 30 may be frictionally fitted. Cap 46 functions as a stop, contacting uppermost part 54 of fin 30 when cover 10 is properly positioned.
Generally horizontal portion 22 may include spaced walls 58 and 62 , with walls 58 and 62 being connected at end 66 by bridge 70 . Walls 58 and 62 also are integrally formed with (or connected to) wall 38 . Additionally incorporated into portion 22 may be cut-outs 74 and 78 , in which parts of walls 58 and 62 , respectively, are not present. Cut-outs 74 and 78 , hence, may serve to receive generally planar portion 82 of disc 14 . In such event respective edges 86 and 90 of cut-outs 74 and 78 may act as stops by contacting periphery 34 when cover 10 is properly seated on fin 30 .
Although bridge 70 is among various optional features of cover 10 , if present it may be useful in guiding fin 30 into hollow area 50 . In particular, bridge 70 may contact and slide along trailing edge 94 of fin 30 as cover 10 is being positioned onto the fin 30 . Thereafter, bridge 70 may at times function too as a stop, preventing unwanted downward movement of cover 10 relative to generally planar portion 82 of disc 14 .
FIGS. 3-4 illustrate multiple covers 10 seated on fins 30 of disc 14 . Not every fin 30 (or other protrusion) of disc 14 need be covered, however. Likewise, preferred covers 10 are removable under manual or other force from fins 10 and, therefore, need not necessarily be used with any disc 14 . Nevertheless, deploying one or more covers 10 may be useful in certain situations, particularly in pools in which fins 30 tend to grip vertical pool walls and thereby slow climbing of the associated automatic pool cleaner (such as cleaner 98 of FIG. 5 ). Alternatively, covers 10 may be overmolded onto or permanently connected to fins 10 (via water-insoluble adhesive or otherwise) if appropriate or desired.
Enhancing rigidity of fins 30 utilizing covers 10 also may inhibit undesired lateral bending of the fins 30 . Such lateral bending otherwise may occur when fins 30 contact obstacles or walls within pools. When fins 30 bend laterally upon contacting a vertical pool wall, the bending sometimes inhibits the associated cleaner from climbing the wall. Thus, preventing lateral bending of fins 30 may, at times, improve at least climbing performance of the cleaner.
The configuration and rigid nature of cover 10 also tend to integrate upward movement of fins 30 and disc 14 . As a fin 30 commences upward flexing, end 66 of cover 10 begins depressing planar portion 82 . This action in turn causes the portion of disc 14 between end 66 and periphery 34 to flex upward too. The overall effect of this activity is to decrease suction force applied to disc 14 near periphery 34 , facilitating continued lifting of disc 14 when prompted to do so by the upward motion of fins 30 .
The foregoing is provided for purposes of illustrating, explaining, and describing embodiments of the present invention. Modifications and adaptations to these embodiments will be apparent to those skilled in the art and may be made without departing from the scope or spirit of the invention. The disclosures of the Dawson and Rice patents and of the Moore application are hereby incorporated herein in their entireties by this reference. | Separate covers for protruding portions of discs of automatic swimming pool cleaners are addressed. The covers may be placed onto protrusions, such as fins, and removed from the fins as needed. Version of the covers are made of material more rigid and having lower coefficient of friction than the fins to discourage lateral bending of the fins and decrease frictional contact of the fins with pool surfaces. | 4 |
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to an arrangement for setting the impedance of a transmission line. In particular, it relates to an arrangement for setting the impedance of a circuit trace on a substrate such as a printed circuit board by introducing apertures in a conductive reference plane inside the board.
The impedance of a transmission line in the form of a conductive trace on a printed circuit board is determined by several factors. FIG. 1(a) is a schematic representation of a typical transmission line system. It includes a driver 10 with a characteristic impedance Zd, a transmission line 20 having a characteristic impedance Z1, and a receiving element or load 30 having a characteristic impedance Zr. An equivalent circuit for the line 20 itself is shown in FIG. 1(b). It includes a distributed series of circuits each made up of a characteristic inductance L, a characteristic ohmic resistance R, and a characteristic capacitive coupling C to other conductive bodies. At low frequencies, the impedance is dominated by the contribution of the ohmic resistance. At high frequencies, the reactance from the inductance and the capacitive coupling dominate the resistive component.
The conductive bodies of primary interest in connection with the capacitance of conductive traces on a printed circuit board are conductive reference planes such as a ground plane or a power plane located inside the board. This is illustrated in FIG. 2. FIG. 2 shows a substrate 40 having on it a first trace 50 and a second trace 60. A conductive reference plane 70 is located within the substrate 40. The capacitors shown in phantom indicate capacitive coupling between the traces 50 and 60 and the plane 70. The amount of capacitive coupling between the traces 50 and 60 and the plane 70 depends in general on the distance between the trace and the plane. A representative expression for the impedance of a PCB transmission line is: ##EQU1## where: T is the trace thickness
W is the trace width
e r is the relative dielectric constant of the substrate
H is the height of the trace above the reference plane.
For conventional traces, the trace and the plane are about 5 mils (0.005 inches) apart. This arrangement typically results in impedances on the order of 50 ohms.
One or more additional planes, represented by the plane 80, may also be present inside the board, but they are effectively shielded from the traces 50 and 60 by the plane 70 and so have no significant effect on the impedance of the traces 50 and 60.
Because the impedance is dictated by geometry and material choices, and because these parameters are in turn usually determined by other considerations, trace impedance has been taken as a given, and little effort has been made to control trace impedance other than to avoid discontinuities. In most instances, a specific board will have characteristic values for each of the dimensions and parameters discussed above and most traces on the board will have generally constant impedances per unit length. There are circumstances, however, where it is desirable to have a trace impedance which is other than that which occurs fortuitously. For example, the Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) protocol calls for transmission lines having an impedance of 102 to 110 ohms. However, using typical board specifications, various dimensions or materials would have to be modified to achieve such an impedance using conventional design methods. There is thus a need for a way to set the impedance of a transmission line without undue compromise of the other circuit design criteria.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
These and other needs are met in the present invention through the provision of a transmission line which has an impedance which is set by forming apertures or windows (fenestrations) in a nearest conductive reference plane. The overall impedance is determined not only by the nearest reference plane, but also by whatever conductive body the transmission line "sees" through the window - in most cases, the next farthest conductive reference plane. This local increase in H raises the local impedance of the transmission line. By altering the size and placement of the windows, in effect, the effective EM transparency of the nearest conductive reference plane, the impedance can be adjusted to any of a range of values between the impedance without any apertures to the impedance if the nearest plane were absent.
In particular, in one embodiment, the invention may be regarded as being the combination of a substrate having an exterior surface, a circuit trace positioned on the exterior surface, and a first conductive reference plane positioned inside the substrate substantially parallel to and at a first distance away from the exterior surface and beneath at least part of the circuit trace. A second conductive reference plane is positioned inside the substrate substantially parallel to and at a second distance away from the exterior surface, the second distance being greater than the first distance, and beneath at least the part of the circuit trace. The first conductive reference plane has a plurality of apetures at positions beneath at least the part of the circuit trace. The spacing and size of the apertures are selected to determine an impedance of the part of the circuit trace.
The invention may also be regarded as a circuit arrangement combining a substrate having an exterior surface, a first circuit trace positioned on the exterior surface, and a second circuit trace positioned on the exterior surface. A first conductive reference plane is positioned inside the substrate substantially parallel to and at a first distance away from the exterior surface and beneath at least part of the first circuit trace and at least part of the second circuit trace. A second conductive reference plane is positioned inside the substrate substantially parallel to and at a second distance away from said exterior surface, the second distance being greater than the first distance, and beneath at least the part of the second circuit trace. In one preferred embodiment, the first circuit trace has an impedance in the range of about 45 to about 60 ohms. The first conductive reference plane has a plurality of apertures at positions beneath at least said part of said second circuit trace, the spacing and size of the apertures being selected such that the part of the second circuit trace has an impedance in the range of about 70 to about 140 ohms.
DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIGS. 1(a) and 1(b) are diagrams for use in explaining principles underlying the invention.
FIG. 2 is a cutaway view of a prior art multilayer printed circuit board.
FIG. 3 is a cutaway view of multilayer printed circuit board incorporating a first embodiment of the invention.
FIG. 4 is a cutaway view of a multilayer primed circuit board incorporating a second embodiment of the invention.
FIG. 5 is a perspective view of multilayer printed circuit board incorporating the second embodiment of the invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
FIG. 3 is a cutaway view of an exemplary embodiment of the invention. The plane 70 has a window or aperture 90 which permits the underlying plane 80 to influence the impedance of the trace 60. The net impedance is thus affected by both plane 70 and plane 80. The relative effect of each plane depends on the size, placement, number, and shape of the window 90. In the extreme case of no window, the impedance is determined solely by the plane 70. As the size of the window increases, the effect of the plane 70 diminishes as the effect of the plane 80 increases, until, in the limit, only plane 80 has any significant influence on the impedance of the trace 60. The impedance of the trace 60 can thus theoretically be adjusted between the no window case (approximately 50 ohms) and the no intermediate plane case (typically about 140 ohms). As a practical matter, this easily encompasses values in the SCSI range of 102 to 100 ohms.
In general, it is envisioned that the conductive reference plane 70 will have multiple windows 90 under trace 60, as shown in FIG. 4. These windows 90 will in general extend in a pattern which is lengthwise with respect to the trace 60, and may also extend in a pattern transversely of the length of the trace 60. The trace 60 thus travels over an expanse of "plane near" alternated with "plane far", both levels being tightly AC-coupled (as indicated by capacitor 45) and loosely DC-coupled. The ratio of alternation, and the respective values for impedance for each plane, set a final, composite value with contributions from each plane.
FIG. 5 is an exploded view of an arrangement according to the invention with the body of the substrate omitted and the top surface shown only in phantom. In the embodiment shown, a pattern of apertures 90 in the plane 70 are positioned beneath the trace 60. The apertures 90 together influence the impedance of the trace 60 by partially exposing it to the plane 80. In the arrangement shown, impedance is a function not only of the size of the apertures but their spacing and number as well. In general, the impedance will be a function of the trace 60's net distributed capacitance with respect to plane 70 in parallel with its net distributed capacitance with respect to plane 80. The net distributed capacitance with respect to the plane 70 will decrease as the apertures 90 become larger, or are spaced more tightly, or increase in number. The net distributed capacitance with respect to the plane 80 will increase, but is smaller in the limit, so that the net effect of capacitance is that it will decrease, thus increasing impedance.
In terms of the size of the holes, it is presently believed that larger holes may be sufficient for narrowband signals, but that for wider band signals, smaller holes are required. Thus, it is envisioned that the invention in one preferred embodiment would take the form of a near plane having a larger number of relatively small holes.
The arrangement according to the invention for adjusting transmission line impedance has several advantages over prior art methods. Implementation is inexpensive. It is also precise and repeatable, the latter because it is not subject to variations in processing conditions. Impedance adjustment according to the invention is also relatively insensitive to fluctuations in operating environment such as heat, and are stable over the passage of time.
The invention has been described above in terms of specific embodiments. These specific embodiments have been described purely for the purposes of making the description concrete. They are intended to be illustrative rather than exhaustive. The scope of the invention should therefore not be regarded as being limited to these embodiments, but should instead be regarded as being fully commensurate in scope with the following claims. | An arrangement in which a transmission line on a multilayer printed circuit board has an impedance which is set by forming apertures or windows (fenestration) in a nearest conductive reference plane. | 7 |
BACKGROUND
A transistor s an element that is utilized extensively in semiconductor devices. There may be millions of transistors on a single integrated circuit (IC). A common type of transistor used in semiconductor device fabrication is a metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET) with either P or N channel transistors. A complementary MOS (CMOS) devices use both positive and negative channel devices in complementary configurations. N-type metal oxide semiconductors (NMOS) are fabricated within P-type wells within a P-type substrate; P-type metal oxide semiconductors (PMOS) within N-type wells situated within the same P-type substrate.
With the increased density of devices and the combination of various types of circuitry, such as logic and radio frequency processing circuits, noise generated in the ICs becomes intense. Such noise is detrimental in the ICs because the integrity of a signal may be compromised, which causes a loss of data or errors in logic or signal processing. In CMOS structures, noise from other nearby devices would interfere with the circuit function, and substrate noise coupling is also an effect that is of concern because it can adversely affect the operation of various other devices. In this regard, transistors in the CMOS structures often require isolation from each other to prevent disturbance from unwanted noise. In the NMOS, deep N-wells surrounding the P-type wells region may be used to electrically shield the device against possible perturbations of noise from those devices. The P/N junction diodes formed between the deep N-well regions and the P-type substrate prevent current flow and the deep N-wells also act as an electrical potential shield.
However, Since N-type wells naturally reduce the noise disturbance from P-type substrate due to small nature P/N junction diodes, the P-type transistors located in the N-type wells still have higher noise disturbance from the P-type substrate than N-type transistors located in the P-type wells within the deep N-wells. The noise and leak current from substrate will have big impact on the operation of the CMOS.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
Embodiments of the present disclosure are best understood from the following detailed description when read with the accompanying figures. It is emphasized that, in accordance with the standard practice in the industry, various features are not drawn to scale. In fact, the dimensions of the various features may be arbitrarily increased or reduced for clarity of discussion.
FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional view of a CMOS semiconductor structure according to various embodiments of the present disclosure.
FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view of a CMOS semiconductor structure according to various embodiments of the present disclosure.
FIG. 3A-E are cross-sectional views at various stages of manufacturing a CMOS semiconductor structure according to various embodiments of the present disclosure.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
The embodiments of semiconductor structures and a method for manufacturing the same of the present disclosure are discussed in detail below, but not limited the scope of the present disclosure. The same symbols or numbers are used to the same or similar portion in the drawings or the description. And the applications of the present disclosure are not limited by the following embodiments and examples which the person in the art can apply in the related field.
The singular forms “a,” “an” and “the” used herein include plural referents unless the context clearly dictates otherwise. Therefore, reference to, for example, a semiconductor well includes embodiments having two or more such semiconductor wells, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. Reference throughout this specification to “one embodiment” means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment of the present disclosure. Therefore, the appearances of the phrases “in one embodiment” or “in an embodiment” in various places throughout this specification are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment. Further, the particular features, structures, or characteristics may be combined in any suitable manner in one or more embodiments. It should be appreciated that the following figures are not drawn to scale; rather, the figures are intended; rather, these figures are intended for illustration.
Modern CMOS technology is capable of providing transistors having the capability of operating at frequencies of 1 GHZ or more. This enables CMOS to provide functionality in radio frequency (RF) communications. RF-CMOS semiconductor structures can be used for the detection, processing or transmission of radio waves or microwaves having a frequency range about 10 kHz to 1000 GHz. These circuits need to be made from high switching speed capable components operating usefully at radio wave. But noise disturbance from other devices and the semiconductor substrate can cause a loss of data or errors in logic or signal processing in the RF-CMOS semiconductor structures. Therefore, reducing the noise disturbance to promote the RF-CMOS semiconductor structures efficiency is important.
The general CMOS semiconductor structure includes a first-conductivity-type, e.g., an N-type or a P-type, semiconductor substrate and an isolated region separating the first-conductivity-type semiconductor substrate into a first-conductivity-type MOS region and a second-conductivity-type MOS region. Generally, the second-conductivity-type deep well in the second-conductivity-type MOS region reduces the noise and leak current from the semiconductor substrate into a second-conductivity-type MOS transistor. But in the first-conductivity-type MOS region, without the deep well protection, the transistor is still under noise disturbance propagation from the semiconductor substrate.
According to various embodiments of the present disclosure, a RF-CMOS transistor in a semiconductor substrate is provided to have low noise disturbance. Referring to FIG. 1 , a RF-CMOS semiconductor structure 1000 includes a first-conductivity-type semiconductor substrate 1100 , and an isolated region 1200 separating the first-conductivity-type semiconductor substrate 1100 into a first-conductivity-type MOS region 1300 and a second-conductivity-type MOS region 1400 . The first-conductivity-type MOS region 1300 has a second-conductivity-type deep well 1310 , a first-conductivity-type deep well 1320 , a second-conductivity-type well 1330 , and a first-conductivity-type MOS transistor 1340 . The second-conductivity-type MOS region 1400 has a second-conductivity-type deep well 1410 , a first-conductivity-type well 1420 , and a second-conductivity-type MOS transistor 1430 .
The first-conductivity-type semiconductor substrate 1100 may be made of semiconductor material such as silicon, germanium, silicon germanium, silicon carbide, and those consisting essentially of III-V compound semiconductors (e.g., GaAs and Si/Ge). In embodiments, the first-conductivity-type semiconductor substrate 1100 is slightly doped with the first-conductivity-type dopants.
In embodiments, the isolated region 1200 is a shallow trench isolation (STI) structure.
The second-conductivity-type deep well 1410 in the second-conductivity-type MOS region 1400 has opposite conductivity type to the first-conductivity-type semiconductor substrate 1100 . Then any noise contributions from the first-conductivity-type semiconductor substrate 1100 cannot interfere with the signals of the second-conductivity-type MOS transistor 1430 . Because the P/N junction between the opposite conductivity type regions forms the diode protection shields noise disturbance. Where the P/N junction diode only permits the electrical flow from the P-type semiconductor into the N-type semiconductor.
A particular feature in the embodiments is that the RF-CMOS semiconductor structure 1000 also has a second-conductivity-type deep well 1310 in the first-conductivity-type MOS region 1300 , and furthermore a first-conductivity-type deep well 1320 within the second-conductivity-type deep well 1310 . Because the P/N junction diode forms between the regions with opposite conductivity type, there will form two P/N junction diodes. One is located at the interface between the first-conductivity-type semiconductor substrate 1100 and the second-conductivity-type deep well 1310 , and another is located at the interface between the first-conductivity-type deep well 1320 and the second-conductivity-type deep well 1310 . The P/N junction diodes insurance the first-conductivity-type MOS transistor 1340 against possible perturbations of noise from those devices outside it or from the first-conductivity-type semiconductor substrate 1100 .
In the first-conductivity-type MOS region 1300 , the P/N junction diode also forms between the second-conductivity-type well 1330 and the first-conductivity-type deep well 1320 . In the second-conductivity-type MOS region 1400 , the P/N junction diode also forms between the first-conductivity-type well 1420 and the second-conductivity-type deep well 1410 . The P/N junction diodes here enhance the noise reduction ability and to protect the sensitive transistors 1340 and 1430 within the well region.
The first-conductivity-type well 1420 , and the first-conductivity-type deep well 1320 may be lightly or intermediately doped with dopants of the first-conductivity-type. The dopant concentration may depend on the maximum voltage requirement of the RF-CMOS semiconductor structure 1000 .
The second-conductivity-type well 1330 , the second-conductivity-type deep well 1310 in the first-conductivity-type MOS region 1300 , and the second-conductivity-type deep well 1410 in the second-conductivity-type MOS region 1400 may be lightly or intermediately doped with dopants of the second-conductivity-type. The dopant concentration may depend on the maximum voltage requirement of the RF-CMOS semiconductor structure 1100 .
The first-conductivity-type MOS transistor 1340 also includes a first gate oxide layer 1342 , a first gate 1344 , a first-conductivity-type source 1346 , and a first-conductivity-type drain 1348 .
The second-conductivity-type MOS transistor 1430 also includes a second gate oxide layer 1432 , a second gate 1434 , a second-conductivity-type source 1436 , and a second-conductivity-type drain 1438 .
The first gate oxide layer 1342 is located above the second-conductivity-type well 1330 and the second gate oxide layer 1432 is located above the first-conductivity-type well 1420 . In embodiments, the gate oxide layers 1342 and 1432 are made of silicon dioxide, and having a thickness in a range of 10 to 5000 angstroms, depending on operating voltage of the first gate 1344 and the second gate 1434 .
The first gate 1344 and the second gate 1434 are respectively disposed on the first gate oxide layer 1342 and the second gate oxide layer 1432 . In embodiments, the first gate 1344 and the second gate 1434 are made of polysilicon.
The first-conductivity-type source 1346 and the first-conductivity-type drain 1348 are respectively within the second-conductivity-type well 1330 and on opposite sides of the first gate 1344 . The first-conductivity-type source 1346 and the first-conductivity-type drain 1348 are heavily doped with the first-conductivity-type dopants.
The second-conductivity-type source 1436 and the second-conductivity-type drain 1438 are respectively within the first-conductivity-type well 1420 and on opposite sides of the second gate 1434 . The second-conductivity-type source 1436 and the second-conductivity-type drain 1438 are heavily doped with the second-conductivity-type dopants.
In embodiments, the first-conductivity-type is an N-type and the second-conductivity-type is a P-type, or the first-conductivity-type is a P-type and the second-conductivity-type is an N-type.
In embodiments, N-type dopants such as arsenic, phosphorus, antimony or a combination thereof are used for doping N-type regions. And P-type dopants such as boron, gallium, indium or a combination thereof are used for doping P-type regions.
FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view of a RF-CMOS semiconductor structure 2000 according to some embodiments of the present disclosure. Among the RF-CMOS semiconductor structure 2000 , the first-conductivity-type is an N-type and the second-conductivity-type is a P-type. The RF-CMOS semiconductor structure 2000 includes an N-type semiconductor substrate 2100 , and an isolated region 2200 separating the N-type semiconductor substrate 2100 into an NMOS region 2300 and a PMOS region 2400 . The NMOS region 2300 has a P-type deep well 2310 , an N-type deep well 2320 , a P-type well 2330 , and an NMOS transistor 2340 . The PMOS region 2400 has an N-type well 2410 , and a PMOS transistor 2420 .
The NMOS transistor 2340 also includes a gate oxide layer 2342 , a gate 2344 , an N-type source 2346 , and an N-type drain 2348 . And the PMOS transistor 2420 also includes a gate oxide layer 2422 , a gate 2424 , a P-type source 2426 , and a P-type drain 2428 .
FIGS. 3A-3E are cross-sectional views at various stages of manufacturing the RF-CMOS semiconductor structure 1000 according to various embodiments of the present disclosure. To clarify description and avoid repetition, like numerals and letters used to describe the RF-CMOS semiconductor structure 1000 above are used for the various elements in the coming figures. Also, reference numerals described previously may not be described again in detail herein.
As shown in FIG. 3A , a first-conductivity-type semiconductor substrate 1100 is provided, and an isolate region 1200 is formed to separated the first-conductivity-type semiconductor substrate 1100 into a first-conductivity-type MOS region 1300 and a second-conductivity-type MOS region 1400 . In embodiments, the isolated region 1200 is formed by a STI process sequence. In which, trench (commonly 200 to 500 nanometers deep) is etched into the first-conductivity-type semiconductor substrate 1100 , electrically passivated, (commonly by growing a thermal oxide layer on sidewalls of the trenches) and filled with insulating material, typically silicon dioxide. The method includes a high density plasma (HDP) process or an ozone based thermal chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process.
Continuing in FIG. 3B , in the first-conductivity-type MOS region 1300 , a second-conductivity-type deep well 1310 , a first-conductivity-type deep well 1320 , and a second-conductivity-type well 1330 are then formed therein. On the other side, a second-conductivity-type deep well 1410 and a first-conductivity-type well 1420 are formed in the second-conductivity-type MOS region 1400 .
In embodiments, the first-conductivity-type well 1420 and the first-conductivity-type deep well 1320 are formed by implanting dopants of the first-conductivity-type in selective areas of the first-conductivity-type semiconductor substrate 1100 . The second-conductivity-type well 1330 and the second-conductivity-type deep wells 1310 and 1410 are formed by implanting dopants of the second-conductivity-type in another selective areas of the first-conductivity-type semiconductor substrate 1100 prior or next to the step of forming the first-conductivity-type well 1420 and the first-conductivity-type deep well 1320 .
Referring now to FIG. 3C , an oxide layer 3100 is formed covering the surface of the first-conductivity-type semiconductor substrate 1100 by thermally grown or deposition. Then a gate material layer 3200 is formed covering the surface of the oxide layer 3100 by low pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD).
Continuing in FIG. 3D , a first gate oxide layer 1342 is formed above the second-conductivity-type well 1330 and a second gate oxide layer 1432 is formed above the first-conductivity-type well 1420 . A first gate 1344 and a second gate 1434 are formed respectively on the first gate oxide layer 1342 and on the second gate oxide layer 1432 . In embodiments, the first gate oxide layer 1342 , the second gate oxide layer 1432 , the first gate 1344 , and the second gate 1434 are formed with the method of selectively etching the oxide layer 3100 and the gate material layer 3200 region which without photoresist protection.
As shown in FIG. 3E , a first-conductivity-type source 1346 and a first-conductivity-type drain 1348 are formed on opposite sides of the first gate 1344 , and a second-conductivity-type source 1436 and a second-conductivity-type drain 1438 are formed on opposite sides of the second gate 1434 by any conventional method. In embodiments, an ion implantation process is performed by implanting the first-conductivity-type dopants into the selective areas within the second-conductivity-type well 1330 , and implanting the second-conductivity-type dopants into the selective areas within the first-conductivity-type well 1420 .
The embodiments of the present disclosure discussed above have advantages over existing structures and methods, and the advantages are summarized below. In various embodiments, the second-conductivity-type deep well 1310 and the first-conductivity-type deep well 1320 in the first-conductivity-type MOS region 1300 increasingly reduce the noise disturbance from the first-conductivity-type semiconductor substrate 1100 , which protect the first-conductivity-type MOS transistor 1340 in the first-conductivity-type MOS region 1300 . The P/N junction diodes forming at the interface between the opposite conductivity type region resist the unwanted noise and leak current from other devices, or the semiconductor substrate. It will be helpful for noise reduction and improve the signal noise (SN) ratio on sensitive RF-CMOS semiconductor structures.
Although the present disclosure has been described in considerable detail with reference to certain embodiments thereof, other embodiments are possible. Therefore, the spirit and scope of the appended claims should not be limited to the description of the embodiments contained herein.
It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications and variations can be made to the structure of the present disclosure without departing from the scope or spirit of the disclosure. In view of the foregoing, it is intended that the present disclosure cover modifications and variations of this disclosure provided they fall within the scope of the following claims. | A novel semiconductor device structure includes a first-conductivity-type semiconductor substrate, an isolated region, a first-conductivity-type MOS region, and a second-conductivity-type MOS region. A first-conductivity-type MOS transistor locates in the first-conductivity-type MOS region with a second-conductivity-type well surrounding, and a first-conductivity-type deep well surrounding the second-conductivity-type well with a second-conductivity-type deep well surrounding. In the second-conductivity-type MOS region, a second-conductivity-type MOS transistor is formed with a first-conductivity-type well surrounding. The first-conductivity-type deep well and the second-conductivity-type deep well are sufficiently reducing the noise and current leakage from other devices or from the semiconductor substrate. | 7 |
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention pertains to the art of exhaust gas recirculation coolers used in association with internal combustion engines having exhaust gas recirculation systems designed to reduce pollution and, more specifically, to controlling contaminant deposition in exhaust gas recirculation coolers.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Conventional internal combustion engines produce various pollutants during operation. Generally, most internal combustion engines develop power by burning a hydrocarbon fuel in the presence of air, a mixture of mostly nitrogen and oxygen along with other minor components. During the burning, several exhaust constituents are produced. Some, such as water, are considered rather harmless. Others, such as nitrogen oxides (NOx) are regulated and the production of this pollutant must be controlled. In order to reduce the production of nitrogen oxides, often an exhaust gas recirculation system, hereinafter an EGR system, is provided. In an EGR system, a portion of the exhaust gas from an internal combustion engine is recirculated along a path back into an air intake of the engine. The recirculation of exhaust generally reduces the relative amount of oxygen available for combustion and thus reduces the flame temperature in the engine during combustion. A lower flame temperature greatly reduces the production of nitrogen oxides. Another way to reduce the combustion temperature is to reduce the temperature of the recirculated exhaust. Typically, a cooler is placed in the recirculation path and causes the recirculated exhaust gas to enter the engine at a reduced temperature, thus further reducing the temperature of combustion. Indeed, to reach certain legislative guidelines for emission levels, the exhaust gases must be cooled to some extent.
EGR systems have been used in gasoline engines for at least 30 years and such use is ubiquitous. The use of EGR systems in Diesel engines is more recent. Diesel engines will tolerate more EGR flow than gasoline engines and thus EGR cooling in a Diesel EGR system is important. The coolers in such systems usually have a large heat transfer surface to aid in the transfer of heat from the recirculating exhaust gas to a coolant. Generally, the coolant is introduced behind the heat transfer surface to allow heat to easily pass from the recirculating exhaust gas to the coolant. Unfortunately, during operation of an EGR system, various deposits of soot and other contaminants may accumulate on the heat transfer surface in the cooler and on other conduit portions of the EGR system. The layer of soot will build up in as little as one hundred hours of operation and significantly reduce the ability of the cooler to transfer heat from the recirculating exhaust gas. More specifically, the layer of soot and other contaminants greatly reduces the efficiency of the coolers, thus leading to relatively hot recirculating exhaust gas arriving at the engine intake and reducing the engine's ability to produce power while meeting emissions standards. Such a problem is particularly acute in connection with a Diesel engine.
One approach to this problem has been to employ large coolers. However, the use of large coolers has been considered undesirable because of the high cost and large size. Other approaches have been directed at reducing the amount of deposits. For example, U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2007/0131207 to Nakamura teaches regulating coolant flow through a cooler based on sensed inlet temperature to reduce deposits. Unfortunately, such a system is based on the principle of increasing the temperature of the recirculating gas. The system is therefore undesirable because it is directly contrary to the concept of reducing the temperature of recirculating exhaust gas to reduce combustion temperature and nitrous oxide production.
Based on the above there is a need in the art for a system designed to control the build up of contaminants in EGR coolers while avoiding the disadvantages set forth above.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is directed to a system for controlling contaminant deposition in an exhaust recirculation cooler mounted in a vehicle. In general, the vehicle includes a frame supporting an engine operatively connected to a transmission and wheels so as to drive the wheels and move the vehicle. The system comprises a cooler including a housing defining a gas inlet in communication with a first conduit, as well as a gas outlet in communication with a second conduit and connected to the gas inlet by a gas cooling passageway so as to allow exhaust gas to recirculate along a gas recirculation path from the exhaust assembly of the engine to an air intake assembly of the engine. The system also comprises a coolant outlet connected to a coolant inlet by a passageway to allow coolant to flow through the cooler. The coolant passageway is positioned so as to allow heat from the exhaust gas to pass into the coolant, thus cooling the exhaust gas. A valve is located in the gas recirculation path for controlling a flow rate of the exhaust gas in the cooler and a sensor is mounted for measuring a parameter of the exhaust gas in the gas recirculation path. A controller receives the parameter signals from the sensor and is connected to the valve. More specifically, the controller regulates the opening and closing of the valve in a manner which ensures that the exhaust gas in the cooler flows in a turbulent state in order to remove deposits from the cooler.
Optionally, an additional cooler, including a housing defining a gas inlet in communication with the first conduit and a gas outlet, is placed in communication with the second conduit and connected to the gas inlet by a gas cooling passageway. Additionally, a coolant outlet is connected to an inlet by a passageway to allow coolant to flow through the additional cooler. The coolant passageway is positioned so as to allow heat from the exhaust gas to pass into the coolant, thus cooling the exhaust gas. A master valve may be provided for controlling an overall flow rate through the recirculation path and an additional valve is provided for controlling a flow rate of gas through the additional cooler. The valves are located between the air intake assembly and the coolers or between the air exhaust assembly and the coolers.
The present invention is also directed to a method of controlling contaminant deposition in exhaust gas recirculation coolers. A flow of recirculating exhaust gas is directed from the exhaust assembly of the engine back to the air inlet assembly of the engine so as to reduce the amount of pollutants in the exhaust gas. The control module establishes a flow rate of an exhaust gas in the cooler and receives measurements of various parameters of the exhaust gas. Finally, the control module ensures that the flow rate of the exhaust gas in the cooler is turbulent so as to remove deposits from the cooler. Preferably, multiple coolers are used and the control module directs the flow of exhaust gas through the multiple coolers. Optionally, the module determines the Reynolds number associated with the flow of gas through the cooler and ensures that the Reynolds number stays within a range associated with turbulent flow.
Additional objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become more readily apparent from the following detailed description of preferred embodiments when taken in conjunction with the drawings, wherein like reference numerals refer to corresponding parts in the several views.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 is a schematic view of a vehicle incorporating a system for controlling contaminant deposition in exhaust gas recirculation coolers embodying the invention;
FIG. 2 is a schematic view of the system of FIG. 1 shown in a simplified form with hot side control valves;
FIG. 3 is a schematic view of the system of FIG. 1 shown in a simplified form with cold side control valves;
FIG. 4 is a schematic view of one of the coolers in FIG. 1 ;
FIG. 5 is a cross-sectional view of the cooler in FIG. 4 taken along the line V-V;
FIG. 6 is flowchart showing a method of operating the system of FIG. 1 ; and
FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing more details of the method in FIG. 6 .
DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
With initial reference to FIG. 1 , there is shown a schematic view of a vehicle 10 incorporating a system 20 for controlling contaminant deposition in an exhaust gas recirculation cooler, as constructed in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the invention. As illustrated, an engine 25 including multiple cylinders 26 is mounted in vehicle 10 . Preferably, engine 25 is a Diesel engine and vehicle 10 is a truck. However, vehicle 10 may be any type of vehicle and the system will work with other combustion engines that utilize pollution control devices including exhaust gas recirculation coolers. As shown, radiator 30 is provided to cool engine 25 . In addition, vehicle 10 includes a frame 32 which supports various components such as engine 25 used to drive wheels 36 through a powertrain 38 including a transmission and drive shaft (not separately labeled).
As seen in FIG. 2 , engine 25 has both an air intake assembly 39 and an exhaust assembly 40 . Engine 25 is connected to a source of fuel 41 and a booster 42 , such as a turbo charger 44 , for increasing a flow of intake air indicated by arrow 45 to engine 25 . More specifically air enters system 20 through an airbox 47 and travels through a passage 50 to turbocharger 44 . An air mass air flow unit 52 is mounted in passage 50 and includes a sensor 55 for measuring the amount of air passing to turbocharger 44 . Sensor 55 is connected to an electronic control module 57 . Sensor 55 is able to provide to electronic control module 57 a signal, shown as arrow 60 , which is representative of the amount of air passing to turbocharger 44 . Additionally, mass airflow unit 52 includes a valve 62 that receives signals from electronic control module 57 and functions to control the amount of air passing therethrough.
In a manner widely known in the art, turbocharger 44 compresses air received from airbox 47 and provides a charge of air which passes through a charge cooler 65 . Charge cooler 65 cools the charge and sends the charge to a manifold 67 for distribution to cylinders 26 . Engine 25 receives both the charge and fuel which are combusted, thus producing power used to drive vehicle 10 and combustion products which are exhausted from vehicle 10 at exhaust 68 .
With continuing reference to FIG. 2 , system 20 is shown sending a diverted exhaust flow, i.e., a recirculated exhaust gas (EGR) flow, represented by arrow 70 , of exhaust 68 produced by engine 25 through a first conduit 71 to a cooling system 72 and then supplies a cooled portion 75 of diverted exhaust flow 71 through a second conduit 77 to inlet manifold 67 , thus completing a gas recirculation path 69 from air exhaust assembly 40 to air intake assembly 39 . More specifically, system 20 includes first conduit 71 connected to exhaust assembly 40 . First, conduit 71 is preferably equipped with an exhaust backpressure sensor 82 and an exhaust temperature sensor 85 , and a mass flow sensor 86 which measure the exhaust backpressure, temperature, and recirculating mass flow respectively. Sensors 82 , 85 and 86 are connected to electronic control module 57 by wires 87 and 88 , or other known types of communication channels, and thus are able to provide electronic control module 57 with signals representative of the exhaust backpressure and temperature. Optionally, a master control valve 90 is located in first conduit 71 and arranged to restrict the amount of diverted exhaust flow 70 passing therethrough. Master valve 90 is also connected to electronic control module 57 by a wire 91 or other type of communication channel so that control module 57 can control the amount of exhaust that is in diverted exhaust flow 70 . First conduit 71 ends at a junction 92 which splits diverted exhaust flow 70 into two or more paths, each path leading to a respective exhaust gas cooler 22 , 97 or 98 .
As shown there are three coolers 22 , 97 and 98 , with first cooler 22 connected to a first path 100 , second or additional cooler 97 connected to a second path 101 and third cooler 98 connected to a third path 102 . However, it is to be understood that the invention will work with varying number of coolers. First or main cooler 22 cools a first portion of diverted exhaust flow 70 . A first EGR valve 105 is positioned between first path 100 and first cooler 22 . First EGR valve 105 is also in communication with electronic control module 57 through a communication path 110 so that electronic control module 57 can control the amount of diverted exhaust that passes therethrough. A first coolant feed 112 supplies coolant, as represented by arrow 113 , to first cooler 22 from radiator 30 and a return feed 115 directs coolant 113 back to radiator 30 such that the coolant travels in a recirculating path. Coolant 113 is used by first cooler 22 to cool diverted exhaust 70 .
In a similar manner, a second EGR valve 120 is positioned between second path 101 and second cooler 97 ; and a third EGR valve 125 is positioned between third path 102 and third cooler 98 . Each of second and third EGR valves 120 , 125 is also connected to electronic control module 57 . In this manner, control module 57 can individually control a flow rate of an amount of diverted exhaust gas 70 passing through each of coolers 22 , 97 and 98 . Indeed, if no master valve 90 is present, control module 57 may use valves 105 , 120 , 125 to control the overall amount of diverted flow 70 passing through coolers 22 , 47 , 98 . Likewise, each of the second and third coolers 97 , 98 has a respective second and third coolant feed 130 , 131 and a respective second and third coolant return 133 , 134 attached to radiator 30 for providing recirculating coolant paths so that second and third coolers 97 , 98 can use coolant 113 to cool the second and third diverted amounts of exhaust passing therethrough. At this point, it should be understood that electronic control module 57 need not be dedicated for use with the exhaust system, but preferably constitutes a main electronic control unit for vehicle 10 so as to control various engine, transmission and other functions. Also, although a preferred arrangement of sensors has been disclosed, different sensors can be used in combination with electronic control module 57 to indirectly derive the desired measurements. Three coolers are shown by way of example and this embodiment is not intended to be limiting. In alternate embodiments, two coolers are used.
In the embodiment shown in FIG. 2 , EGR valves 90 , 105 , 120 and 125 are shown upstream of EGR coolers 22 , 97 and 98 . Generally, the diverted exhaust gas passing through EGR valves 90 , 105 , 120 and 125 will be relatively hot. This arrangement has the advantage of relatively low build up of sludge around EGR valves 90 , 105 , 120 and 125 . However, EGR valves 90 , 105 , 120 and 125 have to be designed to operate in a relatively hot environment. In an alternative embodiment shown in FIG. 3 , corresponding EGR valves 90 ′, 105 ′, 120 ′ and 125 ′ are located downstream of EGR coolers 22 , 97 and 98 . In this case first, second and third EGR valves 105 ′, 120 ′, and 125 ′ are located between the respective first, second and third coolers 22 , 97 and 98 and respective first, second and third return paths 140 , 141 , 142 which lead to second conduit 77 . This alternative embodiment has the advantage of allowing a master valve 90 ′ and the first, second and third EGR valves 105 ′, 120 ′ and 125 ′ to operate in relatively cool conditions. However, the tradeoff is that there is an increased amount of sludge build up. In all other respects, the two embodiments are the same such that a further discussion thereof is not necessary.
Turning now to FIG. 4 , there is shown a more detailed view of first cooler 22 . It should be understood that coolers 22 , 97 and 98 are preferably constructed to be substantially identical, although the size of each cooler is preferably set based on the needs of engine 25 , as more fully discussed below. With this in mind, cooler 22 is shown to include a housing 143 defining a gas inlet 144 in communication with first conduit 71 and a gas outlet 145 in communication with second conduit 72 . Housing 143 also defines a gas cooling passageway 146 that connects gas inlet 144 to gas outlet 145 . Coolant from first coolant feed 112 enters first cooler 22 at coolant inlet 147 and travels through passages 150 in first cooler 22 to a coolant outlet 148 connected to coolant return feed 115 . Passages 150 extend longitudinally and establish a heat transfer surface 153 made from a material that resists damage by corrosive exhaust gases and readily transfers heat from diverted exhaust 70 to a coolant flow indicated at 155 . As best seen in FIG. 5 , fins 160 preferably extend from passages 150 to further increase heat transfer by enlarging heat transfer surface 153 . In another embodiment, the material forming fins 160 and passages 150 establish a texture that increases the turbulence of the flow of diverted exhaust passing around fins 160 .
FIG. 6 shows a flowchart indicating the operation of system 20 for controlling contaminant deposition in EGR coolers according to a preferred embodiment of the invention. As shown in step 200 , during operation of engine 25 , portion 70 of the exhaust flow is diverted from exhaust assembly 40 through first cooler 22 and then recirculated back to air intake assembly 39 along recirculation path 69 . As noted above, during engine operation, soot and other deposits may accumulate on the inside surfaces of cooler 22 . Cooler fins 160 are particularly prone to collecting soot. If a layer of soot covers fins 160 , they will not function properly. To counter this potential problem, as engine 25 starts, a certain flow rate is established through first cooler 22 as shown in step 210 . Various parameters, as discussed further below, are then measured in step 220 to calculate if the flow through cooler 22 is laminar or turbulent. Electronic control module 57 then adjusts valves 90 , 105 to ensure in step 240 that the exhaust flow through first cooler 22 stays in the turbulent range. A more detailed example of how electric control module 57 ensures the exhaust flow is turbulent is found below in the description of FIG. 7 . The advantage of keeping the flow in the turbulent range is that such flow unexpectedly functions to effectively shake off deposits that may have formed on the inside surface of cooler 22 or on fins 160 . Once the soot or other deposits are shaken off of cooler 22 , the soot travels back through the engine cylinders 26 and is eventually exhausted. Without the layer of soot build up, first cooler 22 operates with a much greater efficiency, thereby allowing the use of a smaller, lighter and cheaper unit than available in the past.
One of the parameters that is controlled is the Reynolds number. The Reynolds number is based on, among other things, the speed, temperature, gas mass flow and hydraulic diameter of a passage. As shown in FIGS. 2 and 3 , the exhaust backpressure and temperature are measured by sensors 82 , 85 . Electronic control module 57 calculates the Reynolds number based on the measured parameters and ensures that the flow stays in the turbulent mode by maintaining the Reynolds number in an appropriate range. However, it should be noted that other sensors, e.g. exhaust gas mass flow sensor 86 , may be used to obtain the parameters needed to calculate the Reynolds number. Such parameters may also be inferred based on the air flow, fuel injection parameters and other known or measured engine parameters because the performance characteristics of engine 26 may be known. For example, the exhaust backpressure could be inferred based on a measured air inflow and the characteristics of engine 26 , instead of measuring the exhaust backpressure directly. The determination of whether a flow through cooler 22 is turbulent or laminar is preferably done by testing to determine what flow rates cause turbulent flow and to produce a look up table for control module 57 . Once control module 57 determines what EGR flow is required by engine 25 , valve 105 to cooler 22 is adjusted to obtain turbulent flow as much as possible.
The use of multiple coolers 22 , 97 and 98 may be required or desirable. In such a case, each cooler 22 , 97 and 98 is controlled to run with an optimal Reynolds number so the respective flow is turbulent. For example, the first and second coolers 22 , 97 are preferably different sizes, with first cooler 22 being a small cooler and the second cooler 97 being a larger cooler. When engine 26 is running at low speed, small cooler 22 is used. When engine 25 is running at medium speed, large cooler 97 is used and when engine 25 is running at a high speed, both coolers 22 , 97 are used. With differently sized coolers 22 , 97 , a larger range of flow rates can be kept in the turbulent regime as flow 70 passes through the cooler 27 , 97 . Depending on the particular operating characteristics of the engine, three or more coolers 22 , 97 and 98 may be employed. In any is event, when multiple coolers 22 , 97 and 98 are used, electronic control unit 57 regulates the flow through the coolers as needed in order to maintain each related Reynolds number in the proper range by opening and closing the appropriate EGR valves 105 , 105 ′, 120 , 120 ′, 125 and 125 ′. Again, since controller 57 has more options for flow rates through coolers 22 , 97 , 98 when multiple coolers are used, the flow through coolers 22 , 97 , 98 can be kept turbulent over a larger range. Control module 57 determines how many coolers should be used for a given EGR flow rate 70 demanded by engine 25 .
Turning now to FIG. 7 , there is shown a flow chart depicted an exemplary control logic that may be used by control module 57 for controlling two coolers 22 , 97 . At step 300 , a process starts and initially determines at step 310 whether or not exhaust gas recirculation flow is needed. If EGR flow is needed, control module 57 proceeds to step 320 and determines a desired EGR flow rate which is needed to control the emissions of NOx. Since engine 25 requires different EGR flow rates depending on running conditions, such as vehicle speed, the required flow rate may change. Once the required flow rate is determined, control module 57 at step 330 determines whether the EGR mass flow rate is in either a first, second or third range. If the gas flow is in a relatively low first range, then control module 57 sends a signal to open valve 105 to provide the desired EGR flow for engine 25 and, in addition, to ensure that turbulent flow is present in cooler 22 . However, if the mass flow rate is in a second, higher range, then control module 57 opens valve 120 and closes 105 to have EGR flow travel through larger cooler 97 thus providing the desired EGR flow and still ensuring a turbulent flow through cooler 97 . If the mass flow rate is in a higher third range, then both valves 105 and 120 are open in step 360 to provide the desired EGR flow cooling and to ensure that turbulent flow exists in both coolers 22 and 97 . In any one of the three paths at step 370 , the process will return to step 300 if there are changes in the required EGR flow rates. The above discussion of course assumes only two coolers, coolers 22 and 97 , are being used. If a third cooler 98 is used, of course the search logic becomes a little bit more complicated in that three valves should be used and a possible six different flow ranges may be provided.
Based on the above, it should be readily apparent that the present invention provides for a system that controls the build up of contaminants in EGR coolers while avoiding the disadvantages as set forth in the prior art. Although described with reference to preferred embodiments of the invention, it should be readily understood that various changes and/or modifications could be made to the invention without departing from the spirit thereof. For instance, numerous additional EGR coolers may be added to the system as needed and the system may be adapted to any engine, with or without a charge booster, that incorporates an EGR system. In general, the invention is only intended to be limited by the scope of the following claims. | A system for controlling contaminant deposition in an exhaust recirculation cooler mounted in a vehicle to allow exhaust gas to recirculate along a gas recirculation path from the exhaust assembly of the engine to the intake assembly of the engine. The cooler includes a housing defining an exhaust gas inlet leading to an internal gas cooling passageway which, in turn, leads to an exhaust gas outlet. A controller receives flow dependent signals and, in turn, regulates the flow of exhaust gas through the cooler to establish a turbulent flow in order to control the production of deposits in the cooler. Multiple, varying size coolers can be employed, with separate exhaust flows to the coolers being varied in by determining which coolers should be active, while still maintaining turbulent flow patterns. | 1 |
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to glass forming and trimming, and is an improvement to the inventions disclosed in Giffen U.S. Pats. No. 3,193,367 and 3,582,454. The former patent was directed to the problems encountered in trimming a newly formed article from surrounding sheet glass before the glass became chilled. The sheet was maintained in a spaced relationship from a wall of the forming die, which served as one trimmer edge, so as to minimize the cooling effect of the die on the sheet glass. The sheet was sheared by a trimmer slidably cooperating with the trimmer edge of the die. The latter patent was directed to the trimming of a laminated sheet so as to force an outer stratum over a central stratum of the laminate during the trimming operation.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,261,706 to Blanding et al relates to the use of a pair of cooperable rollers to form a plurality of uniform particles from molten material. The particles are initially joined together by thin web or edge portions within a sheet form, which is subsequently flexed in various directions to separate the particles along the edge or web portions.
In the past, the trimming techniques utilized for sheet glass required rather precise tolerances between the mold trim edge and the trimming tool, since the glass was sheared as the trimming tool cooperably slid along the trim edge, as shown in FIG. 1 and the above identified Giffen patents. Thus, as shown in FIG. 1, the critical dimension d in the operation was the dimension of the clearance between the trim edge 12 of the mold 10 and the trimmer 14. The necessary tolerances between the trimmer and the mold trim edge can usually be maintained within acceptable limits when the product to be trimmed is round by thermal sizing the parts. However, when a non-round trim is required, matching the tooling at the forming temperatures is extremely difficult since thermal size changes are not uniform. That is, since the sliding fit between the trimmer 14 and the mold trim edge 12 must be achieved at forming temperatures, the operating temperatures and behavior of the materials as they heat up must be known in order to accomplish the desired operable sliding fit. However, if the operating temperature change or the material behavior has not been accurately predicted, the critical dimension d will not be maintained, and the trimming will not function correctly due to either a binding or a loose fit between the trimmer parts 12 and 14.
When the product to be trimmed is round, a poor fit represented by the sliding clearance between the trimmer and the mold edge is not necessarily a serious problem since the fit can be adjusted with reasonable changes in tooling temperatures. However, when the product is not round, the problem becomes more serious since the longer mold dimension of the product to be trimmed changes a greater amount than the shorter dimension, and since the change is not necessarily uniform, it may result in an unacceptable trimming of the glass sheet G.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to method and apparatus for trimming newly formed articles, of virtually any shape, from sheet glass while in a semi-molten condition, without being concerned about conventional tolerances between shearing elements. The peripheral region of the article to be trimmed from the sheet glass is suspended over a groove or recess, which prevents rapid cooling of the glass in such area. A trimmer is inserted into the glass within the region of the groove or recess, such that the glass thickness is preferably reduced to about 0.015 inches or thinner, and cracks occur in the thin section as a result of cooling and minute stress sources introduced by the tooling. The cracks, of course, follow the groove and the product is then separated from the sheet as it cools.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 is a schematic fragmental elevational view in section illustrating the prior art method of trimming sheet glass adjacent the rim edge of a mold.
FIG. 2 is a schematic elevational view in section illustrating the positionment of a sheet of molten glass upon a mold assembly for forming and trimming.
FIG. 3 is a schematic elevational view in section illustrating the trimming of an article formed from the sheet glass and mold of FIG. 2, incorporating the present invention.
FIG. 4 is an enlarged schematic fragmental sectional view in elevation illustrating the trimming operation of the present invention.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
Referring now to the drawings, and particularly FIG. 2, a glass sheet G is shown overlying a mold assembly 20 comprising a mold insert 22 and a mold housing 24. The mold insert 22 is provided with a forming surface which may be in the form of a mold cavity 26 having a surrounding rim 28 provided with a groove or recess 30 extending about the periphery P of the article A formed by the mold 22. The glass sheet G is shown positioned over the mold asembly 20 in FIG. 2, whereas, in FIG. 3, it is shown formed into an article A within the mold cavity 26. The glass sheet G may either be of a unitary composition as shown by Giffen U.S. Pat. No. 3,193,367, or may be in the form of a laminate as shown by Giffen, U.S. Pat. No. 3,582,454. In addition, the article A may be formed by any desired process such as pressing, vacuum forming, blowing, or a combination of the same.
A trimmer head 32, reciprocal with respect to the mold assembly 20, is provided with a tapered trimmer portion 34 which terminates in a blunt trimmer edge 35. The trimmer edge is in cooperable alignment with the recess 30 formed in upper rim 28. In operation, the glass sheet G is formed into an article A on the mold 22. The sheet G overlies the grooves or recess portions 30 adjacent the periphery P of the article A, so as to maintain such peripheral area out of contact with the metal mold and retain the glass in such peripheral area at or near the forming temperature until the initiation of the trimming operation. After the article A is formed, the trimmer and mold assembly are relatively moved toward one another so that the tapered trimmer portion 34 and trimmer edge 35 moves into the glass sheet G, reducing the thickness of the glass in the trim region, which is defined by the width of the trimmer edge 35 in cooperation with groove or recess 30. The trimmer head 32 may be provided with a vent opening 33 to relieve air pressure generated between the trimmer head and the hold 22. The glass thickness within the groove is reduced to form a thin connection section 36 having a maximum thickness of about 0.02", and a crack or plurality of cracks C occur in such thin section as a result of cooling and minute stress sources introduced by the trimming operation. The cracks C follow the groove 30 about the periphery P of the article A, and the article is separated and removed from the sheet as it cools.
As noted, the trimming operation is accomplished without the trimmer portion 34 sliding past a trim edge of a mold. In fact, the reduced glass thickness, which results in the trimming, is produced by parallel surfaces moving toward one another. Tha is, so long as the trimmer edge 35 on tapered trimmer portion 34 is aligned within the width of mold groove 30, the trimming will be successful, since the trimmer edge 35 and the inner surface of the groove 30 will be cooperably aligned. Further, since the width of the groove 30 may be made much larger than the bottom trimmer edge 35 of the tapered trimmer portion 34, the problem of alignment and fit between the trimmer and the groove is greatly reduced from that encountered with the sliding fit of the prior art.
As previously mentioned, the reduction of the thickness in the glass sheet prduced by the trimmer portion should be such so that the thickness of the reduced peipheral portion within the groove 30 does not exceed about 0.02 inches. In fact, although separation has been achieved with a thickness of 0.02 inches, reliable performance occurs when the thickness of the critical dimension D between the trimmer edge 35 and the inner surface of the groove 30 is below 0.015 inches. The separation is affected by the amount of expansion of the glass, such that higher expansion glasses separate more readily from the sheet than lower expansion glasses. After the tapered trimmer portion 34 has reduced the thickness of the glass to the desired critical dimension D, the trimmer 32 is withdrawn, and as the glass cools, thermal crack-off causes the article to separate from the sheet. However, it is desireale that the sheet G surrounding the article A has some resistance to the aricle so as to establish stresses in the crack region, such as by mechanically locking the sheet G to the mold housing 24, or by retaining the sheet by means of vacuum, or by merely cooling the sheet. After the article is separated, it is removed from the sheet.
The length of the tapered portion 34 of the trimmer is greater than the thickness of the sheet G to be trimmed, and the nose or trimmer edge 35 of the tapered trimmer portion 34 may have a width of between about 0.01 and 0.02 inches, which cooperates with a groove having a width of about 0.1 inches. The depth of the groove 30 may be between about 0.01 inches and 0.015 inches. It is understood, of course, that greater widths could be utilized with possible increases in depths. Further, it is important that the groove sides 31 (FIG. 4) have an upward and outward slope to prevent the locking of the glass in the groove.
The temperature of the trimmer must, of course, be maintined below the metal to glass sticking temperature. Trimming pressures of about 280 lbs per square inch along the trimmer edge function satisfactorily for most sheet glass having a thickness not exceeding about 1/4 inch. The width and depth of the groove 30 are actually selected to maintain the sheet suspended over the bottom of the groove so as to prevent contact with the mold and retain the glass close to the forming temperature at the time it is contacted by the trimmer.
In addition to having the trimmer of the present invention simultaneously fully operable in the same plane as the mold as shown in FIG. 3, the trimmer edge could be formed on the outside surface of a cylinder, to progressively engage a peripherial groove. That is, as the cylinder rotates, the trimmer would match a groove formed in the outside surface of the mold and progressively trim out the article as it rotates along the groove. The reduced sensitivity to dimensional tolerances of the trim concept of the present invention is beneficial for virtually all configurations on a rotary trimmer.
Although each mold is shown containing only one product centrally located in the mold, it is possible to produce several products in a mold and still utilize the trim concept of the present invention, since its reduced sensitivity to trimming tolerances makes it possible to trim a plurality of products from a single mold. Further, it is unimportant whether the article is vaccum formed, press formed or a combination of both, since the trimming concept of the present invention is applicable in separating a formed article from sheet glass irrespective of the manner in which it is formed. Further, the sheet glass may either be unitary or laminated glass, as may be desired for the finished product. Further, if desired, the surface of the trimmer could be provided with irregularities which would raise the stress levels in the trim area and promote checks to form along the groove for thus enhancing the separation of the article from the sheet.
Although the now preferred embodiments of the invention have been disclosed, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various changes and modifications may be made thereto without departing from the spirit and scope thereto as defined in the appended claims. | A method is disclosed for trimming a newly formed article from sheet glass while it is still in a semi-molten condition, by maintaining a peripheral portion of the sheet glass about the newly formed article out of contact with the mold so as to maintain its temperature, and then reducing the thickness of such peripheral portion without severing the same, and then cooling the thinned section to thermally crack-off and separate the newly formed article from the sheet glass. | 2 |
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0001] 1) Field of the Invention
[0002] The present invention relates to carriers, and more particularly to carriers of the type commonly used for carrying containers such as bottles of wine or beer from a retailer.
[0003] 2) Description of the Prior Art
[0004] Bottle carriers, generally made of cardboard, are well-known but tend to suffer from a number of disadvantages. These include a tendency to collapse during use, usually in accordance with Murphy's Law, at the most inconvenient point between the point of purchase and a purchaser's home or car, which often results in the retailer being called upon to provide replacement bottles, at their expense. Such carrier malfunction arises from poor efficiency during the gluing process of manufacture, with the problem only being identified when a failure occurs. The construction itself is often also the cause of the failure. Conventional carriers are designed to be expanded from a flat, unassembled state which is suitable for storage, to an assembled state by pushing the respective flatpacked sides of the carrier together. Carriers of this kind of design have a base generally formed from interlocking cardboard pieces fashioned with the bottom edge of the carrier sides. Carriers designed in this way are inefficient, as the main strength of the assembled carrier lies perpendicular to the vertical plane containing the load force exerted by the bottles when the carrier is loaded. Such constructions have a tendency to fail when the carriers are fully loaded, much to the inconvenience of the user.
[0005] Another problem associated with conventional bottle carriers is that adjacently placed bottles tend to knock together whilst the carrier is in use, particularly whilst the carrier is being transported in a moving vehicle.
[0006] Additionally, the bases of conventional carriers are substantially smooth and so there is a tendency for a loaded carrier to slide around in a moving vehicle.
[0007] A further problem associated with conventional bottle carriers is that when a carrier is only partially loaded it tends to be unbalanced and unstable when being carried. This effect is highlighted when an odd number of bottles are being carried, as the carrier tends to tip into an orientation in which bottles can potentially slide from the carrier.
[0008] U.S. Pat. No. 4,049,116 discloses a carrier for glasses or bottles formed from a single blank of material and with a single die. During assembly the adhesive may be applied with a single line gluer, and the assembled carrier is adjustable to accommodate articles of different heights. An optional separator piece is used to separate the top rims of various height glasses within the carrier. However, the carrier still suffers from some of the disadvantages highlighted above and additionally from the fact that bottles placed in the end compartments can slip out of the carrier. This problem is particularly evident when the carrier is unbalanced by being used for an uneven number of bottles. The carrier includes open apertures to receive bottles placed in the carrier, which means that the carrier is not well adapted for carrying a range of different sized or shaped bottles.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0009] Accordingly, the present invention seeks to address the above problems whilst remaining compatible with existing production methods.
[0010] The present invention seeks to provide a carrier which prevents containers, such as bottles, located in compartments at open ends of the carrier from slipping out of the carrier.
[0011] The present invention also seeks to provide a carrier which prevents adjacently located bottles from contacting into each other.
[0012] The present invention further seeks to provide a carrier which minimises sliding movement of a loaded carrier across a surface.
[0013] The present invention also seeks to provide a carrier which can be more efficiently manufactured than other carriers currently commonly available. In its broadest sense, the present invention provides a container carrier in which the carrier comprises a downwardly extending and substantially vertical dividing wall formed with a handle portion which extends upwardly therefrom and a handle reinforcement portion which extends downwardly from the handle portion adjacent thereto, the carrier further comprising a first base portion extending generally laterally away from the dividing wall, and a first sidewall extending generally upwardly therefrom; a first roof section extending generally upwardly and laterally from the first sidewall towards the handle portions; a second roof section extending generally downwardly and laterally from the first roof section and the handle portions, wherein the handle portions pass through a slot formed in a ridge dividing first and second roof sections; a second sidewall extending generally downwardly from the second roof section; a second base portion extending generally laterally away from the second sidewall and towards the dividing wall and the first base portion; and a minor dividing wall extending upwardly from the second base portion, adjacent to and adhered to the dividing wall, wherein the roof sections each include container receiving portions.
[0014] Preferably, the carrier is formed from a unitary blank. Suitably, the carrier is formed from a corrugated board material, suitably cardboard or a plastics equivalent.
[0015] In a first aspect of the present invention, the container-receiving portions each comprise a plurality of deformable flaps. In a second aspect of the present invention, container-retaining barriers are provided at open ends of the carrier.
[0016] Optionally, tabs are formed in the base of the assembled carrier to define container accommodating areas and to prevent adjacent containers from knocking each other whilst the carrier is in transit.
[0017] Preferably, the carrier is collapsible for storage or transportation. More preferably, the carrier includes locking means to lock the carrier in an expanded form. Suitably, a tab is formed extending from an upper edge of at least one of the roof portions to engage a corresponding cut-out in the separator piece, below the carrier handle. The separator prevents bottles located opposite one another on either side of the handle from knocking into each other. The separator is generally open toward the ends of the carrier, but also features a barrier, formed with the carrier base, to prevent bottles located at the ends of the carrier from slipping out therefrom.
[0018] In a third aspect of the present invention there is provided a container carrier having a base including feet to reduce slippage whilst the carrier rests on a surface. Suitably, the feet have a serrated edge. Optionally, the feet are squared. The carrier may be any conventional carrier or a carrier of the type described above.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0019] The above and other aspects of the present invention will now be described in further detail, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying figures, in which:
[0020] FIG. 1 is a plan view of a blank of first embodiment of a carrier in accordance with the present invention;
[0021] FIG. 2 is a perspective view along a side and from a first end of a carrier formed from the blank of FIG. 1 ;
[0022] FIG. 3 is a side view of the embodiment of FIG. 2 ;
[0023] FIG. 4 is an end view of the embodiment of FIG. 2 ;
[0024] FIG. 5 is a plan view from above of the embodiment of FIG. 2 ;
[0025] FIG. 6 is a plan view from below of the embodiment of FIG. 2 ;
[0026] FIGS. 7A-E are alternative feet designs for a bottle carrier in accordance with the present invention;
[0027] FIG. 8 is a plan view of a blank of a second embodiment of a carrier in accordance with the present invention;
[0028] FIG. 9 is a plan view of a blank of a third embodiment of a carrier in accordance with the present invention;
[0029] FIG. 10 is a perspective view along a side and from a first end of a carrier formed from the blank of FIG. 9 ;
[0030] FIG. 11 is a plan view of a blank of a fourth embodiment of a carrier in accordance with the present invention;
[0031] FIG. 12 is a further plan view of the blank of FIG. 11 ; and
[0032] FIG. 13 is a perspective of a carrier in assembled or use condition of the blank of FIG. 10 .
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
[0033] With reference to FIG. 1 , a single piece blank 10 is shown, from which completed carrier 9 may be formed through folding. The carrier blank 10 comprises a single elongate piece of a material and includes regions corresponding to a handle portion 11 , a handle reinforcement portion 12 , a roof portion 13 , sidewalls 14 , 14 ′ and a base 15 .
[0034] Handle reinforcement portion 12 is formed at a first end of the elongate blank 10 and is attached, opposite a fold line 20 , to handle portion 11 . Handle 11 is formed with a major dividing wall 21 , which connects to a first base portion 22 through fold line 23 . First base portion 22 in turn connects to a first sidewall 14 , through fold line 24 , which itself is formed with roof 13 , and divided therefrom by fold line 25 . Roof 13 is further divided into first and second roof sections 60 , 61 , mirrored by fold line 30 , wherein first roof section 60 sits between fold lines 25 and 30 . Accordingly, second roof section 61 is attached to a second sidewall 14 ′ through fold line 31 , and said second sidewall 14 ′ is divided from second base portion 32 by fold line 33 . Second base portion 32 is formed with a minor dividing wall 34 and is divided therefrom by fold line 35 . Fold lines 20 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 30 , 31 , 33 and 35 are substantially parallel.
[0035] Additionally, handle portion 11 and handle reinforcement portion 12 further comprise a complementary cutout and flap 40 . In the embodiment shown, an edge proximate fold line 20 of the partial cut-out of handle portion 11 forms a fold line so that the cut-out defines flap 40 . When the carrier 9 is in an assembled state, this arrangement allows the flap to be folded back through the handle portion 11 and the cut-out of the handle reinforcement portion 12 to provide a more comfortable handle grip through which a user may place their hand for holding the carrier 9 . It will be recognised by the skilled person that flap 40 may alternatively be formed on handle reinforcement portion 12 .
[0036] Fold line 30 , bridges and divides roof 13 into roof sections 60 and 61 and further comprises a slot 41 with dimensions suitable to allow simultaneous passage of handle portion 15 and handle reinforcement portion 14 therethrough. Additionally, a locking tab 42 is formed integrally with slot 41 and engages a complementary locking slot 43 formed at the base of handle portion 11 . In an alternative embodiment (not shown) the tab and slot may be positioned respectively on the opposite side of slot 41 and at the base of handle reinforcement portion 12 . In a further alternative embodiment, complementary tab and slot arrangements may be provided on both sides of the carrier 9 for added stability. As shown in FIGS. 2 to 5 , when blank 10 is assembled into its corresponding carrier, the locking tab 42 engages slot 43 to hold the carrier in a configuration suitable for use.
[0037] Blank 10 further includes a plurality of pairs of bottle engaging flaps 44 the roof 13 . The flaps 44 allow a bottle to be inserted therethrough and into the body of the carrier, and grip a bottle so inserted around its neck or body. The flaps 44 also prevent adjacently placed bottles from knocking against each other when the carrier is in use. Each flap 44 a , 44 b of a pair comprises a portion hingedly attached to the surrounding roof 13 along a hinge line 46 ( FIG. 3 ). An upper portion 47 of each flap is cut such that it is not joined to the roof 13 . A trans-verse fold line is formed between the upper 47 and lower 48 sections of each flap. In the figures, a solid line represents a cut between the flap and adjacent roof 13 and a hashed line represents a fold line, suitably formed by perforations or by compressing the board along the line.
[0038] Additionally, first and second base portions 22 , 32 of blank 10 also comprise tabs 45 in the form of feet to prevent a loaded carrier from slipping, for instance in the boot of a car whilst in transit. In the embodiment shown the feet 45 are formed along fold lines 24 and 33 , though it will be recognised that they could be formed anywhere within the base portions 22 , 32 . FIGS. 7A-E illustrate a number of alternative feet designs.
[0039] Blank 10 may also include separator flaps (not shown) formed in the first and second base portions 22 , 32 . In a bottle carrier designed to accommodate six bottles the separator flaps longitudinally divide the bottom portions 22 , 32 , into thirds. In the assembled configuration the flaps are folded into the body of the carrier to provide a means of separating the bases of adjacent bottles placed therein. Prior to assembly of the carrier 9 , glue is applied to sections 50 to 53 of blank 10 . Sections 50 to 52 lie on an opposite face of blank 10 to section 53 . Alternatively, it will be recognised that the regions of the blank to which glued sections 50 to 53 adhere may also be glued. During assembly handle portions 11 and 12 are folded so that glued section 50 lies therebetween to adhere the two handle portions together. The thus formed handle is then passed through slot 41 of roof 13 , and all fold lines lying therebetween are folded accordingly to form a first side of carrier 9 . End barriers 54 , formed from cut-outs 46 which span sidewall 14 and first base portions 22 , are folded upwards so that glued portions 51 adhere the barrier to the dividing wall 21 . Minor dividing wall 34 of the second end of blank 10 , distal to the handle portion, is then folded along fold lines 31 , 33 and 35 , to form a symmetrical carrier 9 , and adhered to dividing wall 21 . End barriers 55 of the second thus formed side, and formed from cut-outs 46 ′, are folded upwards so that glued portions 52 adhere the barrier to minor dividing wall 34 , which is itself adhered to dividing wall 21 . Once the glue has set, the handle portion may be passed back through slot 41 to provide a flat configuration of carrier 9 , which is suitable for packing, storage and shipment.
[0040] In the expanded configuration, as seen in FIGS. 2 to 6 , the carrier 9 is capable of receiving and accommodating a range of different sized bottles due to bottle engaging flaps 44 .
[0041] When a carrier according to the present invention has been formed it can be folded flat for storage and shipment, by passing the handle portion back through the slot formed in the ridge dividing the first and second roof sections. The carrier is easily expanded for use, and in its expanded form, the sidewalls of the carrier are pressed down over a locking tab at the base of the handle to maintain the expanded configuration. In use, bottles can be placed in the carrier and are received therein by pushing the base of the bottle through bottle engaging flaps in the carrier roof which connects the respective sidewalls and which provides a means of separating adjacent bottles. The bottle engaging flaps grip the body or neck of a bottle located within the carrier to prevent clanking whilst the carrier is being used to carry a number of bottles, or whilst the carrier is in transit within a vehicle.
[0042] A modified carrier is shown in blank form in FIG. 8 . The construction is generally the same as the embodiment described above. However, left and right edges (as viewed from the front) of each roof section 60 , 61 are provided with reinforcing elements in the form of edge flaps 70 . In forming the assembled carrier, flaps 70 are folded behind the outer surface of the respective roof section and glued in position.
[0043] Additional reinforcement may optionally be applied to minor dividing wall 34 and the operatively lower part of the major dividing wall 21 , as shown by the shaded portions in FIG. 8 . Reinforcement may be by means of an additional cardboard element glued in position or by means of a sheet material such as paper. The reinforcement may be overprinted to improve the aesthetics of the carrier.
[0044] As a further modification, the bottle-engaging flaps are redesigned. The upper portion 47 is omitted such that each flap has a single portion 71 , hingedly formed with the roof portion 13 , with an aperture 72 formed above. The provision of an aperture 72 together with flaps 71 maintains good frictional engagement with a bottle, carton or other container, but improves the obviousness of the location of the bottle-receiving apertures for the end user.
[0045] Further, a modified carrier having feet 45 in accordance with a third aspect of the invention is shown in FIGS. 9 and 10 . The construction of the carrier is generally the same as that of conventional carriers. However, feet 45 are provided to prevent a loaded carrier from slipping, for instance in the boot of a car, whilst in transit.
[0046] As may be seen, therefore, the present invention provides numerous advantages. It may be assembled easily and inexpensively, and is capable of accommodating bottles of a range of different sizes and shapes. The design of the carrier is such that it will provide stable storage means and will prevent bottles from knocking together and breaking during transit. It may be formed with a single die, using conventional manufacturing equipment. It uses around 12% less material than conventional carriers which are in common use, may be folded flat for shipment, and can be easily expanded and assembled by the user.
[0047] In FIG. 11 , a plan is shown of a further carrier according to the present invention. In FIG. 13 , this embodiment is shown in assembled condition.
[0048] It is described how this blank can be transferred to a folded condition of the carrier in which it can be handed to an end user. Furthermore, it is described how the carrier can be converted from the folded condition to the use condition.
[0049] The upper side in FIG. 11 is the printed sight or shiny side of the blank, which side mainly forms the outer side of the carrier when it is in the folded condition. The other side is the lackluster, or non-printed cardboard side that forms the substantially the inside of the carrier.
[0050] The blank can be produced from cardboard or corrugated cardboard with the corrugation being aligned length wise or width wise. The blank comprises several cutting lines and a number of folding lines. Furthermore, a number of areas are glued to a number of other areas. The blank is shown as it is after it has been cut out. The folded condition in which the carrier is, from which it can be folded out to the use condition, is a condition in which the blank is brought after a number of folding and gluing operations. The folding and gluing operations for converting the blank from the cut out condition to the folded position is described below.
[0051] In order to transform the blank from the shown position in FIG. 11 to the folded position in which it is preferably provided to the end user, the following operations are performed.
[0052] The lackluster side of section 102 is folded along folding line 107 and glued against the lackluster side of section 3 such that the same is positioned adjacent to the back of section 103 that is bounded by the dotted line 108 . By means of this operation a handle or grip of two layers of cardboard with the opening 104 of section 102 comes into being, further comprising a foldable flap 105 of section 103 that is foldable along folding line 106 . Furthermore, the blank is folded along the folding line 114 , 115 , 116 in such a way that the lackluster parts are placed adjacent to one other, especially the parts 109 against the perspective parts 111 , 112 , 131 and a part of 129 .
[0053] Furthermore, the blank is folded along the folding lines 140 that are extending in prolongation of the handle opening 121 , in such a way that the shiny side of section 9 is brought in a position adjacent to the lackluster side of amongst others section 129 A and other sections.
[0054] The areas that are indicated with A,A; B,B; J,J; I,I ( FIG. 12 ) are glued together with the lackluster sides. By doing this, these areas are reinforced.
[0055] The area 109 B is folded along folding line 141 A and glued against area 109 A that is bounded by a dotted line 141 and that is part of section 109 . In this operation, the shiny sides are glued together.
[0056] Furthermore, the flaps 133 , 133 A, 132 , 132 A are folded and glued together with the lackluster side against the lackluster part of the blank towards which these flaps are folded. These folding and gluing operations provide a reinforcement which helps prevent tearing of the cardboard of the carrier during use under strain of the weight of e.g. cans or bottles that are placed in the carrier.
[0057] The above concludes the folding and gluing operations. The carrier is brought in the folded condition and ready for use and an operation for bringing the carrier in the use condition.
[0058] The carrier comprises a number of folding and cutting lines that contribute to its usability according to the present invention as will be described below.
[0059] The cutting lines are as follows. The cardboard of the blank is cut along the lines:
123 , 123 A for forming of feet for providing a resistance against sliding and/or bumping because of sliding during use; 119 for folding down flaps that are defined by cutting lines 119 and by folding lines 18 , which flaps help providing openings for placing e.g. bottles. Several openings are defined in the blank; 120 for indicating positions for placing bottles in the carrier; 124 for allowing fingers through the vertical wall for folding out flaps 127 , 127 A along folding lines 126 , 126 A for pulling out the attached walls to the folded out position of the carrier; 142 for allowing protrusion 122 to engage with this slot 42 when the folded out use condition of the carrier is reached; 144 , which are cut-outs for enabling a separation between folding out of the carrier between the parts 112 , 112 A, 113 , 113 A and the parts 131 and 131 A in which the parts 131 , 131 A form the bottom of the carrier positions of which the bottles are supported and the parts 112 , 112 A, 113 , 113 A provide a sideway support to the bottles that are supported by the parts 131 , 131 A.
[0066] The advantages of this embodiment or several aspects of this embodiment are:
by pulling the flaps 127 , 127 A, the surfaces 129 , 129 A are pulled away from each other and the folded out position is attained without the risk that the folding lines 37 , 37 A fold inwards, because of which the carrier would not fold out to the position of use. In an alternative way of folding out the device, in which the user tries to fold out the carrier by pushing down the folding line 40 , the folding lines 137 , 137 A are likely to fold inwards does blocking the folding out operation; tearing of the cardboard is prevented by the reinforcements of the folded flaps 132 , 132 A, 133 , 133 A; the folding lines 118 are straight because of which the openings for the bottles can be folded open easily; the opening 124 contributes to the operation for folding out the carrier in that in a simple manner, the user can reach the flaps 127 , 127 A for performing the pulling operation for folding out the carrier. Alternatively, instead of adding the flaps 127 , 127 A, simple openings at substantially this location can provide a similar means for pulling out these sidewalls.
[0071] In FIG. 13 , the embodiment of FIG. 11 is shown in the folded out use position. As can clearly be seen, the centre wall 109 comprises an opening 124 which makes gripping of the pull flaps 127 , 127 A during a folding out operation of the carrier easier because the fingers can reach through this opening 124 while gripping the flaps 127 , 127 A. Alternatively, when only a pull openings 126 , 126 A are provide in stead of the flaps, reaching through the opening 124 will enable easier gripping as well.
[0072] In this embodiment, the folding lines 118 , 119 are straight for easy folding of the respective flaps before or during placing of bottles.
[0073] In the above, the present invention is described by means of several preferred embodiments. Different aspects of different embodiments are to be considered to be described in combination such that all combinations that can readily be made by a person skilled in the art are to be considered to be disclosed. These preferred embodiments are not limiting for the scope of protection of this text. The conferred rights are determined by the annexed claims. | We describe a carrier which seeks to prevent containers, such as bottles, located in compartments at open ends of the carrier from slipping out of the carrier. We also describe a carrier in which adjacently located bottles are prevented from contacting into each other. We further describe a carrier in which sliding movement of a loaded carrier across a surface is minimised. | 1 |
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates to valves and more particularly relates to valves for radial piston pumps.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The German patent application DE-OS 40 27 794 discloses a radial piston pump. This radial piston pump is equipped with a suction valve as well as with a pressure valve. The pressure chamber of the pressure valve is sealed by means of a cover screwed into a housing, the cover being equipped with a sealing ring. The known pressure valve further comprises a spherical valve member, a spring biassing the spherical valve member and a valve seat. Consequently, five components are needed for the functioning of the pressure valve.
The present invention is based on a much simpler design.
The object of the present invention is to simplify such a valve by reducing the number of necessary components and therefore to reduce the costs of the valve.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is based in principle on the fact, that a new connection type at the same time achieves a retaining and a sealing function so that special sealing elements are no longer necessary. Prerequisite for the effectiveness of these provisions is an insertion pressure that is high enough to make a sufficient amount of material of the shoulder run into the groove of the valve seat. The circumferential groove extends at a certain angle relative to the two circumferential surfaces of the shoulder so that the housing material running into the groove provides for an undercut relative to the outer contour. This leads on the one hand to a retaining function and on the other hand to a sealing function, since the housing material--being under pressure--fills the groove completely thus connecting the two components in a sealing and non-detachable manner.
The provisions according to the present invention can be applied in a positive way also with regard to the cover. Thus the valve seat does not only support the valve, but provides also an annular accommodation for a cover which can be pressed into the valve seat, and which can be connected with the valve seat in a sealing manner by means of cold extrusion according to the method described above. A subsequent insertion of the cover is necessary because the valve member is biassed by means of a valve spring and both elements have first to be inserted with the cover opened, before the cover can be closed.
Another type of construction with a reduced number of elements, is given in which the annular projection is omitted and the cover is not inserted this annular projection but connected, in a further step, directly with the housing by means of cold extrusion, after having mounted the valve member and the valve spring.
A further reduction of the number of components is accomplished by integrating the cover and valve seat. The problem is, however, that the valve member including spring must still be retained in this unit. This problem is solved by first equipping the unit consisting of valve seat and cover with the valve member and the biassing spring and then anchoring the equipped unit in the housing by means of cold extrusion.
The volume of the unit consisting of valve seat and cover is such that the pressure fluid generated by the pump is conducted to the outlet in the housing passing a restrictor. Therefore the pressure fluid present at the outlet of the housing shows comparatively small pressure variations since the restrictor dampens the high-pressure pulses of the pressure fluid. In this regard it must be assured, however, that the pressure fluid pumped into the valve chamber by means of the pressure valve cannot flow directly to the outlet of the housing, i.e. without passing the connection equipped with the restrictor. Thus the valve chamber is closed in a convenient manner by means of a sealed plug. It is a matter of course that, due to this additional characteristic, the number of elements necessary for the valve is higher. However, the plug, in its turn, can be pressed in a sealing manner into the unit consisting of valve seat and cover by means of cold extrusion, the material for the plug usually being softer than the unit consisting of valve seat and cover.
A particularly simple connection between valve chamber and damping chamber results in a particularly simple construction of the restrictor within the connection.
A preferred construction type of the cavity is disclosed as well as the installation of a an additional filter in order to clean the brake fluid delivered under pressure.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 is an embodiment of the valve with 4 components.
FIG. 2 is a modified embodiment of the valve also with 4 components.
FIG. 3 is a third embodiment of the valve according to the present invention consisting of 3 components.
FIG. 4 is a modified embodiment of the valve according to FIG. 3.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
FIG. 1 shows a section of a housing 1 which can be the housing of a high-pressure radial piston pump, as shown e.g. in DE-OS 40 27 794.
The housing is provided with a stepped bore presenting a first section 3, a second section 4 and a third section 5. Further bore sections can follow, which e.g. accommodate the piston of the radial piston pump. The stepped bore 2 accommodates a valve seat 6 which is of integral design with annular valve projection 7. A valve member 8 is pressed against the valve seat 6 by means of a spring 9 bearing against a cover 10 at the opposite end. The interior of the valve member 6 and the cover 10 delimit a valve chamber 11 which is connected with a housing outlet 13 by a passage 12 and the interior of the second bore section 2. The pressure fluid delivered by the pump and being under pressure can be drawn from housing outlet 13.
It is of particular importance for the present invention that the materials used for the housing and the unit consisting of valve seat and annular projection, have a different hardness, i.e. the material of the former is softer than that of the latter or vice versa. In the present example of the invention it is assumed that the housing is made of soft aluminum while valve seat 6 and annular projection 7 are made of tensile steel. Furthermore it is very important, that the passage from the first bore section 3 to the second bore section 4, and from the second bore section 4 to the third bore section 5 is formed like a shoulder which results in a first circumferential shoulder 14 and a second circumferential shoulder 15. Opposite to the respective shoulder edges 16 and 17 there is a circumferential groove 18 and 19. The valve seat 6 as well as the annular projection 7 each include two sections with different diameters, the large-diameter section bearing against the bottom of one bore section, e.g. relative to the valve seat 6 of the second bore section 4, while the small section extends into the following smaller bore section (e.g. third bore section 5). The two sections of the valve seat 6 are--as already mentioned--separated by the groove 19. The same applies for the annular projection 7 bearing against the first bore section 3 with its large section and extending in the second bore section 4 with its small section.
By pressing (e.g. the valve seat 6 against shoulder 15 of housing 1) the material of the shoulder it is caused to penetrate groove 19. The same applies for the annular projection 7, the groove 18 of which during pressing is filled with material of shoulder 14. Both procedures happen at the same time because of the integral design of valve seat 6 and the annular projection 7. On the one hand, the material of the housing 1 inserted under pressure into the grooves 18, 19 forms an undercut preventing the unit 6,7 from being pulled out of the stepped bore 2 and, on the other hand, being able to seal the considerable pressure in the third bore section 5 and the second bore section 4 with regard to the following larger bore section. This way the O-ring seals and the relative grooves can be omitted which otherwise are necessary, reducing at the same time the mounting time. The described characteristics simplify also the automatic mounting since the components, among other things, do not have to be equipped with sealing rings.
After the valve seat 6 has been pressed in the described, sealing manner into the housing 1 and has been equipped with valve member 8 and spring 9, a cover 10 can be inserted by means of the cold extrusion procedure described above. The cover 10 is preferably made of softer material than the valve seat 6 and annular projection 7. For this reason, in the annular projection 7 another groove 21 is provided which is arranged at one shoulder in the annular projection 7. Pressing the cover 10 onto the shoulder, part of the material of the cover runs into the groove 21. The undercut of the cover material relative to the annular projection 7 achieved in this manner connects the cover in a non-detachable and sealing way with the annular projection 7 and thus closes the valve chamber 7 against the environment in a pressure-tight manner.
In the following embodiments of the present invention the components that are comparable with the components in FIG. 1 are given the same reference numbers. For the embodiments according to FIGS. 2 to 4 only the differences with regard to FIG. 1 are described.
In the embodiment according to FIG. 2 the valve seat 6 is inserted in the same manner into the stepped bore 2 of housing 1, as already described for FIG. 1. The groove 19 is once again inclined by about 45° relative to the longitudinal axis of the valve. The spherical valve member 8 bears once more against the cover 10. The fundamental difference with regard to FIG. 1 is, however, that cover 10 is connected in a direct, non-detachable and sealing manner with housing 1 by means of cold extrusion since the material of the first shoulder 14 is pressed into groove 21. Also in this case the edge 17 extends into groove 21. Since in this case the cover 10 interacts with the soft housing 1, the material of cover 10 must be harder than the material of the housing (aluminum) in order to achieve the desired flow movement in presence of the insertion pressure. As already explained above, in the embodiment according to FIG. 1, the material of the cover must be softer than that of valve seat 6 and thus that of the annular projection 7 so that the cover material can flow into the groove 21.
The fundamental advantage of the embodiment according to FIG. 1 with regard to that of FIG. 2 is that the destruction of cover 10 provides an access to the valve chamber 11 so that there is the possibility to do repair or adjustment work. This is not possible with the embodiment according to FIG. 2, since the shape of the housing 1 has been changed and it is only possible in a limited way to insert a new cover, which does not assure a safe and sealing connection anymore. On the other hand the embodiment according to FIG. 2 is inexpensive and simple to produce due to the reduced number of extruded connections (two grooves 19, 21 instead of three grooves 18, 19, 21 in FIG. 1). As long as it is not necessary to open cover 20 during the lifetime of the housing 1, the embodiment according to FIG. 2 is preferred.
A further modification results from the substitution of the effect of the passage according to FIG. 1 by the distance between the valve seat 6 and the cover 10. This, too, leads to a more simple construction.
While in the embodiments according to FIGS. 1 and 2, four components are sufficient for the valve, i.e. valve seat 6, valve member 8, spring 9 and cover 10, the embodiment according to FIG. 3 allows omitting a further component. For this reason the valve seat 6 and the cover 10 according to FIG. 2 are, contrary to FIG. 2, designed integrally in order to form a cover element 22, in which the valve seat is inserted. The cover member is inserted in the housing 1 by means of cold extrusion, Just like the unit consisting of valve seat 6 and annular projection 7 according to FIG. 1. Instead of a separate cover, as in FIG. 1 against which the spring 9 abuts, in the embodiment according to FIG. 3 the cover is formed in one piece with the annular projection and the valve member. The surface of the second bore section 4 of the stepped bore 2 serves as an abutment for spring 9. This means that the position of the valve seat compared with the embodiments according to FIGS. 1 and 2, is rotated by 90° so that the valve chamber 11 now extends in radial direction.
According to the construction of the grooves 18, 19 in FIG. 3, the material of the cover member must be harder than that of housing 1. One could imagine, however, also the opposite constellation, i.e. the grooves are executed in appropriate shoulders, e.g. at the points 23, 24 of housing 1, and the softer material of the cover member 22 runs into the grooves of the housing.
In order to ensure that the mounting position of valve body 22 in the housing 1 is independent from the rotating angle, the valve member 22 is equipped with a circumferential groove 23 into which the valve chamber 11, formed as a radial bore, ends. The circumferential groove 23 is connected with the housing outlet 13. By means of appropriate channels the valve chamber 11 is connected with the interior of housing 1, e.g. a fourth section 25 of the stepped bore 2.
FIG. 4 shows a modification of the design according to FIG. 3, where only the differences of the embodiment according to FIG. 4 relative to the embodiment of FIG. 3 are described. The fundamental difference is that in addition a second stepped bore 26 and a third stepped bore 27 which are arranged at an angle to each other and intersect. The second bore section 28 of the second stepped bore 27 provides space for the accommodation of a filter, while the second bore section 29 of the second stepped bore 27 serves as restrictor for the noise damping. This way the chamber formed by the second bore section 28 in connection with the valve chamber 11 is involved in the silencing in connection with the restrictor-type second bore section 29. The accumulating effect of the first bore section 30 of the third stepped bore 27 in connection with the chamber created by the circumferential groove 23 contributes thus to a noise reduction.
In order that the pressure fluid flows from the valve chamber 11 across the second and third stepped bore 26, 27 and the circumferential groove to the housing outlet which is not indicated in the drawing, a sealed plug 30 is foreseen which seals the valve chamber 11 in radial direction and on which the spring 9 abuts.
If the cover member 22 shall be exchangeable, the grooves must be executed in the housing 24 and the cover member 22 must be made of softer material than housing 1, as described in connection with the embodiment according to FIG. 3. | A valve for high-pressure radial piston pumps suitable for controlled brake systems. Prior art pumps consist of at least 5 elements. The valve includes less components and thus is less expensive to manufacture and easier to assemble. The valve's simplicity derives from the use of cold extruded connections between the valve and the housing, so that separate rubber sealings are superfluous, and which provide for a strong and non-detachable connection. Favorable embodiments of the present invention integrate some of the known valve elements thus reducing the number of the necessary cold extruded connections. | 5 |
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to two new antibacterial agents designated cis-BM123γ 1 and cis-BM123γ 2 , to their production by photolysis, to methods for their recovery and concentration from crude solutions, and to processes for their purification. The present invention includes within its scope the antibacterial agents in dilute forms, as crude concentrates, and in pure crystalline form. The effects of the new antibacterial agents on specific microorganisms, together with their chemical and physical properties, differentiate them from previously described antibacterial agents.
Antibacterial cis-BM123γ 1 may be represented by the following structural formula (I) whereas antibacterial cis-BM123γ 2 may be represented by the following structural formula (II). ##STR1##
The novel antibacterial agents of the present invention are organic bases and thus are capable of forming acid-addition salts with a variety of organic and inorganic salt-forming reagents. Thus, acid-addition salts, formed by admixture of the antibacterial free base with up to three equivalents of an acid, suitably in a neutral solvent, are formed with such acids as sulfuric, phosphoric, hydrochloric, hydrobromic, sulfamic, citric, maleic, fumaric, tartaric, acetic, benzoic, gluconic, ascorbic, and related acids. The acid-addition salts of the antibacterial agents of the present invention are, in general, crystalline solids relatively soluble in water, methanol and ethanol but are relatively insoluble in non-polar organic solvents such as diethyl ether, benzene, toluene, and the like. For purposes of this invention, the antibacterial free bases are equivalent to their non-toxic acid-addition salts. Hereinafter cis-BM123γ refers to a mixture in any proportions of cis-BM123γ 1 and cis-BM123γ 2 , and trans-BM123γ refers to a mixture in any proportions of trans-BM123γ 1 and trans-BM123γ 2 .
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
The new antibacterial agents which we have designated cis-BM123γ 1 and cis-BM123γ 2 are prepared by the photochemical transformation of their corresponding trans-isomers. The photolytic conversion of trans-BM123γ, trans-BM123γ 1 , and trans-BM123γ 2 to the corresponding cis-BM123γ, cis-BM123γ 1 , and cis-BM123γ 2 is preferably effected by dissolving or dispersing the trans-isomer starting material in water and irradiating the solution with light. The concentration of the trans-isomer starting material in the water is not critical. The light employed in the photolytic process of the present invention is advantageously of a wavelength not less than about 2,500 Angstroms and is preferably of a wavelength from about 2,500 to about 4,000 Angstroms. In order to conveniently achieve this, the reaction may be carried out in a vessel constructed of a material such as quartz, which filters out substantially all the light passing through the vessel having a wavelength below about 2,500 Angstroms. The light source is conveniently a high pressure mercury arc lamp of about 450 watts.
The temperature at which the photolysis is carried out is not particularly critical for good yields of product, but is conveniently within the range from 5° C. to 50° C.; for instance, from about 25° C. to about 30° C. The time required for substantial conversion of the trans-isomer to the corresponding cis-isomer will naturally vary with the light intensity and the temperature, and is therefore best determined by trial in the individual case. However, a period of time ranging from about 20 minutes to about 2 hours is generally sufficient.
After the irradiation step is complete, the product may be obtained by standard procedures. For example, the reaction mixture may be lyophilized or evaporated to dryness and the residue may be dissolved in a minimal amount of solvent such as ethanol or methanol. The resulting solution may be diluted with ether, and the resulting precipitated product may be recovered by filtration. Further purification may then be achieved by standard techniques such as crystallization or chromatography.
The starting materials which have been designated trans-BM123γ 1 and trans-BM123γ 2 are formed during the cultivation under controlled conditions of a new strain of an undetermined species of Nocardia. This new antibiotic producing strain was isolated from a garden soil sample collected at Oceola, Iowa and is maintained in the culture collection of the Lederle Laboratories Division, American Cyanamid Company, Pearl River, N.Y. as Culture No. BM123. A viable culture of the new microorganism has been deposited with the Culture Collection Laboratory, Northern Utilization Research and Development Division, United States Department of Agriculture, Peoria, Illinois, and has been added to its permanent collection. It is freely available to the public in this depository under its accession number NRRL 5646.
The following is a general description of the microorganism Nocardia sp. NRRL 5646, based on diagnostic characteristics observed. Observations were made of the cultural, physiological, and morphological features of the organism in accordance with the methods detailed by Shirling and Gottlieb, Internat. Journ. of Syst. Bacteriol. 16:313-340 (1966). The chemical composition of the culture was determined by the procedures given by Lechevalier et al., Advan. Appl. Microbiol. 14:47-72 (1971). The underscored descriptive colors and color chip designations are taken from Jacobson et al., Color Harmony Manual, 3rd edit. (1948), Container Corp. of America, Chicago, Illinois. Descriptive details are recorded in Table I through V below.
Amount of Growth
Moderate on yeast extract, asparagine dextrose, Benedict's, Bennett's, potato dextrose and Weinstein's agars; light on Hickey and Tresner's, tomato paste oatmeal and pablum agars and a trace of growth on inorganic salts-starch, Kuster's oatflake, Czapek's solution and rice agars.
Aerial Mycelium
Aerial mycelium whitish when present; produced only on yeast extract, asparagine dextrose, Benedict's, Bennett's and potato dextrose agars.
Soluble Pigments
No soluble pigments produced.
Reverse Color
Colorless to yellowish shades.
Miscellaneous Physiological Reactions
No liquefaction of gelatin; nitrates reduced to nitrates in 7 days; melanoid pigments not formed on peptone-iron agar; no peptonization or curd formation in purple milk; NaCl tolerance in yeast extract agar ≧4% but < 7%; optimal growth temperature 32° C. Carbon source utilization, according to the Pridham and Gottlieb method [J. Bacteriol. 56:107-114 (1948)] as follows: Good utilization of gylcerol, salicin, d-trehalose and dextrose; fair utilization of i-inositol; and poor to non-utilization of d-tructose, maltose, adonitol, 1-arabinose, lactose, d-mannitol, d-melibiose, d-raffinose, 1-rhamnose, sucrose and d-xylose.
Chemical Composition
The organism belongs to cell wall type IV, i.e., contains meso-2,6-diaminopimelic acid and has a type A whole-cell sugar pattern, i.e., contains arabinose and galactose. Methylated whole cell extracts, when subjected to gas chromatography, showed fatty acid patterns similar to those produced by Nocardia asteroides ATCC 3308.
Micromorphology
Aerial mycelium arises from substrate mycelium as sparingly branched moderately long flexuous elements that commonly terminate in elongated primitive spirals. The flexuous elements are irregularly segmented into short elliptical to cylindrical sections (spores?) which disarticulate readily. The spiral terminal portions are less conspicuously segmented. Segments generally range 0.8-1.7 μm × 0.3-0.5 μm, averaging 0.4 μm × 1.2 um.
Diagnosis
The morphological characteristics of Culture No. BM123 are difficult to observe and interpret because of the poor development of aerial mycelium on most media. Hence, considerable importance is attached, out of necessity, to the chemical analysis in determining the generic relationship of the organism. On the basis of the system proposed by Lechevalier et al., Culture No. BM123 contains meso-2,6-diaminopimelic acid in its whole cells and sugar analysis shows arabinose and galactose to be present. Therefore, the culture belongs to cell wall type IV. A comparison of the gas chromatography pattern of Culture No. BM123 with that of Nocardia asteroides ATCC 3308 showed the two to be remarkably similar. Other characteristics of Culture No. BM123 that are in keeping with the Nocardia concept, are its fragmenting aerial growth on some media and the total absence of aerial growth on most media. In view of the lack of adequate criteria for the characterization of Nocardia to the species level, no attempt has been made to make this determination. Therefore, Culture No. BM123 will be considered an undetermined species of Nocardia until such a diagnosis is feasible.
TABLE I__________________________________________________________________________Cultural Characteristics of Nocardia sp. NRRL 5646Incubation: 14 days Temperature: 32° C Aerial Mycelium and/or Reverse Medium Amount of Growth Spores Soluble Pigment Color Remarks__________________________________________________________________________Yeast Extract Moderate Aerial mycelium None Mustard Darkened areas inAgar whitish, light. (3 le) substrate myce- lium. Coremia formed on surface mycelium.Hickey and Light No aerial mycelium. None Colorless Peripheral areasTresner's to yel- of colonies be-Agar lowish- coming olive- green green.Asparagine Moderate Trace of whitish None Amber Surface lightlydextrose Agar aerial mycelium. (3-lc) wrinkled.Benedict's Moderate Aerial mycelium None Nude Tan Coremia abundantlyAgar whitish, light. (4 gc) formed on surface mycelium.Bennett's Agar Moderate Trace of whitish None Camel Surface lightly aerial mycelium. (3 ie) wrinkled.Inorganic Trace No aerial mycelium. None Color-Salts-starch lessAgarKuster's Oat- Trace No aerial mycelium. None Color-flake Agar lessCzapek's Solu- Trace No aerial mycelium. None Color-tion Agar lessPotato dextrose Moderate Aerial mycelium None CamelAgar whitish, light. (3 ie)Tomato Paste Light No aerial mycelium. None Color-Oatmeal Agar lessPablum Agar Light No aerial mycelium None Color- lessRice Agar Trace No aerial mycelium. None Color- lessWeinstein's Moderate No aerial mycelium. None Color-Agar less to yellowishKuster's Oat- Trace No aerial mycelium. None Color-flake Agar less__________________________________________________________________________
TABLE II______________________________________Micromorphology of Nocardia sp NRRL 5646 Aerial Mycelium and/or Sporiferous Medium Structures______________________________________Yeast Ex- Aerial mycelium arises from sub-tract Agar strate mycelium as sparingly branched, flexuous elements that commonly terminate in elongated primitive spirals. The flexuous elements are irregularly segmented into short sections (spores?) which disarticulate readily. The spiral terminal portions are less conspi- cuously segmented. Segments generally range 0.8-1.7 μm × 0.3-0.5 μm, averaging 0.4 μm × 1.2 μm.______________________________________
TABLE III__________________________________________________________________________Miscellaneous Physiological Reaction of Nocardia sp. NRRL 5646Medium Incubation Period Amount of Growth Physiological Reaction__________________________________________________________________________Gelatin 7 days Light No liquefactionGelatin 14 days Good No liquefactionOrganic 7 days Good Nitrates reduced to nitritesNitrateBrothOrganic 14 days Good Nitrates reduced to nitritesNitrateBrothPeptone- 24-48 hours Good No melanin pigments producediron AgarPurple Milk 7 days Good No peptonization or curd formationYeast extract 7 days Moderate NaCl tolerance ≧ 4% but <7%Agar plus(4, 7, 10 and13%) NaCl__________________________________________________________________________
TABLE IV______________________________________Carbon Sorce Utilization Pattern of Nocardia sp. NRRL 5646Incubation: 10 days Temperature: 32°C. Carbon Source *Utilization______________________________________Adonitol 01-Arabinose 0Glycerol 3d-Fructose 1i-Inositol 2Lactose 0d-Mannitol 0Salicin 2d-Melibiose 0d-Raffinose 0Rhamnose 0Maltose 1Sucrose 0d-Trehalose 3d-Xylose 0Dextrose 3Negative Control 0______________________________________ *3-Good utilization 1-Poor utilization 2-Fair utilization 0-No utilization
TABLE V______________________________________Chemical Composition of Nocardia sp NRRL 5646Cell Wall Type Major Constituents______________________________________Type IV meso-DAP, arabinose, galactose______________________________________
It is to be understood that the production of the trans-isomer starting materials is not limited to this particular organism or to organisms fully answering the above growth and microscopic characteristics which are given for illustrative purposes only. In fact, it is intended to include the use of mutants produced from this organism by various means such as exposure to X-radiation, ultraviolet radiation, nitrogen mustard, actinophages, and the like. Viable cultures of such a mutant strain have been deposited with the Culture Collection Laboratory, Northern Utilization Research and Development Division, United States Department of Agriculture, Peoria, Illinois, and have been added to its permanent collection under its accession number NRRL 8050. Although the cultural, physiological, and morphological features of NRRL 8050 are substantially the same as those of NRRL 5646; NRRL 8050 varies from the parent NRRL 5646 as follows:
a. slower reduction of nitrates to nitrites; and
b. production of a rosewood tan mycelial pigment on Bennett's and yeast extract agars.
Preliminary isolation, thin layer chromatography, and paper chromatography experiments have shown that five antibiotics are produced during the aerobic fermentation of Nocardia sp. NRRL 5646 as heretofore designated. Nutrient media studies resulted in two types of mashes: an alpha type mash which produced primarily BM123α; and a gamma type mash which produces primarily trans-BM123γ 1 and trans-BM123γ 2 along with lesser amounts of BM123α, BM123β 1 and BM123β 2 .
The antibacterial agents cis-BM123γ 1 and cis-BM123γ 2 are active in vivo against a variety of organisms. These new antibacterials are thereby potentially useful as therapeutic agents in treating bacterial infections in mammals. These new antibacterials can be expected to be usefully employed for treating or controlling bacterial infections by parenteral administration. The usefulness of these new antibacterial agents is demonstrated by their ability to control systemic lethal infections in mice. These new substances show high in vivo antibacterial activity in mice against Escherichia coli US311 when administered either orally or by a single subcutaneous dose to groups of Carworth Farms CF-1 mice, weight about 20 gm., infected intraperitoneally with a lethal dose of the bacteria in a 10 - 3 trypticase soy broth TSP dilution of a 5 hour TSP blood culture. Table VI, below, illustrates the in vivo antibacterial activity of cis-BM123γ against this bacteria.
TABLE VI______________________________________Single Subcutaneous Alive/Total Mice TestedDose (mg./kg. of body (7 days afterweight) infection)______________________________________2 4/51 1/50.5 1/5Oral Dose Alive/Total Mice Tested(mg./kg. of body weight) (7 days after infection)64 3/5Infected, non-treated 18/20 Mice died withincontrols 3 days after infection______________________________________
Fermentation Process Selected to Produce Primarily BM123β and trans-BM123γ
Cultivation of Nocardia sp. NRRL 8050 may be carried out in a wide variety of liquid culture media. Media which are useful for the production of the antibiotics include as assimilable source of carbon such as starch, sugar, molasses, glycerol, etc.; an assimilable source of nitrogen such as protein, protein hydrolyzate, polypeptides, amino acids, corn steep liquor, etc.; and inorganic anions and cations, such as potassium, magnesium, calcium, ammonium, sulfate, carbonate, phosphate, chloride, etc. Trace elements such as boron, molybdenum, copper, etc.; are supplied as impurities of other constituents of the media. Aeration in tanks and bottles is provided by forcing sterile air through or onto the surface of the fermenting medium. Further agitation in tanks is provided by a mechanical impeller. An antifoaming agent, such as Hodag FD82 may be added as needed.
Inoculum Preparation for BM123β and trans-BM123γ
Primary shaker flask inoculum of Nocardia sp. NRRL 8050 is prepared by inoculating 100 milliliters of sterile liquid medium in 500 milliliter flasks with scrapings or washings of spores from an agar slant of the culture. The following medium is ordinarily used:
______________________________________ Bacto-tryptone 5 gm. Yeast extract 5 gm. Beef extract 3 gm. Glucose 10 gm. Water to 1000 ml.______________________________________
The flasks were incubated at a temperature from 25°-29° C., preferably 28° C. and agitated vigorously on a rotary shaker for 30 to 48 hours. The inocula are then transferred into sterile screw cap culture tubes and stored at below 0° F. This bank of vegetative inoculum is used instead of slant scrapings for inoculation of additional shaker flasks in preparation of this first stage of inoculum.
These first stage flask inocula are used to seed 12 liter batches of the same medium in 20 liter glass fermentors. The inoculum mash is aerated with sterile air while growth is continued for 30 to 48 hours.
The 12 liter batches of second stage inocula are used to seed tank fermentors containing 300 liters of the following sterile liquid medium to produce the third and final stage of inoculum:
______________________________________Meat solubles 15 gm.Ammonium sulfate 3 gm.Potassium phosphate, dibasic 3 gm.Calcium carbonate 1 gm.Magnesium sulfate hepta- hydrate 1.5 gm.Glucose 10 gm.Water to 1000 ml.The glucose is sterilized separately.______________________________________
The third stage inoculum is aerated at 0.4 to 0.8 liters of sterile air per liter of broth per minute, and the fermenting mixture is agitated by an impeller driven at 150-300 revolutions per minute. The temperature is maintained at 25°-29° C., usually 28° C. The growth is continued for 48 to 72 hours, at which time the inoculum is used to seed a 3000 liter tank fermentaion
Tank Fermentation for BM123β and trans-BM123γ
For the production of BM123β and trans-BM123γ in tank fermentors, the following fermentaion medium is preferably used:
______________________________________Meat solubles 30 gm.Ammonium sulfate 6 gm.Potassium phosphate, dibasic 6 gm.Calcium carbonate 2 gm.Magnesium sulfate heptahydrate 3 gm.Glucose 20 gm.Water to 1000 ml.The glucose is sterilized separately.______________________________________
Each tank is inoculated with 5 to 10% of third stage inoculum made as described under inoculum preparation. The fermenting mash is maintained at a temperature of 25°-28° C. usually 26° C. The mash is aerated with sterile air at a rate of 0.3-0.5 liters of sterile air per liter of mash per minute and agitated by an impeller driven at 70 to 100 revolutions per minute. The fermentation is allowed to continue from 65-90 hours and the mash is harvested.
The invention will be described in greater detail in conjunction with the following specific examples.
EXAMPLE 1
Inoculum preparation for BM123β and trans-BM123γ
A typical medium used to grow the first and second stages of inoculum was prepared according to the following formula:
______________________________________ Bacto-tryptone 5 gm. Yeast extract 5 gm. Beef extract 3 gm. Glucose 10 gm. Water to 1000 ml.______________________________________
Two 500 milliliter flasks each containing 100 milliliters of the above sterile medium were inoculated with 5 milliliters each of a frozen vegetative inoculum from Nocardia sp. NRRL 8050. The flasks were placed on a rotary shaker and agitated vigorously for 48 hours at 28° C. The resulting flask inoculum was transferred to a 5 gallon glass fermentor containing 12 liters of the above sterile medium. The mash was aerated with sterile air while growth was carried out for about 48 hours, after which the contents were used to seed a 100 gallon tank fermentor containing 300 liters of the following sterile liquid medium:
______________________________________Meat solubles 15 gm.Ammonium sulfate 3 gm.Potassium phosphate, dibasic 3 gm.Calcium carbonate 1 gm.Magnesium sulfate heptahydrate 1.5 gm.Glucose 10 gm.Water to 1000 ml.The glucose is sterilized separately.______________________________________
The third stage of inoculum mash was aerated with sterile air sparged into the fermentor at 0.4 liters of air per liter of mash per minute. Agitation was supplied by a driven impeller at 240 revolutions per minute. The mash was maintained at 28° C. and Hodag FD82 was used as a defoaming agent. After 48 hours of growing time the inoculum mash was used to seed a 3000 liter fermentation.
EXAMPLE 2
Fermentation Employing Nocardia sp. NRRL 8050 and Medium Favoring the Production of BM123β and trans-BM123γ
A fermentation medium was prepared according to the following formula:
______________________________________Meat solubles 30 gm.Ammonium sulfate 6 gm.Potassium phosphate, dibasic 6 gm.Calcium carbonate 2 gm.Magnesium sulfate heptahydrate 3 gm.Glucose 20 gm.Water to 1000 ml.The glucose is sterilized separately.______________________________________
The fermentation medium was sterilized at 120° C. with steam at 20 pounds pressure for 60 minutes. The pH of the medium after sterilization was 6.9. Three thousand liters of sterile medium in a 4000 liter tank fermentor was inoculated with 300 liters of inoculum such as described in Example 1, and the fermentation was carried out at 26° C. using Hodag FD82 as a defoaming agent. Aeration was supplied at the rate of 0.35 liter of sterile air per liter of mash per minute. The mash was agitated by an impeller driven at 70-72 revolutions per minute. At the end of 67 hours of fermentation time the mash was harvested.
EXAMPLE 3
Isolation of BM123β and trans-BM123γ
A 3000 liter portion of fermentation mash prepared as described in Example 2, pH 4.3, was adjusted to pH 7.0 with sodium hydroxide and filtered using 5% diatomaceous earth as a filter aid. The cake was washed with about 100 liters of water and discarded. The combined filtrate and wash was pumped upward through three parallel 8 1/4 × 48 inches stainless steel columns each containing 15 liters of CM Sephadex C-25 [Na +] resin. The charged columns were washed with a total of about 390 liters of water and then developed with 200 liters of 1% aqueous solution chloride followed by 560 liters of 5% aqueous sodium chloride. The 5% aqueous sodium chloride eluate was clarified by filtration through diatomaceous earth and the clarified filtrate passed through a 9 × 60 inch glass column containing 25 liters of granular Darco activated carbon (20-40 mesh). The charged column was washed with 120 liters of water and then developed with 120 liters of 15% aqueous methanol followed by 340 liters of 50% aqueous methanol and then 120 liters of 50% aqueous acetone. The 15% aqueous methanol eluate was concentrated in vacuo to about 7 liters of an aqueous phase and the pH adjusted from 4.5 to 6.0 with Amberlite IR-45 (OH - ) resin (a weakly basic polystyrene-polyamine type anion exchange resin). The resin was removed by filtration and the filtrate was concentrated in vacuo to about 1 liter and then lyophilized to give 38 grams of material consisting primarily of BM123β along with a small amount of trans-BM123γ (primarily trans-BM123γ 2 ). The 50% aqueous methanol eluate was adjusted from pH 4.65 to 6.0 with Amberlite IR-45 (OH - ) resin. The resin was removed by filtration and the filtrate was concentrated in vacuo to about 6.3 liters and then lyophilized to give 213 grams of material consisting primarily of trans-BM123γ. The 50% aqueous acetone eluate was adjusted from pH 4.0 to 6.0 with Amberlite IR-45 (OH - ) resin. The resin was removed by filtration and the filtrate was concentrated in vacuo to about 1.5 liters and then lyophilized to give 56 grams of impure trans-BM123γ.
EXAMPLE 4
Further Purification of trans-BM123γ
A slurry of CM Sephadex C-25 [NH 4 +] in 2% aqueous ammonium chloride was poured into 2.6 centimeter diameter glass column to a resin height of approximately 62 centimeters. The excess 2% aqueous ammonium chloride was drained away and a 5.0 gram sample of trans-BM123γ prepared as described in Example 5 was dissolved in about 10 milliliters of 2% aqueous ammonium chloride and applied to the column. The column was then eluted with a gradient between 6 liters each of 2% and 4% aqueous ammonium chloride. Fractions of about 75 milliliters each were collected automatically every 15 minutes. Antibiotic trans-BM123γ was located by monitoring the column effluent in the ultraviolet and by bioautography of dipped paper disks on large agar plates seeded with Klebsiella pneumoniae strain AD. The majority of trans-BM123γ was located between fractions 71-107 inclusive.
One hundred thirty milliliters of granular Darco activated carbon (20-40 mesh) was suspended in water, transferred to a glass column, allowed to settle and the excess water was allowed to drain away. Fractions 84-96 inclusive from the above CM Sephadex chromatography were combined and passed through the granular carbon column. The charged column was washed with 600 milliliters of water and then developed with 1 liter of 20% aqueous methanol followed by 1 liter of 50% aqueous acetone. These eluates, both of which contained trans-BM123γ, were concentrated to aqueous phases in vacuo and lyophilized to give a total of 886 milligrams of trans-BM123γ as the hydrochloride salt. A microanalytical sample was obtained by subjecting the above material to a repeat of the above process.
Antibiotic trans-BM123γ does not possess a definite melting point, but gradual decomposition starts in the vicinity of 200° C. Microanalysis of a sample equilibrated for 24 hours in a 72° F. atmosphere containing 23% relative humidity gave C, 39.44%, H, 6.10%; N, 16.19%; Cl(ionic), 11.54%; loss on drying, 8.19%. In water trans-BM123γ gave a U.V. absorption maximum at 286 nm with E 1 1% cm = 250. The position of this maximum did not change with pH. Trans-BM123γ had a specific rotation of [α] D 25 .sup.° = +71 (C = 0.97 in water). Antibiotic trans-BM123γ exhibited characteristic absorption in the infrared region of the spectrum at the following wavelengths: 770, 830, 870, 930, 980, 1035, 1105, 1175, 1225, 1300, 1340, 1370, 1460, 1510, 1555, 1605, 1660, 1740, 2950 and 3350 cm - 1 .
EXAMPLE 5
Isolation of trans-BM123γ 1
A slurry of CM Sephadex C-25 [Na +] in 2% aqueous sodium chloride was poured into a 2.6 centimeter diameter glass column to a resin height of approximately 70 centimeters. The excess 2% aqueous sodium chloride was drained away and 4.11 gram of a sample containing primarily trans-BM123γ 1 along with some trans-BM123γ 2 and other impurities, prepared as described in Example 3, was dissolved in about 10 milliliters of 2% aqueous sodium chloride and applied to the column. The column was then eluted with a gradient between 4 liters each of 2% and 4% aqueous sodium chloride. Fractions of about 75 milliliters each were collected automatically every 15 minutes. Antibiotic trans-BM123γ was located by monitoring the column effluent in the ultraviolet and by bioautography of dipped paper disks on larger agar plates seeded with Klebsiella pneumoniae strain AD. The majority of trans-BM123γ was located between fractions 64-90 inclusive; the initial fractions (64-80) contained a mixture of trans-BM123γ 1 and trans-BM123γ 2 whereas the later fractions (81-90) contained essentially pure trans-BM123 γ 1 .
One hundred milliliters of granular Darco activated carbon (20-40 mesh) was suspended in water, transferred to a glass column, allowed to settle and the excess water was allowed to drain away. Fractions 81-90 inclusive from the above CM Sephadex chromatography were combined and passed through the granular carbon column. The charged column was washed with 500 milliliters of water and then developed with 500 milliliters of 10% aqueous methanol followed by 1 liter of 50% aqueous methanol. The 50% aqueous methanol eluate, which contained the majority of trans-BM123γ 1 , was adjusted from pH 5.9 to 6.0 with Amberlite IR-45 (OH - 1 ) resin. The resin was removed by filtration and the filtrate was concentrated in vacuo to an aqueous phase and lyophilized to give 294 milligrams of white amorphous trans-BM123γ 1 as the hydrochloride salt.
Antibiotic trans-BM132γ 1 does not possess a definite melting point, but gradual decomposition starts in the vicinity of 200° C. Microanalysis of a sample equilibrated for 24 hours in a 70° F. atmosphere containing 60% relative humidity gave C, 37.84%; H, 5.73%; N, 15.58%; Cl(ionic), 10.01%; loss on drying 10.45%. In methanol trans-BM123γ 1 gave a U.V. absorption maximum at 286 nm with E 1 1% cm = 225. The position of this maximum did not change with pH. Trans-BM123γ 1 had a specific rotation of +55° (C=0.803 in water). Antibiotic trans-BM123γ 1 exhibited characteristic absorption in the infrared region of the spectrum at the following wavelengths: 770, 830, 870, 930, 980, 1045, 1080, 1110, 1125, 1175, 1225, 1305, 1345, 1380, 1465, 1515, 1605, 1660, 1730, 2950 and 3350 cm - 1 .
EXAMPLE 6
Isolation of trans-BM123γ 2
A 25 gram sample containing primarily trans-BM123γ 2 and BM123β, prepared as described in Example 3, was dissolved in about 120 milliliters of 2% aqueous sodium chloride and applied to a column containing 1800 ml. of CM Sephadex C-25 [Na +] in 2% aqueous sodium chloride. The column was then eluted with a gradient between 20 liters each of 2% and 4% aqueous sodium chloride. The initial 12 liters of eluate was collected in a large bottle and discarded. Thereafter fractions of about 800 milliliters each were collected automatically every 40 minutes. Antibiotic trans-BM123γ was located by monitoring the column fractions in the ultraviolet. The majority of trans-BM123γ was located between fractions 7-18 inclusive; the initial fractions (7-15) contained essentially pure trans-BM123γ 2 and the later fractions (16-18) contained a mixture of trans-BM123γ 1 and trans-BM123γ 2 .
Six hundred milliliters of granular Darco activated carbon (20-40 mesh) was suspended in water, transferred to a glass column, allowed to settle and the excess water was allowed to drain away. Fractions 7-15 inclusive from the above CM Sephadex chromatography were combined and passed through the granular carbon column. The charged column was washed with 3 liters of water and then developed with 3 liters of 10% aqueous methanol followed by 6 liters of 50% aqueous methanol. The 10% aqueous methanol eluate was adjusted from pH 5.8 to 6.0 with Amberlite IR 45 (OH - ) resin. The resin was removed by filtration and the filtrate was concentrated in vacuo to an aqueous phase and lyophilized to give 595 milligrams of white amorphous trans-BM123γ 2 as the hydrochloride salt. The 50% aqueous methanol eluate was adjusted from pH 4.6 to 6.1 with Amberlite IR 45 (OH - ) resin. The resin was removed by filtration and the filtrate was concentrated in vacuo to an aqueous phase and lyophilized to give 3.645 grams of slightly less pure white amorphous trans-BM123γ 2 as the hydrochloride salt.
Antibiotic trans-BM123γ 2 does not possess a definite melting point, but gradual decomposition starts in the vicinity of 200° C. Microanalysis of a sample equilibrated for 24 hours in a 70 ° F. atmosphere containing 60% relative humidity gave C, 36.14%; H, 5.67%; N, 15.1%; Cl(ionic), 11.11%; loss on drying 10.87%. In methanol trans-BM123γ 2 gave a U.V. absorption maximum at 286 nm with E 1cm 1% = 220. The position of this maximum did not change with pH. Trans-BM123γ 2 had a specific rotation of +60° (C=0.851 in water). Antibiotic trans-BM123γ 2 exhibited characteristic absorption in the infrared region of the spectrum at the following wavelengths: 770, 830, 870, 950, 1035, 1110, 1175, 1225, 1285, 1345, 1380, 1470, 1515, 1560, 1605, 1660, 1755, 2950 and 3350 cm - 1 .
EXAMPLE 7
Paper Partition and Thin Layer Chromatography of BM123α, 62 and γ
The antibacterial agents can be distinguished by paper chromatography. For this purpose Whatman No. 1 strips were spotted with a water or methanol solution of the substances and equilibrated for 1 to 2 hours in the presence of both upper and lower phases. The strips were developed overnight with the lower (organic) phase obtained from mixing 90% phenol:m-cresol:acetic acid:pyridine:water (100:25:4:4:75 by volume). The developed strips were removed from the chromatographic chamber, air dried for 1 to 2 hours, washed with ether to remove residual phenol and bioautographed on large agar plates seeded with Klebsiella pneumoniae strain AD. Representative Rf values are listed in Table VII below:
TABLE VII______________________________________Component Rf______________________________________BM123ν 0.85BM123β 0.50, 0.70BM123α 0.20______________________________________
Bm123β was composed of a major antibiotic (Rf = 0.50) called BM123β 1 and a minor antibiotic (Rf = 0.70) called BM123β 2 .
The BM123 antibiotics can also be distinguished by thin layer chromatography. For this purpose pre-coated Cellulose F plates (0.10 milliliters thick), a form of thick layer cellulose supplied by EM Laboratories Inc., Elmsford, N.Y. were spotted with a water solution of the substance to be chromatographed (about 20-40 micrograms per spot). The plates were developed overnight with the solvent obtained by mixing 1-butanol:water:pyridine:acetic acid (15:12:10:1 by volume). The developed plates were removed from the chromatographic chamber and air dried for about 1 hour. The antibiotics were detected by using either standard ninhydrin or Sakaguchi spray reagents. Representative Rf values are listed in Table VIII below:
TABLE VIII______________________________________Component Rf______________________________________BM123ν 0.17, 0.23BM123β 0.08, 0.14BM123α 0.05______________________________________
Both BM123β and γ were a mixture of two components using this system. BM123β was composed of a major component (Rf = 0.08) which was BM123β 1 and a minor component (Rf = 0.14) which was BM123β 2 . The less polar component of trans-BM123γ (Rf = 0.23) was named trans-BM123γ 1 and the more polar component (Rf = 0.17) was named trans-BM123γ 2 .
EXAMPLE 8
Preparation of cis-BM123γ
A solution of 200 mg. of trans-BM123γ in 200 ml. of water is photolyzed with a Hanovia light in a water jacketed, three necked, round bottom flask for a period of time of half an hour, during which time the maximum U.V. absorption of the reaction solution shifts from 290 mμ to 275 mμ. The reaction is best monitored by taking aliquots at various time intervals and measuring the ultraviolet absorption. The reaction is complete when the maximum absorption shifts from 290 mμ to 275 mμ. The product is then recovered by lyophilization.
The above procedure is repeated but with the solution being photolyzed for 1.5 hours. Lyophilization yields 170 mg. of cis-BM123γ. | This disclosure describes two new antibacterial agents designated cis-BM123γ 1 and cis-BM123γ 2 produced by a novel photolytic process whereby trans-BM123γ 1 and trans-BM123γ 2 are transformed to their corresponding cis-isomers. The new antibacterial agents are active against a variety of microorganisms and thus are useful in inhibiting the growth of such bacteria wherever they may be found. | 2 |
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
This application is based on U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 61/778,370 filed Mar. 12, 2013, entitled “A Radially Dependent Thermal Heat Resistor Layer”, by First Named Inventor René van de Veerdonk.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of an overview of a radially dependent thermal heat resistor layer of one embodiment.
FIG. 2 shows for illustrative purposes only an example of a thickness gradient heat sink layer of one embodiment.
FIG. 3 shows for illustrative purposes only an example of a radially dependent thermal heat resistor layer structure of one embodiment.
FIG. 4A shows for illustrative purposes only an example of a thickness gradient heat sink layer deposition of one embodiment.
FIG. 4B shows for illustrative purposes only an example of a non-magnetic thermal resist layer deposition of one embodiment.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
In a following description, reference is made to the accompanying drawings, which form a part hereof, and in which is shown by way of illustration a specific example in which the invention may be practiced. It is to be understood that other embodiments may be utilized and structural changes may be made without departing from the scope of the present invention.
General Overview:
It should be noted that the descriptions that follow, for example, in terms of a radially dependent thermal heat resistor layer is described for illustrative purposes and the underlying system can apply to any number and multiple types sputter sources. In one embodiment of the present invention, the radially dependent thermal heat resistor layer can be configured using an intentional variation across the radial direction of media surface. The radially dependent thermal heat resistor layer can be configured to include a graded thermal resistor layer and can be configured to include a thickness and/or composition gradient across the radius of the disk using the present invention. Herein the term “graded” has a contextual meaning of an intentional variation across the radial direction of a media surface.
Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) is a novel recording technology slated for implementation in future hard-disk drives. The technology is based on heating the media to reduce its effective coercivity, and recording the information while the media cools down in an applied magnetic field. The speed of heating and cooling is critical in the recording process. This rate is controlled by the linear velocity of the recording head and the thermal time constant of the media.
The media layer stack is designed such that there is a thermal resistor layer directly underneath the recording layer. By tuning the properties of this layer (using thickness, composition, and/or multi-layering) the thermal time constant of the media can be matched to the requirements of the recording head. The result with this approach is that the linear velocity of the media is not a constant across the stroke of the media. For example, at a near-ID radius of 15 mm, the linear velocity will be half that of a near-OD radius of 30 mm due to tangential speeds. This means that the thermal time-constant for the media cannot be matched across the full stroke of the media surface.
The radially dependent thermal heat resistor layer uses a graded thermal resistor layer, where graded in this context means an intentional variation across the radial direction of media surface. Using triatron or other dedicated sputter sources, it is possible to engineer a thickness and/or composition gradient across the radius of the disk. By engineering the thermal resistor properties as a function of the radial position on the disk, the media thermal time constant profile can be matched against the linear velocity profile. This in turn will translate in an improved robustness of the HAMR recording system.
FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of an overview of a radially dependent thermal heat resistor layer of one embodiment. FIG. 1 shows a radially dependent thermal heat resistor layer and heat sink layer 100 . The radially dependent thermal heat resistor layer and heat sink layer includes at least two inverse gradient layers across a radius of the device. The radially dependent thermal heat resistor layer and heat sink layer 100 includes a graded thermal resistor layer and heat sink layer, wherein graded in this context means an intentional variation across the radial direction of media surface 110 .
The intentional variations across the radial direction of media surface is created using a thickness and/or composition gradient structure in the graded thermal resistor layer and heat sink layer across the radius of the disk using a dedicated sputter sources 120 . The intentional variations in the gradient structure includes at least two inverse gradient layers configured to include a thickness range configured as linear, parabolic, polynomial or other forms that are adaptive according to thermal conditions and simulations 130 . The gradient structure includes a thermal heat resistor layer and heat sink layer with properties pre-determined as a function of the radial position on a disk, wherein the media thermal time constant profile can be matched against the linear velocity profile creating a robustness of the HAMR recording system 140 of one embodiment.
Detailed Description
FIG. 2 shows a block diagram of an overview flow chart of a thickness gradient heat sink layer of one embodiment. FIG. 2 shows a substrate 200 wherein the substrate 200 is circular and includes an inner diameter, ID 210 and an outer diameter, OD 220 . The substrate 200 can include using materials including quartz, silicone and other materials. Deposited onto the substrate 200 is a continuous heat sink layer 230 with a constant thickness. The continuous heat sink layer 230 can include using materials with predetermined properties of thermal conductivity of one embodiment.
A thickness gradient heat sink layer 240 is deposited on the continuous heat sink layer 230 . The thickness gradient heat sink layer 240 is part of the gradient structure that compensates for recording tangential speeds with heat assisted magnetic recording 250 . The thickness gradient heat sink layer 240 can include using materials with predetermined properties of thermal conductivity. FIG. 2 shows where from the ID 210 the thickness gradient heat sink layer 240 is diminishing in thickness as the radial distance increases toward to OD 220 . The thickness gradient of the thickness gradient heat sink layer 240 material is configured to correlate to the changes in the linear velocity of the recording head and the thermal time constant of the media of one embodiment. The fabrication process is further described in FIG. 3 .
FIG. 3 shows a block diagram of an overview flow chart of a radially dependent thermal heat resistor layer structure of one embodiment. FIG. 3 shows a continuation from FIG. 2 that includes a non-magnetic graded thermal resist layer 300 deposited on top of the thickness gradient heat sink layer 240 on the continuous heat sink layer 230 . The non-magnetic graded thermal resist layer 300 is part of the gradient structure that compensates for recording tangential speeds with heat assisted magnetic recording 250 . The non-magnetic graded thermal resist layer 300 can include using materials including with predetermined properties of thermal conductivity of one embodiment.
FIG. 3 shows the thickness of the non-magnetic graded thermal resist layer 300 diminishing from the OD 220 to the ID 210 of the substrate 200 . The thickness gradient of the non-magnetic graded thermal resist layer 300 material is configured to correlate to the changes in the linear velocity of the recording head and the thermal time constant of the media of one embodiment.
On top of the non-magnetic graded thermal resist layer 300 magnetic features 310 are formed by deposition magnetic materials that can be patterned and used in a heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) mode of operation. A HAMR recording system 320 applies heat to the magnetic features 310 to facilitate the recording operation. The gradient structure including the non-magnetic graded thermal resist layer 300 , thickness gradient heat sink layer 240 and continuous heat sink layer 230 are used to control the heat level in the magnetic features 310 during a recording operation.
The control the heat level in the magnetic features 310 during a recording operation includes compensating graded heat dissipation 330 of the recording head heat assist 340 . The control of the heat dissipation corresponds to the linear velocity of the recording head as it changes with the movement of the recording head back and forth between the ID 210 and OD 220 of the substrate 200 . The rate of dissipation using a radially dependent thermal heat resistor layer structure 350 compensates for the thermal time constant of the media of one embodiment.
FIG. 4A shows for illustrative purposes only an example of a thickness gradient heat sink layer deposition of one embodiment. FIG. 4A shows a dedicated sputter source 400 used to make a thickness gradient heat sink layer deposition 410 on top of the continuous heat sink layer 230 . The dedicated sputter source 400 deposits a thickness=A1 420 at the OD 220 of the substrate 200 . The dedicated sputter source 400 is configured to increase the thickness of the thickness gradient heat sink layer 240 deposition to a thickness A2>A1 and ≦2×a1 430 at the ID 210 of the substrate 200 . The gradient of the graded heat sink layer across the radius of the device is configured to include a thickness range configured as linear, parabolic, polynomial or other forms that are adaptive according to thermal conditions and simulations. The gradient heat sink layer 240 includes for example a thickness range: A1: 5 to 200 nm 425 of one embodiment.
FIG. 4B shows for illustrative purposes only an example of a non-magnetic thermal resist layer deposition of one embodiment. FIG. 4B shows a dedicated sputter source 400 used for a non-magnetic graded thermal resist layer deposition 440 . The non-magnetic graded thermal resist layer deposition 440 has a thickness=B1 450 at an inner circumference ID 210 and at the outer circumference OD 220 a thickness B2>B1 and ≦2×B1 460 . The gradient of the non-magnetic graded thermal resist layer across the radius of the device is configured to include a thickness range configured as linear, parabolic, polynomial or other forms that are adaptive according to thermal conditions and simulations. The non-magnetic graded thermal resist layer deposition 440 includes for example a thickness Range: B1: 1 to 50 nm 455 of one embodiment.
The top surface of the non-magnetic graded thermal resist layer deposition 440 is a smooth level surface 470 parallel to the substrate 200 and of a non-coarse finish free of undulating topography. The non-magnetic graded thermal resist layer 300 is deposited on the thickness gradient heat sink layer 240 , which is on top of the heat sink layer 230 on and in contact with the substrate 200 of one embodiment.
The foregoing has described the principles, embodiments and modes of operation of the present invention. However, the invention should not be construed as being limited to the particular embodiments discussed. The above described embodiments should be regarded as illustrative rather than restrictive, and it should be appreciated that variations may be made in those embodiments by workers skilled in the art without departing from the scope of the present invention as defined by the following claims. | The embodiments disclose a data storage device including a thickness gradient heat sink layer deposited over a heat sink layer deposited over a substrate, a thickness gradient non-magnetic thermal resist layer deposited over the thickness gradient heat sink layer, and a magnetic layer deposited over the thickness gradient non-magnetic thermal resist layer. | 6 |
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION
The present application claims priority to Korean Patent Application No. 10-2008-0121487 filed on Dec. 2, 2008, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein for all purposes by this reference.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a variable compression ratio apparatus. More particularly, the present invention relates to a variable compression ratio apparatus that varies the compression ratio of a mixed gas inside a combustion chamber according to driving conditions of an engine.
2. Description of Related Art
A variable compression ratio (VCR) apparatus varies the compression ratio of a mixed gas corresponding to operating conditions of an engine. According to the variable compression ratio apparatus, the compression ratio of the mixed gas is raised to decrease fuel consumption in a low load condition of the engine, and the compression ratio of the mixed gas is lowered to prevent “knocking” and to improve the output thereof in a high load condition of the engine.
The conventional variable compression ratio apparatus describes a multi-link type of control means that includes a connecting rod, which is connected to a piston to receive the explosion force of the mixed gas, and a pin link, which receives the explosion force from the connecting rod to rotate the crankshaft, to vary the rotation track of the pin link according to the driving condition of the engine such that the compression ratio of the mixed gas can be varied.
However, in the conventional variable compression ratio apparatus having a multi-link type of control means, a journal portion for mounting the control shaft is formed inside the crankcase of a cylinder block, and so on, so there is a drawback that the structure thereof is complicated.
The information disclosed in this Background of the Invention section is only for enhancement of understanding of the general background of the invention and should not be taken as an acknowledgement or any form of suggestion that this information forms the prior art already known to a person skilled in the art.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Various aspects of the present invention are directed to provide a variable compression ratio apparatus for varying a compression ratio in which the structure thereof is simple and compact.
In an aspect of the present invention, the variable compression ratio apparatus for varying a compression ratio, may include a connecting rod that is pivotally connected to a piston to take a combustion force, a pin link, one end of which is eccentrically connected to a crankshaft and the other end of which is pivotally connected to the connecting rod to form a connection portion therebetween, a slot link including a control slot to receive and guide the connection portion along the control slot, and a driving unit coupled to the slot link and configured to move the control slot to control a position of the connection portion.
The control slot may have an arc shape of a predetermined curvature.
In another aspect of the present invention, the driving unit may include a hydraulic pressure cylinder to receive an operating rod therein, one side of the slot link being pivotally fixed to the crankcase, a rear end of the hydraulic pressure cylinder being pivotally fixed to the crankcase, and a front end of the operating rod being pivotally connected to the other side of the slot link.
In another aspect of the present invention, the driving unit may include a motor mounted to the crankshaft, and a pinion being connected to a rotation shaft of the motor, wherein one side of the slot link is pivotally connected to the crankcase and a rack portion is formed in the other side of the slot link such that the pinion is engaged with the rack portion of the slot link.
In further another aspect of the present invention, the driving unit may include a motor being mounted in the crankcase, an eccentric cam being mounted to a rotation shaft of the motor, and a link, wherein a cam ring, through which the eccentric cam is inserted, is configured on one end of the link and the other end of the link is pivotally connected to one side of the slot link and the other side of the slot link is pivotally connected to the crankcase
In another aspect of the present invention, the driving unit may include a motor that is mounted in the crankcase and one side of the slot link being fixed to a rotation shaft of the motor.
In further another aspect of the present invention the driving unit may include a vane type of a hydraulic pressure actuator, and one side of the slot link is fixed to a center shaft of the hydraulic pressure actuator and is provided with hydraulic pressure to rotate the slot link at a predetermined angle.
In still further another aspect of the present invention the driving unit may include two hydraulic pressure cylinders having operating rods respectively, rear ends of which are pivotally connected to one portion and the other portion of the crank case respectively, and front ends of each operating rod are pivotally connected to one portion and the other portion of the slot link respectively.
In various aspect of the present invention, the variable compression ratio apparatus includes a connecting rod, a pin link, a slot link having a control slot, and a driving unit to be mounted in the crankcase without a size increase of the crankcase such that the compression ratio of the mixed gas is varied corresponding to driving conditions of the engine to improve the output and fuel efficiency thereof.
The methods and apparatuses of the present invention have other features and advantages which will be apparent from or are set forth in more detail in the accompanying drawings, which are incorporated herein, and the following Detailed Description of the Invention, which together serve to explain certain principles of the present invention.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram showing the crankcase of an engine in which an exemplary variable compression ratio apparatus according to the present invention is applied.
FIG. 2 is phased operation chart of an exemplary variable compression ratio apparatus according to the present invention in a low compression ratio condition.
FIG. 3 is phased operation chart of an exemplary variable compression ratio apparatus according to the present invention in a high compression ratio condition.
FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a position change of top dead center of a piston according to the position change of a slot link in an exemplary variable compression ratio apparatus according to the present invention.
FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram showing the crankcase of an engine in which an exemplary variable compression ratio apparatus according the present invention is applied.
FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram showing the crankcase of an engine in which an exemplary variable compression ratio apparatus according to the present invention is applied.
FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram showing the crankcase of an engine in which an exemplary variable compression ratio apparatus according to the present invention is applied.
FIG. 8 is a schematic diagram showing the crankcase of an engine in which an exemplary variable compression ratio apparatus according to the present invention is applied.
FIG. 9 is a schematic diagram showing the crankcase of an engine in which an exemplary variable compression ratio apparatus according to the present invention is applied.
It should be understood that the appended drawings are not necessarily to scale, presenting a somewhat simplified representation of various features illustrative of the basic principles of the invention. The specific design features of the present invention as disclosed herein, including, for example, specific dimensions, orientations, locations, and shapes will be determined in part by the particular intended application and use environment.
In the figures, reference numbers refer to the same or equivalent parts of the present invention throughout the several figures of the drawing.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
Reference will now be made in detail to various embodiments of the present invention(s), examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings and described below. While the invention(s) will be described in conjunction with exemplary embodiments, it will be understood that present description is not intended to limit the invention(s) to those exemplary embodiments. On the contrary, the invention(s) is/are intended to cover not only the exemplary embodiments, but also various alternatives, modifications, equivalents and other embodiments, which may be included within the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims.
The various embodiments of the present invention will be described more fully hereinafter with reference to the accompanying drawings.
FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram showing the crankcase of an engine in which an exemplary variable compression ratio apparatus according to the present invention is applied.
As shown in FIG. 1 , the exemplary variable compression ratio apparatus 1 according to the present invention is configured in an engine that receives an explosion force of a mixed gas from a piston 3 to rotate a crankshaft 5 to vary the compression ratio of the mixed gas.
The piston 3 reciprocates inside a cylinder 7 , and a combustion chamber is formed between the piston 3 , the cylinder 7 , and a cylinder head.
The crankshaft 5 receives the explosion force from the piston 3 to change the explosion force to a rotation torque and transfers it to a transmission. The crankshaft 5 is configured inside a crankcase 9 that is formed below the cylinder 7 .
The variable compression ratio apparatus 1 includes a connecting rod 11 , a pin link 13 , a slot link 15 , and a hydraulic pressure cylinder 17 as a driving unit to be configured inside the crankcase 9 .
Ends of the connecting rod 11 are respectively connected to the piston 3 and the pin link 13 so as to receive the explosion force from the piston 3 to transfer it to the pin link 13 .
That is, one end of the connecting rod 11 is rotatably connected to the piston 3 by a piston pin 19 , and the other end thereof is rotatably connected to the pin link 13 by a connection pin 21 to from a connection portion P 1 .
One end of the pin link 13 is connected to the connecting rod to receive the explosion force from the connecting rod 11 , and the other end thereof is rotatably connected to an opposite side of the weight and eccentric with respect to the center of the crankshaft 5 to form a rotation point P 2 .
Further, the lower end of the slot link 15 is fixed to one side of the lower portion of the crankcase 9 by a hinge block 27 and a hinge Hi, and a control slot (S) is formed along the length direction thereof to guide the connecting pin 21 that connects the connecting rod 11 with the pin link 13 .
That is, the control slot (S) has an arc shape having a predetermined curvature and guides the movement of the connecting pin 21 to change the moving track of the pin link 13 , and simultaneously changes the stroke of the piston 3 through the connecting rod 11 to vary the compression ratio of the mixed gas.
That is, in the driving unit, the hydraulic pressure cylinder 17 is configured between the slot link 15 and the crankcase 9 to vary the position of the control slot (S).
That is, the rear end of the hydraulic pressure cylinder 17 is fixed to one side inner surface of the crankcase 9 by a hinge H 2 , the front end of the operating rod 29 is fixed to the other side of the slot link 15 by a hinge H 3 , and the slot link 15 rotates based on the hinge HI point corresponding to the operation of the hydraulic pressure cylinder 17 to vary the position of the control slot (S).
Accordingly, the variable compression ratio apparatus 1 rotates the control slot (S) of the slot link 15 according to operation of the driving unit and the hydraulic pressure cylinder 17 that variably guides the movement of the connecting pin 21 and the pin link 13 such that the stroke of the piston 3 that is connected thereto through the connecting rod 13 can be changed to vary the compression ratio of the mixed gas.
The rotation angle of the above slot link 15 based on the hinge H 1 point can be predetermined by a person of ordinary skill in this art at their discretion according to the necessary performance of the engine.
FIG. 2 is phased operation chart of the present exemplary variable compression ratio apparatus according to the present invention in a low compression ratio condition, and FIG. 3 is phased operation chart of the present exemplary variable compression ratio apparatus according to the present invention in a high compression ratio condition.
That is, as shown in FIG. 2 and FIG. 3 , the slot link 15 is rotated corresponding to low and high compression ratios such that the phased crossing angle ( 0 ) between the connecting rod 11 and the pin link 13 is differently achieved to vary the compression ratio of the mixed gas and the stroke of the piston 3 .
The compression ratio variation of the mixed gas in the present exemplary variable compression ratio apparatus according to the present invention is detailed through the diagram of FIG. 4 that shows the position change of top dead center of the piston 3 according to the position variation of the slot link 15 .
“Y” of FIG. 4 denotes top dead center (TDC) of the piston 3 in a case in which the mixed gas is maximally compressed.
As shown in FIG. 4 , when the slot link 15 rotates in an anticlockwise direction, the compression ratio decreases to the low state such that the top dead center of the piston 3 is lowered from the base position. That is, “d” represents the distance between the base position and the low compression ratio position of top dead center as the slot link 15 rotates for the control slot (S) to move forward and the distance “d” increases such that the compression ratio decreases.
Accordingly, the exemplary variable compression ratio apparatus according to the present invention has a simple structure and varies the compression ratio of the mixed gas according to the driving conditions of the engine such that the output and fuel consumption efficiency can be improved.
FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram showing the crankcase of an engine in which an exemplary variable compression ratio apparatus according to the present invention is applied.
As shown in FIG. 5 , the exemplary variable compression ratio apparatus 1 according to the present invention has basically the same constituent elements as the first variable compression ratio apparatus, i.e., a connecting rod 11 , a pin link 13 , a slot link 15 , and a driving unit, and connection relationships thereof are identical.
However, in the variable compression ratio apparatus 1 according to the present exemplary embodiment, a hinge block 27 is fixed to the lower side of the crankcase 9 and a slot link 15 is connected to a hinge H 1 of the hinge block 27 , and there is a difference in that a rack portion 31 is formed in the upper end of the slot link 15 .
Also, the driving unit according to the present exemplary embodiment includes a motor M 1 that is mounted on the inner surface of the crankcase 9 , and a pinion 33 is disposed on the rotation shaft of the motor M 1 to be engaged with the rack portion 31 .
That is, there is a difference in that the slot link 15 is rotated by the motor M through the rack portion 31 that is engaged with the pinion 33 .
Further, in the variable compression ratio apparatus 1 according to the present exemplary embodiment, the compression ratio of the mixed gas is varied by the same principle as in the first exemplary embodiment, and therefore the detailed description thereof will be omitted.
FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram showing the crankcase of an engine in which an exemplary variable compression ratio apparatus according to the present invention is applied.
As shown in FIG. 6 , the exemplary variable compression ratio apparatus 1 according to the present invention has basically the same constituent elements as the first variable compression ratio apparatus, i.e., a connecting rod 11 , a pin link 13 , a slot link 15 , and connection relationships thereof are identical.
However, the present exemplary variable compression ratio apparatus 1 has a difference in the driving unit.
That is, a driving unit according to the present exemplary embodiment includes a motor M 2 with an eccentric cam 41 is fixed on the rotation shaft thereof is mounted on the inner side of the crankcase, and a link 45 on which a cam ring 43 into which the eccentric cam 41 is inserted is formed in one end thereof and the other end thereof is hinged to the other side of the slot link 15 by a hinge H 4 .
Accordingly, there is a difference in that the eccentric cam 41 moves the link 45 as much as the eccentricity amount by the operation of the motor M 2 to rotate the slot link 15 .
Further, in the variable compression ratio apparatus 1 according to the present exemplary embodiment, the compression ratio of the mixed gas is varied by the same principle as in the first exemplary embodiment, and therefore the detailed description thereof will be omitted.
FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram showing the crankcase of an engine in which an exemplary variable compression ratio apparatus according to the present invention.
As shown in FIG. 7 , the exemplary variable compression ratio apparatus according to the present invention 1 has basically the same constituent elements as the first variable compression ratio apparatus, i.e., a connecting rod 11 , a pin link 13 , a slot link 15 , and a driving unit, and connection relationships thereof are identical.
However, the present exemplary variable compression ratio apparatus 1 includes the slot link 15 that is configured on the lower side of the crankcase 9 through the driving unit.
That is, the driving unit according to the present exemplary embodiment includes a motor M 3 that is mounted on the inner side of the crankcase 9 by a motor bracket (MB), and the lower end of the slot link 15 is fixed to the rotation shaft (MS) of the motor M 3 .
Accordingly, there is a difference that in the driving unit, the motor M 3 rotates the rotation shaft (MS) to rotate the slot link 15 .
Further, in the variable compression ratio apparatus 1 according to the fourth exemplary embodiment, the compression ratio of the mixed gas is varied by the same principle as in the first exemplary embodiment, and therefore the detailed description thereof will be omitted.
FIG. 8 is a schematic diagram showing the crankcase of an engine in which an exemplary variable compression ratio apparatus according to the present invention is applied.
As shown in FIG. 8 , the exemplary variable compression ratio apparatus 1 according to the present invention has basically the same constituent elements as the first variable compression ratio apparatus, i.e., a connecting rod 11 , a pin link 13 , a slot link 15 , and a driving unit, and connection relationships thereof are identical.
However, there is a difference in that a variable compression ratio apparatus 1 according to the present exemplary embodiment includes a slot link 15 that is mounted on the inner side of the crankcase 9 through the driving unit.
That is, the driving unit according to the present exemplary embodiment includes a vane type of hydraulic pressure actuator (VA) that is mounted on the inner side of the crankcase 9 through a valve bracket (VB).
The vane type of hydraulic pressure actuator (VA) receives hydraulic pressure from an oil control valve (OCV), which is configured outside, to rotate the center shaft (VS) that is connected to the vane (V), and the lower end of the slot link 15 is fixed to the center shaft (VS).
Accordingly, in the driving unit, a vane type of hydraulic pressure actuator (VA) is operated to rotate the slot link 15 as much as the rotation angle of the center shaft (VS) thereof.
Further, in the variable compression ratio apparatus 1 according to the present exemplary embodiment, the compression ratio of the mixed gas is varied by the same principle as in the first exemplary embodiment, and therefore the detailed description thereof will be omitted.
FIG. 9 is a schematic diagram showing the crankcase of an engine in which an exemplary variable compression ratio apparatus according to the present invention is applied.
As shown in FIG. 9 , the exemplary variable compression ratio apparatus according to the present invention 1 has basically the same constituent elements as the first variable compression ratio apparatus, i.e., a connecting rod 11 , a pin link 13 , a slot link 15 , and a driving unit according to the first exemplary embodiment, and connection relationships thereof are identical.
However, a variable compression ratio apparatus 1 according to the present exemplary embodiment includes a slot link 15 that is mounted on the upper and lower sides of the inner part of the crankcase 9 through a driving unit.
That is, the driving unit according to the present exemplary embodiment includes two hydraulic pressure cylinders 51 and 53 that are respectively mounted on the upper and lower sides inside the crankcase 9 , and the hydraulic pressure cylinders 51 and 53 are respectively connected to the middle part and the lower part of the slot link 15 through the operating rods thereof.
That is, there is a difference that in the driving unit, the two hydraulic pressure cylinders 51 and 53 is respectively operated to move the position of the slot link 15 .
Further, in the variable compression ratio apparatus 1 according to the present exemplary embodiment, the compression ratio of the mixed gas is varied by the same principle as in the first exemplary embodiment, and therefore the detailed description thereof will be omitted.
For convenience in explanation and accurate definition in the appended claims, the terms “upper”, “lower”, “front”, “rear”, “outside”, “outwardly”, and “inner” are used to describe features of the exemplary embodiments with reference to the positions of such features as displayed in the figures.
The foregoing descriptions of specific exemplary embodiments of the present invention have been presented for purposes of illustration and description. They are not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise forms disclosed, and obviously many modifications and variations are possible in light of the above teachings. The exemplary embodiments were chosen and described in order to explain certain principles of the invention and their practical application, to thereby enable others skilled in the art to make and utilize various exemplary embodiments of the present invention, as well as various alternatives and modifications thereof. It is intended that the scope of the invention be defined by the Claims appended hereto and their equivalents. | A variable compression ratio apparatus for varying a compression ratio, may include a connecting rod that is connected to a piston to take a combustion force; a pin link, one end of which is eccentrically connected to a crankshaft and the other end of which is pivotally connected to the connecting rod to form a connection portion therebetween; a slot link including a control slot to receive and guide the connection portion along the control slot; and a driving unit coupled to the slot link and configured to move the control slot to control a position of the connection portion. | 5 |
TECHNICAL FIELD
[0001] The invention relates generally to utility line support members and relates more specifically to a hollow composite support member configured as a tangent crossarm or deadend.
BACKGROUND
[0002] Utility lines are typically supported by a crossarm mounted horizontally on a utility or “telephone” pole. Crossarms are of two general types; tangent crossarms and deadend crossarms. Tangent crossarms (frequently referred to simply as crossarms) are used to support the generally vertically downward load resulting from the weight of the utility lines. Typically, a utility line is supported by an insulator which in turn is connected to the crossarm.
[0003] Deadend crossarms (often-times referred to simply as deadends) are used to support generally horizontal loads in order to retain tension in the utility line. Typically, the utility line is attached to an insulator that in turn is horizontally connected to the deadend. A single deadend can be used at a terminal end, while a pair of deadends can be utilized adjacent to one another on a single utility pole in order to maintain tension in two different directions. In the latter configuration, jumper lines are frequently used to electrically connect the utility lines attached to the two deadends. Most commonly, deadends are used when it is necessary to make turns in the utility line, although deadends are periodically used within a straight run to maintain utility line tension.
[0004] Traditionally, most crossarms and deadends have been made of wood, typically either Douglas Fir or Southern Yellow Pine, although some are manufactured from either steel or aluminum. Unfortunately, wood support beams do suffer from several disadvantages. The most obvious problem is the weatherability (or lack thereof) of wood beams. Although wood beams can be treated to improve their weatherability, they still tend to rot over time, thereby requiring replacement. This is especially true in warmer and more humid climates such as the southern United States, where the typical service life of a wood beam is a fraction of that in colder climates.
[0005] Because wood is a natural, variable product, crossarms and deadends made from wood can suffer from variations in important performance parameters such as strength due to defects and variations in the grain structure and density of the wood. Moreover, wood beams tend to lose strength as they begin to rot. This can lead to premature failure of the beam. The frequency with which wood beams must be replaced due to excessive or premature weathering leads to a number of problems, including increased labor costs, disposal costs and the risk of injury to linemen.
[0006] Another concern with wood beams involves conductivity. Unfortunately, wood is a relatively poor electrical insulator, especially when damp. This results both in losses due to electricity traveling through the beam and down the utility pole, as well as possibly posing a risk to utility linemen. For example, if a lineman touches a hot electrical line and a wood beam, he or she could be electrocuted because the wood beam (especially if wet) could provide a ground. Metal support beams suffer from similar disadvantages, such as weatherability problems due to corrosion and the fact that metal support beams are highly conductive to electricity.
[0007] Fiberglass reinforced composite support beams, which can be pultruded or extruded, solve many of the problems associated with wood and metal beams. Fiberglass beams have a high strength to weight ratio and are very good electrical insulators. If treated with a coating that protects the fiberglass from ultraviolet light, fiberglass beams can last as much as five to ten times as long as a comparable wood beam. Moreover, the strength of a fiberglass beam remains relatively constant over the life of the beam, while the strength of a wood beam steadily declines. Fiberglass beams can be manufactured at a cost that compares favorably to wood or metal beams. Further, fiberglass beams are generally immune to insect damage.
[0008] Fiberglass beams are not without problems, however. One problem relates to moisture entering the beam and acting as an electrical conductor. This can cause arcing, which is a concern both because of the potential for electrical power outage as well as linemen safety. Another difficulty associated with fiberglass beams involves the compressive damage or “crushing” that can occur when tightening mounting bolts or insulator bolts. This is especially a problem when the linemen are accustomed to mounting wood beams.
[0009] Prior attempts to resolve these problems include hollow pultruded beams that are filled with materials such as a polyurethane foam or blocks of polystyrene foam. Unfortunately, these designs may not completely prevent moisture from entering the interior of the beam, so arcing or power loss remain potential problems. Moreover, the foam provides minimal support to prevent compression damage. Adding the foam can also add significantly to the expense of manufacturing the beam.
[0010] U.S. Pat. No. 3,715,460 describes a deadend support beam that is a hollow fiberglass tube with metallic mounting members attached to opposite ends. The tube has very thick walls to provide sufficient strength against compression damage. This adds considerably to the expense and complexity involved in manufacturing the beam. It is unclear whether the metallic mounting members are sufficient in preventing moisture from accessing the interior of the beam, thereby possibly causing arcing.
[0011] U.S. Pat. No. 4,262,047 describes a support beam that has an outer covering bonded around a fiberglass honeycomb log having adjacent cells throughout the log. While this design reduces concerns over arcing and may provide sufficient strength to resist compression damage, this performance is achieved through a complex manufacturing process that is both difficult to accomplish and quite expensive.
[0012] U.S. Pat. No. 5,605,017 describes a hollow support beam having bushings that provide additional resistance to compressive forces. Cylindrical bushings are placed into holes drilled through the support beam and bear any compressive forces that result from either mounting the beam to a utility pole or from mounting other equipment or mounting apparatuses to the beam itself. Unfortunately, this requires rather large holes to be drilled through the beam, which weakens the beam to other forces.
[0013] A need remains for a utility line support beam that provides sufficient resistance to compressive forces while preventing moisture from entering the beam. A need remains for a simple, lost cost and easy to manufacture utility line support beam.
SUMMARY
[0014] The invention involves a utility line support beam that resists compressive forces while preventing moisture from entering the interior of the beam. In its simplest terms, the invention involves a reinforcing member placed within the interior of the beam. The reinforcing member is positioned to absorb any compressive forces resulting from either mounting the beam on a utility pole or mounting other structures to the beam, as well as forces in use due to factors such as wind and ice. The beam is sealed to prevent moisture from entering.
[0015] Accordingly, the invention is found in a utility line support structure that includes a hollow fiber reinforced beam that has a transverse hole extending therethrough. A hollow reinforcing member that has an inner diameter about the same as a diameter of the transverse hole is placed within the beam to coincide with the transverse hole. The reinforcing member has an outer diameter that is greater than the inner diameter of the reinforcing member and is positioned within the beam such that a bolt can be inserted through both the beam itself and the reinforcing member.
[0016] The invention is also found in a method of manufacturing a utility line support structure. The method includes pultruding a hollow fiber reinforced beam having a first end and a second end and forming a transverse through hole within the beam. A reinforcing member having an outer diameter greater than a diameter of the transverse hole is positioned within the beam in conjunction with the transverse hole. Finally, the reinforcing member is secured in place.
[0017] These and other advantages and features of novelty that characterize the invention are pointed out with particularity in the claims annexed hereto. However, for a better understanding of the invention and its advantages, reference should be made to the drawings that form a further part hereof, and to the accompanying descriptive matter in which there is illustrated and described preferred embodiments of the invention.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES
[0018] [0018]FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a utility pole bearing a utility line support structure in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention.
[0019] [0019]FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view of the utility line support structure shown in FIG. 1, taken along the 2 - 2 line.
[0020] [0020]FIG. 3 is a diagrammatical cross-sectional view of a utility line support structure according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention.
[0021] [0021]FIG. 4 is a diagrammatical cross-sectional view of a utility line support structure according to another preferred embodiment of the present invention.
[0022] [0022]FIG. 5A is a perspective view of a utility line support structure in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention, bearing an end cap.
[0023] [0023]FIG. 5B is a cross-sectional view of the end cap of FIG. 5A, taken along the 5 - 5 line.
[0024] [0024]FIG. 5C is a diagrammatical cross-sectional view of another embodiment of the end cap of FIG. 5A.
[0025] [0025]FIG. 5D is a diagrammatical cross-sectional view of another embodiment of the end cap of FIG. 5A.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
[0026] Turning now to the drawings, in which similar reference numbers are used to indicate similar elements in multiple drawings, there is shown a utility line support structure 10 . The support structure 10 can be used as a tangent crossarm or as a deadhead. Alternatively, the support structure 10 can be employed as any other beam used to support utility lines, as described for example in U.S. Pat. No. 5,605,017, which is incorporated by reference herein.
[0027] [0027]FIG. 1 illustrates the support structure 10 in use in a preferred embodiment in which the support structure 10 is mounted to a utility pole 12 . The support structure 10 is mounted to the utility pole 12 via mounting apparatus 16 . Preferably, the support structure 10 is attached to the utility pole 12 and is supported by supports 14 as is well known in the art. The support structure 10 can be attached to the utility pole 12 in a variety of known ways, although it is preferred that the support structure 10 be bolted to the utility pole 12 using a reinforcing member 22 as described hereinafter.
[0028] As illustrated, the support structure 10 is a hollow pultruded beam of substantially rectangular cross-section. Preferably, the support structure 10 is formed with a rectangular cross-section, although other shapes such as annular, oval and various polygonal shapes can also be used. In a preferred embodiment, the support structure 10 has a rectangular cross-section that is about 11 centimeters by about 9 centimeters, with an average wall thickness of about 6 millimeters. Preferably, the inner and outer radiuses are about 5 millimeters and about 1.3 millimeters, respectively, thereby efficiently distributing stresses throughout the support structure 10 . If the support structure 10 is rectangular in cross-section, it is preferred that any transverse holes be located so that they are approximately centered in any planar surface to optimize stress distribution.
[0029] In a particular embodiment, the support structure includes a plurality of transverse holes that traverse the beam in both horizontal and vertical directions. In this, horizontal and vertical are arbitrarily selected for discussion purposes and are not intended to necessarily refer to any subsequent orientation of the support structure 10 once mounted to a utility pole 12 . As shown, the support structure 10 has several horizontal transverse holes 18 and several vertical transverse holes 20 . The horizontal transverse holes 18 and the vertical transverse holes 20 can be used to mount insulators or other similar structures to the support structure 10 , or to mount the support structure 10 to a utility pole.
[0030] [0030]FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view taken along the 2 - 2 line of FIG. 1, in which a transverse hole 28 is seen penetrating through the support structure 10 from a first exterior surface 30 to a second exterior surface 32 . As illustrated, the transverse hole 28 corresponds to a horizontal transverse hole 18 as seen in FIG. 1, although the transverse hole 28 as illustrated corresponds equally to a vertical transverse hole 20 . A reinforcing member 22 is positioned such that its interior surface 24 is aligned with the transverse hole 28 .
[0031] In a preferred embodiment, the reinforcing member 22 is cylindrical in shape and has an inner diameter, defined by its interior surface 24 , that is approximately equal to the diameter of the transverse hole 28 . The reinforcing member 22 has an outer diameter, defined by its exterior surface 26 , that is greater than the diameter of the transverse hole 28 . The outer diameter of the reinforcing member 22 can be as large as necessary to provide a desired level of crush resistance and is limited in size only by the internal dimensions of the support structure 10 .
[0032] The reinforcing member 22 is preferably sized to resist any crushing force that results from mounting bolt 34 as illustrated in FIG. 3. The mounting bolt 34 preferably has a diameter that is slightly smaller than the inner diameter of the reinforcing member 22 . If the mounting bolt 34 is too large in diameter, the support structure 10 can be damaged by the resultant force necessary to drive the mounting bolt 34 through the support structure 10 .
[0033] Alternatively, if the mounting bolt 34 has a diameter that is significantly smaller than the inner diameter of the reinforcing member, accurate positioning of any structure mounted to the support structure 10 can be compromised. Moreover, if the mounting bolt 34 is sized such that it can move or rack within a transverse hole 28 , additional stress can be placed on the support structure 10 . Thus, the reinforcing member 22 preferably has an inner diameter that is no more than about 2.5 centimeters, each inner diameter preferably being about 0.16 centimeters greater than the diameter of the particular mounting bolt to be used. As bolts of varying sizes are often used, examples of preferred reinforcing members 22 include those having inner diameters of 1.4 centimeters, 1.7 centimeters, 2.1 centimeters and 2.4 centimeters. Preferably, the outer diameter of the reinforcing member 22 ranges from about 2.5 centimeters to about 5 centimeters.
[0034] The reinforcing member 22 is preferably designed to resist any forces resulting from the utility lines that are ultimately supported thereby. If the support structure 10 is used in a crossarm application (as seen in FIG. 1), these forces include the weight of the utility lines and forces such as wind and ice that act upon these lines. Preferably, the reinforcing member 22 has a length that is approximately equal to an inner dimension of the support structure 10 . It is preferred that the reinforcing member 22 be easily positioned within the interior volume of the support structure 10 yet be long enough to provide a desired level of crush resistance.
[0035] The support structure 10 itself is preferably a pultruded part and is manufactured according to well known techniques. In pultrusion, rovings and mats consisting of glass fibers are pulled through a liquid resin and then through a die having a desired cross-section to impregnate and shape the reinforcing fibers into a cured product having a uniform cross-section.
[0036] In a preferred embodiment, about 1000 rovings, each having about 4000 glass fibers, and about 32 inches width of 1.5 ounce per square foot continuous strand mat are used. A high-performance, unsaturated polyester thermoset resin is most preferred, although one of skill in the art will recognize that other types of resins can also be utilized. These include vinyl esters, epoxies, and phenolics as well as a variety of thermoplastic resins.
[0037] Once the support structure 10 has been formed, any number of appropriate horizontal transverse holes 18 and vertical transverse holes 20 can be punched or drilled through the support structure 10 . Preferably, these transverse holes 18 , 20 are positioned to correspond to externally mounted structures such as insulators. Once the transverse holes are formed, a reinforcing member 22 is positioned within the support structure 10 to correspond to each transverse hole. Once positioned, the reinforcing members 22 are secured in place using a variety of suitable adhesives. Preferably, the adhesive bonds provide a moisture seal between the reinforcing member 22 and the support structure 10 .
[0038] Alternatively, the interior of the support structure 10 can be filled with a foam 40 (as seen in FIG. 4) that serves to hold the reinforcing members 22 in position. Preferably, the foam 40 also serves to minimize moisture migration into and through the support structure 10 . A variety of different foams can be used, as known to those of skill in the art. A preferred foam is polyurethane.
[0039] To ensure that water is kept out of the interior of the support structure 10 , end caps 50 are secured to either end, as seen for example in FIG. 5 a . Suitable end caps are also described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,605,017, previously referenced. Preferably, the end caps 50 are configured such that they provide additional mechanical strength and crush resistance and help prevent damage to the ends of the support structure 10 during handling and installation. In a preferred embodiment, the end caps 50 are configured to capture the ends of the support structure 10 and support both the inner and outer edges of the support structure 10 .
[0040] [0040]FIG. 5 b is a cross-section of FIG. 5 a , taken along the 5 - 5 line. FIG. 5 b illustrates an end cap 52 that serves to cover an end of the support structure 10 and prevent moisture from entering the interior of the support structure 10 . The end cap 52 includes a portion 54 that is sized and configured to seal the end of the support structure 10 . Preferably, the portion 54 is flat or substantially planar, although other geometries can be employed as well. The end cap 52 also includes an extended portion 56 that preferably extends beyond the end of the support structure 10 once installed. The extended portion 56 can also provide a surface upon which various adhesives can be placed to secure the end cap 52 into position on the support structure 10 .
[0041] [0041]FIGS. 5 c and 5 d are variations shown as diagrammatical cross-sections of FIG. 5 a . In FIG. 5 c , the end cap 58 is similar to the end cap 52 but is configured with an inner extended portion 63 and an outer extended portion 64 that cooperate to form slot 62 . Preferably, an end of the support structure 10 fits into the slot 62 . This provides a preferred embodiment, as the inner extended portion 63 and the outer extended portion 64 provides additional mechanical strength to the end of the support structure 10 . Moreover, the inner and outer extended portions 63 and 64 , respectively, provide additional surface to which adhesives can be applied.
[0042] [0042]FIG. 5 d shows an end cap 66 that is similar to the end cap 58 , except that the outer extended portion 64 have been removed. Instead, the end cap 66 has a planar surface 68 that is configured to seal an end of the support structure 10 and extended portions 70 that fit within an end of the support structure 10 .
[0043] The outer surface of the support structure 10 is preferably coated with a weather-resistant coating to prevent surface degradation caused by exposure to sunlight. In a preferred embodiment, a high performance acrylic coating such as SUNGUARD II™ is applied to the beam through either spraying or an in-line coating procedure.
[0044] The above specification provides an enabling description of the manufacture and use of the invention. Since many embodiments of the invention can be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention, the invention resides in the claims hereinafter appended. | A utility line support beam resists compressive forces while preventing moisture from entering the interior of the beam. A reinforcing member is placed within the interior of the beam. The reinforcing member is positioned to absorb any compressive forces resulting from either mounting the beam on a utility pole or mounting other structures to the beam. The beam is sealed to prevent moisture from entering. | 8 |
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0001] This invention relates generally to turbine engines, and more specifically to environmental coatings used with turbine engine components.
[0002] At least some known gas turbine engines include a forward fan, a core engine, and a power turbine. The core engine includes at least one compressor that provides pressurized air to a combustor wherein the air is mixed with fuel and ignited for generating hot combustion gases. The combustion gases flow downstream to one or more turbines that extract energy therefrom to power the compressor and provide useful work, such as powering an aircraft. A turbine section may include a stationary turbine nozzle positioned at the outlet of the combustor for channeling combustion gases into a turbine rotor disposed downstream thereof.
[0003] The turbine nozzle may include a plurality of circumferentially spaced apart vanes. The vanes are impinged by the hot combustion gases exiting the combustor and are at least partially coated to facilitate protecting the vanes from the environment and to facilitate reducing wear. Specifically, in at least same engines, a platinum aluminide coating is be applied to turbine components, including the vanes to facilitate environmentally protecting the components. The application of platinum aluminide coatings is generally a three-step process that may include an electroplating process, a diffusion heat treatment, and an aluminiding process. During electroplating, platinum is plated over the surface of the component to be coated. Such that an electroplate coat of substantially uniform thickness is applied across the entire surface of the component. However, a magnetic field generated by current flow between the component to be coated and an anode used in coating may be non-uniformly distributed across the component, and more specifically such flux lines may be more dense adjacent sharp edges on the part, such as adjacent the trailing edge of the nozzle vane. As a result, a thicker coating of plating may be applied to such edges relative to the convex and concave surfaces of the airfoil portion of the vane. Over time, the uneven distribution of coatings may cause cracking: At least one known method of controlling the electroplate thickness adjacent the trailing edge requires that a disposable, metallic “robber” be positioned adjacent to the trailing edge to thieve current from the edge during the coating application. However, within such methods the effectiveness of the robber degrades over time and it may require frequent replacement.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
[0004] In one embodiment, a method of fabricating a gas turbine engine component are provided. The method includes positioning a non-consumable shield adjacent to an edge of the component such that a gap is defined between the shield and the component, wherein the shield and gap form a fluid flow restriction adjacent to the edge, and inducing an electrical current from an anode to the component through an electrolyte bath such that a coating is applied to the component.
[0005] In another embodiment, an electroplating apparatus is provided. The electroplating apparatus includes an electroplating bath that includes an electrolytic solution, a power source, an anode coupled to the power source, a component coupled to the power source and immersed within the electrolytic solution wherein the component includes a plating surface bordered by an edge, and a non-consumable shield positioned adjacent to the component edge such that a gap is defined between the edge and the shield and wherein the shield and the gap form a fluid flow restriction adjacent to the edge.
[0006] In yet another embodiment, an electroplating apparatus is provided. The electroplating apparatus includes an electroplating bath including an electrolytic solution comprising platinum, a power source, an anode coupled to the power source, a component to be electroplated coupled to the power source and immersed within the electrolytic solution wherein the component includes a plating surface and an edge, and a non-consumable shield positioned adjacent to the edge such that a gap is defined between the edge and the shield and wherein the shield and the gap form a fluid flow restriction adjacent to the edge. The shield is configured to displace an electric field away from the edge to facilitate reducing an amount of electroplating deposited on the edge.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0007] FIG. 1 is a longitudinal cross-sectional view of an exemplary high bypass ratio turbofan engine;
[0008] FIG. 2 is a perspective view of an exemplary first stage, high pressure turbine nozzle segment that may be used with the gas turbine engine (shown in FIG. 1 );
[0009] FIG. 3 is a perspective view of an exemplary electroplating process for applying an electroplate coating to the vanes shown in FIG. 2 .
[0010] FIG. 4 is a cross-sectional view of high pressure turbine nozzle vane 118 that may be used in the electroplating process shown in FIG. 3 ; and
[0011] FIG. 5 is a graph of electroplate coating thickness readings taken at each of the plurality of test locations shown in FIG. 4 .
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
[0012] As used herein, the term “component” may include any component configured to be coupled with a gas turbine engine that may be coated with a metallic film coating, for example a high pressure turbine nozzle vane. A high pressure turbine nozzle vane is intended as exemplary only, and thus is not intended to limit in any way the definition and/or meaning of the term “component”. Furthermore, although the invention is described herein in association with a gas turbine engine, and more specifically for use with a high pressure turbine nozzle vane for a gas turbine engine, it should be understood that the present invention is applicable to other gas turbine engine stationary components and rotatable components. Accordingly, practice of the present invention is not limited to high pressure turbine nozzle vanes for a gas turbine engine. In addition, although the invention is described herein in association with a electrolytic bath process, it should be understood that the present invention may be applicable to any electroplating process, for example, brush electroplating. Accordingly, practice of the present invention is not limited to an electroplating process using an electrolytic bath.
[0013] FIG. 1 is a longitudinal cross-sectional view of an exemplary high bypass ratio turbofan engine 10 . Engine 10 includes, in serial axial flow communication about a longitudinal centerline axis 12 , a fan 14 , a booster 16 , a high pressure compressor 18 , a combustor 20 , a high pressure turbine 22 , and a low pressure turbine 24 . High pressure turbine 22 is drivingly connected to high pressure compressor 18 with a first rotor shaft 26 , and low pressure turbine 24 is drivingly connected to booster 16 and fan 14 with a second rotor shaft 28 .
[0014] During operation of engine 10 , ambient air passes through fan 14 , booster 16 , and compressor 18 , the pressurized air stream enters combustor 20 where it is mixed with fuel and burned to provide a high energy stream of hot combustion gases. The high-energy gas stream passes through high-pressure turbine 22 to drive first rotor shaft 26 . The gas stream passes through low-pressure turbine 24 to drive second rotor shaft 28 , fan 14 , and booster 16 . Spent combustion gases exit out of engine 10 through an exhaust duct (not shown).
[0015] It should be noted that although the present description is given in terms of a turbofan aircraft engine, embodiments of the present invention may be applicable to any gas turbine engine power plant such as that used for marine and industrial applications. The description of the engine shown in FIG. 1 is only illustrative of the type of engine to which some embodiments of the present invention is applicable.
[0016] FIG. 2 is a perspective view of an exemplary first stage, high pressure turbine nozzle segment 114 that may be used with the gas turbine engine 10 (shown in FIG. 1 ). High pressure turbine nozzle segment 114 may be positioned axially between combustor 20 and high pressure turbine 22 such that a row of first stage turbine rotor blades (not shown) is positioned downstream from high pressure turbine nozzle segment 114 . A plurality of high pressure turbine nozzles 114 may be circumferentially spaced about axis 12 to form a high pressure turbine nozzle (not shown). High pressure turbine nozzle segment 114 includes at least one nozzle vane 118 coupled at opposite radial ends to a respective radially inner band 120 and a respective radially outer band 122 . High pressure turbine nozzle segment 114 are typically formed in arcuate segments having two or more vanes 118 per segment 114 . Vanes 118 may be cooled during operation against a flow of hot combustion gases 116 using a flow of cooling air 124 that may be channeled from, for example, a discharge of compressor 18 to individual vanes 118 through outer band 122 .
[0017] Each vane 118 includes a generally concave pressure sidewall 126 , and a circumferentially opposite generally convex, suction sidewall 128 . Sidewalls 126 and 128 may extend longitudinally in span along a radial axis of the nozzle between bands 120 and 122 wherein a root 130 couples to inner band 120 and a tip 132 couples to outer band 122 . Sidewalks 126 and 128 extend chorale or axially between a leading edge 134 and an opposite trailing edge 136 .
[0018] FIG. 3 is a perspective view of an exemplary electroplating process 200 for applying an electroplate coating to vanes 118 (shown in FIG. 2 ). In the exemplary embodiment, vane 118 may energized to a predetermined negative voltage with respect to a grid 202 such that when an electrolyte solution containing metal ions, for example, platinum covers a surface of vane 118 , for example, sidewall 126 , the metal ions in the electrolyte solution may be preferentially attracted to and bonded to sidewall 126 to form an electroplate coating 204 . In the exemplary embodiment, a non-conducting, non-consumable shield 206 is positioned adjacent trailing edge 136 such that a longitudinal axis 208 of shield 206 is substantially parallel to trailing edge 136 and separated by a gap 210 having a predetermined distance 212 . In the exemplary embodiment, distance 212 is approximately thirty mils. In an alternative embodiment, distance 212 is a distance greater than or less then thirty mils. In the exemplary embodiment, shield 206 is fabricated from a non-conducting material, for example, plastic and has an outside diameter 218 , for example, three-quarters inches, that is substantially greater than the thickness 220 of vane 118 at trailing edge 136 . The relatively larger diameter of shield 206 with respect to the thickness of trailing edge 136 substantially blunts the geometry of trailing edge 136 and facilitates blocking at least a portion of the electrical current through trailing edge 136 . Additionally, the close clearance of distance 212 to trailing edge 136 facilitates reducing a flow of electrolyte solution proximate trailing edge 136 . Shield 206 may be formed to follow the contour of an irregularly shaped or curved edge while maintaining gap distance 212 . Additionally, shield 206 may include an irregular cross-section, for example, shield 206 may be a hollow or solid and may include a groove or slot configured to be aligned with edge 136 for optimizing the flow restrictive gap distance 212 and/or the electrical characteristics of the electric field proximate gap distance 212 .
[0019] FIG. 4 is a cross-sectional view of high pressure turbine nozzle vane 118 that may be used in electroplating process 200 (shown in FIG. 3 ). Vane 118 includes concave pressure sidewall 126 and convex suction sidewall 128 that each extend axially between leading edge 134 and trailing edge 136 . A plurality of thickness test locations are located at predetermined locations about a perimeter of vane 118 and are labeled 401 - 410 .
[0020] FIG. 5 is a graph 500 of electroplate coating thickness readings taken at each of the plurality of test locations 401 - 410 (shown in FIG. 4 ). Graph 500 includes an x-axis 502 whose units correlate with each respective test location, 401 - 410 (shown in FIG. 4 ). For example, electroplate coating thickness reading 401 is taken proximate leading edge 134 , electroplate coating thickness reading 406 is taken proximate trailing edge 136 , and electroplate coating thickness readings 404 and 409 are taken proximate convex side 128 and proximate concave side 126 respectively. A y-axis 504 may be graduated in units of mils indicative of a thickness of a plating coating corresponding to the respective location, 401 - 410 .
[0021] In the exemplary embodiment, a trace 506 joins points on graph 500 corresponding to an exemplary electroplate process for coating nozzle vane 118 with a metallic film coating. Trace 506 illustrates readings taken using the electroplate process wherein shield 206 is not utilized to form a flow restrictive gap distance 212 adjacent edge 136 . Trace 506 illustrates a metallic film coating thickness at location 406 that is approximately 100% greater than the metallic film coating thickness at locations 401 - 405 and 407 - 410 .
[0022] A trace 508 illustrates readings taken at locations 401 - 410 after using the electroplate process wherein shield 206 is utilized to form a flow restrictive gap distance 212 adjacent edge 136 and to displace an electric field adjacent edge 136 . Shield 206 facilitates plating a uniform metallic film coating thickness at locations 401 - 410 . Trace 506 illustrates a metallic film coating thickness at location 406 that is approximately only 25 % greater than the metallic film coating thickness at locations 401 - 405 and 407 - 410 . Using shield 206 results in a more uniform metallic film coating thickness around the perimeter of vane 118 .
[0023] A thickness ration may be defined as a ratio of a maximum thickness from locations around the perimeter of the airfoil (t max ) to a minimum thickness (t min ),
Thickness Ratio = t MAX t MIN .
[0024] Trace 508 exhibits a thickness ratio of approximately 1.94, using the above formula, while trace 506 exhibits a thickness ratio of approximately 3.03, which represents a 40% improvement in uniformity of the metallic film coating thickness about the perimeter of vane 118 .
[0025] The above-described methods and apparatus are cost-effective and highly reliable for providing a substantially uniform metallic film coating thickness on gas turbine engine components, such as a high pressure turbine first stage nozzle. Specifically, the shield positioned adjacent the edge of the nozzle vane to be coated, defines an electrolyte flow restrictive gap and displaces a portion of the electric field adjacent the edge. Restricting the electrolyte flow adjacent the edge permits the electrolyte to be depleted in the gap and reduces the metallic ion concentration available for plating the edge. Displacing a portion of the electric field adjacent the edge facilitates reducing the electroplating motive force and thus, the rate of plating on the edge. The methods and apparatus facilitate fabrication of machines, and in particular gas turbine engines, in a cost-effective and reliable manner.
[0026] Exemplary embodiments of electroplating methods and apparatus components are described above in detail. The components are not limited to the specific embodiments described herein, but rather, components of each apparatus may be utilized independently and separately from other components described herein. Each electroplating method and apparatus component can also be used in combination with other electroplating methods and apparatus components.
[0027] While the invention has been described in terms of various specific embodiments, those skilled in the art will recognize that the invention can be practiced with modification within the spirit and scope of the claims. | Methods and apparatus of fabricating gas turbine engine components are provided. The method includes positioning a non-consumable shield adjacent to an edge of the component such that a gap is defined between the shield and the component, wherein the shield and gap form a fluid flow restriction adjacent to the edge, and inducing an electrical current from an anode to the component through an electrolyte bath such that a coating is applied to the component. | 5 |
This application is a continuation of application Ser. No. 07/461,030, filed 01/04/90, now abandoned.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to the art of cleaning and more particularly to the art of floor cleaning.
The task of mopping a floor, as it has conventionally been practiced, is laborious and time consuming. Much of this difficulty can be attributed to the requirements of mop wringing and bucket carting. Various mops have been developed to make the task of mopping easier. For example, some mops have a slightly simplified wringing process, such as those currently available with sponge heads. These mops, however, still require the use of a bucket. Other mops, like that shown in U.S. Pat. No. 1,130,064, use a rolled fabric for cleaning. Such a device offers some improvements over conventional mops, but is onerous to use because the fabric rolls are difficult to advance and replace. Somewhat similar configurations are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,510,642 and 4,550,467. These devices, primarily intended for use as bowling lane dusters, are also difficult to use. Therefore, significant room for improvement exists in the art.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is thus an object of the invention to provide an improved cleaning apparatus.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a floor cleaning apparatus which can be used without wringing and without a bucket as is required with conventional mops.
It is a further and more particular object of the invention to provide a floor cleaning apparatus using a fabric for cleaning which is easier to use than prior art devices.
These as well as other objects are accomplished by a cleaning apparatus comprising a handle, a housing mounted to the handle and a cassette detachably attached to the housing. A first roller for dispensing a fabric, as well as a second take-up roller and cleaning pressure surface are contained within the cassette. Means for advancing the fabric from the first roller to the second roller are also provided.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 is a perspective view of an apparatus constructed in accordance with the invention.
FIG. 2 is a partial assembly view of the apparatus of FIG. 1.
FIG. 3 is a cross-sectional view along line 3--3 of FIG. 2.
FIG. 4 is a cutaway view, partially in phantom, along line 4--4 of FIG. 2.
FIG. 5 is a cross-sectional view along line 5--5 of FIG. 2.
FIG. 6 is a perspective view, partially in phantom, of the apparatus shown in FIG. 1 equipped with a fluid dispensing container, a scrubbing brush and a pistol grip and further illustrating the application of the fluid from the dispensing container to an area to be cleaned.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
In accordance with this invention, it has been found that an apparatus may be provided to make the heretofore burdensome task of mopping a floor quicker and easier. While reference is made throughout the disclosure to floor cleaning, it is understood that the apparatus may be used to clean other similar surfaces, such as ceilings and walls, equally well.
FIG. 1 illustrates a floor cleaning apparatus 10 constructed in accordance with the invention. A housing 12 is attached to a handle 14. Apparatus 10 is stored when not in use in mounting receptacle 16 which maintains apparatus 10 in an upright position. The cassette 18 of the apparatus 10 is shown in FIG. 2. Cassette 18 mounts snugly within housing 12 and is detachable by release button 20. Cassette 18 is therefore an easily replaceable unit. The cleaning surface is shown at 22. It should be noted that between uses receptacle 16 completely contains surface 22, thereby also containing moisture and contaminants.
FIG. 3 illustrates some of the internal components of cassette 18. A fabric 24 is dispensed from dispensing roller 26, passes over pressure surface backing 28 and is collected on collecting roller 30. The section of fabric contacting backing 28 forms surface 22. Fabric 24 is preferably a non-woven fabric which may be any of the well-known type utilized as a pre-moistened wipe. An example of such a fabric is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 3,978,185. Another example is the fabric used in the wipes sold at the retail level under the trademark SPIFFITS. These examples are hereby incorporated by reference.
FIGS. 4 and 5 illustrate the means used to index fabric 24 from roller 26 to roller 30 to expose clean fabric after each use. Activation means, such as trigger 32 (FIG. 2), are connected to rod 34. If trigger 32 is pressed, the force imposed upon arm 36 by rod 34 overcomes the force of spring 40 and pulls arm 36, along with hook member 38, upwardly.
When cassette 18 is mounted within housing 12, hook 41 of hook member 38 fits within notch 42 of ratchet 44. As hook member 38 is pulled upwardly as described above, the force of springs 46 and 48 is overcome. Ratchet 44 is moved from its at-rest position against stop 49 into contact with gear 50, which then rotates a predetermined amount. Since gear 50 is attached to and is an extension of roller 30, roller 30 rotates as well. In this way, fabric 24 advances.
FIG. 6 shows some notable modifications of the invention. A fluid dispensing container 52, activated by button 54, dispenses a liquid stream 56, such as wax or soap, onto an area 58 to be cleaned. As the user draws surface 22 across area 58, it contacts the liquid. However, the apparatus can be easily modified so that the stream contacts the fabric directly. Other modifications include the addition of a scrubbing brush 60 to the housing 12, which can be of aid with more difficult cleaning problems. Furthermore, a more ergonomically efficacious grip, like pistol-grip member 62 may be used.
It is apparent that the invention disclosed herein makes the task of floor cleaning quicker and easier. As many variations will be apparent from a reading of the above description, such variations are embodied within the spirit and scope of this invention as defined by the following appended claims. | A floor cleaning apparatus is provided using indexing fabric rolls to furnish the cleaning surface. The rolls are contained within a replaceable cassette unit. The cassette is mounted within a housing which is attached to an elongated handle. | 0 |
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
[0001] The present invention generally relates to method for measuring the relative humidity of a disposable absorbent article, and more particularly to a method of measuring the humidity dissipation properties of a disposable absorbent article.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0002] Externally worn, sanitary absorbent napkins are one of many kinds of feminine protection devices currently available. Sanitary napkins conventionally have a laminate construction including a body-facing liquid permeable layer, an absorbent core layer or layers, and a liquid impermeable garment facing layer. A problem with conventional napkins, due to the laminate construction thereof, is that such articles are not particularly breathable within the absorbent layers of the article. This lack of “internal breathability” within the article construct can cause comfort problems for the user during use of the article. In particular, the lack of internal breathability in conventional articles may cause the users body temperature to rise in a localized area thereby creating discomfort during use. Further, once the article becomes wet, the lack of internal breathability may prevent the article from drying thereby imparting a wet sensation to the user during use.
[0003] The inventors of the present invention have discovered a method of measuring the humidity dissipation properties of a disposable absorbent article such as a sanitary napkin. The method allows the inventors to evaluate the humidity dissipation performance of a disposable absorbent article and thereby predict the comfort attributes of the article.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0004] In view of the foregoing, the present invention provides a method of calculating the humidity dissipation of an absorbent article including the steps of collecting relative humidity data from an absorbent article for a selected period of time, generating a graph plotting relatively humidity versus time for the absorbent article, differentiating the relative humidity versus time graph to obtain a differential graph, obtaining a first tangent line from the differential graph, obtaining a second tangent line from the relative humidity versus time graph, transcribing the first and second tangent lines onto the relative humidity versus time graph, and calculating a humidity dissipation A RH value by determining the area located between the first and second tangent lines and the relative humidity versus time graph.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0005] Examples of embodiments of the present invention will now be described with reference to the drawings, in which:
[0006] FIG. 1 is a schematic view of an apparatus for measuring relative humidity of an absorbent article;
[0007] FIG. 2 is a perspective view of an absorbent article with the temperature and relatively humidity microsensors of the apparatus depicted in FIG. 1 inserted under the cover layer and into the core layer thereof;
[0008] FIG. 2 a is a detailed sectional view of the absorbent article shown in FIG. 2 depicting the insertion of the temperature and relatively humidity microsensors into the core layer of the absorbent article;
[0009] FIG. 3 is a partially exploded view depicting additional features of the apparatus shown in FIG. 1 ;
[0010] FIG. 4 is a perspective view showing the absorbent article positioned for testing in the apparatus shown in FIG. 3 ;
[0011] FIG. 5 is a graph plotting relatively humidity versus time for an absorbent article tested according to the test method set forth herein;
[0012] FIG. 6 is a graph depicting the differential plot of the graph shown in FIG. 5 ;
[0013] FIG. 7 is a graph showing the manner in which X 1 and Y 1 are determined according to the test method set forth herein;
[0014] FIG. 8 is a graph showing how a first tangent line is determined for the graph shown in FIG. 5 based on X 1 and Y 1 ;
[0015] FIGS. 9 and 10 are graphs depicting the manner in which a second tangent line is determined for the graph shown in FIG. 5 ; and
[0016] FIG. 11 is graph depicting the manner in which A RH is calculated based upon the first and second tangent lines.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
[0017] The method described herewith will be described with reference to a sanitary napkin, however the inventive method may be used to evaluate other disposable absorbent article such as panty liners, incontinence products, and the like.
[0018] Reference is made to FIG. 1 which schematically depicts an apparatus 10 for measuring the humidity dissipation characteristics of an absorbent article according to the test method set forth in detail below. The apparatus 10 generally includes a relative humidity microsensor 12 for measuring the relative humidity of an absorbent article, a microsensor 14 for measuring the temperature of an absorbent article, a temperature and humidity sensor 16 for measuring the temperature and relative humidity of a laboratory in which the test is being conducted, a signal conditioner 20 , a connector block 22 and a computer 24 for recording the measured data. The apparatus 10 further includes a heating plate 26 as shown in FIGS. 3 and 4 .
[0019] Two acrylic plates 28 each having dimensions of 5.0 cm (length) by 5.0 cm (width) by 0.2 cm (thick) are used in the test method described below. One of the above described acrylic plates 28 is depicted in FIG. 3 . A cotton panty 30 , as shown in FIG. 3 , is also required to perform the test method set forth below.
[0020] A suitable commercially available microsensor 12 is the relative humidity microsensor model HIH-400 manufactured by Honeywell International, Inc., Morristown, N.J.
[0021] A suitable commercially available microsensor 14 is temperature microsensor model NTC manufactured by BetaTherm, Inc., Hampton, Va.
[0022] The same commercially available temperature and relative humidity microsensors described above may be used as the sensor 16 to measure the temperature and relative humidity of the laboratory in which the test is being conducted.
[0023] The electronic interface 20 is a conventional signal conditioner circuit.
[0024] A suitable commercially available connector block 22 is connector block model NISCC-68 manufactured by National Instruments Corporation, Austin, Tex.
[0025] The computer 24 is a Microsoft Windows based system equipped with LabView, version 7.1, manufactured by National Instruments Corporation, Austin, Tex. The identified software is used to collect and process the transmitted data.
[0026] A suitable commercially available heating plate 26 is the Multi-Blok Heater, Model 2050, manufactured by Lab-Line Instruments, a subsidiary of Breanstead Thermolyne, Melrose Park, Ill.
[0027] The cotton panty 30 used in the test method may be any conventional commercially available panty having a composition of at least 90% cotton.
[0028] As shown in FIG. 4 , the apparatus 10 further includes a cylindrical mass 34 having an outer diameter of 3.0 cm, a length of 8.5 cm and a mass of 77.3 g. The cylindrical mass 34 may be constructed as an acrylic tube filled with sand or the like to achieve the required mass and sealed on each end thereof. The cylindrical mass 34 is connected to a rigid swing arm 35 , which is in turn connected any suitable apparatus capable of moving the mass 34 in a repeating up and down vertical motion to thereby apply a repeating force to the acrylic plate 28 as shown in FIG. 4 . The apparatus to which the mass 34 it attached, by means of the swing arm 35 , should be selected such that the mass 34 applies a force of 12 g once per second to the acrylic plate 28 . A suitable commercially available apparatus capable of moving the swing arm 35 and mass 34 in this manner, and applying the required force, is a thermostatic bath Haake SWB 20 Fisons TYP 000-8582/194015695002 KL DIN 12879 manufactured by Haake Fisons.
[0029] As shown in FIG. 3 , one of the surfaces of the acrylic plate 28 is covered by a 5 cm (length)×5 (width) cm×0.1 cm (thickness) swatch of nonwoven material 36 . The nonwoven material 36 is attached to the acrylic plate 28 by applying 3.6 gsm (g/m 2 ) adhesive (Pritt non-toxic Stick manufactured by Henkel Capital, S.A., Mexico) over a 25 cm 2 area to the acrylic plate facing surface of the nonwoven material 36 . The nonwoven material 36 has a basis weight of 180 gsm and a composition of 100% wool fibers. A suitable commercially available material of this type is available from Indústria de Feltros Santa Fé Av. Antônio Bardella, 780, Cumbica, Guarulhos-SP Brazil.
[0030] Prior to conducting the test method set forth below the product specimens to be measured are conditioned by leaving them in a room that is 22° C., +/−2° C. and 55%, +/−3.0% relative humidity for a period of twelve (12) hours. In addition, for each product specimen to be tested, two acrylic plates 28 , with the nonwoven swatch of material 36 attached thereto, are conditioned by leaving them in a room that is 22° C., +/−2° C. and 55%, +/−3.0% relative humidity for a period of twelve (12) hours. Three identical product specimens are required for each product to be tested.
[0031] The test method described below should be conducted in a laboratory setting having a temperature of 22° C., +/−2° C., and a relative humidity of 55%, +/−3.0%.
[0032] As shown in FIGS. 2 and 2 a , the test method is initiated by inserting the microsensor 12 and the microsensor 14 under the cover layer 42 and into the absorbent core layer 44 of the absorbent article 40 at the intersection of the longitudinally extending centerline 50 and transversely extending centerline 52 of the absorbent article 40 . A small hole may be formed in the cover layer 42 , if necessary, to facilitate the insertion of the microsensors 12 and 14 .
[0033] After the microsensors 12 and 14 are inserted under the cover layer 42 and into core layer 44 the absorbent article 40 is attached to the panty 30 by means of positioning adhesive located on the garment facing surface of the barrier layer 60 of the absorbent article 40 . If the article to be tested does not include positioning adhesive the article may be attached to the panty 30 using conventional masking tape or the like.
[0034] After the napkin 40 is attached to the panty 30 , the panty 30 is arranged on the heating plate 26 , as shown in FIGS. 3 and 4 , such that the panty 30 is adjacent the top surface of the heating plate 26 and the napkin 40 faces away from the top surface of the heating plate 26 . Thereafter one of the conditioned acrylic plates 28 is arranged on top of the napkin 40 such that the center of the plate 28 is arranged over the intersection of the longitudinally extending centerline 50 and transversely extending centerline 52 of the napkin 40 . The plate 28 is arranged such that the nonwoven swatch of material 36 is placed in abutting face to face relationship with the top surface of the cover layer 42 . The cylindrical mass 34 is then positioned such that the central axis thereof is aligned with the longitudinally extending centerline 50 of the napkin 40 .
[0035] After the apparatus 10 is configured as described above, the movement of the cylindrical mass 34 is initiated and the relative humidity and temperature of the napkin 40 is monitored via the readout provided by the computer 24 . The objective of this first step of the method is to obtain an equilibrium temperature and relative humidity within the napkin 40 . Specifically, the objective is to obtain conditions within the napkin 40 such that the temperature of the napkin is between 36° and 38° C. and the relative humidity of the napkin is between 25% to 30%. Equilibrium is established when the napkin 40 has a temperature between 36° and 38° C. and a relative humidity between 25% to 30% for a period of one minute. The temperature of the napkin 40 may be increased, if necessary, to reach the required equilibrium temperature by means of the heating plate 26 .
[0036] Once the equilibrium temperature and equilibrium relative humidity has been established in the napkin 40 as described above, the computer 24 and the LabView 7.1 software are used to begin collecting relative humidity data from the napkin 40 . Data is collected for a fifteen minute period. After the initial fifteen minute period, the first plate 28 is removed and replaced with a new second plate 28 , having the swatch of nonwoven material 36 attached thereto, that has been previously conditioned by leaving the plate 28 and material 36 in a room that is 22° C., +/−2° C. and 55%, +/−3.0% relative humidity for a period of twelve (12) hours. Prior to applying the second plate 28 to the napkin 40 , 0.5 mL of water is applied to nonwoven material 36 using any conventional syringe. After the second plate 28 is applied relative humidity data for the napkin 40 is collected for an additional fifteen minute period. Thereafter, the second plate 28 is removed and relative humidity data for the napkin 40 is collected for an additional 10 minute period. Thus, relative humidity data is collected from the napkin 40 for a total of forty-five minutes. The relative humidity data collected from the napkin 40 is then used to generate a relative humidity (%) versus time (s) graph of the type shown in FIG. 5 . The graph is generated using the data analysis and graphing software Origin 6.0 commercially available from OriginLab Corporation, Northampton, Mass.
[0037] As will be described in greater detail below the graph of relative humidity shown in FIG. 5 is used to calculate the humidity dissipation value A RH of the napkin.
[0038] The A RH calculation is performed as described below. First the differential of the graph shown in FIG. 5 is plotted to obtain a graph of the type shown in FIG. 6 . Thereafter, as shown in FIG. 7 , the maximum relative humidity %/second value, Y 1 , is determined from the maximum value on the differential graph. Once the maximum value relative humidity %/second value, Y 1 is determined, the time at which this value occurs X 1 can be determined. Using the point defined by X 1 and Y 1 , and the slope of the differential graph at this point, a first tangent line T 1 is obtained in time X 1 can be defined as shown in FIG. 8 . The first tangent line T 1 is then transcribed on the graph shown in FIG. 5 as shown in FIG. 8 . The tangent line T 1 is generated using the Origin 6.0 software.
[0039] A second tangent line T 2 is determined by determining the maximum relative humidity % value, Y 2 , on the graph shown in FIG. 5 between 900 s and 1800 s, as shown in FIG. 9 . Using this maximum relative humidity % value, Y 2 , and a slope of zero, a second tangent line T 2 can be defined. The second tangent line T 2 is transcribed on the graph shown in FIG. 5 as shown in FIG. 10 . The tangent line T 2 is generated using the Origin 6.0 software.
[0040] Once the first tangent line T 1 and second tangent line T 2 are transcribed on the graph shown in FIG. 5 , as shown in FIG. 11 , the area A RH located between the graph line and first and second tangent lines is calculated using the Origin 6.0 software. The calculated area A RH is inversely proportional to the relative humidity retention of the napkin 40 . Stated another way the higher the A RH the greater the humidity dissipation of the napkin 40 . Thus, the higher the A RH value the lower the relative humidity retention of the product and the cooler and more comfortable the product will feel during use.
[0041] The above described calculation is repeated for three identical product samples and an average A RH is calculated.
[0042] The above described test method allows the evaluation of the humidity dissipation properties of an absorbent article and thereby allows one to predict the comfort attributes of the absorbent article. | A method of calculating the humidity dissipation of an absorbent article including the steps of collecting relative humidity data from an absorbent article for a selected period of time, generating a graph plotting relatively humidity versus time for the absorbent article, differentiating the relative humidity versus time graph to obtain a differential graph. | 0 |
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a method of producing voluminous knitted articles, especially for upholstering, on a two-bed flat knitting machine.
During use of knitted articles for technical purposes in which the high stretching ability and elastic deformation ability of knitted articles when compared with woven articles are important, there is a requirement to more or less tightly fill hollow spaces with the knitted article or to provide upholstery coating.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a method of producing voluminous knitted articles which have a suitable shape and are easy to manufacture.
In keeping with these objects and with others which will become apparent hereinafter, one feature of the present invention resides, briefly stated, in a method of producing knitted articles, in accordance with which pocket-shaped convexities from a base plane are knitted over the length of the knitted article progressively and thereby one after the other.
In accordance with an advantageous feature of the present invention, it is desirable to form such a voluminous knitted article during the knitting process so that it has a predetermined shape fixation in form of quilted (closing) seams.
Advantageously, in accordance with a further feature of the present invention, for forming the pockets starting from a first edge the maximal knitting width of the knitted article is knitted over a smaller base knitting width, and the base knitting width is offset from wale to wale to a side, until the second edge of the maximal knitting width is obtained. Then the knitting is performed in another direction with a corresponding offset until again the first edge of the maximal knitting width is obtained.
The novel features which are considered as characteristic for the invention are set forth in particular in the appended claims. The invention itself, however, both as to its construction and its method of operation, together with additional objects and advantages thereof, will be best understood from the following description of specific embodiments when read in connection with the accompanying drawings.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a voluminous knitted article produced in accordance with the present invention, with shape-fixing additional stitch wales;
FIG. 2 is a view schematically showing the movement of a thread guide through four successive knitting regions, from which also an offset movement of needle bed during a pocket formation can be seen;
FIG. 3 is a view showing a course of a thread through the four knitting regions shown in FIG. 2 during knitting without fixed stitch wale formation; and
FIGS. 4 and 5 are a thread course illustration corresponding to FIG. 3 and distributed into two Figures, during the production of the knitted article with fixed stitch wales.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
FIG. 1 shows a part of a voluminous knitted web 10. The knitted web 10 is formed so that pocket-shaped convexities 12 are knitted from a knitting base plane 11 successively after one another. For stabilizing the shape of the knitted article, stitch wales 13 can be worked in during the knitting process. They pull together the voluminous knitted web 10 similarly to the stitch seams in direction to the knitting base plane 11.
FIG. 2 shows the movement of a thread guide 14 during the production of the voluminous knitted article through four successive knitting regions which are identified with reference numerals 1, 2 and 3 in correspondence with the features of the knitting formation. The maximal knitting width is identified in FIG. 2 as Bmax. One edge of the maximal knitting width is identified as 16 and the another left edge is identified as 17. In the beginning of the production of the knitted article, first a knitting region 1 is produced. In this region for forming a pocket 12 with the thread 15 supplied from the thread guide 14 from one edge 16 the maximal knitting width Bmax is knitted over a base knitting width Bgrund. This base knitting width Bgrund is offset from one wale to another wale to one side, in FIG. 2 to the left, until at the point 18 the second edge 17 of the maximal knitting width Bmax is obtained. Then the knitting continues in another direction with a corresponding offset, until at the point 19 the first edge 16 of the maximal knitting width Bmax is obtained. In a subsequent knitting region 2 the knitting is then performed over the whole maximal knitting width Bmax. Then again the formation of a knitting region 1 begins, which is followed then by a knitting region 2 in which again the knitting is performed over the whole maximum knitting width.
A straight line 20 or 21 and a curved line 22 or 23 are applied in both knitting regions 1 of FIG. 2. The solid lines 21 and 22 symbolize a thread extending on the front side of the knitted article, while the dash-dot lines 20 and 23 symbolize a thread on the rear side of the knitted article, which together form a stitch wale 13. The curved lines symbolize a floating thread while the solid lines symbolize a thread which is knitted to the wale.
The type of the wale formation can be seen from the thread running illustrations in FIGS. 3-5. FIG. 3 shows a thread course in the successive knitting regions 1, 2, 1, 3 during the formation of a voluminous knitted article in accordance with FIG. 2, but without the worked-in stitch wales for fixing the knitted article. It is produced with a two-bed flat knitting machine, in which during each carriage travel two cams S1 and S2 can be used. During the carriage travel of the flat knitting machine in the first direction which is to the left in FIG. 3, a rib wale is knitted by the first cam S1 from a first thread 15 when each needle of the front needle bed V identified with a prime and with each second needle of the rear needle bed H. Simultaneously, a jersey wale is knitted over the base knitting width Bgrund shown in FIG. 3 with the second cam S2 with a second thread 25 with each releasing needle of the rear needle bed H. During the subsequent carriage travel in another direction which is to the right in FIG. 3, both cams S1 and S2 provide knitting in the same manner but only over a length which corresponds to the base knitting width Bgrund minus an offset width Bv. During the next carriage travel to the left, again the knitting is performed over the whole base knitting width Bgrund, so that a step-shaped offset curve provided in the knitting region 1 in FIG. 1 is obtained.
In the knitting region 2 the knitting jersey wales are knitted in correspondence with FIG. 2 over the maximum knitting width Bmax after one another in both carriage travel directions of FIG. 3 with all needles of the front needle bed. Then follows again a knitting region 1 with already described knitting sequence and with continuous offset of the needle beds. In the subsequent knitting region 3 which is shown above in FIGS. 2 and 3, again jersey wales are produced in both carriage travel directions and with both cams S1 and S2, but now with all needles of the rear needle bed.
From FIGS. 4 and 5 it can be seen how during the knitting process the stabilizing wales 13 shown in FIG. 1 are produced. In the beginning of the knitting process two needles 26 and 27 of the front needle bed V as well as two neighboring needles 28 and 29 of the rear needle bed H perform knitting of the wales. These needles are then temporarily uncoupled from the knitting process with the rows held by them, as shown in the knitting region 1 of FIGS. 4 and 5. In the knitting region 2 wrapping of wales formed by the selected needles 26-29 on a needle of the other needle bed, and then these wales are bound into the knitted article. Thereby, quilting-seam-like acting wales are formed in the longitudinal direction of the knitted article.
It will be understood that each of the elements described above, or two or more together, may also find a useful application in other types of constructions differing from the types described above.
While the invention has been illustrated and described as embodied in a method of producing voluminous knitted articles, it is not intended to be limited to the details shown, since various modifications and structural changes may be made without departing in any way from the spirit of the present invention.
Without further analysis, the foregoing will so fully reveal the gist of the present invention that others can, by applying current knowledge, readily adapt it for various applications without omitting features that, from the standpoint of prior art, fairly constitute essential characteristics of the generic or specific aspects of this invention. | A method of knitting a multi-dimensional fabric for use in upholstery is accomplished by simultaneously knitting rib and jersey wales. The resultant fabric creates a layered or convex pocket appearance similar to that of pleated fabric formed by sewing. The method uses movement of the rib forming carriage to form pockets that are connected by the jersey stitches on the rear face and rib stitches on the face of the fabric. | 3 |
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to a bolt unit and frame arrangement. In particular it relates to a lockable bolt unit having a slidable bolt, typically for securing two movable panels together or for securing one movable panel to a fixed frame.
In this specification, "left" and "right" and similar geometric terms refer to parts in their condition of use as illustrated in FIG. 1, unless otherwise specified in relation to a drawing.
The following disclosure will refer to door panels, and for such applications the bolt may be resiliently biassed and with a chamfered end to permit a latching engagement. However, the bolt unit of the invention can be fitted to windows and other movable panels, and for these applications the bolt unit can have for example a non-chamfered bolt and be moved by an actuator to its engaged position.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Both sliding and hinged doors need the facility to be made secure against unauthorised opening. Bolt units have therefore been developed which have fittings for attachment to an external surface of the door, specifically with the bolt being slidable in a bolt housing or casing between guides; in use the bolt unit includes a slidable bolt which can be moved into and out of engagement with a keeper secured to a fixed member, usually to the upright of a fixed outer door frame within which the door panel is hingedly mounted.
A door secured by a bolt unit is often vulnerable to unauthorised opening upon "bursting" of the securement, with the bolt being disengaged from its keeper. Such bursting of the bolt can for instance be effected by a blow impacting on the door edge perpendicular to the plane of the door, and which for a hinged door would be delivered in the door opening direction. A bolt is strong against bending and shear forces, but nevertheless if the bolt is mounted in cantilever the inserted (unsupported) and can often be sprung from its keeper by a determined blow.
It is of course desirable that unlawful opening movement of a door generally parallel to its plane (as might occur by use of a housebreaker's jemmy) also be made more difficult. Improved security against bursting movement perpendicular to the door frame should not result in reduced security against unauthorised opening parallel to the door frame; it is an advantage of embodiments of the invention that increased security can be provided against such attempted door openings parallel to its plane.
DISCLOSURE OF THE PRIOR ART
Bolts are widely used as fastening for hinged gates and include a bolt end which can slidably be moved into an aperture in a fixed upright, to prevent the gate swinging on its hinge.
More sophisticated bolt units have long been available in which the bolt is mounted in a housing, perphaps with the bolt fully concealed in the housing when in the retracted, inoperative condition, and with the housing carrying actuating means which can be used to move the bolt into a "holding" position with its one end projecting from the housing; with the housing mounted to a hinged door, if the projecting end of the bolt in this holding condition is fitted into an aperture (for instance in a fixed upright forming part of a frame for the door) then the door is held against swinging about the hinge(s).
The bolt unit will often have a key-controlled lock which can be operated to secure the bolt in its extended "holding" position.
For greater security, fabricated (metal) keepers secured to the upright are used instead of apertures cut in the upright.
Some bolt units have a latching action, in which the bolt is chamfered and biassed towards its holding position by a spring; when such a bolt engages its keeper as by the panel being closed, the chamfer causes the bolt to be retracted into its non-holding position until it enters the keeper aperture. Such latch action bolts can be fitted to the rim of a door and are then referred to as "rim latches"; they can also be secured in the holding position by a lock.
Rim latches are widely used to secure external doors in homes and offices, and for this purpose are mounted to an interior surface of the door; often the lock will be key operated from both inside and from outside the door, but some rim latches can additionally, or alternatively, be opened by rotating a thumb-turn located inside the door so as manually to force the bolt back against the latch spring.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
We seek to provide a bolt unit which when fitted in a frame arrangement is less susceptible to unauthorised opening as by bursting or jemmying than the known bolt units.
According to one feature of the invention we provide a bolt unit which includes a bolt housing, bolt guides in the housing and a bolt slidable between said guides so that one end of the bolt can be outside the housing characterised by a receptor for said one end of the bolt outside of the housing, said receptor being carried by the housing and movable therewith.
Preferably, the bolt unit has resilient bias means in the housing, said resilient bias means acting to urge the said one end of the bolt in a direction away from a non-holding position and towards a first holding position with said one end outside of the housing, and in that said one end of the bolt has a chamfer, with a chamfer angle relative to said direction such that a force against said chamfer and substantially perpendicular to said direction can cause the said one end to move away from said first holding position and towards said non-holding position.
We can also provide a bolt unit which includes a bolt movable between a first holding position and a second holding position. Preferably the bolt should be lockable in the second holding position.
Thus according to a preferred feature of the invention the bolt unit has a first movement means mounted in the housing, the first movement means being adapted to allow one end of the bolt to move in a direction between a non-holding position and a first holding position, said first holding position being outside the housing, and a second movement means mounted in the housing, the second movement means being adapted to allow the said one end of the bolt to move further in said direction and into a second holding position, the said one end of the bolt being engaged with the receptor in said second holding position.
For a latch arrangement, preferably the first movement means restrains movement of the bolt, the bolt being moved by a spring in the said direction when the movement means is removed. Preferably the second movement means drives the bolt further in the said direction. Thus the latch uses a "single throw" bolt movement means.
For bolt withdrawal, preferably the second and first movement means successively drive the bolt in the opposite direction to the said direction, firstly from the second holding position to the first holding position, and then from the first holding position to the bolt retracted position (allowing door opening).
The first and second movement means can be provided by a single component, such as a rotatable actuator perhaps capable of multiple revolutions in both angular directions. In a preferred latching embodiment, the actuator has a permitted angular movement of 200-240 degrees, typically with a rotation of 20-60 degrees to clear the bolt to allow the spring to move the bolt to the first holding position, and a further full 180 degree rotation to move the bolt to the second holding position.
The first and second movement means can however be provided by separate components. For office doors and the like having lockable bolt units, key holders can for instance use their key during the day to move the bolt (or a number of bolts on selected doors) between the first holding position and a withdrawn condition (allowing door opening); security staff can use their key to move the bolt to the second holding position. The lock casing can be of any known design, including for instance one using a split key (with one part of the key being used by the key holder for movement of the bolt between its first holding and non-holding positions, and both parts by security staff for movement of the bolt into and out of its second holding position).
The bolt housing carries a receptor with which the one end of the bolt engages in the second holding position. Thus in the assembled condition and according to a further feature of the invention we provide a frame arrangement which includes a frame member, a panel movable relative to the frame member into a closed condition, and a keeper mounted to the frame member, characterised by a bolt unit as herein defined having the bolt unit mounted to the panel member, the bolt unit carrying a hollow receptor and a bolt having one end movable into the receptor, the keeper having an open-ended aperture to permit in said closed condition said one bolt end to pass into the keeper and then through the keeper and into the receptor.
Usefully the bolt can be key-locked in the second holding position.
The bolt when received in the receptor acts as the releasable arm of a padlock.
In a preferred (latching) arrangement the bolt is resiliently biassed towards an extended condition corresponding to the first holding position as above described; usefully the bolt (one) end is chamfered, and the roof of the keeper is angled to form a ramp directed towards the bolt housing whereby to provide a "slam shut" latching facility. Thus if the bolt is already partly extended from its housing, as the hinged (door) panel is swung towards the closed condition the bolt (one) end can abut the ramp whereby first to ride back against the spring and then to snap-fit (ride forward) into a first holding position within a fixed keeper. If the arrangement is used on a door, the bolt will snap-fit to a standard door holding position upon door closure.
With such slam-shut latching facility, the key or other bolt actuating means needs for example to be turned so as to retract the bolt one end from the keeper, against the spring force, in order that the door or other panel can be opened away from the frame.
Also in a preferred arrangement the bolt can be moved from inside the building to its second holding position by manually rotatable means, such as a thumb turn. Usefully however the manually rotatable means is a key whereby rotation of the key rotates a lock plug within a fixed lock barrel or body to cause an actuator carried by the plug to engage with the bolt; the bolt can only be released from its second holding position by use of the (correct) key or key part, the key also being used to withdraw the bolt from its first holding position to its door-opening retracted position.
The first and second holding positions are usefully determined by a control member pivotally or slidably mounted to the bolt housing, and resiliently biassed towards an operative or rest condition. When the abutment is rotated it can move the control member against a spring to permit a peg carried by, perhaps integral with, the bolt to traverse between spaced peg stops. The control member provides a dead-lock facility.
A cover is assembled over the bolt housing. When so fitted its projects beyond the edge of the panel, and preferably is shaped to soften any inadvertent user and visitor contact; specifically the cover prevents inadvertent contact with the bolt end, which in prior art arrangements for snap-shut latches is sharp-edged and exposed.
The cover can have an opening allowing access (when the panel is in an opened condition) to a screw whereby to permit fitting (and replacement) of the lock.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
The invention will be described by way of example with reference to the accompanying schematic drawings, not to scale, in which:
FIG. 1 is a side view of part of a frame arrangement with a bolt unit according to the invention, with the cover and other parts removed, and a cooperating keeper;
FIG. 2 is a side view of a bolt retainer for the unit of FIG. 1;
FIG. 3 is a side view of the control member for the unit of FIG. 1:
FIG. 4 is a reverse view of a bolt unit according to the invention fitted to a panel;
FIG. 5 is a side view of part of another embodiment of bolt unit, with the cover and bolt removed;
FIG. 6 is a view of the rear face of the bolt for the unit of FIG. 5 and showing an axially movable manual retraction rod for the bolt;
FIG. 7 is a view of the front face of the bolt for the unit of FIG. 5;
FIG. 8 is a perspective view of yet another embodiment of bolt unit and keeper arrangement;
FIG. 9 is a sectional view of part of the bolt unit of FIG. 8;
FIG. 10 is a schematic view of the bolt unit and keeper of FIGS. 8 and 9 in use (frame and panel not shown); and
FIG. 11 is a perspective view of a bolt unit and keeper arrangement ready for use, the bolt unit being similar to that of FIG. 5, but of opposite hand.
DESCRIPTION OF EXEMPLARY EMBODIMENTS
The frame arrangement 1 of FIG. 1 includes a bolt unit 10 having a slidable bolt 12 which is located between upper and lower guides 14a,14b in bolt housing 30. Bolt 12 is rectangular in cross section, and has its one end 12a chamfered.
Bolt housing 30 comprises a flat base 31 having a left hand edge 32 and a right hand edge 33, joined by side edges 34. The guides 14a,14b upstand from base 31. As more fully described below, walls 35 upstand along part of the side edges 34 and provide a mounting for a cover 90 (FIG. 4). In an alternative embodiment walls 35 upstand completely around the base periphery.
The base 31 of bolt housing 30 in sue, and as shown in FIG. 1, is secured to a movable panel 36. The securement is usefully by nuts which cooperate with screws which project from a plate (not seen) so as to extend through movable panel 36 and through base plate 31. Movable panel 36 is hingedly mounted to an outer fixed frame, of which fixed upright 38 forms part, so as to swing from the closed position shown in FIG. 1, out of the paper towards a panel open position, for instance to the position of FIG. 4.
In this embodiment movable panel 36 is an external door of a building, and which therefore needs to be securable to prevent unauthorised access into the building, whilst fixed upright 38 is part of the door frame. Bolt unit 10 has a lockable bolt 12 as more fully described below, and is fitted as a lockable rim latch to the exposed inside surface of the door 36. A keeper 22 is mounted to fixed upright 38.
In a preferred embodiment edge 32 will overlie upright 38.
Part way along its length bolt 12 has an abutment surface 16. Guide 14b is cut away so that rotatable actuator 20 can engage this abutment surface.
The bolt unit has a retracted position, as shown in FIG. 1, with the actuator turned clockwise against bolt surface 16 to move the bolt against spring 49 out of the fixed keeper 22. In this position the bolt surface 16 abuts actuator 20 under the bias of spring 49. The door can now be opened, since the bolt end 12a is withdrawn from keeper 22.
With the door 36 closed against frame upright 38, and therefore with bolt 12 aligned with the aperture of keeper 22, the bolt unit has a first holding position wherein the bolt end 12a is receive din the keeper aperture, as commonly provided for in known rim latches. Thus initial anti-clockwise rotation of actuator 20 from its position of FIG. 1 allows spring 49 to move bolt end 12a into the keeper aperture. Subsequent clockwise movement causes actuator 20 to engage bolt surface 16 to effect bolt end 12a removal from the keeper aperture.
In an alternative embodiment, with door 36 in the closed condition and with an anti-clockwise rotation imparted to actuator 20, the actuator 20 itself moves the bolt so as to insert chamfered bolt end 12a into aperture provided by fixed keeper 22.
Actuator 20 can be rotated by a key inserted into the key slot 40 of the lock. The lock body 42 is held against rotation by screw 44 received in spaced threaded members secured to base 31, and in an alternative embodiment also to an extended sidewall 35. In further alternative embodiments actuator 20 can be turned by a thumb grip or a handle, or if the lock is double-ended by a key inserted from outside the door.
The bolt unit of FIG. 1 provides a latching or snap-shut closure action. Thus if the door is in an opened state with the bolt 12 in the first holding position, then if the door 36 is moved towards the closed state (into the paper) bolt end 12a will engage the shaped roof of keeper 22 with a ramp action such that bolt 12 can be pressed to the right against the force of spring 49, until bolt end 12a is aligned with the aperture in the keeper; when so aligned with the keeper aperture the bolt end 12a will be urged by spring 49 into the aperture (latching action). In this embodiment the keeper roof is angled towards the right whereby to provide a cam action with the chamfered bolt end 12a whereby to ease bolt movement rightwards.
It is a disadvantage of the known bolt unit and keeper arrangements having only the features such as those described above and which rely solely on this first holding position with the bolt one end 12a in keeper 22 that the bolt can be burst i.e. if a sufficiently strong (impact) force is applied to the door 36 in the opening direction (from behind the paper), then relative movement of the door and frame can allow bolt end 12a to detach from keeper 22 so that the door can unlawfully be opened even though bolt 12 is locked against rightwards movement relative to door 36.
It is a feature of the embodiment of FIG. 1 that housing 30 carries a receptor 50 which in the door closed condition will fit behind (to the left as viewed in FIG. 1) and aligned with the aperture of keeper 22. Thus in the door closed condition of FIG. 1 the keeper 22 is between the receptor 50 and the guides 14. Receptor 50 is secured to upstanding housing wall 35, which in this embodiment is of U-shape but in an alternative embodiment forms a closed upstanding loop, in both cases with only part of the wall 35 being connect to or integral with housing base plate 31 and in both cases with receptor 50 moving with bolt housing 30 upon hinging of door 36; in another embodiment receptor 50 is additionally or alternatively connected to spaced sections of the peripheral housing wall by upstanding struts or the like.
In use the housing 30 is shielded by a cover 90 (partly seen in FIG. 4) of inverted cup-shape and which fits around and is connected to the peripheral housing wall 35; the cover 90 is connected to wall 35 so as to provide extra strength and support to the upstanding peripheral wall.
Cover 90 in the position of use (FIG. 1) extends over and conceals keeper 22, and so prevents keeper 22 being disabled, as by being unlawfully cut or removed.
The cover 90 has an opening permitting key access to the actuator 20, in this embodiment by way of key slot 40 in a double-acting lock plug, the lock plug being turnable as above described in opposite angular directions within a lock barrel or body by the key.
It is a further feature of the embodiment of FIG. 1 that the cover is slotted or apertured at 92 and that wall 35 of housing 30 is slotted or apertured at 37, whereby to allow access to screw 44 which holds the lock barrel against movement, so that for instance an authorised locksmith can select and fit the lock after the housing components have been assembled. However keeper 22 is extended (downwardly in FIG. 1) at its full height so that access to screw 44 is denied when the door 36 is in the closed condition.
In this embodiment the keeper 22 is secured to the fixed upright 38 by screws in leftwardly extending flat, planar bosses 23; the bosses can have screw holes but preferably will have screw slots permitting the position of the keeper to be adjusted relative to housing 30 if door 36 sags relative to its frame i.e. relative to upright 38. The bosses 23 are vertically spaced by a sufficient distance to receive receptor 50 when door 36 is in the closed condition. The outer edges of the bosses 23 are strengthened by upstanding members 24, which in an alternative embodiment are so positioned and with their upper parts outwardly chamfered so as to act as a guide for the housing 30 as door 36 closes, ensuring that the keeper 22 and receptor 50 are aligned ready to receive bolt 12.
It is another feature of the embodiment of FIG. 1 that the bolt end 12a has two predetermined holding positions. The first holding position as described above is with the bolt end 12a within the keeper 22 whereby to permit a standard level of door retention as with the known rim latches. The second holding position is with the bolt end 12a at a greater extension from the guide 14 such that bolt end 12a is within receptor 50, whereby to permit an improved level of panel retention, both (a) because the shaft of bolt 12 is now within keeper 22 and held thereby, ad (b) because any attempt to force door 36 out of the paper causes the bolt end 12a to abut, or to abut more firmly, against receptor 50, with the bolt unit acting in padlock fashion.
Thus with the bolt unit in the second holding position, upon attempted forcible opening of door 36 the bolt end 12a does not burst from receptor 50, but instead bolt 12 and receptor 50 will move together since each is part of the bolt unit 10, with further movement of bolt 12 (if any) resisted by keeper 22.
The bolt has additional abutment surfaces 56, 58 which can be engaged by actuator 20 when the bolt end 12a has been moved into the keeper 22. The actuator 20 is capable of two complete revolutions, in opposite angular directions, and many key operated locks for instance have this facility; however, in the embodiment as described, the required movement is a part revolution (anti-clockwise from the FIG. 1 retracted position) of between 20 and 60 degrees, and then a single-throw further complete revolution to clear the surfaces 56,58. Further anti-clockwise rotation of actuator 20 is stopped upon engagement with the tail of bolt 12 (to the right as viewed in FIG. 1 of surface 56). The position of the abutment 58 is selected so that in the second holding position the bolt end 12a will fully enter receptor 50, which in this embodiment is backed by the upstanding housing wall, and so is single-ended.
In an alternative embodiment, abutment surfaces 56,58 are positioned to be engaged by a separate actuator, key-operated, preferably by a second key for even greater security. For multi-user facilities the second key can be held by security staff who lock the door(s) whilst copies of the first key can be issued to users who need to open the latched door (from the first holding position).
FIG. 2 is of a bolt retainer 60, of generally L-shape, with a function as described below. In the assembled unit plate arm 62 is secured to the guide 14a whilst plate body 64 is secured to guide 14b. Bolt retainer 60, housing base 31 and guides 14a,14b form an enclosed channel within which a part of bolt 12 can slide and which can help retain bolt 12 in the housing, specifically between guides 14a,b without interfering with the operation of actuator 20.
Between plate arm 62 and plate body 64 is a recess 66 of a size to receive upstanding bolt peg 13 when the bolt end 12a is within the receptor 50, to locate peg 13 and to inhibit lateral banding of bolt 12 during any unauthorised attempt to disable the latch, as by attempted lifting of the door 36 relative to the upright 38.
FIG. 3 is of a control member 70 providing a bolt traverse limiting means. Control member 70 has a through-opening 72 of a size to fit upon the upstanding post 71 of the bolt housing 30; opening 72 is circular, as is the post 71 in cross section, so that the control member 70 can be pivoted about post 71.
Control member 70 is urged clockwise about the post 71 by spring 73 extending between control member post 74 and housing post 75. Pivoting movement of member 70 is restrained by upstanding housing post 76 which is received in a slot 77 of the control member, and in the clockwise direction by a depending plate (not shown) which normally is in contact with the guide 14a.
Control member 70 has openings 82 and 84, joined by a passageway 86 of a size to permit bolt peg 13 to pass from opening 82 to opening 84 whereby to allow bolt end 12a to enter the receptor 50.
Control member 70 has a cam surface 80, adapted with the actuator 20 in the position shown in FIG. 1 to be engaged by the actuator 20 and thus to be lifted against the action of spring 73. Thus in the actuator 20 position of FIG. 1, the control member has been lifted, and bolt peg 13 is against (in an alternative embodiment adjacent) surface 82.
Anti-clockwise rotation of the lock plug will now move actuator 20 out of engagement with cam surface 80 to allow spring 73 to return the control member clockwise to its rest position; bolt 12 is also moved (in this embodiment by spring 49 as above described) until peg 13 abuts surface 83.
Further anti-clockwise rotation of the lock plug during the single throw will cause actuator 20 first to lift surface 80, and then to engage bolt surface 58, whereby the peg 13 can travel along passageway 86 into opening 84 before further rotation of actuator 20 allows spring 73 to cause the control member to return towards its rest position whereby to trap peg 13 in opening 84. Thus control member 70 provides an additional degree of dead-lock security, preventing the bolt retracting from the receptor if for instance the spring 49 is damaged or removed.
Whilst in opening 84 the bolt peg 13 is also in slot 66 of bolt retainer 60, and so cannot inadvertently enter passageway 86.
When the bolt 12 is to be retracted, clockwise movement of actuator 20 lifts control member 70 to an inoperative position before bolt surface 56 (and subsequently on the second actuator rotation bolt surface 16) is contacted.
It is a further feature of the invention that in the door open condition the receptor 50 is spaced inwardly (to the left as viewed in FIG. 1) from the door edge. The receptor in the fully assembled unit is however within the cover 90. The exposed edges of the cover and of the housing upstanding wall, as seen in FIG. 4, will usefully be shaped for increased personal safety; specifically if the bolt is in its first holding position with the door open, the edges of bolt end 12a are also within the cover and not exposed.
FIG. 5 shows an alternative embodiment of bolt unit 110. The bolt unit is mounted in a housing 130, which housing has a through opening 121 into which the keeper (not shown in FIG. 5, but see the keeper of FIG. 8 or 11, for example) can enter.
In an alternative embodiment, the opening is closed to one side, as by the cover of the housing.
The housing 130 has guides 114a,114b to locate and guide bolt 112 (FIGS. 6,7). Integral with the housing 130 is the receptor 150, into which the bolt can project when in its second holding position.
In a recess 169 in the housing 130 is located a plate-like control member 170. The control member 170 has a pair of openings 182,184, joined by a passageway 186, the openings and passageway being adapted to accommodate a peg 113 on the bolt 112 (FIG. 6). The control member is slidable in the recess 169 in a direction transverse to the direction of movement of the bolt 112. The control member can move between a rest or operative position (as shown) in which the peg 113 will be retained in one or other of the openings 182,184, and an inoperative position in which the peg 113 will be able to be moved along the passageway 186 between the openings. Sliding movement of the control member is guided by lugs 172 which fit into suitably-shaped recesses in the housing, and the control member is biassed towards its rest position by spring 173.
The control member 170 has an edge 180 which lies adjacent the barrel of a lock (not shown) which can be fitted into standard opening 141. The lock barrel will carry an actuator (also not shown) which can be rotated in recess 119. The edge 180 is engageable by the actuator, so that the control member can be moved by the actuator to its inoperative position. Depending upon the position of the bolt 112 and the direction of rotation of the lock, the actuator can also engage one or other of surfaces 156 and 158 in the bolt 112 (FIGS. 6,7), so that following movement of the control member to its inoperative position rotation of the lock can cause the actuator to drive the bolt between its first holding position and its second holding position, and vice versa.
It will be understood that in the embodiments of FIGS. 3 and 5 that the respective opening 82,182 in the control member permits movement of the bolt between its first holding position and its non-holding position (and vice versa) without requiring the control member to be pivoted or moved to its inoperative position, i.e. the opening 82,182 is large enough to permit the necessary movement of the respective peg 13,113. Thus, the bolt can be moved from its first holding position to its non-holding position by means other than the lock actuator 20, e.g. by its chamfered end 112a engaging the keeper. However, in order to move the bolt between its first and second holding positions it is necessary for the actuator to move the control member so that the peg can pass along the respective slot 86,186. The control member 70,170 can thus provide additional security to the bolt in its second holding position. It will be understood, however, that the control member could have an additional opening connected to opening 82,182 by a passageway similar to passageway 86,186, so that movement of the bolt between its non-holding and first holding positions also requires prior movement of the control member by the actuator; such a bolt would not have a latching action.
The thickness of the control member 170 is substantially the same as the depth of the recess 169, so that in the assembled condition of the bolt unit the bolt 112 engages the control member 170 as well as housing surface 115 and guides 114a,114b.
The bolt 112 is urged towards its first holding position by a spring (not shown); in this position the peg 113 engages surface 183 of opening 182. However, the bolt 112 has a chamfered end 112a, so that if the bolt unit is closed upon a keeper, the bolt 112 may be forced back against the spring, until the bolt end 112a is able to enter the keeper aperture (during this movement, the peg 113 moves within openings 182, away from surface 183).
Thus, in this embodiment, the bolt unit is spring biassed into its first holding position (to act as a latch), and may be moved to its second holding position only upon rotation of the actuator under the control of the lock. In an alternative embodiment, the bolt is not spring biassed, and movement of the bolt between any of its respective positions can only be effected by rotation of the actuator; in such an embodiment, it will be understood that the bolt unit acts as a "double dead lock", so that the bolt will not be chamfered.
Part of the bolt housing 130 is removed at 129, to save weight and also to permit easier access to the screw which will be required to fix the lock barrel in place. The housing also has a slot 117, to accommodate rod 128 which can be connected to a manually grippable handle or the like, so that the bolt may be moved between its first holding position and its non-holding position by way of the handle as well as (or in some embodiments instead of) the key-operated lock.
As shown in FIG. 7, the bolt 112 also has a detent means 194, which comprises a recess cut into the bolt and which has three wells 195 which can receive a detent lug (not shown) carried by the cover of the housing. The detent lug is manually movable into and out of a respective well, and when fitted into one of the wells 195 can secure the bolt 112 in one of its non-holding, first holding and second holding positions respectively.
The embodiment of FIGS. 8 and 9 shows a bolt unit and keeper for use as a "panic" bolt, in which a button 201 can be pressed to move the bolt 212 between its first holding position (as shown in FIG. 8) and its non-holding position. The button 201 is mounted on a rod 202 which is pivotably attached to a pivot plate 203. Pivot plate 203 is mounted upon fixed pivot 204, and has an end 205 which engages abutment surface 216 of the bolt 212.
The housing 230 includes an opening 221 to receive part of the keeper 222. The keeper includes a keeper aperture 225 which has a projection 226 to either side. When the bolt unit and keeper are brought together, the keeper aperture 225 and the projections 226 enter the opening 221 in the housing 230, with the bolt end 212a entering the keeper aperture 225.
The enlarged form of keeper 222 is used in this embodiment so that it can cooperate with the housing 230 fitted to the inside surface of an outwardly opening door 236, as shown schematically in FIG. 10. Thus, it is necessary for the keeper aperture to be mounted spaced away from the edge 237 of the fixed frame member 238 to which the keeper is secured.
In this embodiment, both of the bolt tip 212a and the keeper 222 are chamfered, the bolt tip 212a being able to ride up the keeper chamfer 227 when the bolt unit and keeper are brought together, to provide a "slam shut" latching facility. Though not shown in the figures, the bolt unit can include a key operated facility, by which it may be moved to its second holding position when required, in which position the button 201 becomes inoperative.
It will be understood that the button 201 can be replaced by a pivoting plate, sometimes referred to as a "paddle".
In FIG. 9, the button 201 is shown to be biassed by a spring 206, though the spring (not shown) which urges the bolt (rightwards in this figure) into its first holding position could alternatively be used to bias the button by way of the plate 203.
In the embodiment of FIG. 11, a bolt unit and keeper arrangement is shown which is suitable for an inwardly opening panel in which the bolt unit is secured to the inside surface of the panel. Such an embodiment is commonplace for the doors of domestic dwellings, for example. In the fitted condition, the housing 330 can have its face 331 secured to the panel by known means, and the keeper 322 can be secured to the edge of a frame member by way of screws or the like passing through holes 328; alternatively, the housing 330 can be morticed into the panel, with the frame being suitable rebated (around the keeper) to receive the receptor 350 and its associated carrying parts.
The housing 330 has an opening to receive a known lock barrel which is double-ended, in that it may be operated by the insertion of a key from both inside and outside of the panel. In addition, the housing 330 has a through opening 321, so that the ends of the keeper projections 326 can pass though the housing. However, in other embodiments the opening is closed at its side opposed to the keeper insertion side, as by the cover for the housing.
It is an advantage of our embodiments that when in the second holding position the bolt unit and keeper has the characteristics of a padlock, with the fixed keeper acting as a sample through which the bolt passes to connect the two sides of the housing 30,130,230,330 e.g. the base 31 and the receptor 50. In certain embodiments therefore, the bolt unit can be used "loose" i.e. not fitted to a panel, the bolt being adapted to secure a hasp to a staple for example. There is the further advantage with our preferred embodiments that the fixed keeper (or hasp) is substantially or fully concealed by the fitted cover when the panel is in its closed position, and so cannot be tampered with when the bolt unit is in the first or second holding position. Thus the provision of the receptor carried by the bolt housing, with the housing able to embrace and surround the fixed keeper for example allows the standard type door lock with a cantilevered bolt end to become equivalent to a concealed padlock with supported ends.
Whilst in this description reference has primarily been made to a hinged door panel, it will be understood that the bolt could be used for sliding panels if the housing is hingedly mounted e.g. to the door panel. The housing would be hinged out of the paper until the panel is closed, and then would be swung to the position of FIG. 1 with the receptor aligned with the keeper.
The bolt unit can be used for other applications, such as a closure for a container panel, and may be lockable from one side only for thick factory doors which might otherwise require a deep lock and a correspondingly large aperture in the door. Also for convenience the panel has been described as securable (against hinged or sliding movement) to a fixed upright, though it could be secured to a horizontal fixed member or to an angled part of an outer fixed frame.
It will be understood that the cooperating parts of the control member 70,170 and its respective bolt 12, 112 could be reversed, with the control member carrying the peg and the openings and passageway(s) being formed in (perhaps recessed into) the bolt.
Thus we provide an advantageous new dead-locked safety lock with the beat features of a rim lock and a padlock, with concealed parts in use. We also provide a bolt unit in which a single bolt member can act as a latch (in its first holding position) and as a dead bolt (in its second holding position), and in which a single actuator can control both of these functions, in place of the separate (and separately actuated) latch member and bolt member which are currently available. | This invention relates to a bolt unit and frame arrangement. In particular it relates to a lockable bolt unit having a slidable bolt, typically for securing two moveable panels together or for securing one moveable panel to a fixed frame. | 4 |
This is a division of application Ser. No. 315,799, filed Oct. 28, 1981, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,442,022.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Prior art photoinitiator systems comprising an aromatic carbonyl compound and a reducing agent are known from U.S. Pat. No. 3,759,807. In it are enumerated a great many aromatic carbonyl compounds, including acetophenone, 4-tolyl acetophenone, benzophenone, 3-tolyl benzophenone, fluorenone, anthraquinone, xanthone and thioxanthone. Reducing agents mentioned includes amines, viz. tertiary amines such as triethanolamine and methyldiethanolamine. Photopolymerizable compositions are also known from British Patent Specification No. 1,408,265, which also mentions a great many aromatic carbonyl compounds, including benzil, benzil derivatives, naphthyl, phenanthraquinone, benzophenone, benzoin, benzoin ethers and fluorenone.
Although these prior art photoinitiator systems may be satisfactorily applied for various purposes, a particular problem exists in completely and rapidly curing material having a thickness of 1-20 mm. Moreover, in the case of polymerizable, polyethylenically unsaturated compounds such as methacrylate resins that are sensitive to air inhibition, there is the problem of insufficient surface hardening, which manifests itself in a tacky surface. For optimum properties, there are two requirements: the material should be both thoroughly cured and of a good surface hardness.
Often the known photoinitiator systems satisfy only one of the two requirements. In actual practice, it has therefore often been found necessary to isolate the surface to be cured from the ambient air by covering it with a transparent film to obtain a satisfactory surface hardness and/or to use prolonged exposure times for thorough curing.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The photopolymerizable composition according to the invention is non-tacky, rapid setting, and hard curing, and comprises:
a. a polymerizable, polyethylenically unsaturated compound;
b. benzil and/or fluorenone;
c. A biphenylyl ketone of the formula: ##STR1## wherein:
R 1 =hydrogen, an alkyl group having 1-8 carbon atoms, an alkoxy group having 1-10 carbon atoms, an alkyl carbonyl group having 2-12 carbon atoms or a halogen atom; and
R 2 =an alkyl group having 1-12 carbon atoms, phenyl, naphthyl, furyl or thiophenyl, which groups may be substituted or not; and
d. a reducing agent capable of reducing the aromatic carbonyl compounds when they are in the excited state.
It has been found that the use of the above-mentioned composition permits rapid and complete curing of relatively thick layers of the polymerizable polyethylenically unsaturated compound. In the photopolymerization of compounds sensitive to air inhibition it is possible, moreover, to obtain non-tacky surfaces. The use of only benzil and/or fluorenone generally leads to better curing but to a lower surface hardness than the sole use of a corresponding amount of the present biphenylyl ketones.
As far as these aspects are concerned, it was found that a corresponding amount of a mixture of these aromatic carbonyl compunds results in both rapid curing and high surface hardness of the polymerizable compound. Moreover, it has been surprisingly found that the result is not merely cumulative but is synergistic, and that this synergistic effect is not produced by other combinations of the above-mentioned initiators.
The present composition contains a polymerizable, polyethylenically unsaturated compound. Examples thereof include polymethacrylates and polyacrylates, the acryl being built in as reactive end group in a polymer chain, via hydroxy, amino, carboxy, isocyano or epoxy groups. Examples of this last mentioned type of compound include polyacryl-modified polyesters, polyamides, polyethers, polyurethanes and polyvinyl resins. Optionally, the polyethylenically unsaturated compound may be mixed with a co-polymerizable unsaturated monomer such as acrylic esters and methacrylic esters, acrylic and methacrylic amides and acrylic and methacrylic nitriles, for instance acrylonitrile, methyl methacrylate and 2-ethylhexyl acrylate. To that end, use may further be made of vinyl esters and vinylidene esters, vinyl ethers and vinyl ketones, such as vinyl acetate, vinyl propionate, N-vinyl-pyrrolidone and vinylbutyl ether.
Moreover, monomers may be added that have more than one unsaturated terminal group. Examples thereof include diallyl phthalate, diallyl fumarate, ethylene glycol dimethacrylate, pentaerythritol triacrylate, trimethylol propane triacrylate, neopentyl glycol dimethacrylate and polyethylene glycol diacrylate. The monomers that may be used include suitable copolymerizable hydrocarbons, such as styrene, vinyl toluene and divinyl benzene.
The present composition also may contain a mixture of an unsaturated polyester resin and a monomeric compolymerizable compound, such as styrene. The unsaturated polyester resins may be prepared in a known manner from unsaturated polycarboxylic acids or their anhydrides, such as maleic anhydride or fumaric acid, and generally in the presence of aromatic and/or saturated aliphatic dicarboxylic acids such as phthalic anhydride, tetrahydrophthalic anhydride, adipic acid and the like and polyols, such as ethylene glycol, diethylene glycol, propylene glycol and the like, and after the polyester preparation the terminal carboxylic groups may be further reacted to completion with reactive epoxides, such as phenylglycidyl ether.
The present photoinitiator mixture contains a mixture of aromatic carbonyl compounds which at least consists of:
a. benzil and/or fluorenone; and
b. a biphenyl ketone of the formula: ##STR2## wherein:
R 1 =hydrogen, an alkyl group having 1-8 carbon atoms, an alkoxy group having 1-10 carbon atoms, an alkyl carbonyl group having 2-12 carbon atoms or a halogen atom; and
R 2 =an alkyl group having 1-12 carbon atoms, phenyl, naphthyl, furyl or thiophenyl, which groups may be substituted or not.
The group R 2 may be substituted, for instance with the groups denoted by R 1 .
Examples of suitable biphenylyl ketones include: para-phenyl acetophenone, para-phenyl benzophenone, para-tolyl benzophenone, para, para'-diacetyl biphenyl, para-(para-chlorophenyl)-benzophenone, para-(para-methoxyphenyl)-benzophenone, α-furyl biphenylyl ketone, α-naphthyl biphenylyl ketone, para-tertiary butyl phenyl biphenylyl ketone, para-methoxy phenyl biphenylyl ketone and 2,4-dichlorophenyl biphenylyl ketone.
As biphenylyl ketone the composition preferably contains para-phenyl benzophenone. As regards benzil and fluorenone it should be noted that both have a triplet energy of 53-54 kcal/mole, whereas p-phenyl benzophenone has a triplet energy of about 60 kcal/mole.
The present composition generally contains 0.1-1.5% by weight and preferably 0.5-1.0% by weight of the aromatic ketone mixture. The molar ratio of the biphenylyl ketone to the benzil and/or fluorenone is generally in the range of from 0.25 to 9 and preferably in the range of from 0.5 to 3.0.
The present photopholymerizable compositions should also contain a reducing agent. It should be capable of reducing the aromatic ketones when they are in the excited state and moreover, after oxidation thereof, of initiating the polymerization of the polyethylenically unsaturated compound via intermediately formed radicals.
Suitable reducing agents are described in, int.al., British Patent specification No. 1,408,265. The compounds described have the formula ##STR3## where M is an element of group Vb of the Periodic Table of the Elements and the groups R, which may be the same or different, are hydrogen atoms, hydrocarbon groups, substituted hydrocarbon groups or groups in which two groups R together with the element M form a cyclic ring system, no more than two of the groups R being hydrogen atoms. Where the element M is attached directly to an aromatic group R, at least one of the other groups has an ##STR4## group attached to M.
It is preferred that as reducing agent there should be used an amine, more particularly a tertiary amine. Examples of suitable amines include triethanolamine, triisopropanolamine, N-methyl diethanolamine, N,N-dimethyl ethanolamine, N,N-dimethyl isopropanolamine, N-hydroxyethyl piperidine, N-hydroxyethyl morpholine, bis(2-hydroxymethyl)oleylamine, N,N,N',N'-tetramethyl-1,3-diaminopropane, N,N-dimethyl benzylamine, N,N-dimethyl aniline, 4-dimethyl aminobenzoate, dimethyl aminoethyl acrylate and dimethyl aminoethyl methacrylate.
The present composition generally contains 0.1-4.5% by weight, preferably 0.25-2.0% by weight of reducing agent. The weight ratio between the mixture of aromatic ketones and the reducing agent is generally in the range of 1:3 to 3:1, preferably 2:1 to 1:2.
The present compositions are cured by exposure to radiation in a known manner. To that end use is generally made of a radiation source emitting radiation having a wave length in the range of 200 to 500 nm. Suitable radiation sources include medium-pressure mercury lamps.
The invention also relates to the curing of relatively thick layers of material (i.e., having a thickness of 1-20 mm, more particularly 4-10 mm) based on the present photopolymerizable compositions. When the photopolymerizable compositions according to the invention are treated in this way their advantages will be the most manifest. Cured reinforced laminates based on the present composition and having a thickness of 4-10 mm possess excellent properties.
As reinforcing material there may be used glass fibers in the form of bundles (rovings), glass mats, glass fibers, or glass webs, optionally in combination with layers of other (textile) materials.
DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
The invention is further described in the following examples. Measures of the surface hardness and the degree of curing of the laminates were the non-tackiness of the boundary surfaces and the Barcol indentation hardness (type 934-1).
The maximum possible indentation hardness depends on type of resin, degree of curing, type of reinforcement and degree of reinforcement. All amounts are expressed in percentage by weight.
EXAMPLES 1 THROUGH 6
A resin solution was prepared consisting of 97% of technical 4,4'-isopropylidene bis(phenylene oxyethyl methacrylate), 2% of triisopropanolamine and 1% of aromatic ketone(s). The solution obtained was used for preparing glass-reinforced laminates. They were built up of the resin and four layers of glass fiber mat. The thickness of the laminates was about 4 mm and the glass content 54%. The material was cured with a Philips medium-pressure mercury lamp of the HIQ-4 type having an intensity of radiation of 20 W per cm. The distance between the lamp and the laminate was 20 cm and the curing time four minutes.
The Examples 1 through 4 in Table 1 show the results obtained with benzil, para-phenyl benzophenone and mixtures of these carbonyl compounds. The Examples 5 and 6 are for comparison, use being made of a resin solution composed of 98.5% of said bis-methacrylate, 1% triisopropanolamine and 0.5% of aromatic ketone.
TABLE 1______________________________________ state of laminate surfaceEx- indentationam- Percent Aromatic tackiness hardnessple ketone(s) upper under upper under______________________________________1 1.00% p-phenyl tack-free tack-free 47.5 37.3*benzophenone2 0.66% p-phenyl tack-free tack-free 51.1 52.4benzophenone0.33% benzil3 0.50% p-phenyl tack-free tack-free 48.4 47.6benzophenone0.50% benzil4 1.00% benzil tacky tack-free 46.7 48.95 0.50% benzil tacky tacky- 30.9 39.9* free6 0.50% p-phenyl tacky wet 33.8 notbenzophenone measur- able______________________________________ *insufficiently cured
The examples 2 and 3 show the synergistic effect which results from the use of the present photoinitiator system.
EXAMPLES 7-12
For comparison the experiments of the Example 1 through 4 were repeated except that use was made of different aromatic carbonyl compounds.
The results are summarized in Table 2.
TABLE 2______________________________________ state of laminate surface Aromatic indentationExam- carbonyl tackiness hardnessple compound (%) upper under upper under______________________________________ 7 1.00% benzo- tacky wet 41.3 not phenone measur- able* 8 1.00% benzoin tacky wet 45.7 not measur- able* 9 1.00% benzil tacky tack-free 47.8 34.6* dimethyl ketal10 0.33% benzophenone tacky tacky 41.2 23.0* 0.66% p-phenyl benzophenone11 0.33% benzoin tacky tack-free 50.2 40.3* 0.66% p-phenyl benzophenone12 0.33% benzil tacky wet 40.3 not dimethyl ketal measur- 0.66% p-phenyl able* benzophenone______________________________________ *insufficiently cured
The results in Table 2 demonstrate that the combination of para-phenyl benzophenone and other known photoinitiators such as benzophenone, benzoin, and benzil dimethyl ketal does not produce any synergistic effect at all.
EXAMPLES 13 THROUGH 22
Laminates were prepared that were made up of the resin described in the Examples 1 through 6 and four layers of glass mat. The laminate thickness was 4 mm, the glass content 26%. Curing was effected in the manner indicated in the Examples 1 through 6 in the presence of 2% of triisopropanolamine, as was the testing of the laminate properties. Table 3 shows the results.
TABLE 3______________________________________ state of laminate surface indentationEx- tackiness hardnessam- Aromatic carbonyl compound un- up- un-ple (%) upper der per der______________________________________13 0.50% benzil tack- tack- 35.1 36.40.50% p-phenyl benzophenone free free14 0.50% fluorenone tack- tack- 40.5 39.00.50% p-phenyl benzophenone free free15 0.50% benzil tacky tack- 34.1 37.10.50% fluorenone free16 0.50% benzil tacky tack- 35.6 39.80.50% benzophenone free17 0.50% benzil tacky tack- 33.3 37.30.50% benzil dimethyl ketal free18 0.50% benzil tacky tack- 42.0 39.50.50% benzoin butyl ether free19 0.50% benzil tacky tack- 35.5 38.40.50% acetophenone free20 0.50% benzil tacky tack- 40.1 42.20.50% 1-phenyl propane free1,2-dione-2-oxime-o-benzoate21 0.50% benzil tacky tack- 36.8 41.40.50% 2-hydroxy-2-benzoyl freepropane22 0.50% benzil tacky tack- 39.9 42.50.50% 2-hydroxy 2(p.iso- freepropyl benzoyl)propane______________________________________
Only the compositions of the Examples 13 and 14 are the ones according to the invention. The others serve for comparison. The data show that satisfactory results are only obtained with the photoinitiator system according to the invention. Combinations of benzil with aromatic carbonyl compounds other than the present biphenyl ketones lead to insufficient surface hardening.
EXAMPLES 23 THROUGH 30
The procedure used in the Examples 13 through 22 was repeated, with the exception that as aromatic carbonyl compound there was used a mixture of 0.5% of benzil and 0.5% of the biphenylyl ketones mentioned in Table 4 and the distance between the lamp and the laminate was 15 cm. The results are given in Table 4.
TABLE 4______________________________________ state of laminate surface indentationEx- tackiness hardnessam- up- un- up- un-ple biphenylyl ketone per der per der______________________________________23 p-phenyl acetophenone tack- tack- 38.3 35.6 free free24 p,p'diacetyl biphenyl tack- tack- 38.0 38.8 free free25 α-furyl biphenylyl ketone tack- tack- 35.6 37.4 free free26 α-thiophenyl biphenylyl tack- tack- 40.3 35.1ketone free free27 α-naphthyl biphenylyl tack- tack- 43.0 42.8ketone free free28 p-tolyl benzophenone tack- tack- 38.3 35.6 free free29 p-methoxphenyl tack- tack- 34.3 40.7benzophenone free free30 p-chlorophenyl benzo- tack- tack- 37.3 36.1phenone free free______________________________________
The above results show that the above-described synergism also occurs in the case of biphenylyl ketones other than paraphenyl benzophenone.
EXAMPLES 31 THROUGH 39
Glass-reinforced laminates were constructed from twelve layers of glass fiber mat and from the resin described in Examples 1 through 6. The laminate that was formed had a thickness of about 10 mm and a glass content of 55%.
In the resin there was dissolved a mixture of aromatic ketones made up of 45% of benzil and 55% of p-phenyl benzophenone. As a reducing agent there was added triisopropanolamine in an amount such that the weight ratio of the amine to the ketone mixture was 2.
The laminates were exposed to radiation from a Philips medium-pressure mercury lamp of the HIQ-4 type. The distance between the lamp and the laminate was 20 cm, and the radiation times were 8, 10 and 12 minutes, respectively. The results are shown in Table 5.
TABLE 5______________________________________ state of laminate surface radia- indentationEx- tion hardnessam- Amount of time tackiness up- un-ple ketone mixture (min.) upper under per der______________________________________31 1.00% 8 tack-free tack-free 45.2 47.032 1.00% 10 tack-free tack-free 46.1 44.133 1.00% 12 tack-free tack-free 45.9 44.834 0.50% 8 tack-free tack-free 42.7 46.735 0.50% 10 tack-free tack-free 43.1 43.936 0.50% 12 tack-free tack-free 45.6 45.637 0.20% 8 tack-free tacky 38.4 0.038 0.20% 10 tack-free tack-free 37.6 47.139 0.20% 12 tack-free tack-free 43.1 49.7______________________________________
The above data show that satisfactory results can be obtained within acceptable radiation times even with the use of (very) small amounts of the photoinitiator system.
EXAMPLES 40 THROUGH 43
Glass-fiber reinforced tubes having a diameter of 88 mm and a wall thickness of 4 mm were made by passing a bundle of glass fibers through an impregnating bath containing 4,4'-isopropylidene-bis(phenylene oxyethyl-methacrylate) in which there had been dissolved 1% of aromatic ketone(s) and 2% of triisopropanolamine and winding said bundle onto a rotary steel cylinder.
Subsequently, the impregnated product was exposed to 15 minutes' radiation from a Philips HIQ-4 lamp positioned at 15 cm above the rotating tube. The tubes obtained had a glass content of 70%. The results are given in Table 6. The Examples 40 through 42 serve for comparison.
TABLE 6______________________________________ state of boundary surfaces indentationExam- Aromatic tackiness hardnessple ketone(s) (%) upper under upper under______________________________________40 1.0% benzil tacky tack-free 45.9 50.3 dimethyl ketal loose fibers41 1.0% benzil tacky tack-free 49.5 53.642 1.00% p-phenyl tack-free tacky 40.2 49.0 benzophenone loose fibers43 0.50% benzil tack-free tack-free 44.8 53.0 0.50% p-phenyl benzophenone______________________________________
EXAMPLES 44 THROUGH 56
An unsaturated polyester resin was obtained by polycondensation of a molar mixture of phthalic anhydride and maleic anhydride with the equivalent amount of propylene glycol up to an acid number of 45 and dissolution in styrene to a content of 34% styrene. In the resin there were dissolved 1% of aromatic carbonyl compound(s) and 2% of triisopropanolamine. Subsequently, laminates were formed that were made up of this resin and four layers of reinforcing glass mat. The laminate thickness was about 4 mm and the glass content 26%. Radiation was done with a Philips HIQ-4 lamp. The distance between the laminate and the lamp was 20 cm. The results are summarized in Table 7. The Examples 44 through 53 serve for comparison. The Examples 54 through 56 serve to illustrate the invention.
These data, too, demonstrate the synergistic effect of the present initiator system. They further show the favorable results that may be obtained by the present invention.
TABLE 7______________________________________ state of laminate surface indentationEx- expo- tackiness hardnessam- aromatic carbonyl sure up- up- un-ple compound(s) (%) (min.) per under per der______________________________________44 1% benzil dimethyl 5 tack- tacky 47.3 0.0ketal free45 3% benzil dimethyl 5 tack- tacky 46.8 0.0ketal free46 1% benzoin butyl 5 tack- wet 50.7 0.0ether free47 3% benzoin butyl 5 tack- wet 45.2 0.0ether free48 1% benzil 3 tack- tacky 52.5 0.0 free49 1% benzil 4 tack- tack- 49.5 7.5 free free50 1% benzil 5 tack- tack- 51.2 21.7 free free51 1% p-phenyl benzo- 3 tack- wet 0.0 0.0phenone free52 1% p-phenyl benzo- 4 tack- wet 0.0 0.0phenone free53 1% p-phenyl benzo- 5 tack- wet 0.0 0.0phenone free54 0.5% benzil 3 tack- tacky 46.4 0.00.5% p-phenyl benzo- freephenone55 0.5% benzil 4 tack- tack- 51.4 35.90.5% p-phenyl benzo- free freephenone56 0.5% benzil 5 tack- tack- 48.2 53.10.5% p-phenyl benzo- free freephenone______________________________________ | The present invention relates to a photopolymerizable composition comprising a polymerizable, polyethylenically unsaturated compound, benzil and/or fluorenone, a specific biphenyl ketone such as para-phenyl benzophenone, and a reducing agent such as a tertiary amine. The present composition permits rapid and complete curing. Moreover, in the photopolymerization of compounds sensitive to air inhibition non-tacky surfaces are obtained. The effect observed is based on a synergism between the present photoinitiators. The advantages of the invention are most manifest in curing relatively thick layers of materials. | 2 |
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
This application is based on and hereby claims priority to PCT Application No. PCT/EP2005/0054852 filed on Sep. 27, 2005 and German Application No. 10 2004 048 646.8 filed on Oct. 4, 2004, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference.
BACKGROUND
The invention relates to a superconducting current-limiter device of the resistive type, whose conductor track is formed by a superconductor in the form of a strip, whose oxidic high-T c superconductor material of the AB 2 Cu 3 O x type is applied to a substrate strip composed of a normally conductive substrate metal, with A being at least one rare earth metal including yttrium, and B being at least one alkaline earth metal. In this case, the conductor track is in the form of a bifilar coil, with a distance through which a coolant can flow being maintained between adjacent coil turns. A corresponding current-limiter device is disclosed in EP 0 503 448 A2.
Superconducting metal-oxide compounds with high critical temperatures T c of above 77 K have been known since 1986, which are therefore referred to as high-T c superconductor materials, or HTS materials, and, in particular, allow a liquid-nitrogen (LN 2 ) cooling technique. Metal-oxide compounds such as these include in particular cuprates based on specific substance systems, for example of the AB 2 Cu 3 O x type, with A being at least one rare earth metal including yttrium, and B being at least one alkaline earth metal. The main representative of this substance system of the so-called 1-2-3-HTS type is so-called YBCO (Y 1 Ba 2 Cu 3 O x where 6.5≦x≦7).
The aim is to deposit this known HTS material on different substrates for different purposes, in which case the general aim is to achieve a superconductor material with as high a phase purity as possible. In particular, metallic substrates are therefore provided for conductor applications (see, for example, EP 0 292 959 A1).
In the case of the current-limiter device which is disclosed in the EP-A2 document cited initially, a type of superconductor in the form of a strip, inter alia, is used and has a substrate which is provided with a coating composed of the HTS material. In order to form the current-limiter device, this conductor can be wound as a bifilar coil, with a spacer in the form of strip in each case being arranged for the construction process between two successive conductor sections or coil turns. This bifilar coil should then be held on a base plate which is porous or is provided with a large number of holes. Once the coil has been mounted on this base plate, the spacers arranged between the conductor sections are finally removed again. The distance between the individual coil turns and the porosity of the base plate thus result in flow paths between the coil turns for a coolant for cooling the superconducting material.
SUMMARY
One possible object of the present invention is to improve this current-limiter device having the features mentioned initially, such that its design is less complex.
The inventors propose a current-limiter device having the features mentioned initially and having a configuration of its superconductor in the form of a strip which at least contains at least one buffer layer, which is arranged between the substrate strip and the superconducting layer and is composed of an oxidic buffer material and a covering layer which is applied to the superconducting layer and is composed of a normally conductive covering metal. In addition, the coil with the superconductor is intended to be designed to be intrinsically stable, and at least one spacer, which is transparent for the coolant, is intended to be arranged between adjacent coil turns.
The advantages associated with this embodiment of the current-limiter device are, in particular, that the winding of the bifilar coils can be produced together with the spacer in a common process. The configuration of the coil is accordingly simple. Furthermore, the use of the normally conductive covering layer allows contact to be made with the superconductor at the ends of the winding without any problems. In this case, there is no need for any special mount body for the coil, in order to mechanically reinforce it.
In this case, their features can also be used in conjunction with one another. It is thus particularly advantageous for the superconductor to be arranged with its substrate strip side on the outside in the coil.
Furthermore, an insulation film can be arranged in the coil, between the spacer and the respectively adjacent substrate strip of the superconductor or of the coil turn.
A spacer can preferably be used which is in the form of at least one corrugated spacing film. Spacing films such as these allow flow paths for the coolant to be formed in a simple manner.
In order to ensure that the design of the coil is sufficiently intrinsically stable, its superconductors can be adhesively bonded to one another together with the spacer by a synthetic resin, leaving the required coolant paths free. The adhesive bonding is in this case expediently carried out only in the mutually touching areas of these parts.
The mutual separation between the coil turns should be at least 1 mm in order to ensure a sufficiently large cross section for the coolant to flow through.
It can be regarded to be particularly advantageous if at least one contact-making element composed of a normally conductive contact-making material is provided at least on one longitudinal side of the structure of the superconductor, between its covering layer and its substrate strip, in which case the relationship for the normally conductive limiting state of the current-limiter device should be:
R k >3 ·R L , preferably R K >10 ·R L
where RL is the electrical resistance of the configuration without the contact-making element over the entire length of the conductor track, and RK is the resistance of the at least one contact-making element over the entire length. In this case, the overall length should be understood as meaning the length of the superconductor which is in the form of a strip that is available between superconductivity and normal conductivity of the current-limiter device for the switching process. The resistance RL is in this case formed from the resistance of the substrate strip, of the covering layer and the maximum possible normally conductive resistance of the superconducting layer, connected in parallel. If a plurality of contact-making elements are provided, then these likewise form a parallel circuit, with a total resistance whose value is RK. This value can be selected in a known manner by the choice of material for the at least one contact-making element, or the electrical resistivity p of its material, and by the thickness or the available conductive cross section.
The advantages associated with this embodiment of the current-limiter device are, in particular, that the metallic substrate strip and the normally conductive covering layer, and hence also the superconducting layer which is conductively connected to it, seen in the direction in which the current is passed, are brought into electrical contact with one another, at least in the subareas along the length of the structure, and are thus at a single electrical potential, even in the case of a quench. This suppresses any flashover across the buffer layer.
In particular, the following measures can also be provided individually, or else in conjunction, for this refinement of the current-limiter device:
In general, the average thickness of the at least one contact-making element is less than 1 μm, preferably less than 0.5 μm. This is because appropriately thin layers are advantageously adequate for a sufficient galvanic connection, since they allow only a galvanic connection, but cannot carry higher currents.
In particular, gold, silver or copper, or an alloy with the respective element, or at least one further alloying partner, can be provided as the material for the at least one contact-making element. Appropriate contact-making elements can be applied to the longitudinal sides of the conductor structure, for example by soldering processes, or can be produced by the solder material. Since solder need be applied only to the sides, the risk of damage to the HTS material is correspondingly low.
It is particularly advantageous for the contact-making element to be in the form of a sheathing element which surrounds the conductor structure on all sides, in which case a sheathing element such as this may be in the form of an electrochemical coating. Coatings such as these can be produced in a particularly simple manner, protecting the HTS material, since only a small thickness is required.
Instead of an embodiment of special contact-making elements, at least one of the side edges of the conductor structure in the current-limiter device can be mechanically deformed, at least in subareas, such that the covering layer and the substrate strip make electrical contact. The advantages associated with this embodiment of the current-limiter apparatus are, in particular, that the metallic substrate strip and the normally conductive covering layer, and hence also the superconducting layer that is galvanically connected to it, are brought into electrical contact with one another, at least in the subareas along the length of the structure, seen in the direction in which the current is passed, and are thus at a single electrical potential even in the event of a quench. This suppresses any flashover across the buffer layer. Corresponding deformation on at least one the longitudinal sides of the conductor structure is acceptable because, normally, the superconducting characteristics of the superconducting layer become worse in any case, by virtue of the production techniques, at the side edges. In this case, the electrical contact on the at least one side edge can be formed by crushing or rolling deformation, and corresponding deformations can easily be implemented.
In order to prevent an electrical flashover across the at least one buffer layer between the covering layer with the superconducting layer on the one hand and the metallic substrate strip on the other hand, these parts can also be kept at the same potential, by choosing the material of the buffer layer, at least in subareas, to be a material with adequate electrical conductivity for this purpose. The material is advantageously chosen for this purpose such that the contact resistance between the superconducting layer and the substrate strip is at most 10 −3 Ω·cm 2 , preferably at most 10 −5 Ω·cm 2 . In order to satisfy this condition, the material of the buffer layer can preferably have a mean resistivity of at most 5000 μΩ·cm, preferably of at most 500 Ω·cm 2 . Particularly suitable materials for this purpose are those of the La—Mn—O, Sr—Ru—O, La—Ni—O or In—Sn—O type.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
These and other objects and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent and more readily appreciated from the following description of the preferred embodiments, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings of which:
FIG. 1 shows the bifilar structure of a disk-type coil of the current-limiter device, as well as a detail of the latter in each case in the form of a plan view;
FIG. 2 shows the connection of a plurality of such disk-type coils to form a three-phase arrangement, viewed obliquely;
FIG. 3 shows the configuration of a YBCO strip conductor for a disk-type coil as shown in FIG. 1 or 2 , viewed obliquely;
FIG. 4 shows a second embodiment of the configuration of a YBCO strip conductor for a disk-type coil as shown in FIG. 1 or 2 , in the form of a cross-sectional view; and
FIG. 5 shows an alternative embodiment to the configuration shown in FIG. 4 of a YBCO strip conductor, in a corresponding view.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT
Reference will now be made in detail to the preferred embodiments of the present invention, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings, wherein like reference numerals refer to like elements throughout.
In this case, corresponding parts in the figures are in each case provided with the same reference symbols.
FIG. 1 shows the most important parts of a coil which is annotated 11 in general, for the proposed current-limiter device, as well as an enlarged illustration of a detail of this coil. In this case, the coil is designed to be intrinsically stable with a YBCO strip conductor 2 , on the basis of which preferred embodiments will be explained in more detail with reference to FIGS. 3 to 5 . A metallic substrate strip of the strip conductor, annoted 3 , and so-called functional layers, annoted 5 , 6 , are also shown in the figure, with these layers being formed by a YBCO layer with the buffer layer located underneath it, and a metallic covering layer located on the YBCO layer. In this case, an intrinsically stable configuration of the coil means a configuration which does not need any special mount body on which the winding of the coil must necessarily be applied, for mechanical robustness reasons. Specifically, the superconducting strip conductor that is used may be in the form of wound disk-type coils, with the capability for access for a coolant K between adjacent coil or conductor turns 12 i , and 12 a, b , respectively. In order to keep the inductance low, a coil is wound in a bifilar form, that is to say the current flows in opposite directions in adjacent coil turns or layers. In consequence, the full phase voltage at a maximum may occur between the two outer ends of the coil winding. The coil turns 12 i must therefore be insulated from one another. Insulation byby a film 17 , for example, is suitable for this purpose, with this film 17 being a few millimeters broader than the conductor 2 that is in the form of a strip. Furthermore, cooling channels 13 should be provided, in order to allow access for the coolant K. Channels such as these can advantageously be produced by winding in spacers 14 , preferably with a corrugated shape, between the individual coil turns. The internal diameter of the coil is in this case governed by the minimum permissible radius of curvature for the strip conductor 2 , for which the critical current Ic is not yet degraded. This requirement can be satisfied without any problems by the minimum diameter D of the winding of the coil 11 in the order of magnitude of 100 mm. Since the superconducting YBCO layer of the strip conductor 2 can be loaded to a greater extent in compression than in tension, the layer side of the strip conductor should point towards the inside of the coils. The entire winding of the coil must, of course, be sufficiently mechanically robust; that is to say it must be possible to handle it during assembly of the active part, and it must be possible to withstand the forces that occur if the coolant K boils, without any problems. For this purpose, the complete winding of the coil can advantageously be encapsulated by vacuum impregnation with a suitable synthetic resin, whose parts are annoted 15 in the figure. The synthetic resin should be able to run out of the respective cooling channels 13 before curing, so that only locally discrete thin synthetic resin areas 15 remain on the surfaces, with respect to the thickness 8 on the functional layers 5 , 6 and on the insulation film 17 is in the order of magnitude between 10 and 100 μm. This synthetic resin layer in this case represents a part of the insulation between the coil turns 12 i.
The configuration illustrated in FIG. 1 results in an intrinsically stable coil element 11 , a plurality of which can be connected in parallel and in series, as shown in FIG. 2 on a suitable supporting structure. FIG. 2 shows a corresponding connection of a plurality of coil elements 11 i to form a corresponding three-phase arrangement 18 . Solder contacts have been proven for connection purposes. The required contacts 19 can be placed on the metallic covering layer or on the substrate side of the strip conductor. The contact between the incoming and outgoing strip on the internal radius of the respective coil can also be provided by soldering over a length of a few centimeters.
The conductor separation a between adjacent coil turns 12 i is governed by the thickness of the insulation film 17 , the synthetic-resin layer areas 15 , the material thickness of the spacer 14 and by the radial width of the cooling channels 13 . In this case, it is assumed that the warming-up phase of the conductor winding takes place virtually adiabatically in the event of quenching; the Joulean heat that is released, for example of about 200 W/cm 2 is in this case passed into the conductor; in this case, less heat can be dissipated via the boiling film, which can form about 1 ms. The conductor separation therefore primarily influences the cooling-down phase. If the conductors are too close together, too little liquid will be passed through, and the cooling-down time will be lengthened. In the extreme case of a conductor winding without any cooling channels, only the surface of the coil would be available for heat exchange. A second viewpoint for the size of the winding separation a is the force effect resulting from expansion of the cooling liquid on vaporization. Both aspects, specifically flow in the cooling channel 13 and pressure build-up, can be determined by the transparent spacers 14 provided, and by their dimensions. If, for example, a YBCO strip conductor 2 with a width of 10 mm is provided, and the film-like spacer 14 projects for a total of 5 mm, that is to say 2.5 mm at each edge, then this results in the ratio between the separation and the conductor height being 3 mm/15 mm=0.2. Since a strip winding for the configuration is mechanically relatively robust and therefore withstands correspondingly high forces, a conductor separation of 1 millimeter is possible. In this situation, a radial extent of about 0.6 mm still remains for the cooling channel 13 (conductor strip: approx. 0.15 mm; insulation, approx. 0.2 mm; resin layer: approx. 0.05 mm). This then results in an advantageous aspect ratio of 0.6 mm/15 mm=0.04.
Preferred embodiments of YBCO strip conductors 2 for the coil 11 or the coil arrangement 18 are illustrated in the following FIGS. 3 to 5 .
The strip conductor that is indicated in FIG. 3 and is annoted 2 in general is based on embodiments of so-called YBCO strip conductors or “YBCO Coated Conductors” that are known per se. In the figure,
3 denotes a substrate strip composed of a normally conductive substrate metal of thickness d3, 4 denotes at least one buffer layer applied to it and composed of oxidic buffer material of thickness d4, 5 denotes an HTS layer composed of YBCO of thickness d5, 6 denotes Ea covering layer composed of a normally conductive covering metal of thickness d6 as a protective and/or contact layer, which may also be composed of a plurality of individual layers which are in close contact with one another, and 7 shows the conductor structure formed from these four parts.
In this case, these parts can be formed as follows:
a metallic: substrate strip 3 composed of nickel, nickel alloys or stainless steel with a thickness d3 of about 20 to 250 μm,
a buffer layer or a buffer layer system composed of one or more individual layers of oxides such as CeO2 or YSZ with a thickness d4 of about 0.1 μm to 1 mm,
an HTS layer 5 composed of YBCO with a thickness D5 of between about 0.3 and 3 μm, and
a metallic covering layer 6 composed of silver, gold or copper, with a thickness d6 of between 0.1 and 1 μm.
A corresponding strip conductor has a width of a few millimeters to a few centimeters. Its superconducting current carrying capability is governed by the YBCO layer 5 , that is to say by its critical current density, while the thermal, mechanical and normally conductive characteristics are dominated by the substrate strip 3 and the covering layer 6 , because of the greater thickness d3. In this case, the substrate strip together with the buffer layer forms a substrate for virtually monocrystalline growth of the YBCO. The substrate strip material and the buffer layer material must not differ too greatly from YBCO in terms of the thermal coefficients of expansion and their crystallographic lattice constants. The better the match, the higher is the crack-free layer thickness, and the better the crystallinity of the YBCO. Furthermore, for high critical current densities in the MA/cm 2 range, it is desirable for the crystal axes in adjacent crystallites to be aligned as parallel as possible. This requires just such an alignment at least in the uppermost buffer layer in order that the YBCO can be growth heteroepitaxially. Such virtually monocrystalline flexible substrate buffer systems are preferably prepared using three processes:
so-called “Ion Beam Assisted Deposition (IBAD)” of generally YSZ or MgO on untextured metal strips,
so-called “Inclined Substrate Deposition (ISD)” of YSZ or MgO on untextured metal strips,
so-called “Rolling Assisted Biaxially Textured Substrates (RABiTS)”, that is to say substrates provided with
cube-type texturing by rolling and heat treatment, with a heteroepitaxial buffer system.
The functional layers 4 to 6 to be deposited on the substrate strip are produced in a manner known per se by vacuum coating processes (PVD), chemical deposition from the gas phase (CVD) or from chemical solutions (CSD).
Comparatively thin intermediate layers, which are formed during the production of the structure or during the deposition of the individual layers in particular on the basis of diffusion processes, can, of course, be provided between the individual layers of the conductor structure 7 , as well.
In comparison to the ceramic plate conductors which are known for YBCO thin-film current limiters, the substrate strip 3 in the case of strip conductors of the type described above is electrically conductive, that is to say it can thus carry the limited current and can act as a shunt. However, in the case of the conductor structure 7 indicated above in FIG. 3 , the HTS layer 5 and the substrate strip 3 would normally be insulated from one another via the at least one buffer layer 4 . As soon as the current limiter device changes to its limiting state, that is to say becomes normally conductive and builds up a voltage along the conductor track, the breakdown field strength of the known buffer layer materials, which is in the order of magnitude of 100 kV/mm=10 V/0.1 μm, will quickly be exceeded. This means that the buffer layer 4 would then flash over in an uncontrolled manner. Because of this problem, a sufficiently good electrical contact between the superconducting layer 5 and the metallic substrate strip 3 is advantageously and preferably provided over the entire conductor length for use of strip conductors in the current-limiter device. The refinements of the conductor configuration 7 as explained above and as shown in FIG. 3 can preferably be used for this purpose.
According to a first refinement option, the at least one buffer layer 4 is designed in such a manner than an electrical conductivity is provided, which is sufficient for potential equalization between the superconducting layer 5 and the substrate strip 3 , between the superconducting layer 5 and the substrate strip 3 , at least in subareas, effectively in island-like areas, but preferably over the entire common extent. This can be achieved in particular by providing a contact resistance of at most 10 −3 Ω·cm 2 , preferably of at most 10 −5 Ω·cm 2 , between the YBCO layer 5 and the substrate strip 3 . In particular, an appropriate contact resistance can be selected by choosing the material for the buffer layer 4 to be a material which has a mean resistivity of at most 5000 μΩ·cm, preferably of at most 500 μΩ·cm. Appropriate materials, which are also matched in terms of the crystalline dimensions of the YBCO material, are La—Mn—O, Sr—Ru—O, La—Ni—O or In—Sn—O (so-called “ITO”).
According to a second refinement option, a continuous contact is provided over the entire length of the conductor 2 from the outside, on or around the conductor structure 7 . In this case, the conductor structure 7 shown in FIG. 3 is equipped with a special contact-making element, at least on one longitudinal side. This contact-making element is composed of an electrically highly conductive material such as gold, silver or copper, or an alloy with the respective chemical element. The task of the contact-making element is to ensure a galvanic connection between the superconducting layer 5 and the normally conductive covering layer 6 which is electrically connected to it, on the one hand, and the lower normally conductive substrate strip 3 on the other hand, on the respective longitudinal side or edge. This results in these parts being at the same electrical potential when the current-limiter device is in the operating state, because of the mutual galvanic connection.
The material cross section of the at least one contact-making element is advantageously of such a size that, in practice, this does not act as an electrical shunt for the limited current. This can be ensured by the choice of material and/or the mean thickness of the contact-making element. The dimension rule is advantageously:
R K >3 ·R L , preferably R K >10 ·R L .
In this case, R L is the electrical resistance of the entire conductor structure 7 without the contact-making element, measured over the entire length of the conductor track. The resistance R L is in this case composed of the resistance of the substrate strip 3 , of the covering layer 6 and the maximum possible resistance of the superconducting layer 5 when it is normally conductive, connected in parallel. R K is the resistance of all the parallel-connected contact-making elements over this entire length.
The value R K can be selected in a known manner by the choice of material for the at least one contact-making element and the electrical resistivity ρ K of its material, as well as by the thickness d K and the available electrically conductive cross section.
Taking account of the abovementioned relationship, the thickness d K is in general less than 1 μm, preferably less than 0.5 μm.
For example, contact-making elements can be fitted to the sides of the conductor structure 7 by soldering processes. In this case, of course, the respective contact-making element can also to some extent cover the upper flat surface of the covering layer 6 and/or the lower flat surface of the substrate strip 3 .
As shown in FIG. 4 , it is also possible and particularly advantageous for the at least one contact-making element to be in the form of a sheathing element 9 which surrounds the conductor structure 7 on all sides. A corresponding sheathing element may for example, be produced from a normally conductive wire mesh or a surrounding wire winding, or from surrounding wire spinning, or in the form of a wire non-woven. Instead of wires it is, of course, also possible to provide strips for this purpose. A sheathing contact-making element 9 can also particularly advantageously be produced by an electrochemical coating process. Corresponding layers of little thickness d k in the abovementioned order of magnitude can be formed in a simple manner and in particular without any adverse effect on the superconducting characteristics of the superconducting layer 5 .
According to a third refinement option, a different contact is provided at least in subareas of at least one of the side edges of the conductor structure 7 of the conductor 2 , to be precise with the structure being deformed in this area by mechanic deformation of the structure, for example by appropriate crushing or rolling deformation, such that the covering layer 6 and the substrate strip 3 make electrical contact. There are generally no problems in deformation in these areas, because the superconducting characteristics of the superconducting layer 5 are frequently poorer there than in the central area of the conductor.
By way of example, as shown in FIG. 5 , the desired deformation can be carried out with the aid of edge rollers 21 and 22 . The rollers in this case act on the respective side edges in the side areas 20 a and/or 20 b , in such a manner that the structure is compressed somewhat in the diagonal direction from there. In this case, the covering layer material is pressed against the mechanically more robust substrate strip, so that, at least in subareas of the longitudinal side of the conductor strip, a conductive connection is created between the metallic material of the covering layer 6 and the metallic material of the substrate strip 3 .
It is, of course, also possible to use the variants as explained above for making contact with the YBCO layer 5 with its covering layer 6 , which is located thereon, in close electrical contact with it, on the one hand, and the metallic substrate strip 3 on the other hand at the same time as one another.
The above exemplary embodiments have been based on YBCO as the HTS material for the superconducting layer 5 . Other HTS materials of the so-called 1-2-3 type can, of course, also be used with other rare earth metals and/or other alkaline earth metals. The individual components of these materials may also be partially substituted in a manner known per se by further/other components.
The invention has been described in detail with particular reference to preferred embodiments thereof and examples, but it will be understood that variations and modifications can be effected within the spirit and scope of the invention covered by the claims which may include the phrase “at least one of A, B and C” as an alternative expression that means one or more of A, B and C may be used, contrary to the holding in Superguide v. DIRECTV, 69 USPQ2d 1865 (Fed. Cir. 2004). | The conductive path of the current-limiting device is made of a strip-shaped super conductor, whereby the structure thereof has a metallic strip, at least one oxidic buffer, a type AB 2 Cu 3 O x super conductive layer and a metal cover layer which is arranged thereon. An intrinsically stable bifilar coil is embodied with said super conductor, and a distance is maintained between adjacent coil windings, wherein a distance maintainer is arranged which is transparent to the coolant. | 8 |
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
[0001] This invention relates to pneumatic tires having a carcass and a belt reinforcing structure, more particularly to high speed heavy load radial ply tires such as those used on aircraft.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0002] Pneumatic tires for high speed applications experience a high degree of flexure in the crown area of the tire as the tire enters and leaves the contact patch. This problem is particularly exacerbated on aircraft tires wherein the tires can reach speed of over 200 mph at takeoff and landing.
[0003] When a tire spins at very high speeds the crown area tends to grow in dimension due to the high angular accelerations and velocity tending to pull the tread area radially outwardly. Counteracting these forces is the load of the vehicle which is only supported in the small area of the tire known as the contact patch.
[0004] In U.S. Pat. No. 5,427,167, Jun Watanabe of Bridgestone Corporation suggested that the use of a large number of belt plies piled on top of one another was prone to cracks inside the belt layers which tended to grow outwardly causing a cut peel off and scattering of the belt and the tread during running. Therefore, such a belt ply is not used for airplanes. Watanabe found that zigzag belt layers could be piled onto the radially inner belt layers if the cord angles progressively increased from the inner belt layers toward the outer belt layers. In other words the radially inner belt plies contained cords extending substantially in a zigzag path at a cord angle A of 5 degrees to 15 degrees in the circumferential direction with respect to the equatorial plane while being bent at both sides or lateral edges of the ply. Each of the outer belt plies contains cords having a cord angle B larger than the cord angle A of the radially inner belt plies.
[0005] In one embodiment each of the side end portions between adjoining two inner belt plies is provided with a further extra laminated portion of the strip continuously extending in the circumferential direction and if the radially inner belt plies have four or more in number then these extra laminated portions are piled one upon another in the radial direction. The inventor Watanabe noted the circumferential rigidity in the vicinity of the side end of each ply or the tread end can be locally increased so that the radial growth in the vicinity of the tread end portion during running at high speed can be reduced.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0006] A pneumatic tire having a carcass and a belt reinforcing structure wherein the belt reinforcing structure is a composite belt structure having at least one pair of radially outer zigzag layers and at least one spirally wound belt layer with cords inclined at an inclination of 5 degrees or less relative to the tire's centerplane and located radially inward of and adjacent to the at least two radially outer zigzag belt layers.
[0007] The at least two radially outer zigzag belt layers have cords inclined at 5 degrees to 30 degrees relative to the tire's centerplane and extending in alternation to turnaround points at each lateral edge of the belt layer. At each turnaround point the cords are folded or preferably bent to change direction across the crown of the carcass thus forming a zigzag cord path.
[0008] In a preferred embodiment at least two radially inner zigzag belt layers are positioned between the carcass and the at least one spirally wound belt layer. Each of the radially inner zigzag belt layers has cords wound at an inclination of 5 degrees to 30 degrees relative to the centerplane of the tire and extending in alternation to turnaround points at each lateral edge of the belt layers.
[0009] The cords of the at least two radially inner spirally wound belt layers are wound from a single cord or from a group of 2 to 20 cords which continuously extend to form spirally wound belt layer and the at least two radially outer belt layers.
[0010] Alternatively, the cords of the spirally wound belt layer in a single cord or a group of 2 to 20 cords may be continuously wound to form the at least two radially outer belt layers.
[0011] As described above the tire should have three belt layers, preferably five, as a minimum as measured at the tire's center.
[0012] The tire is well suited for high speeds and large loads such as found in aircraft tires.
[0000] Definitions
[0013] “Apex” means a non-reinforced elastomer positioned radially above a bead core.
[0014] “Aspect ratio” of the tire means the ratio of its section height (SH) to its section width (SW) multiplied by 100% for expression as a percentage.
[0015] “Axial” and “axially” mean lines or directions that are parallel to the axis of rotation of the tire.
[0016] “Bead” means that part of the tire comprising an annular tensile member wrapped by ply cords and shaped, with or without other reinforcement elements such as flippers, chippers, apexes, toe guards and chafers, to fit the design rim.
[0017] “Cut belt or cut breaker reinforcing structure” means at least two cut layers of plies of parallel cords, woven or unwoven, underlying the tread, unanchored to the bead, and having both left and right cord angles in the range from 10 degrees to 33 degrees with respect to the equatorial plane of the tire.
[0018] “Bias ply tire” means a tire having a carcass with reinforcing cords in the carcass ply extending diagonally across the tire from bead core to bead core at about a 25°-50° angle with respect to the equatorial plane of the tire. Cords run at opposite angles in alternate layers.
[0019] “Carcass” means the tire structure apart from the belt structure, tread, undertread, and sidewall rubber over the plies, but including the beads.
[0020] “Circumferential” means lines or directions extending along the perimeter of the surface of the annular tread perpendicular to the axial direction.
[0021] “Chafers” refer to narrow strips of material placed around the outside of the bead to protect cord plies from the rim, distribute flexing above the rim, and to seal the tire.
[0022] “Chippers” mean a reinforcement structure located in the bead portion of the tire.
[0023] “Cord” means one of the reinforcement strands of which the plies in the tire are comprised.
[0024] “Equatorial plane (EP)” means the plane perpendicular to the tire's axis of rotation and passing through the center of its tread.
[0025] “Flipper” means a reinforced fabric wrapped about the bead core and apex.
[0026] “Footprint” means the contact patch or area of contact of the tire tread with a flat surface at zero speed and under normal load and pressure.
[0027] “Innerliner” means the layer or layers of elastomer or other material that form the inside surface of a tubeless tire and that contain the inflating fluid within the tire.
[0028] “Net-to-gross ratio” means the ratio of the tire tread rubber that makes contact with the road surface while in the footprint, divided by the area of the tread in the footprint, including non-contacting portions such as grooves.
[0029] “Nominal rim diameter” means the average diameter of the rim flange at the location where the bead portion of the tire seats.
[0030] “Normal inflation pressure” refers to the specific design inflation pressure and load assigned by the appropriate standards organization for the service condition for the tire.
[0031] “Normal load” refers to the specific design inflation pressure and load assigned by the appropriate standards organization for the service condition for the tire.
[0032] “Ply” means a continuous layer of rubber-coated parallel cords.
[0033] “Radial” and “radially” mean directions radially toward or away from the axis of rotation of the tire.
[0034] “Radial-ply tire” means a belted or circumferentially-restricted pneumatic tire in which the ply cords which extend from bead to bead are laid at cord angles between 65° and 90° with respect to the equatorial plane of the tire.
[0035] “Section height” (SH) means the radial distance from the nominal rim diameter to the outer diameter of the tire at its equatorial plane.
[0036] “Zigzag belt reinforcing structure” means at least two layers of cords or a ribbon of parallel cords having 2 to 20 cords in each ribbon and laid up in an alternating pattern extending at an angle between 5° and 30° between lateral edges of the belt layers.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0037] FIG. 1 us a schematically section view of a first embodiment of the tire according to the invention;
[0038] FIG. 2 is a partially cutaway top view of the tire shown in FIG. 1 ;
[0039] FIG. 3 is a schematically perspective view of an inner or outer zigzag belt layer in the middle of the formation;
[0040] FIG. 4 is a schematically developed view of the inner or outer zigzag belt layers In the middle of the formation;
[0041] FIG. 5 is an enlargedly developed view of the inner or outer zigzag belt layers in the vicinity of the side end of the ply in the middle of the formation;
[0042] FIG. 6 is an enlargedly developed view of another embodiment of the inner belt layer in the vicinity of the side end of the ply in the middle of the formation;
[0043] FIG. 7 is a schematically enlarged section view of the composite belt layers in the vicinity of side end portions of these plies;
[0044] FIG. 8 is a schematically developed view of the inner layer located at an outmost side;
[0045] FIG. 9 is a schematically enlarged section view of another embodiment of plural inner belt plies in the vicinity of side end portions of these plies.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
[0046] In FIGS. 1 and 2 , numeral 21 is a radial tire of the preferred embodiment of the invention, as shown, to be mounted onto an airplane, which comprises a pair of bead portions 23 each containing a bead core 22 embedded therein, a sidewall portion 24 extending substantially outward from each of the bead portions 23 in the radial direction of the tire, and a tread portion 25 of substantially cylindrical shape extending between radially outer ends of these sidewall portions 24 . Furthermore, the tire 21 is reinforced with a carcass 31 toroidially extending from one of the bead portions 23 to the other bead portion 23 . The carcass 31 is comprised of at least two carcass plies 32 , e.g. six carcass plies 32 in the illustrated embodiment. Among these carcass plies 32 , four inner plies are wound around the bead core 22 from inside of the tire toward outside thereof to form turnup portions, while two outer plies are extended downward to the bead core 22 along the outside of the turnup portion of the inner carcass ply 32 . Each of these carcass plies 32 contains many nylon cords 33 such as nylon-6,6 cords extending substantially perpendicular to an equatorial plane E of the tire (i.e. extending in the radial direction of the tire). A tread rubber 36 is arranged on the outside of the carcass 31 in the radial direction.
[0047] A belt 40 is arranged between the carcass 31 and the tread rubber 36 and is comprised of plural inner belt plies or layers 41 located near the carcass 31 , i.e. two radially inner belt layers 41 in the illustrated embodiment and plural radially outer belt layers 42 located near to the tread rubber 36 , i.e. two radially outer belt layers 42 in the illustrated embodiment. As shown in FIGS. 3 and 8 , each of the radially inner belt plies 41 is formed by providing a rubberized strip 43 of one or more cords 46 , winding the strip 43 generally in the circumferential direction while being inclined to extend between side ends or lateral edges 44 and 45 of the layer forming a zigzag path and conducting such a winding many times while the strip 43 is shifted at approximately a width of the strip in the circumferential direction so as not to form a gap between the adjoining strips 43 . As a result, the cords 46 extend substantially zigzag in the circumferential direction while changing the bending direction at a turnaround point at both ends 44 , 45 and are substantially uniformly embedded in the first inner belt layer 41 over a full region of the first inner belt layer 41 . Moreover, it is intended to form the radially inner belt layer 41 by the above method, the cords 46 lie one upon another, so that two first and second inner belt layers 41 are formed while crossing the cords 46 of these plies with each other. Similarly the radially outer belt layers 42 are made using the same method. Interposed between the inner layers 41 and outer layers 42 is at least one spirally wound layer 39 of cords 46 , the cords being wound at an angle of plus or minus 5 degrees or less relative to the circumferential direction.
[0048] In the pneumatic radial tire for airplanes, there are various sizes, the tire illustrated is a 42×17.0R18 with a 26 ply rating and the tire 21 has the belt composite reinforcing structure as shown in FIG. 9 . As shown the tire of FIG. 9 has two inner zigzag layers 41 and three spiral layers 39 and two outer zigzag layers 42 . In any such tire size, the cords 46 of the inner belt plies 41 cross with each other at a cord angle A of 5 degrees to 15 degrees with respect to the equatorial plane of the tire when the strip 43 is reciprocated at least once between both side ends 44 and 45 of the ply within every 360 degrees of the circumference as mentioned above.
[0049] In the illustrated embodiment, the widths of the inner belt layers 41 become narrower as the ply 41 is formed outward in the radial direction or approaches toward the tread rubber 36 . Further, when the inner belt layers 41 is formed by winding the rubberized strip 43 containing plural cords 46 arranged in parallel with each other as mentioned above, a period for forming the ply layer 41 can be shortened and also the cord 46 arrangement can be made accurate. However, the strip 43 is bent at the side ends 44 , 45 of the ply with a small radius of curvature R as shown in FIG. 5 , so that a large compressive strain is produced in a cord 46 located at innermost side of the curvature R in the strip 43 to remain as a residual strain. When the cord 46 is nylon cord, if the compressive strain exceeds 25%, there is a fear of promoting the cord fatigue. However, when a ratio of R/W (R is a radius of curvature (mm) of the strip 43 at the side ends 44 , 45 of the layer, and W is a width of the strip 43 ) is not less than 2.0 as shown in FIG. 6 , the compressive strain produced in the cord 46 can be controlled to not exceed 25%. Therefore, when the inner belt layer 41 is formed by using the rubberized strip 43 containing plural nylon cords 46 therein, it is preferable that the value of R/W is not less than 2.0. In addition to the case where the strip 43 is bent at both side ends 44 , 45 of the ply in form of an arc as shown in FIG. 5 , the strip 43 may have a straight portion extending along the side end 44 ( 45 ) and an arc portion located at each end of the straight portion as shown in FIG. 6 . Even in the latter case, it is favorable that the value of R/W in the arc portion is not less than 2.0. Furthermore, when the strip 43 is wound while being bent with a given radius of curvature R at both side ends 44 , 45 of the ply, a zone 47 of a bent triangle formed by overlapping three strips 43 with each other at a half width of the strip as shown in FIG. 7 is repeatedly created in these bent portions or in the vicinity of both side ends 44 , 45 of the ply in the circumferential direction as shown in FIG. 5 . These two strips 43 are usually overlapped with each other by each forming operation. The width changes in accordance with the position in the circumferential direction continuously in the circumferential direction. Moreover, these laminated bent portions 47 turn inward in the axial direction as they are formed outward in the radial direction as shown in FIG. 7 because the widths of the inner belt layers 41 become narrower toward the outside in the radial direction as previously mentioned. In the bent portion 47 , the outer end in widthwise direction of the middle strip 43 c sandwiched between upper and lower strips 43 a and 43 b overlaps with the zone 47 located inward from the middle strip 43 c in the radial direction as shown in FIG. 7 . When the belt 40 is constructed with these inner belt layers 41 , the total number of belt layers or plies can be decreased while maintaining total strength but reducing the weight and also the occurrence of standing wave during the running at high speed can be prevented.
[0050] The middle layers 39 of the composite belt structure 40 are spirally wound around the radially inner belt layers 41 . As shown in FIG. 7 the spirally wound layer 39 extends completely across the two radially inner belt layers 41 and ends at 39 a just inside the end 41 a . The cords 46 within each strip 39 extend at an angle of 5 degrees or less relative to the circumferential equatorial plane. As shown four cords are in each strip. In practice the strips 41 , 39 , and 42 could be wound using a single cord 46 or plural cords 46 in a strip or ribbon having plural cords in the range of 2 to 20 cords within each strip. In the exemplary tire 21 of the size 42×17.0R18 strips 43 having 8 cords per strip 42 were used. The strips 43 had a width W, W being 0.5 inches. It is believed preferable that the strip width W should be 1.0 inch or less to facilitate bending to form the zigzag paths of the inner and outer layers 41 , 42 .
[0051] In the most preferred embodiment the layers 41 , 39 , and 42 are all formed from a continuous strip 43 that simply forms the at least two radially zigzag layers 41 and then continues to form the at least one spirally wound layer 39 and then continues on to form the at least two radially outer layers 42 . Alternatively, the spirally wound layers 39 could be formed as a separate layer from a strip 43 . This alternative method of construction permits the cords 46 to be of different size or even of different materials from the zigzag layers 41 and 42 . What is believed to be the most important aspect of the invention is the circumferential layer 39 by being placed between the zigzag layers 41 and 42 greatly reduces the circumferential growth of the tire 21 in not only the belt edges 44 , 45 but in particular the crown area of the tread 36 . The spirally wound circumferential layer 39 , by resisting growth in the crown area of the tire, greatly reduces the cut propensity due to foreign object damage and also reduces tread cracking under the grooves. This means the tire's high speed durability is greatly enhanced and its load carrying capacity is even greater. Aircraft tires using multiple layers of only zigzag ribbons on radial plied carcasses showed excellent lateral cornering forces. This is a common problem of radial tires using spiral layers in combination with cut belt layers which show poor cornering or lateral force characteristics. Unfortunately, using all zigzag layered belt layers have poor load and durability issues that are inferior to the more conventional spiral belt layers in combination with cut belt layers.
[0052] The present invention has greatly improved the durability of the zigzag type belt construction while achieving very good lateral force characteristics as illustrated in FIG. 10 . The all zigzag belted tire A is slightly better than the tire B of the present invention which is shown better than the spiral belt with a combination of cut belt layers of tire C in terms of lateral forces. Nevertheless the all zigzag belted tire A cannot carry the required double overloads at inflation whereas the tire B of the present invention easily meets these load requirements.
[0053] The tire of the present invention may have a nylon overlay 50 directly below the tread. This overlay 50 is used to assist in retreading. | A pneumatic tire having a carcass and a belt reinforcing structure wherein the belt reinforcing structure is a composite belt structure having at least one pair of radially outer zigzag layers and at least one spirally wound belt layer with cords inclined at an inclination of 5 degrees or less relative to the tire's centerplane and located radially inward of and adjacent to the at least two radially outer belt layers. The at least two radially outer zigzag belt layers have cords inclined at 5 degrees to 30 degrees relative to the tire's centerplane and extending in alternation to turnaround points at each lateral edge of the belt layer. At each turnaround point the cords are folded or preferably bent to change direction across the crown of the carcass thus forming a zigzag cord path. | 8 |
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to a sleeve-type article carrier, and more particularly to an improved sleeve-type article carrier having dust flaps closing off a major portion of the end openings.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
A common type of article carrier often used to package twelve beverage cans is the sleeve-type carrier. Basically, there are two different kinds of sleeve-type carriers. One of them completely encloses the cans and is formed from a generally rectangular production blank which is folded and glued by the blank manufacturer to form the top, bottom and side panels. It is shipped in collapsed form to the bottler who opens the semi-formed blank into its sleeve shape, inserts the cans and glues together flaps foldably connected to the blank to form the end panels. Traditionally, some parts of the beverage industry prefer this style of sleeve-type carrier.
The other kind of sleeve-type carrier, which others in the beverage industry prefer, employs end panels which are formed from mechanically interlocked flaps rather than adhesively connected flaps. The flap locking means has tended toward relatively massive locking tabs and related cutouts to hold the end panel flaps securely in place against the stresses caused by shifting cans and rough handling. Very often an additional set of tabs is provided which are designed to interlock with the aperture remaining in the flap from which the main locking tabs were struck. To accommodate these mechanisms and to provide added strength at this area of expected stress, the end panel flaps have overlapped each other a substantial distance. Although these designs have performed adequately, it would be desirable to reduce the cost of the carrier by reducing the extent of the overlap and therefore the amount of paperboard used in producing a carrier blank without impairing the performance of the carrier.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
This invention provides a mechanical locking mechanism for the second style of sleeve-type carrier described above which reduces the amount of flap overlap and minimizes the width of the margin or web of material between the locking tabs and the nearest edge of their flap and also between the cutouts and the nearest edge of their flap. This is accomplished by using a locking tab arrangement in which the flap containing the cutout overlaps the flap containing the locking tab, and the locking tab extends through the cutout of the outer flap and through the aperture in the inner flap from which the locking tab was struck. The resulting locking mechanism, the only one employed, does not require a thick web of material at the extremities of the locking tabs or their cutouts and it still permits the flaps to be dimensioned and shaped so that adjacent rows of blanks can be cut from a sheet of stock without significant scrap loss, as has been done in the past in the manufacture of this style of sleeve-type carrier blank.
Other features and aspects of the invention will be made clear, as well as the various benefits of the invention, in the more detailed description of the invention which follows.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 is a pictorial representation of the sleeve-type carrier of the present invention;
FIG. 2 is a partial sectional view taken on line 2--2 of FIG. 1, further illustrating the locking mechanism of the carrier of the present invention; and
FIG. 3 is a plan view of a production blank for forming the carrier of the present invention.
DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
Referring to FIG. 1, sleeve-type carrier 10 comprises side panels 12 connected to top panel 14 by folds 16 and to bottom panel 18 by folds 20. A handle opening 22 extending transversely of the length of the carrier is shown in the top panel 14. This enables the person carrying the package to lift it by inserting his or her fingers into the opening. The particular type of handle employed is of no significance to this invention and could take any other functional form desired. For example, the so-called suitcase type handle could be used, wherein two spaced oblong openings in the top panel extend parallel to the length of the carrier, for receiving the thumb and fingers of the user.
The end panels 24 are comprised of flaps 26 and 28 foldably connected to the side panels 12 at 30 and 32, respectively. Locking tabs 34, attached to flap 26 by folds 36, are shown extending into cutouts 38 and being engaged by retaining tabs 40 which may be foldably connected to flap 28 at 42. As can be seen, the flaps 26 and 28 are similarly shaped and form gaps 44 and 46 between the end panels 24 and the top and bottom panels 14 and 18. Although the beverage cans 48 are visible at the gaps, they are solidly restrained by the end panels and are in no danger of breaking free. The purpose of this arrangement will be made clear in connection with the description of the production blank.
Referring to FIG. 3, production blank 50 is comprised of rectangular central section 14, corresponding to upper panel 14 of the carrier shown in FIG. 1, rectangular intermediate sections 12, corresponding to side panels 12 of the carrier, and rectangular end sections 52, which when glued together form lower panel 18 of the carrier. Intermediate sections 12 are connected to the central and end sections by score lines 16 and 20, respectively, which correspond to the folds 16 and 20 of the carrier of FIG. 1. As mentioned above, the handle opening 22, shown in the central section 14, need not take this particular form but could be any desired handle arrangement such as the well known suitcase type of handle described above. In that design each of the end sections of the blank usually receives one of the handle openings so that when the end sections are adhered to each other the resulting panel is the top panel. In such an arrangement the central section of the blank then becomes the bottom panel of the carrier. It should be understood that either arrangement can be used in the carrier and blank of the present invention.
Still referring to FIG. 3, dust flaps or end flaps 26, corresponding to the end flaps 26 of FIG. 1, are connected b score lines 30 to the opposite edges of one of the intermediate sections 12. Similarly, end flaps 28 are connected by score lines 30 to the opposite edges of the other intermediate section 12. The end flaps 26 carry locking tabs 34 which, upon the blank being folded at the score lines to form the carrier of FIG. 1, are received by cutouts 38 in the end flaps 28. The tabs 34, shown as having an arrowhead configuration which provides shoulders 56, are connected to the end flaps 26 by score lines 36 to facilitate their insertion into the cutouts. The retaining tabs 40, which are struck on three sides to create the cutouts 38, may be connected to the end flaps 28 by fold lines to facilitate bending back as the locking tabs are inserted into the cutouts. Alternatively, if the width of the retaining tabs is relatively narrow, no fold line need be provided, the low resistance to bending by the narrow retaining tab being enough to permit it to bend back sufficienty easily.
It can be seen that both the locking tabs and the cutouts are positioned close to the end margins of the flaps 26 and 28. By keeping the tabs and cutouts close to the end margins, but still allowing enough thickness of stock to prevent tearing, the distance the flaps extend from the side panels of the carrier can be minimized, thereby reducing the overall width of the production blank and as a result reducing the cost of the stock from which the carrier is made. Further, by making the locking tabs and cutouts as short as practicable, that is, by minimizing the distance they extend in the direction of their length,the amount of overlap required by the attachment of flap 26 to flap 28 is minimized. This too contributes to the ability to make the end flaps as short as possible without adversely affecting the ability of the carrier to securely hold beverage cans without tearing.
The reason why the narrowing of the blank, even by a relatively small amount is such an important cost reduction measure is because such narrowing results in a like amount of savings of stock. This is because there is virutally no scrap produced between the rows of blanks in the blank cutting operation. As can be seen in FIG. 3, the shape of the space bounded by the central section 14, the opposing margins of the proximate flaps 26 and 28, and a line connecting the outermost margins of the flaps is identical in size and shape to the flaps themselves. Thus, as shown by the phantom lines, the flap of an identical blank would occupy this space as the blanks are cut from sheet stock, enabling multiple rows of blanks to be produced without interior scrap loss. This makes the width of the top panel of the carrier equal to the height of the flaps at their outermost extremities. While this type of relationship is known in the art, it is important that the locking mechanism of the present invention not interfere with this arrangement. It is clear from the description and drawings that the shortening of the flaps, and thus the narrowing of the blank does not prevent this arrangement.
Referring to FIG. 2, it can be seen that the end portion of the flap 28, which contains the cutout 38, overlaps the end portion of the flap 26 so that the arrowhead portion of the locking tab 34 overlies the cutout. The tab 34 will have been bent back about its fold line to permit the flap 28 to directly overlie the flap 26. The tab is then inserted into the cutout, pushing back retaining tab 40 in the process, and extending through the opening in the flap 26 produced as a result of the locking tab 34 having been struck from the flap 26 during creation of the locking tab in the die cutting operation. It is understood that the widest part of the arrowhead formation of the locking tab is slightly wider than the width of the cutout so that after having been forced or squeezed through the cutout, the shoulders 56 of the locking tab will assist in preventing the locking tab from being pulled out of the cutout.
In practice, the cutouts and the locking tabs can be quite small and still provide sufficient holding power to keep the end flaps from disengaging. Also, the width of the web of material between the ends of the locking tabs and cutouts and the outer edge of the flaps can be quite small and still not tear during handling. For example, in one working embodiment the locking tabs and cutouts were only 1/4 inch from the outer edge of the flaps. The cutouts were 5/8 inch square and the locking tabs were approximately one inch long.
By this arrangement the overlapping end flap is securely held tight against the other end flap by the locking tabs in a very simple yet highly effective and economical design. Complicated locking arrangements to effect this result are avoided, and without the need for long end flaps or wide webs between the tabs or cutouts and the outer edges of the flaps the resulting shorter end flaps allow the economies discussed previously. Further, no other type of locking mechanism other than the mechanism described herein is needed to accomplish the task of holding the flaps securely in place.
It should be understood that the specific shape of the end flaps can be other than that shown, as long as the relationship between the width of the top panel and the height of the outermost edge of the end flaps is maintained to enable adjacent rows of blanks to be cut from sheet stock with no scrap produced between common blank edges.
It should further be obvious that although a preferred embodiment of the invention has been described, it is possible to make changes to certain specific details without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. | A sleeve-type beverage can carrier having end dust flaps which mechanically interlock by means of locking tabs and cutouts. The flap containing the cutouts overlaps the flap containing the locking tabs so that the cutouts and tabs are aligned. The locking tab is folded back to allow the flap with the cutouts to be moved into place, then is inserted through the cutout and also through the portion of the bottom flap from which the locking tab was struck. This provides a secure mechanical lock. In addition, the blank from which the carrier is formed is designed so that the space between dust flaps is identical in shape to that of the dust flaps. This allows multiple widths of blanks to be cut from the sheet stock without scrap loss. | 8 |
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
[0001] The present application is a continuation of International Application No. PCT/EP02/11995 filed Oct. 26, 2002, the entire disclosure whereof is expressly incorporated by reference herein, which claims priority under 35 U.S.C. § 119 of German Patent Application No. 101 54 627.0, filed Nov. 7, 2001.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0002] 1. Field of the Invention
[0003] The present invention relates to cosmetic and dermatological tissues which are moistened with highly liquid cosmetic and dermatological impregnation solutions—in particular with highly liquid cosmetic and dermatological water-in-oil emulsions (W/O emulsions) which are long-term stable. In particular, the invention relates to cosmetic and dermatological impregnated, optionally surface-structured, care, cleansing and deodorant tissues, and impregnated tissues for the control and prevention of skin diseases (such as acne, sunburn etc.) and those which specifically care for the skin after sunbathing and decrease the after-reactions of the skin to the action of UV radiation. The present invention further relates to impregnation solutions which are suitable for the impregnation of tissues of this type.
[0004] 2. Discussion of Background Information
[0005] Impregnated tissues are widely used in all sorts of areas as articles of everyday necessity. Inter alia, they allow efficient and skin-caring cleansing and care, particularly also in the absence of (running) water. Here, the actual article of daily use consists of two components:
a) a dry tissue, which is constructed from the materials such as paper and/or all sorts of mixtures of natural or synthetic fibers, and b) a low-viscosity impregnation solution.
[0008] Cosmetic or dermatological tissues can consist either of water-soluble (e.g. such as toilet paper) or of water-insoluble materials. The tissues can further be smooth or alternatively surface-structured. Surface-structured tissues are produced, for example, based on cellulose and are used in particular as household tissues and for perianal cleansing. Their structure is produced by mechanical embossing by means of calendering rolls. Tissues of this type have a low resistance to tearing with at the same time great roughness and hardness. They are therefore only limitedly suitable for use on the human skin.
[0009] Conventional impregnation solutions for water-insoluble nonwoven materials have hitherto had the deficiency of low long-term stability. Emulsions of this type are prone, in particular at high environmental temperature, to phase separation, which is a crucial disadvantage for the impregnation process and also for the final quality of the end product.
[0010] The long-term stability of known impregnation solutions is in general guaranteed by the use of increased emulsifier concentrations and also high energy input—for example on repeated homogenization.
[0011] It would be desirable to have available impregnation solutions which are stable long-term for application to water-insoluble nonwoven materials, which do not exhibit the disadvantages of the prior art and which are highly liquid emulsions which are stable long-term even at low emulsifier contents, which have to be homogenized only slightly and can contain more caring lipids and water-insoluble active ingredients.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0012] The present invention provides a cosmetic or dermatological tissue which comprises a water-insoluble nonwoven which is impregnated and/or moistened with a cosmetic or dermatological W/O emulsion. This emulsion comprises (a) a water phase, (b) at least one oil phase which comprises one or more oils and/or one or more lipids and (c) an emulsifier system of
(A) at least one O/W emulsifier having an HLB value of >10; (B) at least one silicone emulsifier (W/S) having an HLB value of ≦8, and/or (C) at least one W/O emulsifier having an HLB value of <7.
The emulsion has a viscosity of less than 2,000 mPa·s and a silicone oil content of not more 25% by weight.
[0017] In one aspect of the tissue, the weight ratio of the nonwoven and the W/O emulsion may be from 5:1 to 1:5.
[0018] In another aspect, the nonwoven may comprise a structured nonwoven.
[0019] In yet another aspect, the nonwoven may comprise an unstructured nonwoven.
[0020] In a still further aspect of the tissue, the nonwoven may comprise a jet consolidated nonwoven and/or a water jet-embossed nonwoven.
[0021] In another aspect, the nonwoven may have a thickness of from 0.4 mm to 1.5 mm and/or an area weight of from 35 to 120 g/m 2 . For example, the nonwoven may have a thickness of from 0.6 mm to 0.9 mm and an area weight of from 40 to 60 g/m 2 .
[0022] In another aspect, the nonwoven may comprise fibers of a mixture of 70% by weight of viscose and 30% by weight of polyethylene terephthalate.
[0023] In yet another aspect, the nonwoven may comprise fibers which have a water absorption rate of more than 60 mm/10 min and/or a water absorption capacity of more than 5 g/g, e.g., a water absorption rate of more than 80 mm/10 min and/or a water absorption capacity of more than 8 g/g.
[0024] In another aspect of the present invention, the at least one silicone emulsifier B may comprise an alkylmethicone copolyol and/or an alkyl dimethicone copolyol. For example, the at least one silicone emulsifier B may comprise an emulsifier of the formula
in which X and Y independently represent H, a branched or unbranched alkyl group, an acyl group and an alkoxy group having 1-24 carbon atoms, p is a number of from 0-200, q is a number of from 1-40, and r is a number of from 1-100.
[0026] In a still further aspect of the issue of the present invention, the at least one W/O emulsifier C may comprise at least one polyglycerol emulsifier.
[0027] In another aspect, the at least one O/W emulsifier A may comprise at an ethoxylated polysorbate and/or an ethoxylated stearate and/or a phosphate emulsifier and/or a sulfate emulsifier.
[0028] In another aspect, the emulsion may comprise a total concentration of A, B and C of from 0.1% to 15% by weight, e.g., of from 0.5% to 10% by weight, or of from 2% to 10% by weight.
[0029] In yet another aspect, the weight ratio A:B:C is expressed as a:b:c and a, b and c may be rational numbers of from 1 to 5, preferably of from 1 to 3.
[0030] In another aspect, the emulsion may comprise from 0.5% to 5.0% by weight of the at least one silicone emulsifier B.
[0031] In another aspect of the tissue of the present invention, the emulsion may comprise at least 2% by weight of one or more silicone oils which comprise a cyclic silicone and/or a linear silicone and/or a derivative thereof.
[0032] In yet another aspect, the emulsion may comprise from 2% to 25% by weight of at least one silicone oil, e.g., from 5% to 20% by weight, or from 10% to 20% by weight of at least one silicone oil.
[0033] In a still further aspect, the at least one oil phase may comprise a polar oil and/or a carboxylic acid ester, and/or a dialkyl ether and/or a dialkyl carbonate. For example, the at least one oil phase may comprise a C 12-15 alkyl benzoate.
[0034] In another aspect, the emulsion may comprise from 1% to 90% by weight of the at least one oil phase, e.g., from 2.5% to 80% by weight, or from 5% to 70% by weight of the at least one oil phase.
[0035] In another aspect, the emulsion may further comprise at least one light protection filter which is selected from oil-soluble and water-soluble light protection filters. The at least one light protection filter may comprise one or more UV filters, e.g., a triazine, a sulfonated UV filter, a UV filter which is liquid at room temperature, an inorganic pigment and/or a benzotriazole. Preferably, the one or more UV filters may comprise at least one of 2,4-bis{[4-(2-ethylhexyloxy)2-hydroxy]phenyl}-6-(4-methoxyphenyl)-1,3,5-triazine, dioctylbutylamidotriazine, 4,4′,4″-(1,3,5-triazine-2,4,6-triyltriimino)trisbenzoic acid tris(2-ethylhexyl ester), phenylene-1,4-bis(2-benzimidazyl)-3,3′,5,5′-tetrasulfonic acid bis sodium salt, 2-phenylbenzimidazole-5-sulfonic acid, terephthalidene dicamphorsulfonic acid, 4-methoxycinnamic acid (2-ethylhexyl)ester, 2-ethylhexyl-2-cyano-3,3-diphenyl acrylate, 2-ethylhexyl 2-hydroxy-benzoate, homomenthyl salicylate, TiO 2 , ZnO, 2,2′-methylenebis(6-(2H-benzotriazol-2-yl)-4-( 1,1,3,3-tetramethylbutyl)phenol, and 2-(2H-benzotriazol-2-yl)-4-methyl-6-[2-methyl-3-[1,3,3,3-tetramethyl[(trimethylsilyl)oxy]disiloxanyl]propyl]-phenol.
[0036] In another aspect, the emulsion may further comprise an additive and an active ingredient. For example, the emulsion may further comprise a repellent, a self-tanning agent and/or a pigment.
[0037] In another aspect, the emulsion may further comprise vitamin E and/or a derivative thereof and/or α-glycosylrutin and/or a derivative thereof.
[0038] In yet another aspect, the emulsion may further comprise at least one component selected from moisturizers, waxes, surfactants, preservatives, antioxidants, dyes, plant extracts, deodorants, antiperspirants, dermatologically active ingredients, and perfumes.
[0039] In a still further aspect, the emulsion may have a high water resistance.
[0040] The present invention also provides various products which comprise the tissue of the present invention, e.g., a skin care product, an insect repellent, a self-tanning product, a sunscreen product, a product for the treatment or prophylaxis of light-related skin ageing, a skin moisturizing product, a baby care product and a skin cleansing product.
[0041] The present invention also provides the above O/W emulsion for use in the production of the tissue of the present invention, including the various aspects thereof.
[0042] The present invention further provides a process for manufacturing the tissue of the present invention. This process comprises providing a water-insoluble nonwoven and impregnating and/or moistening the nonwoven with the W/O emulsion of the present invention.
[0043] It is surprising that cosmetic and dermatological tissues comprising a water-insoluble nonwoven which is impregnated or moistened with cosmetic and dermatological W/O impregnation emulsions, which in addition to further cosmetic/dermatological additives or excipients has an emulsifier system of
A at least one O/W emulsifier having an HLB of >10, B at least one silicone emulsifier (W/S) having an HLB of ≦8 and/or C at least one W/O emulsifier having an HLB of <7
and a viscosity of less than 2000 mPa.s, a silicone oil content of not more than 25% by weight (based on the total weight of the preparation) and one or more oil phases comprising lipids and/or oils, may remedy the disadvantages of the prior art.
[0048] The tissues according to the invention represent the combination of a soft, water-insoluble, nonwoven material with highly liquid cosmetic and dermatological W/O impregnation emulsions. They are extremely satisfactory in every respect and are accordingly very particularly suitable for use as a basis for preparation forms having a variety of application purposes. The tissues according to the invention exhibit very good sensory and cosmetic properties and are further distinguished by outstanding skin care data.
[0049] The nonwoven material is preferably consolidated by jets of water in the production process as a spunlace material. The tissues according to the invention can be either structured or unstructured (“smooth”). If the material is to be the structured, the structuring is advantageously likewise carried out by means of jets of water. By means of this structuring, for example, a uniform sequence of elevations and depressions results in the material.
[0050] In combination with suitable impregnation solutions, this structuring by means of its elevations makes possible both a better access to hollows in the human skin and by means of its structural valleys to an increased dirt absorption capacity. This leads overall to a markedly improved cleansing power.
[0051] A better access to depressions in the human skin is moreover of particular importance for the control of skin diseases and skin irritations, and for the effective display of a deodorant action.
[0052] Depending on the tissue employed, the weight ratio of the unimpregnated tissue to the W/O emulsion is may be in the range of from 5:1 to 1:5. By means of this, drip-free application of the impregnated tissue is guaranteed.
[0053] In particular, structured cosmetic or dermatological tissues are therefore preferred according to the invention.
[0054] The cosmetic and dermatological W/O impregnation emulsions with which the tissues according to the invention are moistened can be present in various forms.
[0055] They are preferably highly liquid to sprayable and have, for example, a viscosity of less than 2000 mPa·s, in particular of less than 1500 mPa·s (measuring apparatus: Haake Viskotester VT-02 at 25° C.).
[0056] The preparations according to the invention are extremely satisfactory preparations in every respect. In particular, it was surprising that the emulsions produced from the preparations according to the invention have a high solubility for UV filters from the group of the triazines and thus the achievement of a high UVA & UVB protection factor is possible. In addition, repellents and also self-tanning substances (e.g. dihydroxyacetone) can be stably incorporated in these novel W/O emulsions.
[0057] Accordingly, preparations within the meaning of the present invention are very particularly suitable for use as a basis for product forms having a variety of application purposes.
[0058] Impregnation emulsions according to the invention can also contain only one of the emulsifiers B and C—depending on the content of silicone oils and lipids—in addition to the O/W emulsifier A.
[0059] According to the invention, the silicone emulsifiers B can advantageously be selected from the group of the alkylmethicone copolyols and/or alkyldimethicone copolyols, in particular from the group of compounds which are characterized by the following chemical structure:
in which X and Y are chosen independently of one another from the group consisting of H (hydrogen), and the branched and unbranched alkyl groups, acyl groups and alkoxy groups having 1-24 carbon atoms, p is a number from 0-200, q is a number from 1-40, and r is a number from 1-100.
[0061] An example of silicone emulsifiers to be used particularly advantageously within the meaning of the present invention are dimethicone copolyols which are marketed by the company Th. Goldschmidt AG under the trade names ABIL® B 8842, ABIL® B 8843, ABIL® B 8847, ABIL® B 8851, ABIL® B 8852, ABIL® B 8863, ABIL® B 8873 and ABIL® B 88183.
[0062] A further example of interface-active substances to be used particularly advantageously within the meaning of the present invention is cetyl dimethicone copolyol which is marketed by the company Goldschmidt AG under the trade name ABIL® EM 90.
[0063] A further example of interface-active substances to be used particularly advantageously within the meaning of the present invention is dimethicone copolyol cyclomethicone which is marketed by the company Goldschmidt AG under the trade name ABIL® EM 97.
[0064] Furthermore, the emulsifier laurylmethicone copolyol which is obtainable under the trade name Dow Corning® 5200 Formulation Aid from the company Dow Corning Ltd. has turned out to be very particularly advantageous.
[0065] A further advantageous silicone emulsifier is ‘Octyl Dimethicone Ethoxy Glucoside’ from Wacker.
[0066] The total amount of silicone emulsifiers B used according to the invention in the cosmetic or dermatological preparations according to the invention is advantageously in the range of from 0.1-10.0% by weight, preferably 0.5-5.0% by weight, based on the total weight of the preparations.
[0067] According to the invention, the W/O emulsifier(s) C are preferably chosen from the following group: sorbitan stearate, sorbitan oleate, lecithin, glyceryl lanolate, lanolin, microcrystalline wax (Cera microcristallina) as a mixture with paraffin oil (liquid paraffin), ozocerite, hydrogenated castor oil, glyceryl isostearate, polyglyceryl 3-oleate, wool wax acid mixtures, wool wax alcohol mixtures, pentaerithrityl isostearate, polyglyceryl 3-diiso-stearate, sorbitan oleate as a mixture with hydrogenated castor oil, beeswax (Cera alba) and stearic acid, sodium dihydroxycetyl phosphate as a mixture with isopropyl hydroxycetyl ether, methyl glucose dioleate, methyl diglucose dioleate as a mixture with hydroxystearate and beeswax, mineral oil as a mixture with petrolatum and ozocerite and glyceryl oleate and lanolin alcohol, petrolatum as a mixture with ozocerite and hydrogenated castor oil and glyceryl isostearate and polyglyceryl 3-oleate, PEG-7 hydrogenated castor oil, sorbitan oleate as a mixture with PEG-2 hydrogenated castor oil, ozocerite and hydrogenated castor oil, sorbitan isostearate as a mixture with PEG-2 hydrogenated castor oil, polyglyceryl 4-isostearate, polyglyceryl 4-isostearate, hexyl laurate, acrylate/C 10-30 -alkyl acrylate crosspolymer, sorbitan isostearate, poloxamer 101, polyglyceryl 2-dipolyhydroxystearate, polyglyceryl 3-diisostearate, polyglyceryl 4-dipolyhydroxystearate, PEG-30 dipolyhydroxystearate, diisostearoyl polyglyceryl 3-diisostearate, polyglyceryl 2-dipolyhydroxystearate, polyglyceryl 3-dipolyhydroxystearate, polyglyceryl 4-dipolyhydroxystearate, polyglyceryl 3-dioleate.
[0068] According to the invention, the O/W emulsifier(s) A are preferably chosen from the following group: Glyceryl stearate as a mixture with ceteareth-20, ceteareth-25, ceteareth-6 as a mixture with stearyl alcohol, cetyl stearyl alcohol as a mixture with PEG-40 castor oil and sodium cetyl stearyl sulfate, triceteareth 4-phosphate, glyceryl stearate, sodium cetyl stearyl sulfate, lecithin trilaureth-4 phosphate, laureth-4 phosphate, stearic acid, propylene glycol stearate SE, PEG-25 hydrogenated castor oil, PEG-54 hydrogenated castor oil, PEG-6 caprylic acid/capric acid glycerides, glyceryl oleate as a mixture with propylene glycol, PEG-9 stearate, PEG-20 stearate, PEG-30 stearate, PEG-40 stearate, PEG-100 stearate, ceteth-2, ceteth-20, polysorbate-20, polysorbate-60, polysorbate-65, polysorbate-100, glyceryl stearate as a mixture with PEG-100 stearate, glyceryl myristate, glyceryl laurate, PEG-40 sorbitan peroleate, laureth-4, ceteareth-3, isostearyl glyceryl ether, cetyl stearyl alcohol as a mixture with sodium cetyl stearyl sulfate, laureth-23, steareth-2, glyceryl stearate as a mixture with PEG-30 stearate, PEG-40 stearate, glycol distearate, PEG-22 dodecyl glycol copolymer, polyglyceryl-2 PEG-4 stearate, ceteareth-12, ceteareth-20, ceteareth-30, methyl glucose sesquistearate, steareth-10, PEG-20 stearate, steareth-2 as a mixture with PEG-8 distearate, steareth-21, steareth-20, isosteareth-20, PEG-45/dodecyl glycol copolymer, methoxy-PEG-22/dodecyl glycol copolymer, PEG-40 sorbitan peroleate, PEG-40 sorbitan perisostearate, PEG-20 glyceryl stearate, PEG-20 glyceryl stearate, PEG-8 beeswax, polyglyceryl 2-laurate, isostearyl diglyceryl succinate, stearamidopropyl-PG dimonium chloride phosphate, glyceryl stearate SE, ceteth-20, triethyl citrate, PEG-20 methyl glucose sesquistearate, glyceryl stearate citrate, cetyl phosphate, cetearyl sulfate, sorbitan sesquioleate, triceteareth 4-phosphate, trilaureth 4-phosphate, polyglyceryl methylglucose distearate, potassium cetyl phosphate, isostearate-10, polyglyceryl 2-sesquiisostearate, ceteth-10, oleth-20, isoceteth-20, glyceryl stearate as a mixture with ceteareth-20, ceteareth-12, cetyl stearyl alcohol and cetyl palmitate, cetyl stearyl alcohol as a mixture with PEG-20 stearate, PEG-30 stearate, PEG-40 stearate, PEG-100 stearate.
[0069] It is advantageous according to the invention to choose the weight ratios of coemulsifier A to emulsifier B to emulsifier C (A:B:C) as a:b:c, where a, b and c independently of one another can be rational numbers from 1 to 5, preferably from 1 to 3. A weight ratio of approximately 1:2:1 is particularly preferred.
[0070] It is advantageous within the meaning of the present invention to choose the total amount of the emulsifiers A, B and C from the range from 0.1 to 15% by weight, advantageously from 0.5 to 10% by weight, in particular from 2 to 10% by weight, in each case based on the total weight of the formulation.
[heading-0071] Silicone Oils
[0072] It is preferred to choose the oil phase of the preparations according to the invention to at least 2.0% by weight, based on the total weight of the preparations, from the group of the cyclic and/or linear silicones, which in the context of the present disclosure are also designated as “silicone oils”. Such silicones or silicone oils can be present as monomers, which as a rule are characterized by structural elements as follows:
[0073] Linear silicones to be employed advantageously according to the invention having a number of siloxyl units are in general characterized by the following structural element:
where the silicon atoms can be substituted by identical or different alkyl radicals and/or aryl radicals, which are represented here in general terms by the radicals R 1 -R 4 (i.e., the number of the different radicals is not necessarily restricted to up to 4). m can in this case assume values from 2-200,000.
[0075] Cyclic silicones to be employed advantageously according to the invention are in general characterized by the following structural element
where the silicon atoms can be substituted by identical or different alkyl radicals and/or aryl radicals, which are represented here in general terms by the radicals R 1 -R 4 (i.e., the number of the different radicals is not necessarily restricted to up to 4). n can in this case assume values from 3/2 to 20. Fractional values for n take into consideration that odd-numbered numbers of siloxyl groups can be present in the cycle.
[0077] Advantageously, phenyl trimethicone is chosen as the silicone oil. Other silicone oils, such as, for example, dimethicone, phenyl dimethicone, cyclomethicone (for example hexamethylcyclotrisiloxane, octamethylcyclotetrasiloxane, cyclopentasiloxane, cyclo-hexasiloxane, and mixtures of these components), polydimethylsiloxane, poly-(methylphenylsiloxane), cetyl dimethicone, behenoxy dimethicone can also be used advantageously within the meaning of the present invention. Mixtures of cyclo-methicone and isotridecyl isononanoate, and those of cyclomethicone and 2-ethyl-hexyl isostearate are furthermore advantageous.
[0078] It is, however, also advantageous to choose silicone oils of similar constitution to the above-designated compounds, whose organic side chains are derivatized, for example polyethoxylated and/or polypropoxylated. These include, for example, polysiloxane-polyalkyl-polyether copolymers such as cetyl dimethicone copolyol, (cetyl dimethicone copolyol (and) polyglyceryl 4-isostearate (and) hexyl laurate).
[0079] Advantageously, cyclomethicone is employed as the silicone oil to be used according to the invention. However, other silicone oils can also be used advantageously within the meaning of the present invention, for example dimethicone (polydimethyl-siloxane) and also phenyl trimethicone or combinations of the substances mentioned here.
[0080] It is advantageous within the meaning of the present invention to restrict the total amount of the silicone oils to 2 to 25% by weight. According to the invention, a total amount of the silicone oils of 5 to 20% by weight and very particularly a total amount of 10 to 15% by weight—always based on the total amount—is particularly advantageous.
[0081] Advantageously, the oil phase can further contain cyclic or linear silicone oils or consist completely of such oils, where, however, it is preferred to use, aside from the silicone oil or the silicone oils, an additional content of other oil-phase components.
[heading-0082] Oil Phase/Lipids
[0083] The oil phase of the formulations according to the invention is advantageously chosen from polar oils, for example from lecithins and fatty acid triglycerides, especially the triglycerol esters of saturated and/or unsaturated, branched and/or unbranched alkanecarboxylic acids of a chain length of 8 to 24, in particular 12 to 18, carbon atoms. The fatty acid triglycerides can, for example, be chosen advantageously from synthetic, semisynthetic and natural oils, such as, for example, coconut glyceride, olive oil, sunflower oil, soybean oil, peanut oil, rapeseed oil, almond oil, palm oil, coconut oil, castor oil, wheatgerm oil, grapeseed oil, thistle oil, evening primrose oil, macadamia nut oil and the like.
[0084] Further advantageous polar oil components can be chosen within the meaning of the present invention further from the esters of saturated and/or unsaturated, branched and/or unbranched alkanecarboxylic acids of a chain length of 3 to 30 carbon atoms and saturated and/or unsaturated, branched and/or unbranched alcohols of a chain length of 3 to 30 carbon atoms, and from the esters of aromatic carboxylic acids and saturated and/or unsaturated, branched and/or unbranched alcohols of a chain length of 3 to 30 carbon atoms. Such ester oils can then advantageously be chosen from octyl palmitate, octyl cocoate, octyl isostearate, octyl dodecyl myristate, cetearyl isononanoate, isopropyl myristate, isopropyl palmitate, isopropyl stearate, isopropyl oleate, n-butyl stearate, n-hexyl laurate, n-decyl oleate, isooctyl stearate, isononyl stearate, isononyl isononanoate, 2-ethylhexyl palmitate, 2-ethylhexyl laurate, 2-hexyldecyl stearate, 2-octyldodecyl palmitate, stearoyl heptanoate, oleyl oleate, oleyl erucate, erucyl oleate, erucyl erucate, tridecyl stearate, tridecyl trimellitate, and also synthetic, semisynthetic and natural mixtures of such esters, such as, for example, jojoba oil.
[0085] Furthermore, the oil phase can be advantageously chosen from dialkyl ethers and dialkyl carbonates; for example, dicaprylyl ether (Cetiol OE) and/or dicaprylyl carbonate, for example that obtainable under the trade name Cetiol CC from Cognis, are advantageous.
[0086] It is further preferred the oil component(s) from isoeicosane, neopentyl glycol diheptanoate, propylene glycol dicaprylate/dicaprate, caprylic/capric/diglyceryl succinate, butylene glycol dicaprylate/dicaprate, C 12-13 -alkyl lactate, di-C 12-13 -alkyl tartrate, triisostearin, dipentaerithrityl hexacaprylate/hexa-caprate, propylene glycol monoisostearate, tricaprylin, dimethyl isosorbide. It is particularly advantageous if the oil phase of the formulations according to the invention contains C 12-15 -alkyl benzoate or consists completely of this.
[0087] Any desired mixtures of such oil and wax components can also be employed advantageously within the meaning of the present invention.
[0088] Furthermore, the oil phase can likewise advantageously also contain nonpolar oils, for example those which are chosen from branched and unbranched hydrocarbons and hydrocarbon waxes, in particular mineral oil, petroleum jelly (petrolatum), paraffin oil, squalane and squalene, polyolefins, hydrogenated polyisobutenes and isohexadecane. Among the polyolefins, polydecenes are the preferred substances.
[0089] The lipid(s) are chosen according to the invention from the natural and/or synthetic lipids. The following are preferably used: C 12 -C 15 alkyl benzoate, capric/caprylic triglyceride, butylene glycol dicaprylate/dicaprate, octyl dodecanol, dicaprylyl carbonate, dicaprylyl carbonate, dicaprylyl ether, mineral oil, coconut glycerides.
[0090] Mixtures of cyclomethicone, dicaprylyl carbonate and C 12-15 -alkyl benzoate and of cyclomethicone, dimethicone, butylene glycol dicaprylate/dicaprate, dicaprylyl carbonate and mineral oil are furthermore particularly advantageous.
[0091] Advantageously, the content of the fatty phase is between 1 and 80% by weight, based on the total weight of the preparations, preferably 2.5-70% by weight, in particular 5-60% by weight.
[heading-0092] Water Phase
[0093] The aqueous phase of the preparations according to the invention optionally advantageously contains alcohols, diols or polyols of low carbon number, and also their ethers, preferably ethanol, isopropanol, propylene glycol, glycerol, butylene glycol, ethylene glycol, ethylhexyl glycerol, ethylene glycol monoethyl or monobutyl ether, propylene glycol monomethyl, monoethyl or monobutyl ether, diethylene glycol monomethyl or monoethyl ether and analogous products, furthermore alcohols of low carbon number, e.g. ethanol, isopropanol, 1,2-propanediol, glycerol and also in particular one or more thickening agents which can advantageously be chosen from the group consisting of silicon dioxide, aluminum silicates, polysaccharides and their derivatives, e.g. hyaluronic acid, xanthan gum, hydroxypropylmethylcellulose, particularly advantageously from the group consisting of the polyacrylates, preferably a polyacrylate from the group consisting of the “carbopols”, for example carbopols of the types 980, 981, 1382, 2984, 5984, in each case individually or in combination.
[0094] Advantageous preservatives within the meaning of the present invention are, for example, formaldehyde-cleaving agents (such as, for example, DMDM hydantoin [e.g. Glydant®]), iodopropyl butylcarbamate (e.g. obtainable under the trade names Glycacil-L or Glycacil-L and Konkaben LMB from Lonza), parabens, phenoxy-ethanol, ethanol, benzoic acid and suchlike. Customarily, according to the invention the preservative system advantageously also contains preservation aids, such as, for example, ethylhexyloxyglycerol, Glycine soja etc.
[0095] In addition, humectants or “moisturizers” can be present.
[0096] Moisturizers are designated as substances or substance mixtures which impart to cosmetic or dermatological preparations the property, after the application to or dispersion on the skin surface, of reducing the release of moisture from the horny layer (also called trans-epidermal water loss (TEWL)) and/or of positively influencing the hydration of the horny layer.
[0097] Advantageous moisturizers within the meaning of the present invention are, for example, glycerol, lactic acid, pyrrolidonecarboxylic acid and urea. Furthermore, it is particularly advantageous to use polymeric moisturizers from the group consisting of the polysaccharides which are water-soluble and/or swellable in water and/or gellable with the aid of water. Those particularly advantageous are, for example, hyaluronic acid, chitosan and/or a fucose-rich polysaccharide, which is deposited in the Chemical Abstracts under the registry number 178463-23-5 and is obtainable, for example, under the name Fucogel® 1000 from SOLABIA S.A.
[0098] The cosmetic or dermatological preparations according to the invention can furthermore advantageously, even though not compulsorily, contain fillers which, for example, further improve the sensory and cosmetic properties of the formulations and, for example, produce or increase a velvety or silky skin sensation. Advantageous fillers within the meaning of the present invention are starch and starch derivatives (such as, for example, tapioca starch, distarch phosphate, aluminum or sodium starch octenylsuccinate and the like), pigments which have neither mainly UV filter nor coloring action (such as, for example, boron nitride etc.) and/or Aerosils® (CAS No. 7631-86-9).
[heading-0099] Excipients
[0100] The compositions according to the invention can further optionally contain additives customary in cosmetics, for example perfume, thickeners, deodorants, antimicrobial substances, refatting agents, complexing and sequestering agents (e.g. EDTA, imino disuccinic acid), pearl luster agents, plant extracts, vitamins, active ingredients, preservatives, bactericides, colorants, pigments which have a coloring action, thickening agents, moisturizing and/or humectant substances, fats, oils, waxes or other customary constituents of a cosmetic or dermatological formulation such as alcohols, polyols, polymers, foam stabilizers, electrolytes, organic solvents or silicone derivatives.
[heading-0101] Dyes
[0102] The cosmetic and dermatological preparations according to the invention can contain dyes and/or color pigments, in particular if they are present in the form of decorative cosmetics. The dyes and color pigments can be selected from the corresponding positive list of the Cosmetics Order or the EC list of cosmetic dyes. In most cases, they are identical to the dyes permitted for foodstuffs.
[0103] Advantageous color pigments are, for example, titanium dioxide, mica, iron oxides (e.g. Fe 2 O 3 , Fe 3 O 4 , FeO(OH)) and/or tin oxide.
[0104] Advantageous dyes are, for example, carmine, Prussian blue, chromic oxide green, ultramarine blue and/or manganese violet. It is particularly advantageous to choose the dyes and/or color pigments from the following list. The Colour Index numbers (CIN) are taken from the Rowe Colour Index, 3 rd edition, Society of Dyers and Colourists, Bradford, England, 1971.
Chemical or other name CIN Colour Pigment Green 10006 green Acid Green 1 10020 green 2,4-Dinitrohydroxynaphthalene-7-sulfo acid 10316 yellow Pigment Yellow 1 11680 yellow Pigment Yellow 3 11710 yellow Pigment Orange 1 11725 orange 2,4-Dihydroxyazobenzene 11920 orange Solvent Red 3 12010 red 1-(2′-Chloro-4′-nitro-1′-phenylazo)-2-hydroxynaphthalene 12085 red Pigment Red 3 12120 red Ceresrot; Sudan Red; Fettrot G 12150 red Pigment Red 112 12370 red Pigment Red 7 12420 red Pigment Brown 1 12480 brown 4-(2′-Methoxy-5′-sulfo acid diethylamide-1′-phenylazo)-3- 12490 red hydroxy-5″-chloro-2″,4″-dimethoxy-2-naphthoic acid anilide Disperse Yellow 16 12700 yellow 1-(4-Sulfo-1-phenylazo)-4-aminobenzene-5-sulfo acid 13015 yellow 2,4-Dihydroxyazobenzene-4′-sulfo acid 14270 orange 2-(2,4-Dimethylphenylazo-5-sulfo acid)-1-hydroxynaphthalene- 14700 red 4-sulfo acid 2-(4-Sulfo-1-naphthylazo)-1-naphthol-4-sulfo acid 14720 red 2-(6-Sulfo-2,4-xylylazo)-1-naphthol-5-sulfo acid 14815 red 1-(4′-Sulfophenylazo)-2-hydroxynaphthalene 15510 orange 1-(2-Sulfo acid-4-chloro-5-carboxylic acid-1-phenylazo)- 15525 red 2-hydroxynaphthalene 1-(3-Methylphenylazo-4-sulfo acid)-2-hydroxynaphthalene 15580 red 1-(4′,(8′)-Sulfo acid naphthylazo)-2-hydroxynaphthalene 15620 red 2-Hydroxy-1,2′-azonaphthalene-1′-sulfo acid 15630 red 3-Hydroxy-4-phenylazo-2-naphthylcarboxylic acid 15800 red 1-(2-Sulfo-4-methyl-1-phenylazo)-2-naphthylcarboxylic acid 15850 red 1-(2-Sulfo-4-methyl-5-chloro-1-phenylazo)-2-hydroxy- 15865 red naphthalene-3-carboxylic acid 1-(2-Sulfo-1-naphthylazo)-2-hydroxynaphthalene-3-carboxylic 15880 red acid 1-(3-Sulfo-1-phenylazo)-2-naphthol-6-sulfo acid 15980 orange 1-(4-Sulfo-1-phenylazo)-2-naphthol-6-sulfo acid 15985 yellow Allura Red 16035 red 1-(4-Sulfo-1-naphthylazo)-2-naphthol-3,6-disulfo acid 16185 red Acid Orange 10 16230 orange 1-(4-Sulfo-1-naphthylazo)-2-naphthol-6,8-disulfo acid 16255 red 1-(4-Sulfo-1-naphthylazo)-2-naphthol-3,6,8-trisulfo acid 16290 red 8-Amino-2-phenylazo-1-naphthol-3,6-disulfo acid 17200 red Acid Red 1 18050 red Acid Red 155 18130 red Acid Yellow 121 18690 yellow Acid Red 180 18736 red Acid Yellow 11 18820 yellow Acid Yellow 17 18965 yellow 4-(4-Sulfo-1-phenylazo)-1-(4-sulfophenyl)-5-hydroxypyrazolone- 19140 yellow 3-carboxylic acid Pigment Yellow 16 20040 yellow 2,6-(4′-Sulfo-2″,4″-dimethyl)bisphenylazo)1,3-dihydroxy- 20170 orange benzene Acid Black 1 20470 black Pigment Yellow 13 21100 yellow Pigment Yellow 83 21108 yellow Solvent Yellow 21230 yellow Acid Red 163 24790 red Acid Red 73 27290 red 2-[4′-(4″-Sulfo-1″-phenylazo)-7′-sulfo-1′-naphthylazo]-1-hydroxy- 27755 black 7-aminonaphthalene-3,6-disulfo acid 4′-[(4″-Sulfo-1″-phenylazo)-7′-sulfo-1′-naphthylazo]-1-hydroxy-8- 28440 black acetylaminonaphthalene-3,5-disulfo acid Direct Orange 34, 39, 44, 46, 60 40215 orange Food Yellow 40800 orange trans-β-Apo-8′-carotenal (C 30 ) 40820 orange trans-Apo-8′-carotenic acid (C 30 )-ethyl ester 40825 orange Canthaxanthin 40850 orange Acid Blue 1 42045 blue 2,4-Disulfo-5-hydroxy-4′-4″-bis(diethylamino)triphenylcarbinol 42051 blue 4-[(-4-N-Ethyl-p-sulfobenzylamino)phenyl-(4-hydroxy-2-sulfo- 42053 green phenyl)(methylene)-1-(N-ethyl-N-p-sulfobenzyl)-2,5-cyclohexa- dienimine] Acid Blue 7 42080 blue (N-Ethyl-p-sulfobenzylamino)phenyl-(2-sulfophenyl)methylene- 42090 blue (N-ethyl-N-p-sulfo-benzyl)-Δ 2,5 -cyclohexadienimine Acid Green 9 42100 green Diethyldisulfobenzyldi-4-amino-2-chlorodi-2-methylfuchson- 42170 green immonium Basic Violet 14 42510 violet Basic Violet 2 42520 violet 2′-Methyl-4′-(N-ethyl-N-m-sulfobenzyl)amino-4″-(N-diethyl)- 42735 blue amino-2-methyl-N-ethyl-(N-m-sulfobenzylfuchsonimmonium 4′-(N-Dimethyl)amino-4″-(N-phenyl)aminonaphtho-N-dimethyl- 44045 blue fuchsonimmonium 2-Hydroxy-3,6-disulfo-4,4′-bis-dimethylaminonaphthofuchson- 44090 green immonium Acid Red 52 45100 red 3-(2′-Methylphenylamino)-6-(2′-methyl-4′-sulfophenylamino)- 45190 violet 9-(2″-carboxyphenyl)xanthenium salt Acid Red 50 45220 red Phenyl-2-oxyfluorone-2-carboxylic acid 45350 yellow 4,5-Dibromofluorescein 45370 orange 2,4,5,7-Tetrabromofluorescein 45380 red Solvent Dye 45396 orange Acid Red 98 45405 red 3′,4′,5′,6′-Tetrachloro-2,4,5,7-tetrabromofluorescein 45410 red 4,5-Diiodofluorescein 45425 red 2,4,5,7-Tetraiodofluorescein 45430 red Quinophthalone 47000 yellow Quinophthalone disulfo acid 47005 yellow Acid Violet 50 50325 violet Acid Black 2 50420 black Pigment Violet 23 51319 violet 1,2-Dioxyanthraquinone, calcium-aluminium complex 58000 red 3-Oxypyrene-5,8,10-sulfo acid 59040 green 1-Hydroxy-4-N-phenylaminoanthraquinone 60724 violet 1-Hydroxy-4-(4′-methylphenylamino)anthraquinone 60725 violet Acid Violet 23 60730 violet 1,4-Di(4′-methylphenylamino)anthraquinone 61565 green 1,4-Bis-(o-Sulfo-p-toluidino)anthraquinone 61570 green Acid Blue 80 61585 blue Acid Blue 62 62045 blue N,N′-Dihydro-1,2,1′,2′-anthraquinazine 69800 blue Vat Blue 6; Pigment Blue 64 69825 blue Vat Orange 7 71105 orange Indigo 73000 blue Indigo disulfo acid 73015 blue 4,4′-Dimethyl-6,6′-dichlorothioindigo 73360 red 5,5′-Dichloro-7,7′-dimethylthioindigo 73385 violet Quinacridone Violet 19 73900 violet Pigment Red 122 73915 red Pigment Blue 16 74100 blue Phthalocyanine 74160 blue Direct Blue 86 74180 blue Chlorinated phthalocyanine 74260 green Natural Yellow 6, 19; Natural Red 1 75100 yellow Bixin, norbixin 75120 orange Lycopene 75125 yellow trans-alpha-, beta- or gamma-Carotene 75130 orange Keto- and/or hydroxyl derivatives of Carotene 75135 yellow Guanine or pearl luster agent 75170 white 1,7-Bis-(4-hydroxy-3-methoxyphenyl)-1,6-heptadiene-3,5-dione 75300 yellow Complex salt (Na, Al, Ca) of carminic acid 75470 red Chlorophyll a and b; copper compounds of chlorophylls and 75810 green chlorophyllins Aluminum 77000 white Aluminum hydroxide 77002 white Water-containing aluminum silicates 77004 white Ultramarine 77007 blue Pigment Red 101 and 102 77015 red Barium sulfate 77120 white Bismuth oxychloride and its mixtures with mica 77163 white Calcium carbonate 77220 white Calcium sulfate 77231 white Carbon 77266 black Pigment Black 9 77267 black Carbo medicinalis vegetabilis 77268:1 black Chromic oxide 77288 green Chromic oxide; water-containing 77289 green Pigment Blue 28, Pigment Green 14 77346 green Pigment Metal 2 77400 brown Gold 77480 brown Iron oxides and hydroxides 77489 orange Iron oxide 77491 red Ferric hydroxide 77492 yellow Iron oxide 77499 black Mixtures of iron(II) and iron(III) hexacyanoferrate 77510 blue Pigment White 18 77713 white Manganese ammonium diphosphate 77742 violet Manganese phosphate; Mn 3 (PO 4 ) 2 · 7 H 2 O 77745 red Silver 77820 white Titanium dioxide and its mixtures with mica 77891 white Zinc oxide 77947 white 6,7-Dimethyl-9-(1′-D-ribityl)-isoalloxazine, lactoflavin yellow Caramel brown Capsanthin, capsorubicin orange Betanin red Benzopyrylium salts, anthocyans red Aluminum, zinc, magnesium and calcium stearate white Bromothymol blue blue Bromocresol green green Acid Red 195 red
[0105] If the formulations according to the invention are present in the form of products which are applied to the face, it is convenient to use as a dye one or more substances from the following group: 2,4-dihydroxyazobenzene, 1-(2′-chloro-4′-nitro-1′-phenylazo)-2-hydroxynaphthalene, Ceresrot, 2-(4-sulfo-1-naphthylazo)-1-naphthyl-4-sulfo acid, calcium salt of 2-hydroxy-1,2′-azonaphthalene-1′-sulfo acid, calcium and barium salts of 1-(2-sulfo-4-methyl-1-phenylazo)-2-naphthylcarboxylic acid, calcium salt of 1-(2-sulfo-1-naphthylazo)-2-hydroxynaphthalene-3-carboxylic acid, aluminum salt of 1-(4-sulfo-1-phenylazo)-2-naphthol-6-sulfo acid, aluminum salt of 1-(4-sulfo-1-naphthylazo)-2-naphthol-3,6-disulfo acid, 1-(4-sulfo-1-naphthylazo)-2-naphthol-6,8-disulfo acid, aluminum salt of 4-(4-sulfo-1-phenylazo)-1-(4-sulfo-phenyl)-5-hydroxypyrazolone-3-carboxylic acid, aluminum and zirconium salts of 4,5-dibromofluorescein, aluminum and zirconium salts of 2,4,5,7-tetrabromofluorescein, 3′,4′,5′,6′-tetrachloro-2,4,5,7-tetrabromofluorescein and its aluminum salt, aluminum salt of 2,4,5,7-tetraiodofluorescein, aluminum salt of quinophthalonedisulfo acid, aluminum salt of indigo disulfo acid, red and black iron oxide (CIN: 77 491 (red) and 77 499 (black)), ferric hydroxide (CIN: 77 492), manganese ammonium diphosphate and titanium dioxide.
[0106] Oil-soluble natural dyes, such as, for example, paprika extracts, β-carotene or cochineal are furthermore advantageous.
[0107] Formulations containing pearl luster pigments are furthermore advantageous within the meaning of the invention. In particular, the types of pearl luster pigments listed below are preferred:
1. Natural pearl luster pigments, such as, for example
“silver gray” (guanine/hypoxanthine mixed crystals from fish scales) and “mother of pearl” (ground mussel shells)
2. Monocrystalline pearl luster pigments such as, for example, bismuth oxychloride (BiOCl) 3. Layer substrate pigments: e.g. mica/metal oxide
[0113] Powdered pigments or castor oil dispersions of bismuth oxychloride and/or titanium oxide, and bismuth oxychloride and/or titanium dioxide on mica, for example, are the basis for pearl luster pigments. The luster pigment listed under CIN 77163, for example, is particularly advantageous.
[0114] The following pearl luster pigments based on mica/metal oxide, for example, are furthermore advantageous:
Group Coating/layer thickness Color Silver-white pearl TiO 2 : 40-60 nm silver luster pigments Interference pigments TiO 2 : 60-80 nm yellow TiO 2 : 80-100 nm red TiO 2 : 100-140 nm blue TiO 2 : 120-160 nm green Color luster pigments Fe 2 O 3 bronze Fe 2 O 3 copper Fe 2 O 3 red Fe 2 O 3 red-violet Fe 2 O 3 red-green Fe 2 O 3 black Combination pigments TiO 2 /Fe 2 O 3 gold shades TiO 2 /Cr 2 O 3 green TiO 2 /Prussian blue deep blue TiO 2 /carmine red
[0115] The pearl luster pigments obtainable from Merck under the trade names Timiron, Colorona or Dichrona, for example, are particularly preferred.
[0116] The list of the pearl luster pigments mentioned is not intended, of course, to be limiting. Within the meaning of the present invention, advantageous pearl luster pigments are obtainable in numerous ways known per se. For example, other substrates aside from mica can also be coated with further metal oxides, such as, for example, silica and suchlike. SiO 2 particles coated with TiO 2 and Fe 2 O 3 (“Ronaspheres”), for example, which are marketed by Merck are advantageous and are particularly suitable for the visual reduction of fine lines.
[0117] It can moreover be advantageous to dispense completely with a substrate such as mica. Iron pearl luster pigments which can be prepared without the use of mica are particularly preferred. Such pigments are obtainable from BASF, for example, under the trade names Sicopearl Kupfer 1000.
[0118] Effect pigments which are obtainable under the trade name Metasomes standard/ glitter in various colors (yellow, red, green, blue) from Flora Tech are furthermore also particularly advantageous. The glitter particles are present here as mixtures with various excipients and dyes (such as, for example, the dyes having the Colour Index (CI) numbers 19140, 77007, 77289, 77491).
[0119] The dyes and pigments can be present either individually or as a mixture, and can also be mutually coated with one another, in general various color effects being produced by means of different coating thicknesses. The total amount of the dyes and color-imparting pigments is advantageously chosen from the range from, for example, 0.1% by weight to 30% by weight, preferably from 0.5 to 15% by weight, in particular from 1.0 to 10% by weight, in each case based on the total weight of the preparations.
[heading-0120] Active Ingredients
[0121] Particularly advantageous preparations are further obtained if antioxidants are employed as additives or active ingredients. According to the invention, the preparations advantageously contain one or more antioxidants. As convenient antioxidants, which, however, are nevertheless to be used optionally, it is possible to use all antioxidants which are suitable or customary for cosmetic and/or dermatological applications.
[0122] Advantageously, the antioxidants are chosen from amino acids (e.g. glycine, histidine, tyrosine, tryptophan) and their derivatives, imidazoles (e.g. urocaninic acid) and its derivatives, peptides such as D,L-carnosine, D-carnosine, L-carnosine and their derivatives (e.g. anserine), carotenoids, carotenes (e.g. α-carotene, β-carotene, lycopene) and their derivatives, lipoic acid and its derivatives (e.g. dihydrolipoic acid), aurothioglucose, propylthiouracil and other thiols (e.g. thioredoxin, glutathione, cysteine, cystine, cystamine and their glycosyl, N-acetyl, methyl, ethyl, propyl, amyl, butyl and lauryl, palmitoyl, oleyl, γ-linoleyl, cholesteryl and glyceryl esters), and their salts, dilauryl thiodipropionate, distearyl thiodipropionate, thiodipropionic acid and its derivatives (esters, ethers, peptides, lipids, nucleotides, nucleosides and salts), and sulfoximine compounds (e.g. buthionine sulfoximines, homocysteine sulfoximine, buthionine sulfones, penta-, hexa-, heptathionine sulfoximine) in very low tolerable doses (e.g. pmol to μmol/kg), furthermore (metal) chelators (e.g. α-hydroxy fatty acids, palmitic acid, phytic acid, lactoferrin), α-hydroxy acids (e.g. citric acid, lactic acid, malic acid), humic acid, bile acid, bile extracts, bilirubin, biliverdin, EDTA, EGTA and their derivatives, unsaturated fatty acids and their derivatives (e.g. γ-linolenic acid, linoleic acid, oleic acid), folic acid and its derivatives, ubiquinone and ubiquinol and their derivatives, vitamin C and derivatives (e.g. ascorbyl palmitate, Mg ascorbyl phosphate, ascorbyl acetate), tocopherols and derivatives (e.g. vitamin E acetate), vitamin A and derivatives (vitamin A palmitate), and coniferyl benzoate of benzoin resin, rutic acid and its derivatives, ferulic acid and its derivatives, butylhydroxytoluene, butylhydroxy-anisole, nordihydroguaiaretic acid, nordihydroguaiaretic acid, trihydroxy-butyrophenone, uric acid and its derivatives, mannose and its derivatives, zinc and its derivatives (e.g. ZnO, ZnSO 4 ), selenium and its derivatives (e.g. selenomethionine), stilbenes and their derivatives (e.g. stilbene oxide, trans-stilbene oxide) and the derivatives suitable according to the invention (salts, esters, ethers, sugars, nucleotides, nucleosides, peptides and lipids) of these mentioned active ingredients.
[0123] Water-soluble antioxidants can be employed particularly advantageously within the meaning of the present invention, such as, for example, vitamins, e.g. ascorbic acid or tocopherol and their derivatives.
[0124] A surprising property of the preparations according to the invention is that they are very good vehicles for cosmetic or dermatological active ingredients in the skin, preferred active ingredients being antioxidants which can protect the skin from oxidative stress. Preferred antioxidants are in this case vitamin E and its derivatives, and vitamin A and its derivatives.
[0125] The amount of the antioxidants (one or more compounds) in the preparations is preferably 0.001 to 30% by weight, particularly preferably 0.05 to 20% by weight, in particular 0.1 to 10% by weight, based on the total weight of the preparation.
[0126] If vitamin E and/or its derivatives is/are the antioxidant(s), it is advantageous to choose their respective concentrations from the range from 0.001 to 10% by weight, based on the total weight of the formulation.
[0127] If vitamin A or vitamin A derivatives, or carotenes or their derivatives is/are the antioxidant (s), it is advantageous to choose their respective concentrations from the range from 0.001 to 10% by weight, based on the total weight of the formulation.
[0128] According to the invention, the active ingredients (one or more compounds) can also very advantageously be chosen from lipophilic active ingredients, in particular from the following group: acetylsalicylic acid, atropine, azulene, hydrocortisone and its derivatives, e.g. hydrocortisone 17-valerate, vitamins of the B and D series, very favorably vitamin B 1 , vitamin B 12 , vitamin D 1 , but also bisabolol, unsaturated fatty acids, especially the essential fatty acids (often also called vitamin F), in particular gamma-linolenic acid, oleic acid, eicosapentaenoic acid, docosahexaenoic acid and their derivatives, chloramphenicol, caffeine, prostaglandins, thymine, camphor, extracts or other products of vegetable and animal origin, e.g. evening primrose oil, borage oil or currant pip oil, fish oils, cod-liver oil but also ceramides and ceramide-like compounds etc.
[0129] It is also advantageous to choose the active ingredients from the group consisting of the refatting substances, for example purcellin oil, Eucerit® and Neocerit®.
[0130] Particularly advantageously, the active ingredient(s) are further chosen from the group consisting of the NO synthase inhibitors, in particular if the preparations according to the invention are to be used for the treatment and prophylaxis of the symptoms of intrinsic and/or extrinsic skin ageing, and for the treatment and prophylaxis of the harmful effects of ultraviolet radiation on the skin.
[0131] A preferred NO synthase inhibitor is nitroarginine.
[0132] Additionally advantageously, the active ingredient(s) are chosen from the group which includes catechols and bile acid esters of catechols and aqueous or organic extracts of plants or plant parts which contain the catechols or bile acid esters of catechols, such as, for example, the leaves of the plant family Theaceae, in particular of the species Camellia sinensis (green tea). Their typical ingredients (such as, for example, polyphenols or catechols, caffeine, vitamins, sugars, minerals, amino acids, lipids) are particularly advantageous.
[0133] Catechols are a group of compounds which are to be interpreted as hydrogenated flavones or anthocyanidines and derivatives of “catechol” (3,3′,4′,5,7-flavanpentaol, 2-(3,4-dihydroxyphenyl)chroman-3,5,7-triol). Epicatechol ((2R,3R)-3,3′,4′,5,7-flavan-pentaol) is also an advantageous active ingredient within the meaning of the present invention.
[0134] Plant extracts containing catechols, in particular extracts of green tea, such as, for example, extracts of leaves of the plants of the species Camellia spec., very particularly of the tea species Camellia sinensis, C. assamica, C. taliensis or C. irrawadiensis and crossings of these with, for example, Camellia japonica are furthermore advantageous.
[0135] Preferred active ingredients are furthermore polyphenols or catechols from the group consisting of (−)-catechol, (+)-catechol, (−)-catechol gallate, (−)-gallocatechol gallate, (+)-epicatechol, (−)-epicatechol, (−)-epicatechol gallate, (−)-epigallocatechol, (−)-epigallocatechol gallate.
[0136] Flavone and its derivatives (often also collectively called “flavones”) are also advantageous active ingredients within the meaning of the present invention. They are characterized by the following basic structure (substitution positions indicated):
[0137] Some of the more important flavones, which can also preferably be employed in the preparations according to the invention, are listed in the table below:
OH substitution positions 3 5 7 8 2′ 3′ 4′ 5′ Flavone − − − − − − − − Flavonol + − − − − − − − Chrysin − + + − − − − − Galangin + + + − − − − − Apigenin − + + − − − + − Fisetin + − + − − + + − Luteolin − + + − − + + − Campherol + + + − − − + − Quercetin + + + − − + + − Morin + + + − + − + − Robinetin + − + − − + + + Gossypetin + + + + − + + − Myricetin + + + − − + + +
[0138] In nature, flavones as a rule occur in glycosidated form.
[0139] According to the invention, the flavonoids are preferably chosen from substances of the generic structural formula
where Z 1 to Z 7 independently of one another are chosen from the group consisting of H, OH, alkoxy and hydroxyalkoxy groups, where the alkoxy or hydroxyalkoxy groups can be branched and unbranched and can have 1 to 18 carbon atoms, and where Gly is chosen from the group consisting of the mono- and oligoglycoside radicals.
[0141] According to the invention, the flavonoids, however, can also advantageously be chosen from substances of the generic structural formula
where Z 1 to Z 6 independently of one another are chosen from the group consisting of H, OH, alkoxy and hydroxyalkoxy groups, where the alkoxy or hydroxyalkoxy groups can be branched and unbranched and can have 1 to 18 carbon atoms, and where Gly is chosen from the group consisting of the mono- and oligoglycoside radicals.
[0143] Preferably, such structures can be chosen from substances of the generic structural formula
where Gly 1 , Gly 2 and Gly 3 independently of one another are monoglycoside radicals or. Gly 2 and Gly 3 can also individually or together be saturations by hydrogen atoms.
[0145] Preferably, Gly 1 , Gly 2 and Gly 3 independently of one another are chosen from hexosyl radicals, in particular the rhamnosyl radicals and glucosyl radicals. However, other hexosyl radicals, for example allosyl, altrosyl, galactosyl, gulosyl, idosyl, mannosyl and talosyl can optionally also be used advantageously. It can also be advantageous according to the invention to use pentosyl radicals.
[0146] Advantageously, Z 1 to Z 5 independently of one another are chosen from the group consisting of H, OH, methoxy, ethoxy and 2-hydroxyethoxy groups, and the flavone glycosides have the structure
[0147] Particularly advantageously, the flavone glycosides according to the invention are from the group which are represented by the following structure:
where Gly 1 , Gly 2 and Gly 3 independently of one another are monoglycoside radicals or. Gly 2 and Gly 3 can also individually or together be saturations by hydrogen atoms.
[0149] Preferably, Gly 1 , Gly 2 and Gly 3 independently of one another are chosen from hexosyl radicals, in particular the rhamnosyl radicals and glucosyl radicals. However, other hexosyl radicals, for example allosyl, altrosyl, galactosyl, gulosyl, idosyl, mannosyl and talosyl can optionally also be used advantageously. It can also be advantageous according to the invention to use pentosyl radicals.
[0150] It is particularly advantageous within the meaning of the present invention to choose the flavone glycoside(s) from α-glucosylrutin, α-glucosyl-myricetin, α-glucosylisoquercitrin, α-glucosylisoquercetin and α-glucosylquercitrin.
[0151] α-Glucosylrutin is particularly preferred according to the invention.
[0152] Naringin (aurantiin, naringenin 7-rhamnoglucoside), hesperidin (3′,5,7-trihydroxy-4′-methoxyflavanone 7-rutinoside, hesperidoside, hespereitin 7-O-rutinoside), rutin (3,3′,4′,5,7-pentahydroxyflyvone 3-rutinoside, quercetin 3-rutinoside, sophorin, Birutan, Rutabion, taurutin, phytomelin, melin), troxerutin (3,5-dihydroxy-3′,4′,7-tris(2-hydroxyethoxy)flavone 3-(6-O-(6-deoxy-α-L-mannopyranosyl)-β-D-glucopyranoside)), monoxerutin (3,3′,4′,5-tetrahydroxy-7-(2-hydroxyethoxy)flavone-3-(6-O-(6-deoxy-α-L-mannopyranosyl)-β-D-glucopyranoside)), dihydrorobinetin (3,3′,4′,5′,7-pentahydroxy-flavanone), taxifolin (3,3′,4′,5,7-pentahydroxyflavanone), eriodictyol 7-glucoside (3′,4′,5,7-tetrahydroxyflavanone 7-glucoside), flavanomarein (3′,4′,7,8-tetrahydroxy-flavanone 7-glucoside) and isoquercetin (3,3′,4′,5,7-pentahydroxyflavanone 3-(β-D-glucopyranoside) are also advantageous according to the invention.
[0153] It is also advantageous to choose the active ingredient(s) from the group consisting of the ubiquinones and plastoquinones.
[0154] Ubiquinones are distinguished by the structural formula
and are the most widespread and thus the best investigated bioquinones. Depending on the number of the isoprene units linked in the side chain, ubiquinones are called Q-1, Q-2, Q-3, etc or according to the number of carbon atoms U-5, U-10, U-15 etc. They preferably occur with certain chain lengths, e.g. in some microorganisms and yeasts with n=6. Q 10 predominates in most mammals including man.
[0156] Coenzyme Q10, which is characterized by the following structural formula
is particularly advantageous.
[0158] Plastoquinones have the general structural formula
[0159] Plastoquinones are distinguished in the number n of the isoprene radicals and are named accordingly, e.g. PQ-9 (n=9). Other plastoquinones with different substituents on the quinone ring additionally exist.
[0160] Creatine and/or creatine derivatives are also preferred active ingredients within the meaning of the present invention. Creatine is distinguished by the following structural formula:
[0161] Preferred derivatives are creatine phosphate, and creatine sulfate, creatine acetate, creatine ascorbate and the derivatives esterified on the carboxyl group by mono- or polyfunctional alcohols.
[0162] A further advantageous active ingredient is L-carnitine [3-hydroxy-4-(trimethyl-ammonio)butyric acid betaine]. Acylcarnitines, which are chosen from substances of the following general structural formula
where R is chosen from the group consisting of the branched and unbranched alkyl radicals having up to 10 carbon atoms are advantageous active ingredients within the meaning of the present invention. Propionylcarnitine and in particular acetylcarnitine are preferred. Both enantiomers (D- and L-form) can be used advantageously within the meaning of the present invention. It can also be advantageous to use any desired mixture of enantiomers, for example a racemate of the D- and L-form.
[0164] Further advantageous active ingredients are sericoside, pyridoxol, vitamin K, biotin and aromatic substances.
[0165] The list of active ingredients or active ingredient combinations mentioned which can be used in the preparations according to the invention is not intended, of course, to be limiting. The active ingredients can be used individually or in any desired combinations with one another.
[0166] Moreover, selected formulations according to the invention which, for example, contain known antiwrinkle active ingredients such as flavone glycosides (in particular α-glycosylrutin), coenzyme Q10, vitamin E and/or derivatives and the like, are particularly advantageously suitable for the prophylaxis and treatment of cosmetic or dermatological skin changes, such as occur, for example, on ageing of the skin. They are furthermore advantageous against the syndrome of dry or rough skin.
[0167] Skin ageing is caused, for example, by endogenous, genetically determined factors. In the epidermidis and dermis, age-related disturbances, e.g. the following structural damage and functional disturbances occur, which can also come under the term “senile xerosis”:
a) dryness, roughness and formation of (dryness) lines, b) itching and c) decreased refatting by sebaceous glands (e.g. after washing).
[0171] Exogenous factors, such as UV light and chemical noxae, can have a cumulative action and, for example, accelerate the endogenous ageing processes or supplement them. In the epidermidis and dermis, the following structural damage and functional disturbances, for example, in particular occur in the skin due to exogenous factors, which extend beyond the extent and quality of the damage in the case of chronological ageing:
d) visible vasodilatation (teleangiectasies, cuperosis); e) flabbiness and formation of lines; f) local hyper-, hypo- and malpigmentation (e.g. age spots) and g) increased susceptibility to mechanical stress (e.g. fissurability).
[0176] In a particular embodiment, the present invention relates in particular to products for the care of naturally aged skin, and for the treatment of the subsequent damage due to light ageing, in particular the phenomena mentioned under a) to g).
Specific Application
[0177] The cosmetic and/or dermatological preparations according to the invention can have the customary composition and be used for cosmetic and/or dermatological light protection, further for the treatment, the care and the cleansing of the skin and/or the hair and as make-up products in decorative cosmetics.
[0178] For application, the cosmetic and dermatological preparations according to the invention are applied to the skin and/or the hair in adequate amounts in the manner customary for cosmetics.
[heading-0179] Protection Against the Sun
[0180] A further advantageous embodiment of the present invention consists in products for protection against the sun.
[0181] An addition of oil-soluble and/or water-soluble and/or pigmentary organic UV filters and/or inorganic pigments absorbing or reflecting UV radiation is particularly advantageous.
[0182] It is also advantageous within the meaning of the present invention to make available cosmetic and dermatological preparations whose main aim is not protection from sunlight, but which, nevertheless, can contain UV protection substances. Thus UV-A or UV-B filter substances are usually incorporated, for example, into day creams or make-up products. The UV protection substances, just like antioxidants and, if desired, preservatives, also represent an effective protection of the preparations themselves against deterioration. Cosmetic and dermatological preparations which are present in the form of a sunscreen are furthermore favorable.
[0183] The formulations can optionally, although not necessarily, also contain one or more organic and/or inorganic pigments as UV filter substances, which can be present in the water and/or the oil phase.
[0184] Preferred inorganic pigments are metal oxides and/or other metal compounds which are poorly soluble or insoluble in water, in particular oxides of titanium (TiO 2 ), zinc (ZnO), iron (e.g. Fe 2 O 3 ), zirconium (ZrO 2 ), silicon (SiO 2 ), manganese (e.g. MnO), aluminum (Al 2 O 3 ), cerium (e.g. Ce 2 O 3 ), mixed oxides of the corresponding metals, and mixtures of such oxides.
[0185] Within the meaning of the present invention, such pigments can advantageously be surface-treated (“coated”), where, for example, an amphiphilic or hydrophobic character is to be formed or retained. This surface treatment can consist in providing the pigments with a thin hydrophobic layer by processes known per se.
[0186] The titanium dioxide pigments can be present both in the crystal modification rutile and anatase and can advantageously be surface-treated (“coated”) within the meaning of the present invention, where, for example, a hydrophilic, amphiphilic or hydrophobic character is to be formed or retained. This surface treatment can consist in treating the pigments with a thin hydrophilic and/or hydrophobic inorganic and/or or organic layer by processes known per se. The various surface coating can within the meaning of the present invention also contain water.
[0187] Inorganic surface coatings within the meaning of the present invention can consist of aluminum oxide (Al 2 O 3 ), aluminum hydroxide Al(OH) 3 , or aluminum oxide hydrate (also: alumina CAS No.: 1333-84-2), sodium hexametaphosphate (NaPO 3 ) 6 , sodium metaphosphate (NaPO 3 ) n , silicon dioxide (SiO 2 ) (also: silica, CAS No.: 7631-86-9) or iron oxide (Fe 2 O 3 ). These inorganic surface coatings can occur on their own, in combination and/or in combination with organic coating materials.
[0188] Organic surface coatings within the meaning of the present invention can consist of vegetable or animal aluminum stearate, vegetable or animal stearic acid, lauric acid, dimethylpolysiloxane (also: dimethicone), methylpolysiloxane (methicone), simethicone (a mixture of dimethylpoly-siloxane with an average chain length of 200 to 350 dimethylsiloxane units and silica gel) or alginic acid (algic acid). These organic surface coatings can occur on their own, in combination and/or in combination with inorganic coating materials.
[0189] Within the meaning of the present invention, coated and uncoated titanium dioxides described can also be used in the form of commercially obtainable oily or aqueous predispersions. Dispersing aids and/or solubilizers can advantageously be added to these predispersions.
[0190] Suitable titanium dioxide particles and predispersions of titanium dioxide particles within the meaning of the present invention are obtainable from the companies mentioned under the following trade names:
Additional Coating/ constituents in Trade name surface coating predispersions Manufacturer MT-150W None — Tayca Corporation MT-150A None — Tayca Corporation MT-500B None — Tayca Corporation MT-600B None — Tayca Corporation MT-100TV Aluminum hydroxide — Tayca Stearic acid Corporation MT-100Z Aluminum hydroxide — Tayca Stearic acid Corporation MT-100T Aluminum hydroxide — Tayca Stearic acid Corporation MT-500T Aluminum hydroxide — Tayca Stearic acid Corporation MT-100S Aluminum hydroxide — Tayca Lauric acid Corporation MT-100F Stearic acid — Tayca Iron oxide Corporation MT-100SA Alumina — Tayca Silica Corporation MT-500SA Alumina — Tayca Silica Corporation MT-600SA Alumina — Tayca Silica Corporation MT-100SAS Alumina — Tayca Silica Corporation Silicone MT-500SAS Alumina — Tayca Silica Corporation Silicone MT-500 H Alumina — Tayca Corporation MT-100AQ Silica — Tayca Aluminum hydroxide Corporation Alginic acid Eusolex T Aqua — Merck KgaA Simethicone Eusolex Alumina — Merck KgaA T-2000 Simethicone Eusolex Silica C 12-15 alkyl- Merck KgaA T-Olio F Dimethylsilate benzoate Aqua Calcium poly- hydroxystearate Silica dimethyl- silate Eusolex Aqua Octyl palmitate Merck KgaA T-Olio P Simethicone PEG-7 hydrogenated castor oil Sorbitan oleate Hydrogenated castor oil Beeswax Stearic acid Eusolex Aqua Phenoxyethanol Merck KgaA T-Aqua Alumina Sodium Sodium meta- methylparabens phosphate Sodium meta- phosphates Eusolex Alumina Isononyl iso- Merck KgaA T-45D Simethicone nonanoate Polyglyceryl ricinoleate Kronos None — Kronos 1171 (titanium dioxide 171) Titanium None — Degussa dioxide P25 Titanium Octyltrimethyl- — Degussa dioxide silane T 805 (Uvinul TiO 2 ) UV-Titan Alumina — Kemira X610 Dimethicone UV-Titan Alumina — Kemira X170 Dimethicone UV-Titan Alumina — Kemira X161 Silica Stearic acid UV-Titan Alumina — Kemira M210 UV-Titan Alumina Glycerol Kemira M212 UV-Titan Alumina — Kemira M262 Silicone UV-Titan Alumina — Kemira M160 Silica Stearic acid Tioveil Alumina Aqua Solaveil AQ 10PG Silica Propylene glycol Uniquema Mirasun Alumina Aqua Rhone-Poulenc TiW 60 Silica
[0191] Very particularly advantageous titanium dioxides are Eusolex T-2000 and Eusolex T-aqua from Merck, MT-100 TV and MT-100 Z from Tayca, titanium dioxide T 805 from Degussa and Tioveil AQ 10PG from Solaveil.
[0192] A further advantageous coating of the inorganic pigments consists of dimethylpoly-siloxane (also: dimethicone), a mixture of fully methylated, linear siloxane polymers which are terminally blocked with trimethylsiloxy units.
[0193] Suitable zinc oxide particles and predispersions of zinc oxide particles within the meaning of the present invention are obtainable from the companies mentioned under the following trade names:
Trade name Manufacturer Coating Z-Cote HP1 BASF 2% dimethicone Z-Cote BASF / ZnO NDM H & R 5% dimethicone ZnO neutral H & R / MZ-300 Tayca / MZ-500 Tayca / MZ-700 Tayca / MZ-303S Tayca 3% methicone MZ-505S Tayca 5% methicone MZ-707S Tayca 7% methicone MZ-303M Tayca 3% dimethicone MZ-505M Tayca 5% dimethicone MZ-707M Tayca 7% dimethicone Z-Sperse Collaborative ZnO (>=56%)/ Ultra Laboratories dispersion in dimethicone/ cyclomethicone/ethylhexyl hydroxystearate benzoate Samt-UFZO- Miyoshi Kasei ZnO (60%)/ 450/D5 (60%) dispersion in cyclomethicone/ dimethicone
[0194] Within the meaning of the invention, the zinc oxides Z-Cote and Z-Cote HP1 from BASF, zinc oxide NDM from Haarmann & Reimer, and MZ-505S from Tayca are particularly preferred.
[0195] An advantageous organic pigment within the meaning of the present invention is 2,2′-methylenebis(6-(2H-benzotriazol-2-yl)-4-(1,1,3,3-tetramethylbutyl)phenol) [INCI: Bisoctyltriazole], which is characterized by the chemical structural formula
and is obtainable from CIBA Chemikalien GmbH under the trade name Tinosorb® M.
[0197] Advantageously, preparations according to the invention contain substances which absorb UV radiation in the UV-A and/or UV-B range, the total amount of the filter substances being, for example, 0.1% by weight to 30% by weight, preferably 0.5 to 20% by weight, in particular 1.0 to 15.0% by weight, based on the total weight of the preparations, in order to make available cosmetic preparations which protect the hair or the skin from the entire range of ultraviolet radiation. They can also be used as a sunscreen for the hair or the skin.
[0198] Advantageous further UV-A filter substances within the meaning of the present invention are dibenzoylmethane derivatives, in particular 4-(tert-butyl)-4′-methoxydi-benzoylmethane (CAS No. 70356-09-1), which is marketed by Givaudan under the brand Parsol® 1789 and by Merck under the trade name Eusolex® 9020.
[0199] Advantageous sulfonated, water-soluble UV filters within the meaning of the present invention are:
phenylene-1,4-bis(2-benzimidazyl)-3,3′-5,5′-tetrasulfonic acid, which is distinguished by the following structure:
and its salts, particularly the corresponding sodium, potassium or triethanol-ammonium salts, in particular phenylene-1,4-bis(2-benzimidazyl)-3,3′-5,5′-tetra-sulfonic acid bis sodium salt
having the INCI name Bisimidazylate (CAS No.: 180898-37-7), which is obtainable from Haarmann & Reimer, for example, under the trade name Neo Heliopan AP.
[0203] A further sulfonated UV filter within the meaning of the present invention are the salts of 2-phenylbenzimidazole-5-sulfonic acid, such as their sodium, potassium or their triethanol ammonium salts, and the sulfonic acid itself.
having the INCI name Phenylbenzimidazole Sulfonic Acid CCAS No.: 27503-81-7), which is obtainable from Merck, for example, under the trade name Eusolex 232 or from Haarmann & Reimer under Neo Heliopan Hydro.
[0205] A further advantageous sulfonated UV filter is 3,3′-(1,4-phenylenedimethylene)bis (7,7-dimethyl-2-oxobicyclo-[2.2.1 ]hept-1-ylmethane sulfonic acid, such as its sodium, potassium or its triethanolammonium salts, and the sulfonic acid itself:
having the INCI name Terephthalidene Dicamphor Sulfonic Acid (CAS No.: 90457-82-2), which is obtainable, for example, from Chimex under the trade name Mexoryl SX.
[0207] Further advantageous water-soluble UV-B and/or broadband filter substances are, for example:
sulfonic acid derivatives of 3-benzylidenecamphor, such as, for example, 4-(2-oxo-3-bornylidenemethyl)benzenesulfonic acid, 2-methyl-5-(2-oxo-3-bornylidenemethyl)sulfonic acid and their salts.
[0209] The total amount of one or more sulfonated UV filter substances in the finished cosmetic or dermatological preparations is advantageously chosen from the range 0.01% by weight to 20% by weight, preferably from 0.1 to 10% by weight, in each case based on the total weight of the preparations.
[0210] Advantageous UV filter substances within the meaning of the present invention are furthermore “broadband filters”, i.e. filter substances which absorb both UV-A and UV-B radiation.
[0211] Advantageous broadband filters or UV-B filter substances are, for example, bis-resorcinyltriazine derivatives having the following structure:
where R 1 , R 2 and R 3 independently of one another are chosen from the group consisting of the branched and unbranched alkyl groups having 1 to 10 carbon atoms or an individual hydrogen atom. 2,4-Bis{[4-(2-ethylhexyloxy)-2-hydroxy]phenyl}-6-(4-methoxyphenyl)-1,3,5-triazine (INCI: Bisethylhexyloxyphenol Methoxyphenyl Triazine), which is obtainable from CIBA Chemikalien GmbH under the trade name Tinosorb® S, are particularly preferred.
[0213] Particularly advantageous preparations within the meaning of the present invention, which are distinguished by a high or very high UV-A protection, contain, besides the filter substance(s) according to the invention, preferably further UV-A and/or broadband filters, in particular dibenzoylmethane derivatives [for example 4-(tert-butyl)-4′-methoxydibenzoylmethane], phenylene-1,4-bis(2-benzimidazyl)-3,3′-5,5′-tetrasulfonic acid and/or its salts, 2,2′-methylenebis(6-(2H-benzotriazol-2-yl)-4-(1,1,3,3-tetramethylbutyl)phenol), 1,4-di(2-oxo-10-sulfo-3-bornylidenemethyl)-benzene and/or its salts and/or 2,4-bis{[4-(2-ethylhexyloxy)-2-hydroxy]phenyl}-6-(4-methoxyphenyl)-1,3,5-triazine, in each case individually or in any desired combinations with one another.
[0214] Other UV filter substances which have the structural motif
are also advantageous UV filter substances within the meaning of the present invention, for example the s-triazine derivatives described in European laid-open specification EP 570 838 A1, whose chemical structure is represented by the generic formula
where
R is a branched or unbranched C 1 -C 18 -alkyl radical, a C 5 -C 12 -cycloalkyl radical, optionally substituted by one or more C 1 -C 4 -alkyl groups, X is an oxygen atom or an NH group, R 1 is a branched or unbranched C 1 -C 18 -alkyl radical, a C 5 -C 12 -cycloalkyl radical, optionally substituted by one or more C 1 -C 4 -alkyl groups, or a hydrogen atom, an alkali metal atom, an ammonium group or a group of the formula
in which
A is a branched or unbranched C 1 -C 18 -alkyl radical, a C 5 -C 12 -cycloalkyl or aryl radical, optionally substituted by one or more C 1 -C 4 -alkyl groups, R 3 is a hydrogen atom or a methyl group, n is a number from 1 to 10, R 2 is a branched or unbranched C 1 -C 18 -alkyl radical, a C 5 -C 12 -cycloalkyl radical, optionally substituted by one or more C 1 -C 4 -alkyl groups, if X is the NH group, and a branched or unbranched C 1 -C 18 -alkyl radical, a C 5 -C 12 -cycloalkyl radical, optionally substituted by one or more C 1 -C 4 -alkyl groups, or a hydrogen atom, an alkali metal atom, an ammonium group or a group of the formula
in which
A is a branched or unbranched C 1 -C 18 -alkyl radical, a C 5 -C 12 -cycloalkyl or aryl radical, optionally substituted by one or more C 1 -C 4 -alkyl groups, R 3 is a hydrogen atom or a methyl group, n is a number from 1 to 10, if X is an oxygen atom.
[0231] A particularly preferred UV filter substance within the meaning of the present invention is furthermore an unsymmetrically substituted s-triazine, whose chemical structure is represented by the formula
which is also designated as diethylhexylbutylamidotriazone (INCI: Diethylhexyl Butamidotriazone) below and is obtainable from Sigma 3V under the trade name UVASORB HEB.
[0233] Also advantageous within the meaning of the present invention is a symmetrically substituted s-triazine, 4,4′,4″-(1,3,5-triazine-2,4,6-triyltriimino)trisbenzoic acid tris(2-ethylhexyl ester), synonym: 2,4,6-tris[anilino(p-carbo-2′-ethyl-1′-hexyloxy)]-1,3,5-triazine (INCI: Ethylhexyl Triazone), which is marketed by BASF Aktiengesellschaft under the trade name UVINUL® T 150.
[0234] Also in European laid-open specification 775 698, bisresorcinyltriazine derivatives preferably to be employed are described, whose chemical structure is represented by the generic formula
where R 1 , R 2 and A 1 represent all sorts of organic radicals.
[0236] Furthermore advantageous within the meaning of the present invention are 2,4-bis-{[4-(3-sulfonato)-2-hydroxypropyloxy)-2-hydroxy]phenyl}-6-(4-methoxyphenyl)-1,3,5-triazine sodium salt, 2,4-bis-{[4-(3-(2-propyloxy)-2-hydroxypropyloxy)-2-hydroxy]phenyl}-6-(4-methoxyphenyl)-1,3,5-triazine, 2,4-bis{[4-(2-ethylhexyloxy)-2-hydroxy]phenyl}-6-[4-(2-methoxyethylcarboxyl)phenylamino]-1,3,5-triazine, 2,4-bis-{[4-(3-(2-propyloxy)-2-hydroxypropyloxy)-2-hydroxy]phenyl}-6-[4-(2-ethylcarboxyl)-phenylamino]-1,3,5-triazine, 2,4-bis-{[4-(2-ethylhexyloxy)-2-hydroxy]phenyl}-6-)1-methylpyrrol-2-yl)-1,3,5-triazine, 2,4-bis{[4-tris(trimethylsiloxysilylpropyloxy)-2-hydroxy]phenyl}-6-(4-methoxyphenyl)-1,3,5-triazine, 2,4-bis-{[4-(2″-methylpropenyl-oxy)-2-hydroxy]phenyl}-6-(4-methoxyphenyl)-1,3,5-triazine and 2,4-bis{[4-(1′,1′,1′,3′,5′,5′,5′-heptamethylsiloxy-2″-methylpropyloxy)-2-hydroxy]phenyl}-6-(4-methoxyphenyl)-1,3,5-triazine.
[0237] Additionally advantageous, within the meaning of the invention, are the benzotriazole derivatives. Benzotriazoles are distinguished by the following structural formula:
in which
R 1 and R 2 independently of one another can be linear or branched, saturated or unsaturated, substituted (e.g. substituted by a phenyl radical) or unsubstituted alkyl radicals having 1 to 18 carbon atoms and/or polymeric radicals which do not absorb UV rays themselves (such as, for example, silicone radicals, acrylate radicals and suchlike), and R 3 is chosen from the group consisting of H or an alkyl radical having 1 to 18 carbon atoms.
[0241] An advantageous benzotriazole within the meaning of the present invention is 2,2′-methylenebis(6-(2H-benzotriazol-2-yl)-4-( 1,1,3,3-tetramethylbutyl)phenol), a broadband filter, which is characterized by the chemical structural formula
and is obtainable from CIBA Chemikalien GmbH under the trade name Tinosorb® M.
[0243] An advantageous benzotriazole within the meaning of the present invention is furthermore 2-(2H-benzotriazol-2-yl)-4-methyl-6-[2-methyl-3-[1,3,3,3-tetramethyl-1-[(trimethylsilyl)oxy]disiloxanyl]propyl]phenol (CAS No.:155633-54-8) having the INCI name Drometrizole Trisiloxane, which is characterized by the chemical structural formula
[0244] Further advantageous benzotriazoles within the meaning of the present invention are [2,4′-dihydroxy-3-(2H-benzotriazol-2-yl)-5-(1,1,3,3-tetramethylbutyl)-2′-n-octoxy-5′-benzoyl]diphenylmethane, 2,2′-methylenebis[6-(2H-benzotriazol-2-yl)-4-(methyl-phenol], 2,2′-methylenebis[6-(2H-benzotriazol-2-yl)-4-(1,1,3,3-tetramethylbutyl)-phenol], 2-(2′-hydroxy-5′-octylphenyl)benzotriazole, 2-(2′-hydroxy-3′,5′-di-t-amyl-phenyl)benzotriazole and 2-(2′-hydroxy-5′-methylphenyl)benzotriazole.
[0245] According to the invention, cosmetic or dermatological preparations contain 0.1 to 20% by weight, advantageously 0.5 to 15% by weight, very particularly preferably 0.5 to 10% by weight, of one or more benzotriazoles.
[0246] Liquid UV filter substances particularly advantageous at room temperature within the meaning of the present invention are homomenthyl salicylate, 2-ethylhexyl-2-cyano-3,3-diphenyl acrylate, 2-ethylhexyl 2-hydroxybenzoate and esters of cinnamic acid, preferably 4-methoxycinnamic acid (2-ethylhexyl) ester and 4-methoxycinnamic acid isopentyl ester.
[0247] Homomenthyl salicylate (INCI: Homosalate) is distinguished by the following structure:
[0248] 2-Ethylhexyl-2-cyano-3,3-diphenyl acrylate (INCI: Octocrylene) is obtainable from BASF under the name Uvinul® N 539 and is distinguished by the following structure:
[0249] 2-Ethylhexyl 2-hydroxybenzoate (2-ethylhexyl salicylate, octyl salicylate, INCI: Octyl Salicylate) is obtainable, for example, from Haarmann & Reimer under the trade name Neo Helipan OS and is distinguished by the following structure:
[0250] 4-Methoxycinnamic acid (2-ethylhexyl) ester (2-ethylhexyl 4-methoxycinnamate, INCI: Octyl Methoxycinnamate) is obtainable from Hoffmann-la Roche under the trade name Parsol MCX and is distinguished by the following structure:
[0251] 4-Methoxycinnamic acid isopentyl ester (isopentyl 4-methoxycinnamate, INCI: Iso-amyl p-Methoxycinnamate) is obtainable, for example, from Haarmann & Reimer under the trade name Neo Helipan E 1000 and is distinguished by the following structure:
[0252] A further advantageous UV filter substance within the meaning of the present invention, which is liquid at room temperature (3-(4-(2,2-bisethoxycarbonylvinyl)-phenoxy)propenyl)methylsiloxane/dimethylsiloxane copolymer, which is obtainable, for example, from Hoffmann-Ia Roche under the trade name Parsol SLX.
[0253] The total amount of one or more UV filter substances which are liquid at room temperature in the finished cosmetic or dermatological preparations is advantageously chosen from the range 0.1% by weight to 30% by weight, preferably from 0.5 to 20% by weight, in each case based on the total weight of the preparations.
[0254] It can also be a considerable advantage to use polymer-pound or polymeric UV filter substances in preparations according to the present invention, in particular those such as are described in WO-A-92/20690.
[0255] The list of the UV filter substances mentioned which can be employed within the meaning of the present invention is not intended, of course, to be limiting.
[0256] Advantageously, the preparations according to the invention contain the substances which absorb UV radiation in the UV-A and/or UV-B range in a total amount of, for example, 0.1% by weight to 30% by weight, preferably 0.5 to 25% by weight, in particular 1.0 to 20% by weight, in each case based on the total weight of the preparations in order to make cosmetic preparations available which protect the hair or the skin from the entire range of ultraviolet radiation. They can also be used as sunscreens for the hair or the skin.
[0257] Furthermore, it can be advantageous to incorporate film-forming agents into the cosmetic or dermatological preparations according to the invention, for example in order to improve the water resistance of the preparations or to increase the UV protection power (UV-A and/or UV-B boosting). Both water-soluble and dispersible and also fat-soluble film-forming agents are suitable, in each case individually or in combination with one another.
[0258] Advantageous water-soluble or dispersible film-forming agents are, for example, polyurethanes (e.g. the Avalure® types from Goodrich), Dimethicone Copolyol Poly-acrylate (Silsoft Surface® from the Witco Organo Silicones group), PVP/VA (VA=vinyl acetate) copolymer (Luviscol VA 64 powder from BASF) etc.
[0259] Advantageous fat-soluble film-forming agents are, for example, the film-forming agents from the group consisting of the polymers based on polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP)
[0260] Copolymers of polyvinylpyrrolidone are particularly preferred, for example PVP hexadecene copolymer and PVP eicosene copolymer, which are obtainable under the trade names Antaron V216 and Antaron V220 from GAF Chemicals Cooperation, and Triacontyl PVP and suchlike.
[heading-0261] Cleansing Agents
[0262] According to the invention, these emulsions can be employed as cosmetic and dermatological preparations and as cleansing agents.
[0263] Cosmetic preparations which are cosmetic cleansing preparations for the skin can be present in liquid or solid form. Besides active ingredient combinations according to the invention, they preferably contain at least one anionic, nonionic or amphoteric surface-active substance or mixtures thereof, if desired one or more electrolytes and excipients such as are customarily used therefor. The surface-active substance can be present in a concentration of between 1 and 94% by weight in the cleansing preparations, based on the total weight of the preparations.
[heading-0264] Repellents—Insect-Repellent Agents
[0265] A further advantageous embodiment of the present invention consists in insect-repellent agents.
[0266] Advantageous active ingredients for repellents are low-melting or liquid amides, alcohols, esters and ethers having melting points of over 150° C., which evaporate only slowly at room temperature.
[0267] The following active ingredients have proven particularly advantageous individually in combination with one another or with others: 3-(N-n-butyl-N-acetylamino)propionic acid ethyl ester (trade name: Insect Repellent 3535 obtainable from Merck), N,N-di-ethyl-3-methylbenzamide (DEET), dimethyl phthalate, ethylhexanediol, caprylic acid diethylamide and natural plant oils such as citronella oil, eucalyptus oil, lavender oil and oil of cloves.
[heading-0268] Self-Tanning Agents
[0269] A further advantageous embodiment of the present invention consists in self-tanning agents.
[0270] Advantageous active ingredients for self-tanning agents are natural or synthetic ketols or aldols. Dihydroxyacetone (DHA), glycerolaldehyde, erythrulose, melanin, alloxan, hydroxy-methylglyoxal, γ-dialdehyde, 6-aldo-D-fructose, ninhydrin and meso-tartaric acid di-aldehyde have proven advantageous.
[0271] Mixtures of the abovementioned active ingredients with one another or with muconic dialdehyde or/and naphthoquinones such as, for example, 5-hydroxy-1,4-naphthoquinone (juglone) have particularly advantageous.
[heading-0272] Tissues
[0273] According to the invention, in combination with the highly liquid cosmetic and dermatological W/O impregnation emulsions, tissues are employed which consist of a nonwoven which is in particular water jet-consolidated and/or water jet-embossed (spunlaced material).
[0274] The macro embossing incorporated into the nonwoven can have any desired pattern. The choice to be made depends on on the one hand on the impregnation to be applied and on the other hand according to the field of use to which the future tissue is to be used.
[0275] Large cavities in the nonwoven surface and in the nonwoven facilitate the absorption of dirt and impurities if the skin is run over with the impregnated tissue. The cleansing action is increased by a large amount compared with the unimpregnated tissues.
[0276] Relative to the unembossed nonwoven, the thickness of the nonwoven with the high spots produced by embossing is advantageously approximately twice as high. In preferred embodiments, the embossed nonwoven is between 5% and 50%, very particularly preferably between 10% and 25%, thicker than the unembossed nonwoven.
[0277] The embossed nonwoven additionally has particular properties which make possible the use as a carrier material for emulsions or other preparations.
[0278] Thus the tensile strength is, in particular
[N/50 mm] in the dry state machine direction >60, preferably >80 transverse direction >20, preferably >30 in the impregnated state machine direction >4, preferably >60 transverse direction >10, preferably >20 The stretchability of machine direction 15% to 100%, preferably the tissue is preferably 20% and 50% in the dry state transverse direction 40% to 120%, preferably 50% and 85% in the impregnated state machine direction 15% to 100%, preferably 20% and 40% transverse direction 40% to 120%, preferably 50% and 85%
[0279] It has turned out to be advantageous for the tissue if it has a weight of 35 to 120 g/m 2 , preferably of 40 to 60 g/m 2 , (measured at 20° C.±2° C. and with a humidity of the room air of 65%±5% for 24 hours).
[0280] The thickness of the nonwoven is preferably 0.4 mm to 1.5 mm, in particular 0.6 mm to 0.9 mm.
[0281] Finally, it is particularly advantageous for the tissue to have a “surface Tinting” of less than 4 mg/1000 mm 2 , preferably less than 2 mg/1000 mm 2 .
[0282] As starting materials for the nonwoven of the tissue, generally all organic and inorganic natural- and synthetic-based fibers can be used. Viscose, cotton, jute, hemp, sisal, silk, wool, polypropylene, polyester, polyethylene terephthalate (PET), aramid, nylon, polyvinyl derivatives, polyurethanes, polylactide, polyhydroxy-alkanoate, cellulose ester and/or polyethylene, and also mineral fibers such as glass fibers or carbon fibers can be mentioned. The present invention, however, is not restricted to the materials mentioned, but a multiplicity of further fibers can be employed for the formation of the nonwoven.
[0283] In a particularly advantageous embodiment of the nonwoven, the fibers consist of a mixture of 70% of viscose and 30% of PET.
[0284] Fibers of high-strength polymers such as polyamide, polyester and/or high-flex polyethylene are also particularly advantageous.
[0285] Moreover, the fibers can also be dyed in order to emphasize and/or to increase the visual attractiveness of the nonwoven. The fibers can additionally contain UV stabilizers and/or preservatives.
[0286] The fibers employed for the formation of the tissue preferably have a water absorption rate of more than 60 mm/[10 min] (measured using the EDANA test 10.1-72), in particular more than 80 mm/[10 min].
[0287] The fibers employed for the formation of the tissue preferably then have a water absorption power of more than 5 g/g (measured using the EDANA test 10.1-72), in particular more than 8 g/g.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
[0288] The following examples are intended to illustrate the impregnation solutions according to the invention without restricting them. The numerical values in the examples denote percentages by weight, based on the total weight of the respective preparations.
EXAMPLES
[0289] The following examples are intended to illustrate the present invention without restricting it. The numerical values in the examples denote percentages by weight, based on the total weight of the respective preparations.
A. Impregnation medium: W/O sunscreen emulsions 1. Cetyl dimethicone copolyol 2 Polyglyceryl-2 dipolyhydroxy-stearate 2 Polysorbate-65 1 PEG-100 stearate 0.5 Cetyl phosphate 1 Cyclomethicone 10 Caprylyl methicone 5 Tinosorb ® S 2 Ethylhexyl triazone 4 Octocrylene 5 Ethylhexyl salicylate 5 Phenylbenzimidazole sulfonate 4 Titanium dioxide T 805 ® 3 Zinc oxide neutral 1 C 12-15 alkyl benzoate 2 Butylene glycol dicaprylate/dicaprate 5 Dicaprylyl carbonate 3 Dihexyl carbonate 5 Shea butter 0.75 PVP hexadecene copolymer 0.5 Silsoft Surface ® 1.0 Glycerol 10 Xanthan gum 0.1 Vitamin E acetate 1 EDTA 0.01 Magnesium sulfate 0.3 DMDM hydantoin 0.01 Ethanol 4 Dye q.s. Perfume q.s. Water to 100 2. Lauryl methicone copolyol 3 Polyglyceryl-3 diisostearate 2 Polysorbate-20 2 Cetearyl sulfate 0.7 Dimethicone 2 Phenyl trimethicone 5 Tinosorb ® S 3 4-Methylbenzylidene camphor 4 Ethylhexyl methoxycinnamate 10 Homosalate 7 Diethylhexyl butamidotriazone 2 Dimethico-diethylbenzal-malonate 3 MT-100 Z ® 2 Z-Cote HP1 3 Dicaprylyl ether 6 Butylene glycol dicaprylate/dicaprate 2 Mineral oil 7 PVP hexadecene copolymer 1.0 Glycerol 7.5 Vitamin E acetate 0.5 Magnesium sulfate 0.7 Konkaben LMB ® 0.12 Methylparaben 0.3 Phenoxyethanol 0.5 Dye q.s. Perfume q.s. Water to 100 3. Cetyl dimethicone copolyol 1.5 Lauryl methicone copolyol 0.7 Polyglyceryl-2 dipolyhydroxy-stearate 1.0 Polysorbate-65 1 PEG-100 stearate 1 Cyclomethicone 15 Neo Heliopan AP ® 2 Butyl methoxydibenzoyl-methane 1 Ethylhexyl triazone 2 4-methylbenzylidene camphor 4 Ethylhexyl salicylate 10 Phenylbenzimidazole sulfonate 1.5 C 12-15 alkyl benzoate 5 Dicaprylyl carbonate 4 Dihexyl carbonate 6 Shea butter 3 Silsoft Surface ® 0.50 Glycerol 5 Butylene glycol 5 Xanthan gum 0.3 Sodium chloride 1.2 Glycine soya 1.5 Ethanol 5 Dye q.s. Perfume q.s. Water to 100 4. Cetyl dimethicone copolyol 2.5 Isostearyl diglyceryl succinate 1.5 Cetyl phosphate 1.2 Dimethicone 3 Phenyl trimethicone 10 Tinosorb ® S 1 Tinosorb M ® 2 Ethylhexyl triazone 1.5 Ethylhexyl methoxycinnamate 5 Homosalate 7 Dimethicone diethylbenzal-malonate 0.5 Octyl cocoate 4 Mineral oil 5 Vitamin E acetate 0.3 α-Glucosylrutin 0.25 EDTA 0.2 Magnesium sulfate 1 Sodium chloride 0.1 Glycine soya 1 Ethanol 3 Dye q.s. Perfume q.s. Water to 100 5. Cetyl dimethicone copolyol 1.5 Polyglyceryl-2 dipolyhydroxy-stearate 2 Polysorbate-20 1 Cetearyl sulfate 0.5 Cyclomethicone 3 Neo Heliopan AP ® 0.5 Butyl methoxydibenzoyl-methane 1.5 Tinosorb M ® 2 Ethylhexyl salicylate 8 Dimethico-diethylbenzal-malonate 1 Z-Cote HP1 1.5 C 12-15 alkyl benzoate 7.5 Dicaprylyl carbonate 10 Glycerol 7.5 Vitamin E acetate 1.5 Sodium chloride 0.6 DMDM hydantoin 0.02 Methylparaben 0.4 Dye q.s. Perfume q.s. Water to 100 6. Cetyl dimethicone copolyol 3 Polyglyceryl-2 dipolyhydroxy-stearate 1 Isostearyl diglyceryl succinate 0.3 Polysorbate-65 1.5 Cetyl phosphate 0.7 Cetearyl sulfate 1 Dimethicone 2 Cyclomethicone 15 Tinosorb ® S 4 Ethylhexyl methoxycinnamate 10 Octocrylene 7.5 Ethylhexyl salicylate 6.5 Phenylbenzimidazole sulfonate 4 MT-100 Z ® 0.5 Zinc oxide neutral 4 Dicaprylyl carbonate 4 Dihexyl carbonate 6 Mineral oil 6 PVP hexadecene copolymer 0.4 Butylene glycol 7 α-Glucosylrutin 0.15 EDTA 0.15 Magnesium sulfate 1 Konkaben LMB ® 0.1 Phenoxyethanol 1 Repellent 3535 ® 10.0 Ethanol 1 Dye q.s. Perfume q.s. Water to 100 7. Cetyl dimethicone copolyol 1 Lauryl methicone copolyol 2.5 Isostearyl diglyceryl succinate 1 Polysorbate-20 1 Caprylyl methicone 5 Neo Heliopan AP ® 1 Tinosorb ® S 1 Butyl methoxydibenzoyl-methane 1 Tinosorb M ® 4 Ethylhexyl triazone 3 Ethylhexyl methoxycinnamate 10 Titanium dioxide T 805 ® 2.5 Z-Cote HP1 7 C 12-15 alkyl benzoate 5 Butylene glycol dicaprylate/ 3 dicaprate Octyl cocoate 7.5 Shea butter 3 Silsoft Surface ® 0.75 Glycerol 15 Xanthan gum 0.5 Vitamin E acetate 1.0 Magnesium sulfate 1 Konkaben LMB ® 0.2 Methylparaben 0.3 Dye q.s. Perfume q.s. Water to 100 8. Cetyl dimethicone copolyol 2.5 Lauryl methicone copolyol 0.7 Polyglyceryl-2 dipolyhydroxy-stearate 1.0 Polysorbate-65 1 PEG-100 stearate 1 Cyclomethicone 20 Tinosorb ® S 3 Butyl methoxydibenzoyl-methane 1.5 Tinosorb M ® 1 4-Methylbenzylidene camphor 1 Octocrylene 4 Ethylhexyl salicylate 8 Homosalate 2 Diethylhexyl butamidotriazone 2 Phenylbenzimidazole sulfonate 2 Titanium dioxide T 805 ® 5 PVP hexadecene copolymer 0.7 Butylene glycol 7.5 α-Glucosylrutin 0.5 Magnesium sulfate 0.7 DMDM hydantoin 0.01 Glycine soya 0.5 Dye q.s. Perfume q.s. Water to 100 9. Cetyl dimethicone copolyol 3 Polyglyceryl-2 dipolyhydroxy-stearate 2 Polysorbate-65 0.5 PEG-100 stearate 0.5 Cetyl phosphate 1 Dimethicone 5 Cyclomethicone 7 Caprylyl methicone 6 Neo Heliopan AP ® 2.5 Butyl methoxydibenzoyl-methane 2 Ethylhexyl triazone 2 Octocrylene 2.5 Dimethico-diethylbenzal-malonate 2 Dicaprylyl carbonate 5 Dihexyl carbonate 5 Mineral oil 15 Shea butter 2 Glycerol 4 Butylene glycol 5 Vitamin E acetate 0.75 Sodium chloride 0.75 Phenoxyethanol 1 Glycine soya 1 Dye q.s. Perfume q.s. Water to 100 10. Cetyl dimethicone copolyol 1.5 Polyglyceryl-3 diisostearate 2 Polysorbate-65 2 Cetearyl sulfate 0.75 Dimethicone 5 Cyclomethicone 5 Phenyl trimethicone 2 Neo Heliopan AP ® 1 Tinosorb ® S 2 Ethylhexyl triazone 3 Ethylhexyl methoxycinnamate 5 Dicaprylyl ether 8 Butylene glycol dicaprylate/dicaprate 8 Dicaprylyl carbonate 3 Glycerol 6 Butylene glycol 10 Sodium chloride 1 Methylparaben 0.2 Ethanol 7 Dye q.s. Perfume q.s. Water to 100
[0290]
B. Impregnation medium: caring W/O emulsions
1
2
Cetyl dimethicone copolyol
2
Laurylmethicone copolyol
3
Polyglyceryl-2 dipolyhydroxystearate
1.5
Polyglyceryl-3 diisostearate
2
Polysorbate-65
1
Polysorbate-20
2
PEG-100 stearate
0.5
Trilaureth-4 phosphate
1.5
Cetearyl sulfate
0.7
Dimethicone
5
Cyclomethicone
5
15
Phenyl trimethicone
2
Caprylyl methicone
1
C 12-15 alkyl benzoate
4
Dicaprylyl ether
10
Octyldodecanol
3
Dicaprylyl carbonate
10
Octyl cocoate
2
Caprylic/capric triglyceride
2
Shea butter
0.5
Glycerol
10
7
Butylene glycol
10
Vitamin E acetate
1
0.5
α-Glycosylrutin
0.15
Magnesium sulfate
0.7
1.4
DMDM hydantoin
0.01
Konkaben LMB ®
0.1
Phenoxyethanol
1
0.4
Dihydroxyacetone
5
Dye
q.s.
q.s.
Perfume
q.s.
q.s.
Water
to 100
to 100
3
4
Cetyl dimethicone copolyol
2.5
Laurylmethicone copolyol
1.5
Polyglyceryl-2 dipolyhydroxy-
2
stearate
Polyglyceryl-3 diisostearate
Isostearyl diglyceryl succinate
0.7
1.5
PEG-100 stearate
1
Trilaureth-4 phosphate
1.2
Dimethicone
1
Phenyl trimethicone
7
Caprylyl methicone
10
C 12-15 alkyl benzoate
8
Dicaprylyl carbonate
4
Caprylic/capric triglyceride
5
Isononyl octanoate
10
5
Dihexyl carbonate
Mineral oil
10
Shea butter
1
Glycerol
15
Butylene glycol
5
Xanthan gum
0.2
Vitamin E acetate
1
α-Glycosylrutin
0.3
Coenzyme Q10
0.7
Sodium chloride
1
1.5
DMDM hydantoin
Konkaben LMB ®
0.15
0.2
Methylparaben
0.3
Ethanol
2
Dye
q.s.
q.s.
Perfume
q.s.
q.s.
Water
to 100
to 100
5
6
Cetyl dimethicone copolyol
1.5
3
Polyglyceryl-2 dipolyhydroxy-stearate
1.5
1
Isostearyl diglyceryl succinate
0.3
Polysorbate-65
1.5
Polysorbate-20
0.7
Cetearyl sulfate
1
Dimethicone
4
Cyclomethicone
20
Caprylyl methicone
8
C 12-15 alkyl benzoate
5
Dicaprylyl ether
5
Dicaprylyl carbonate
10
15
Isononyl octanoate
2
Dihexyl carbonate
6
Mineral oil
5
Shea butter
2
Glycerol
5
7.5
Butylene glycol
5
Xanthan gum
0.5
Vitamin E acetate
0.75
2
α-Glycosylrutin
0.2
Coenzyme Q10
Magnesium sulfate
0.2
1
Sodium chloride
0.5
Phenoxyethanol
0.3
Glycine soja
1
0.7
Ethanol
5
Dihydroxyacetone
7.5
Dye
q.s.
q.s.
Perfume
q.s.
q.s.
Water
to 100
to 100
7
8
Cetyl dimethicone copolyol
1
1.5
Lauryl methicone copolyol
2.5
0.7
Polyglyceryl-2 dipolyhydroxy-stearate
1.0
Isostearyl diglyceryl succinate
1
Polysorbate-65
1
Polysorbate-20
1
PEG-100 stearate
1
Dimethicone
7
2
Cyclomethicone
20
Phenyl trimethicone
15
Dicaprylyl ether
10
Octyldodecanol
5
Dicaprylyl carbonate
7.5
Octyl cocoate
7
Caprylic/capric triglyceride
2
Glycerol
10
Butylene glycol
10
Vitamin E acetate
1.5
0.5
α-Glycosilrutin
Coenzyme Q10
0.02
Magnesium sulfate
0.5
0.3
DMDM hydantoin
0.01
Methylparaben
0.2
Glycine soya
1.5
Ethanol
3
Dye
q.s.
q.s.
Perfume
q.s.
q.s.
Water
to 100
to 100
9
10
Cetyl dimethicone copolyol
3
1.5
Polyglyceryl-3 diisostearate
1
2
Polysorbate-65
2
Trilaureth-4 phosphate
1
Cetearyl sulfate
0.75
Cyclomethicone
15
Phenyl trimethicone
4
Caprylyl methicone
5
C 12-15 alkyl benzoate
9
Dicaprylyl ether
5
Octyldodecanol
Dicaprylyl carbonate
10
Octyl cocoate
15
Caprylic/capric triglyceride
10
Isononyl octanoate
4
Dihexyl carbonate
5
Mineral oil
15
Shea butter
4
Glycerol
7.5
5
Xanthan gum
0.1
Vitamin E acetate
0.3
0.2
Magnesium sulfate
0.7
Sodium chloride
0.5
Konkaben LMB ®
0.18
Methylparaben
0.1
Phenoxyethanol
1
1
Glycine soya
0.5
Dye
q.s.
q.s.
Perfume
q.s.
q.s.
Water
to 100
to 100 | A cosmetic or dermatological tissue comprising a water-insoluble nonwoven impregnated and/or moistened with a cosmetic or dermatological W/O emulsion comprising an emulsifier system of an O/W emulsifier having an HLB value of >10 and a silicone emulsifier (W/S) having an HLB value of ≦8 and/or a W/O emulsifier having an HLB value of <7. | 0 |
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION
[0001] This application claims the benefit of Provisional Application Ser. No. 61/971,284 filed Mar. 27, 2014 the entire contents of which is hereby expressly incorporated by reference herein.
STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT
[0002] Not Applicable
THE NAMES OF THE PARTIES TO A JOINT RESEARCH AGREEMENT
[0003] Not Applicable
INCORPORATION-BY-REFERENCE OF MATERIAL SUBMITTED ON A COMPACT DISC
[0004] Not Applicable
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0005] 1. Field of the Invention
[0006] This invention relates to improvements in a gun bolt cleaning and fire starting survival tool. More particularly, the present gun bolt cleaning and fire starting survival tool is a multi-function survival and rifle bolt cleaning tool that relates to outdoor, camping, hunting, sporting goods and military equipment, and is specifically directed for owners and users of semiautomatic and fully automatic firearms that utilize a rotating breech bolt.
[0007] 2. Description of Related Art including information disclosed under 37 CFR 1.97 and 1.98
[0008] The operating system of these firearms routes high-pressure gas from the fired cartridge case directly into the bolt carrier to provide the necessary energy to operate the bolt once for every round fired. A problem that is unique to this “direct gas impingement” design arises with the accumulation of carbon from the gunpowder residue collecting inside the bolt carrier, inside the bolt carrier key, on the bolt lugs, and on the outer and inner aft or tail end of the bolt, in and around the bolt's gas sealing rings. If this carbon fouling is not removed regularly, the action of the bolt and bolt carrier can be slowed and eventually interrupted, thus causing the firearm to “jam” or fail to complete the process of extracting an empty round and loading a live one. In circumstances where the firearm is employed in a military or law enforcement application, these sudden stoppages can be life-threatening to the operator.
[0009] Current methods for cleaning carbon deposits from a bolt can best be described as “free-hand” in that a person takes a cleaning brush, pocket knife, modified brass cartridge case or the like and attempts to scrape away the carbon on the outer tail section of the bolt. These methods are imprecise, and they also risk scraping the gas sealing rings, which are situated immediately ahead of the tail section of the bolt where the carbon deposits build up. If the gas scaling rings are dislodged or damaged by a cleaning tool, the rifle operation will be disabled.
[0010] While many operators of these firearms have said accessories installed on their firearms with said compartments, few use said compartment for their intended uses. Most leave said compartment empty due to a lack of need for said batteries and lack of other options. It is in these common compartments of common firearms accessories that this current invention is designed to fit.
[0011] A number of patents and or publications have been made to address these issues. Exemplary examples of patents and or publication that try to address this/these problem(s) are identified and discussed below.
[0012] U.S. Pat. No. 6,782,576 issued on Aug. 31, 2004 to Michael Valencic et al discloses a Survival Tool. While the survival too provides a variety of tools, it does not include firearm cleaning surfaces and further does not fit within a firearm when not being used.
[0013] U.S. Pat. No. 7,644,529 issued on Jan. 12, 2010 to James Vester Hopper et al discloses a Rifle Bolt Cleaning Tool. The bolt cleaning tool does not offer any survival tool functions and further does not fit within a compartment on a firearm.
[0014] U.S. Pat. No. 8,1186,995 issued on May 29, 2012 to Andrew C. Putrello Jr discloses a Survival Tool Fire Starter with Mischmetal Flint Rod. This tool is essentially just a fire starting tool and offers minimal other survival tools and no gun cleaning surfaces.
[0015] What is needed is a combination gun cleaning, fire starting and sharpening survival tool that fits within a firearm. The gun bolt cleaning and fire starting survival tool disclosed in this document provides the solution.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0016] It is an object of the gun bolt cleaning and fire starting survival tool to clean a rifle bolt, bolt carrier and firing pin. The components included in the bolt carrier portion of a semi-automatic or fully automatic firearm are responsible for feeding live ammunition from the magazine, inserting it into the chamber, providing the firing pin strike that initiates the firing of the ammunition, and extracting and ejecting the spent round from the firing chamber.
[0017] It is another object of the gun bolt cleaning and fire starting survival tool to producing fire. Emergency fire starters are typically included as equipment for many civilian and military occupations, as well as for recreational outdoor use, due to fires impact on the outcome of a survival situation. In its simplest form, a steel strike plate member is struck against a flint member, e.g., a flint rod, to produce sparks. The sparks can be used to ignite a finely divided flammable material, which can then be used to light a fire on available flammable materials, e.g., fire wood. Most survival starters today focus solely on starting fires. The gun bolt cleaning and fire starting survival tool incorporates a fire starter with a bolt cleaning tool.
[0018] It is still another object of the gun bolt cleaning and fire starting survival tool to utilization of wasted space within the firearm. There are multitudes of M-4 carbine, M16 and AR-15 type rifles being produced each year. It has become commonplace for companies to make firearm accessories for said rifles. Some common accessories include enhanced vertical forward grips and enhanced butt stocks. These are just two common accessories that are commonly made with storage compartments. Said compartments are most commonly made to accept “AA” or “CR123” type batteries, but some compartments are made for other reasons.
[0019] It is another object of the gun bolt cleaning and fire starting survival tool to provide a means of cleaning a rifles bolt that can be readily accomplished in low light conditions, harsh operating environments, and by gloved hands, if necessary.
[0020] It is another object of the gun bolt cleaning and fire starting survival tool to provide a tool that accomplishes precise cleaning of the inner portion of the bolt carrier, the bolt carrier key, the bolt face, all of the edges on the inner and outer tail end of the bolt, the bolt lugs and the firing pin.
[0021] It is another object of the gun bolt cleaning and fire starting survival tool to provide a bolt cleaning tool that scrapes the tail end of the bolt and that does not come into contact with the gas sealing rings.
[0022] It is another object of the gun bolt cleaning and fire starting survival tool to provide a sharpening rod to sharpen cutting and scraping blades without the need to carry a separate sharpening rod or stone.
[0023] It is another object of the gun bolt cleaning and fire starting survival tool to provide a bolt cleaning tool that is portable, light and small so that it can be carried in the field without burdening the operator with extra weight or bulk.
[0024] It is another object of the gun bolt cleaning and fire starting survival tool to provide a survival tool for starting fires that is simple in design and usage, compact, reliable, and overcomes the drawbacks of conventional fire starters. A further object to provide a fire starter that can reliably ignite a fire under most outdoor conditions, and notably in a survival situation where the ability to start a fire is critical to survival.
[0025] It is still another object of the gun bolt cleaning and fire starting survival tool to provide a compartment within that is relatively safe from environmental contamination when not in use.
[0026] It is another object of the gun bolt cleaning and fire starting survival tool to be of particular size as to fit snugly into common compartments found in firearms accessories. This fit allows it to be readily available in a time of need, and stops it from moving around within said compartment causing unwanted noise.
[0027] Various objects, features, aspects, and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description of preferred embodiments of the invention, along with the accompanying drawings in which like numerals represent like components.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWING(S)
[0028] FIG. 1A shows a plan view of the enclosure for the gun bolt cleaning and fire starting survival tool.
[0029] FIG. 1B shows an exploded view of the gun bolt cleaning and fire starting survival tool and the housing.
[0030] FIG. 1C shows a plan view of the housing with the gun bolt cleaning and fire starting survival tool inside the housing
[0031] FIG. 2A shows a first preferred embodiment and an exploded perspective view of the preferred one piece example of the steel tool 15 from FIG. 1 .
[0032] FIG. 2B shows a second preferred embodiment and an exploded perspective view of the preferred one piece example of the steel tool 40 .
[0033] FIG. 3 shows a first preferred embodiment of the enclosure to house the gun bolt cleaning and fire starting survival tool.
[0034] FIG. 4 shows an end view of the housing opening where the tools and starter is stored.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
[0035] FIG. 1A shows a plan view of the enclosure 10 for the gun bolt cleaning 15 and fire starting 14 and sharpening 39 survival tool, FIG. 1B shows an exploded view of the gun bolt cleaning 15 and fire starting 14 survival tool and the housing 10 and FIG. 1C shows a plan view of the housing with the gun bolt cleaning 15 , fire starting 14 and sharpening 39 survival tool inside the housing 10 in a preferred embodiment. The final product may look different in appearance but will accomplish the same features. The figure shows how the tool is contained, taken apart, and reassembled for use as a fire starter. The end cap 16 is unscrewed from the housing 13 . The flint rod 14 and the steel tool 15 are taken out. The end cap 16 is screwed 17 back on to the housing 13 . A washer 19 seals the end cap 16 on the housing 13 . The compression cap 11 is a screw on cap with a hole on top the exact diameter of the flint rod 14 . The compression cap 11 is unscrewed 18 , the flint rod 14 is placed in the seating notch 12 , and the compression cap 11 is placed over the flint rod 14 and screwed back on to the threads of the seating notch 12 for a tight fit. The housing 13 is used as a handle for the flint rod 14 . The appropriate surface on the steel tool 15 is then scraped against the flint rod 14 and sparks are created for starting fire. In FIG. 1 the steel tool is a single flat piece of metal or plastic.
[0036] FIG. 2A and 2B show exploded perspective views of two preferred one piece embodiments of the steel tool 15 from FIG. 1 and 40 .
[0037] FIGS. 2A and 2B are an exploded plan views of preferred one piece examples of the steel tool 15 from FIG. 1 and a second embodiment 40 is FIG. 2B . In these figures the steel tools 15 a and 40 are shown with the surfaces separated from the steel tool 15 and 40 . The multiple functions of this embodiment of the tool include:
[0038] 21 a surface for cleaning bolt lugs.
[0039] 22 a surface for cleaning bolt carrier inner walls.
[0040] 23 a surface for cleaning the bolt face.
[0041] 24 a surface for opening a glass bottle.
[0042] 25 A cut-out for cleaning a firing pin and a space for a cleaning cloth.
[0043] 26 a surface for scraping against a flint rod.
[0044] 27 a surface for cleaning the outer walls of a bolt tail end.
[0045] 28 a surface for cleaning the inner walls of the bolt tail and bolt carrier gas key inner walls.
[0046] 31 a hex socket for gripping a nut or hex rod.
[0047] 32 a socket for gripping a nut or hex rod.
[0048] 33 a pointed scraper for clearing holes.
[0049] The “Steel Tool” 15 and 40 have many functions. Primarily it is a rifle bolt cleaning tool made of metal. In the preferred embodiments the steel tool 15 or 40 is made of one piece for simplicity and ease of use; however it may be made of multiple pieces connected together to form one. Some reasons for having multiple pieces include: adjustable and replaceable scraping surfaces for better cleaning and the ability for changing scraping surfaces after they wear out.
[0050] In a preferred embodiment the scraping surfaces include: one end designed to fit inside a bolt carrier group to clean within, one surface designed with “teeth” to scrape in and around the bolt's locking lugs, one surface has radiuses to match that of a rifle bolts outer back end, another surface has a radius for the cleaning of the bolts inner back end as well as the bolt carrier key, along one side is a straight edge used for scraping against a flint to produce sparks, along another side is a surface with grooves designed for allowing a scraping surface to clean the bolt face, a hole will be designed in the current gun bolt cleaning and fire starting survival tool to accommodate a firing pin and cloth cleaning patch, and an optional feature is a “hook” designed for use as a glass bottle opener. These figures show only two preferred examples and the final product may look different from the image on FIG. 2 . It is further contemplated that a saw and or file can be incorporated into the steel tool 15 or 40 to provider further functions.
[0051] FIG. 3 shows a first preferred embodiment of the enclosure to house the gun bolt cleaning and fire starting survival tool with the compression cap 11 , threads with a sealing notch 12 for the compression cap. The housing 13 is shown broken away to show the internal cross-section with compartments for the flint rod 35 , the steel tool 34 and the sharpening rod 37 . The end cap 16 is shown at the bottom of this view. FIG. 4 shows an end view of the housing opening where the flint rod 35 and the steel tool 34 tool is stored within the housing 13 .
[0052] The “Housing” 13 has multiple functions as well. In a preferred embodiment, this piece of the present gun bolt cleaning 15 , or 40 , the fire starting 14 and sharpening rod 39 survival tool would be made of a plastic or polymer material, it has a tubular space within to encapsulate the flint rod 14 , sharpening rod 39 and steel tool 15 or 40 , the compartment is solid on one side and open on the other, the open end is sealed with a solid cap threaded on creating a water tight seal with a rubber washer between, the opposite side of the end cap has a seating notch designed so the flint will fit snugly into it, once seated the compression cap is fitted over the flint and screwed down tight creating a tight grip on the flint, the seating cap has a hole 35 the exact diameter of the flint 14 or sharpening rod 39 and compress the notches into the flint to hold it tight; this allows the housing to act as a handle for convenient use of the flint rod 14 or sharpening rod 39 . Opening 36 can be used to store a rag or wadding for cleaning the barrel of the firearm or other surfaces.
[0053] Operation
[0054] When the present gun bolt cleaning and fire starting survival tool is not in use, the flint rod and steel tool are inside the housing. The end cap 16 and compression cap 11 are screwed on tight to create a water tight compartment. The gun bolt cleaning 15 or 40 and fire starting 14 survival tool is ready to fit in a compartment 13 within a common firearm accessory or placed in a user's bag or on his or her person.
[0055] When the present gun bolt cleaning 15 or 40 , sharpening rod 39 and the fire starting 14 survival tool are ready for use as a fire starter 14 it is first taken out of its location. The end cap 16 is then unscrewed, the contents are taken out and the end cap 16 is screwed back on. Then the compression cap 11 is unscrewed, flint rod 14 or sharpener rod 39 is placed into the seating notch and the compression cap is placed over the end of the flint rod 14 or sharpener rod 39 and screwed on until the flint is firmly held in place. Finally the flint 14 scraping surface of the steel tool 15 is scrapped 26 along the flint and sparks are created.
[0056] When the present gun bolt cleaning 15 or 40 and fire starting 14 with a blade sharpening rod 39 survival tool is ready for use as a bolt cleaner, it is first taken out form its location. The end cap 16 is taken off, the steel tool 15 or 40 is taken out and the end cap 16 is screwed back on. The steel tool 15 or 40 is ready for cleaning the many common surfaces of the AR-15/M4/M16 rifle bolts, bolt carrier groups, firing pins, or opening bottle caps. In a multi piece design for the steel tool, some tuning or adjusting may need to be done before initial use.
[0057] The present gun bolt cleaning 15 or 40 , fire starting 14 , and sharpening rod 39 survival tool is a multi-function survival tool directed at owners and users of semi-automatic and fully automatic firearms that utilize a rotating breech bolt. The tool comprises of two basic components that fit within a third for storage.
[0058] In this embodiment of the gun bolt cleaning 15 or 40 and fire starting 14 survival tool the “Flint Rod” 14 is formed of a mischmetal material having a negative standard reduction potential and a composition, by weight, generally as follows: Cerium—one half Lanthanum—one quarter Magnesium—at least ten percent Other rare earth elements—up to five percent Iron—balance (usually about the same amount as the magnesium).
[0059] Thus, specific embodiments of a gun bolt cleaning and fire starting survival tool have been disclosed. It should be apparent, however, to those skilled in the art that many more modifications besides those described are possible without departing from the inventive concepts herein. The inventive subject matter, therefore, is not to be restricted except in the spirit of the appended claims. | Improvements in a multi-functional gun bolt cleaning and fire starting survival tool. The tool is specifically designed for owners and operators of semi-automatic and fully automatic firearms that utilize a rotating breech bolt (for example, the M-4 carbine, M16 and AR-15 type rifles). The tool has a steel tool designed to scrape carbon buildup off on critical surfaces so the firearm may function. The tool incorporates a flint rod for use with the steel tool, creating sparks for starting fires. The housing of the device keeps the other parts away from elements and acts as a handle for the flint rod when trying to start fires. The entire device is designed to fit within compartments found in common firearms accessories. | 5 |
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0001] 1. Field of the Invention
[0002] The present invention relates to an integrated semiconductor memory which can be subjected to a memory cell test for determining operative and defective memory cells, and which has a memory unit for storing addresses of defective memory cells.
[0003] For the repair of defective memory cells, integrated semiconductor memories generally have redundant memory cells, which are usually combined to form redundant row lines or redundant column lines which can replace regular lines with defective memory cells on an address basis. In this case, the integrated memory is tested, for example by an external testing device or a self-testing device, and programming of the redundant elements is subsequently performed on the basis of a so-called redundancy analysis. A redundancy circuit then has programmable elements, for example in the form of programmable fuses, which serve for storing the address of a line to be replaced.
[0004] A semiconductor memory device is tested, for example after the production process, and is subsequently repaired. For this purpose, the addresses of those tested memory cells which were detected as defective are stored in a so-called defect address memory, in order to replace these memory cells in a subsequent step with defect-free redundant memory cells on the basis of the addresses stored. The memory device is in this case generally subjected to a number of tests. Only those memory cells that pass all of the tests are considered in this case to be operative or defect-free. If a memory cell does not pass one or more tests, it is considered to be defective and must be replaced by a defect-free redundant memory cell. In the case of semiconductor memories with a memory cell array in matrix form, which have redundant row lines or redundant column lines, instead of a single memory cell usually an entire row line or column line is replaced by corresponding redundant row lines or column lines.
[0005] Since memory cells are subjected to a number of tests, if a particular test is not passed, it must be determined whether the defect address has already been stored because of a failure of a previous test. This determination must be performed before the address of the defective memory cell is stored. If this is the case, the defect address should not be stored a second time, in order to save memory space. The defect addresses may be stored in a separate memory cell array on the chip to be tested. This additional memory cell array is then part of, for example, a self-testing device of the memory chip.
[0006] The check to be carried out to ascertain whether a memory cell has already been stored once must not influence the speed with which the memory test is carried out. For example, a parallel comparison of all of the defect addresses already stored with the current defect address, and possibly the subsequent storage of the new address, can in this case take place together in one clock cycle. However, this generally leads to the provision of a considerable amount of circuitry for the defect address memory. A serial comparison of the stored defect addresses with the current defect address is possible only if it can be ensured that the time from detecting one defective memory cell to detecting the next defective memory cell reaches a certain length. This time must be made to be of such a duration to insure that the address of a previously detected defective memory cell can be compared with all of the already stored defect addresses and the address of this detected defective memory cell can possibly be stored before another defective memory cell is detected. Since defective memory cells often occur in rapid succession in a memory cell test, in particular along row lines or column lines, the time periods described usually cannot be maintained.
[0007] As long as the number of defective memory cells is small in comparison with the memory size, a memory unit can be provided as a buffer memory, in order to decouple a test of the memory cell array and the storage of the defect addresses. This buffer memory must in this case be large enough to ensure that the addresses of memory cells detected as defective can at any time still be written to be buffer memory. The maximum size of the buffer memory to be provided can be estimated on the basis of the size of the memory to be tested and the existing number of redundant row lines and column lines. For example, all the memory cells along a column line and at the same time as many column lines as it takes to establish that there is no redundant column line available any longer for the repair of defective memory cells along a column line must be tested. This results in a relatively high storage requirement of the buffer memory to be provided. For memory devices with an in-built self-testing unit, such a solution is usually too complex.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0008] It is accordingly an object of the invention to provide a semiconductor memory which overcomes the above-mentioned disadvantageous of the prior art semiconductor memories of this general type. More specifically, an object is to provide a semiconductor memory that can be subjected to a memory cell test, wherein the semiconductor memory has a memory unit for storing addresses of defective memory cells, and wherein the storage requirement of the memory unit is as small as possible.
[0009] With the foregoing and other objects in view there is provided, in accordance with the invention an integrated semiconductor memory which has, along with addressable normal memory cells, addressable redundant memory cells for replacing one of the normal memory cells. Furthermore, the memory has a memory unit for storing addresses of defective normal memory cells. The memory unit has a control input for controlling the storing operation of the memory unit and an output for outputting the memory content. A preprocessing device has a memory device for storing a fixed number of addresses of defective normal memory cells. It serves for the comparison between the stored addresses and the outputting of an output signal according to the result of the comparison. The preprocessing device has, furthermore, an output for the outputting of the output signal, which is connected to the control input of the memory unit. With a circuit configuration of this type, in which defect information is buffer-stored in the memory unit in the course of a memory test, the size of the memory unit can be kept small.
[0010] The size of the memory unit is kept small because the defect information irrelevant to the repair phase following the test has already been filtered out by the preprocessing device during the buffer storage in the memory unit. This irrelevant information is no longer stored. The comparison carried out for this purpose between the defect addresses stored in the preprocessing device takes place in a suitable way with regard to which of the normal memory cells are to be replaced by which of the redundant memory cells. There consequently takes place a kind of preprocessing of the defect information, present in the form of addresses of defective memory cells, with regard to the subsequent redundancy analysis.
[0011] In accordance with an added feature of the invention, the addresses of memory cells which are configured in a memory cell array in matrix form and are combined into addressable units of column lines and row lines have, for example, a first address part, via which the respective column line is accessed, and a second address part, via which the respective row line is accessed. Accordingly, the memory device of the preprocessing device has, for example, register units for the storing of in each case one of the address parts, which are connected to each other in the form of a shift register.
[0012] In accordance with an additional feature of the invention, the outputs of the register units are connected to corresponding inputs of a comparison device for a comparison between the contents of the register units. An output of the comparison device is connected to the output of the preprocessing device and consequently to the control input for controlling the storing operation of the memory unit.
[0013] As described at the beginning, the (permanent) storage of defect addresses from a number of tests to be carried out takes place, for example, in a defect address memory, which is located in a separate memory cell array on the semiconductor chip to be tested. Accordingly, the circuit configuration has a further memory unit for storing addresses of defective normal memory cells, which is connected to the output of the memory unit for taking over one of the addresses stored in the memory unit.
[0014] A filtering of defect information already during the buffer storage in the memory unit is possible by the circuit configuration according to the invention, so that a relatively small number of defect addresses have to be stored in the defect address memory. This may mean a considerable time advantage in the subsequent redundancy analysis, for example in a self-testing unit, since a comparatively small number of defect addresses from the defect address memory have to be processed.
[0015] Other features which are considered as characteristic for the invention are set forth in the appended claims.
[0016] Although the invention is illustrated and described herein as embodied in an integrated semiconductor memory with a memory unit for storing addresses of defective memory cells, it is nevertheless not intended to be limited to the details shown, since various modifications and structural changes may be made therein without departing from the spirit of the invention and within the scope and range of equivalents of the claims.
[0017] The construction and method of operation of the invention, however, together with additional objects and advantages thereof will be best understood from the following description of specific embodiments when read in connection with the accompanying drawings.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0018] [0018]FIG. 1 shows a schematic representation of a memory cell array in matrix form of a semiconductor memory; and
[0019] [0019]FIG. 2 shows an exemplary embodiment of a circuit configuration of a semiconductor memory.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
[0020] Referring now to the figures of the drawing in detail and first, particularly, to FIG. 1 thereof, there is shown a memory cell array 1 , organized in matrix form, for example of a DRAM. The memory cell array 1 has regular row or word lines WL, column or bit lines BL, redundant word lines RWL and redundant bit lines RBL, at the crossing points of which memory cells MC or redundant memory cells RMC are configured. The memory cells MC or RMC of the memory shown in each case contain a selection transistor and a storage capacitor. In this configuration, control inputs of the selection transistors are connected to one of the word lines WL or redundant word lines RWL, while a main current path of the selection transistors is configured between the storage capacitor of the respective memory cell MC or RMC and one of the bit lines BL or RBL.
[0021] Testing systems that use a so-called Fail Address Memory (FAM), store the addresses of defective memory cells MC of the device to be tested in the way described above. The maximum size of the buffer memory to be provided can be estimated on based on the size of the memory cell array to be tested and on the existing number of redundant bit lines and redundant word lines. If, for example, a memory cell array to be tested has r word lines WL and cr redundant bit lines RBL, up to r.cr defect addresses can occur in a memory test. Before it is established that the device cannot be repaired, the memory test first counts up or counts down the word lines WL before the bit line address is incremented or decremented,. It is conversely the case that, with a memory cell array with c bit lines BL and rr redundant word lines RWL and a test which firstly counts up or counts down the bit lines BL before the word line address is incremented or decremented, up to c.rr defect addresses occur before it is established that the device cannot be repaired. The buffer memory must accordingly be able to take the maximum number of W=c.rr or W=r.cr defect addresses. For exemplary numerical values r=2048, rr=24, c=512, cr=8 and an address depth of 24 bits, a size of 48 kilobytes is consequently obtained. For memory devices with an in-built self-testing unit, a solution of this type is usually too complex.
[0022] [0022]FIG. 2 shows an embodiment of a circuit configuration according to the invention. This has a memory unit 2 for storing addresses of defective normal memory cells. The memory unit 2 has a control input 21 for controlling the storing operation of the memory unit 2 and an output 22 for outputting the memory content. The circuit configuration has, furthermore, a preprocessing device 3 , which is connected via the output 31 to the control input 21 of the memory unit 2 for outputting the output signal S 31 . The memory unit 2 and the preprocessing device 3 are respectively fed addresses ADR of defective memory cells MC via an address bus. The addresses in this case comprise a first address part ADR 1 , via which the respective bit line BL is accessed, and a second address part ADR 2 , via which the respective word line WL is accessed.
[0023] The preprocessing device 3 has memory devices 4 and 5 for storing a fixed number of addresses of defective normal memory cells MC. Each of the memory devices 4 and 5 has register units 6 for respectively storing one of the address parts ADR 1 or ADR 2 . The register units 6 are connected to each other in the form of a shift register. Outputs 61 of the register units 6 are connected to inputs 71 of a comparison device 7 . The output 72 of the comparison device 7 is connected to the output 31 of the preprocessing device 3 via the control 9 . A comparison device 8 is connected in a way analogous to the comparison device 7 to corresponding outputs of the memory device 5 and via the control 9 to the output 31 of the preprocessing device 3 . A signal 91 of the control 9 serves for switching over between the signals 92 and 93 as the input signal of the control 9 . The clock signal clk and the signal F, which is generated for example by a self-testing unit, serve as control signals for controlling the storing operation of the memory devices 4 and 5 and as input signals of the control 9 .
[0024] The circuit configuration has a further memory unit 10 , which serves for storing addresses of defective normal memory cells MC. The further memory unit 10 is connected to the output 22 of the memory unit 2 for taking over one of the addresses stored in the memory unit 2 . The further memory unit 10 serves, for example, as a defect address memory for storing defect addresses from a number of functional tests that have been carried out. The further memory unit 10 may be located inside or outside the semiconductor memory.
[0025] The sequence of a functional test of the semiconductor memory and the associated mode of operation of the circuit configuration represented in FIG. 2 is explained below in more detail.
[0026] Carried out by way of example is a functional test by which the memory cells MC along one word line WL are first tested before the next word line WL is subjected to the test. Furthermore, a complete failure of all the memory cells MC along a word line WL of the memory cell array 1 is assumed for the explanation. In response to the failure of a word line WL, with each read access to one of the memory cells MC of the word line WL to be tested, the memory test generates in quick succession a new defect address, which is initially stored in the memory unit 2 and is subsequently transferred into the defect address memory, of the further memory unit 10 . As soon as more than cr defect addresses with the same word line address are in the memory unit 2 , it is already established that a subsequently found defective memory cell MC can only be repaired by replacing the corresponding word line WL with a redundant word line RWL. Not enough redundant bit lines RBL are available to replace the defective memory cells MC with redundant bit lines RBL.
[0027] For the redundancy analysis which follows the memory test and in which it is established which word lines with defective memory cells are replaced by redundant word lines, it is therefore irrelevant whether cr+1 or more defect addresses with an identical word line address were taken over in the defect address memory. As soon as the memory unit 2 receives cr+1 defect addresses with an identical word line address, therefore no further defect addresses with this word line address must be accepted. Since, in the test being considered, the defect addresses with an identical word line address always occur in direct succession and not distributed over the entire test sequence, it is sufficient to test whether the last cr+1 defect addresses have the same word line address. If this is the case, no new defect address with an identical word line address must be accepted any longer in the memory unit 2 . The size of the memory unit 2 is consequently restricted to the order of magnitude of cr+1 defect addresses.
[0028] In a functional test of this type, consequently a maximum of the last cr+1 defect addresses are stored in one of the memory devices 4 or 5 of the preprocessing device 3 . For example, the address part ADR 2 of a defect address by which the respective word line WL is accessed (word line address) is respectively stored in the register units 6 of the memory device 4 . The content of the respective register units 6 , i.e. the last cr word line addresses, plus the current word line address, are checked by means of the comparison device 7 to ascertain whether they coincide. If these word line addresses coincide, no new defect address with this word line address must be accepted any longer in the memory unit 2 . Accordingly, the storing operation of the memory unit 2 is interrupted by the output 31 .
[0029] In a functional test in which the word line address is first incremented or decremented before the bit line address is changed, analogous considerations indicate that a maximum of rr+1 defect addresses must be stored in the memory unit 2 . It must consequently be tested in the preprocessing device 3 whether the last rr+1 defect addresses have the same bit line address. This takes place with the memory device 5 in connection with the comparison device 8 with respect to the address part ADR 1 (bit line address). A parallel comparison of the current bit line address ADR 1 with the last rr addresses stored in the memory device 5 takes place.
[0030] The size of the memory unit 2 is restricted for both types of functional tests to the order of magnitude of the maximum value from W=rr+1 or W=cr+1. To be able to ensure operability in a so-called worst-case scenario, the memory unit 2 is expediently to be made twice the maximum value W. Such a worst case occurs, for example, if the last-tested memory cells MC along a word line WL are defective and, after the word line address has been incremented or decremented, the first-tested memory cells MC of the next word line are defective. For the above numerical example, the memory space requirement of the memory unit 2 is consequently reduced to the order of magnitude of 150 bytes.
[0031] With the control signal 91 it is selected whether the word line addresses ADR 2 , bit line addresses ADR 1 or both parts of the defect addresses are tested to ascertain whether they coincide, for example because of a changed redundancy analysis. The signals F and clk are used for example for controlling the point in time of the storing operation or the relevant clock rate. The control input 23 of the memory unit 2 is used for controlling the taking over of an address stored in the memory unit 2 into the further memory unit 10 . | An integrated semiconductor memory which can be subjected to a memory cell test for determining operative and defective memory cells has addressable normal memory cells (MC) and redundant memory cells (RMC) for replacing, in each case, one of the normal memory cells (MC). A memory unit ( 2 ) for storing addresses (ADR) of defective normal memory cells (MC) serves as a buffer memory. A preprocessing device ( 3 ) has a memory device ( 4, 5 ) for storing a fixed number of addresses (ADR) of defective normal memory cells (MC). It serves for the comparison between the stored addresses (ADR) and for the outputting of an output signal (S 31 ) according to the result of the comparison. This serves for controlling the storing operation of the memory unit ( 2 ). A suitable comparison between the addresses (ADR) allows defect information to be filtered out for a subsequent redundancy analysis, whereby the size of the memory unit ( 2 ) can be kept comparatively small. | 6 |
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
This application is a continuation-in-part of application Ser. No. 07/879,941, filed May 8, 1992.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a signal conditioning apparatus that serves to eliminate interferences caused by magnetic fields, electric fields, and electro-magnetic or radio frequency fields on conductors that provide electrical connection between devices in a system. The present invention interference also serves to drive output conductors in such a way as to overcome the adverse effects of their loading on the signal source.
2. Description of Related Art
Conductors that provide electrical connection between devices in a system are often the source of many types of electrical interference. Magnetic fields, electric fields and electro-magnetic or radio frequency fields are known to interfere with the fidelity of signals conveyed over conductors which are subjected to those fields. Furthermore, the ground or reference conductor of a typical signal carrying pair of conductors are often connected to different local ground potentials between one end of the conductor as compared to the other, and currents are known to flow in such conductors which then produce voltage drops on that conductor which also interfere with the fidelity of the signals being conveyed. In addition, these conductors, especially when very long, present loads to the signal source that may adversely effect the fidelity of the signal.
The problems of conveying signals over conductor pairs is well known. The conveyance of signals, especially between powered devices, is often plagued by electro-magnetic interference.
One method employed to reduce these interferences modulates the signal so that it can be easily separated from the interference, and then demodulates the signal at the destination. For example, an analog-to-digital converter can be utilized to convey digital impulses over the connecting conductors instead of analog voltage potentials. The destination device in such instances must then convert the signal back to an analog signal potential. Such approaches, while effective, can be very costly, and require extensive circuitry at both the sending and receiving ends of the conductors. Such methods are exemplified by U.S. Pat. No. 4,922,536 to Hogue.
Another common method to reduce these interferences is to convey such signals in a differential manner. A common approach utilizes a three conductor shielded cable where two of the conductors deliver the signal and its arithmetic inverse, and a third conductor, usually a shield, conveys the ground reference potential voltage. The conditioning circuit, usually placed at the destination end of the conductors, forms the difference between the potential of the first signal carrying conductor and the second signal carrying conductor. In theory, both conductors are subject to the same interferences, and the subtraction of the signals as conveyed will eliminate the common mode noises. This approach, while effective in eliminating most interference is nevertheless expensive and difficult to implement. To adapt this approach in the general case of processing signals between subsystems requires active circuitry at the sending end to form the inverse signal, and a separate active circuit at the receiving end to subtract the signals. Multiple conductors are also required to be contained within a single shield, which is more costly than conductors having only one conductor surrounded by a shield. Such methods do not, however, address any interference or other affects of the cables that connect the transmitter and receiver to source and destination respectively. Such methods are exemplified by U.S. Pat. No. 4,979,218 to Strahm, and is described at pages 69-71 of "GROUNDING AND SHIELDING TECHNIQUES IN INSTRUMENTATION", by Ralph Morrison, 3rd Edition, 1986, Wiley-Interscience.
One source of interference in the conveyance of these differential signals between electronic subsystems is referred to as the ground loop. Because it is common for there to be multiple electronic paths between the reference potentials of each subsystem, and since such paths commonly include sources of interference, these alternative paths are often responsible for the interference present in those systems. Such ground loops are generally overcome by eliminating any electrical connection by conductors between the subsystems. "GROUNDING AND SHIELDING TECHNIQUES IN INSTRUMENTATION" by Morrison describes the elimination of the effects of the electrical connections between subsystems that convey their signals by differential means through the use of tandem differential amplifiers powered by electrically isolated power supplies.
The first differential amplifier in the Morrison reference calculates the difference between the signals being conveyed, and the second differential amplifier adds the reference potential of the destination to the result of the first differential amplifier. The result is that the reference potentials of the source of the differential signal may differ from the reference potential of the destination without effecting the expression of the signal at the destination. However, such an approach is not easily adapted to electronic systems consisting of single ended two wire signal conductors. Consequently, this approach suffers from the same limitations as devices that convey signals by differential means. For example, there are no means suggested in Morrison for the elimination or suppression of the magnetic field interference that may be picked up between the two conductors enclosed in the shield, due to differences in the magnetic field voltages induced in those conductors. Moreover, Morrison does not address the pickup of electric field interference or any other cable affects due to the output cable.
The circuits shown in the Morrison reference are also particularly subject to the variation of op-amp characteristics. In particular the output impedance of the opamps used to determine A1 will negatively impact the interference rejection of any common mode voltage differences between source and destination reference potentials as that impedance relates to the difference resistors of gain stage A2. As this circuit characteristic is extremely gain and temperature dependent, such inaccuracies are not easily controlled without increased expense in the design of the output stages of those circuits or without compromises inherent in the utilization of higher impedances than would be appropriate in achieving other performance objectives such as thermal noise and bandwidth which are adversely affected by higher resistor values in this case.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an objective of the present invention to suppress or eliminate the expression of all types of interference in the wiring conveying analog voltage potential signals from a source to a destination. This is accomplished in the present invention by the unique combination of novel interference rejection circuits that address the sources of interference in a less costly and more efficient manner than other approaches.
It is another objective of the present invention to remove any effect that the loading of such wiring or the effects of the loading of the destination may have upon the accuracy of the signal as conveyed by the source of the signal.
It is a further objective of the present invention to accomplish the preceding objectives with a minimum number of precision resistors producing greater effective rejection than the prior art for a given cost.
An additional objective of the present invention is the reduction in sensitivity of the circuit action to the characteristics of the gain circuits and/or operational amplifier circuits employed by the circuit to achieve the various aims herein described.
Another objective of the present invention is to provide an economical means of adjusting gain without affecting the resulting signal to interference rejection ratio in practical applications.
Yet another objective of the present invention is to afford greater rejection of electric field interference and any electric field affects, such as dielectric absorption, due to the output cable physics.
A further objective of the invention is to effect every other objective without altering the accuracy or fidelity of the signal(s) being conveyed between subsystems.
Another objective of the present invention is to provide a device which accomplishes every objective of the invention as described forthwith by means of an independent circuit which can easily be inserted into the existing wiring between popular electronic devices, and which can accomplish every objective of the invention as described forthwith with a minimum of time required to install the device.
A further objective of the present invention is to provide for the conditioning of single ended or differential signals with the same circuit organization and interconnecting wire cable(s).
A further objective of the present invention is to provide for the conditioning of differential signals, or any number of signals, where each signal is produced with reference to independent potential references which make higher levels of interference rejection possible.
It is also an objective of the present invention to accomplish every objective of the invention as described forthwith while utilizing signal wiring between devices which consists of two conductors arranged concentrically. This type of cabling is known as "COAX" which is a shortening of the term "CO-AXIAL", and which refers to a cable whose circular conductors share the same major axis.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
Referring to the drawing:
FIG. 1 is a circuit diagram of the preferred embodiment of the present invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
Referring to drawings, in which like reference numerals identify identical or similar elements, and in particular to FIG. 1., signal source 1 may be understood to be differentially related to signal source 26 in instances where signal 1 and signal 26 are both available and known to relate to each other in an arithmetically inverse manner. Such a relationship is not necessary to carry out the present invention. Other relationships may be appropriate; indeed, if the circuit were to be used as a mixer of signals, there may be no relationship at all. Also, signal 1 or signal 26 need not convey a signal at all, and either may be disconnected to apply the device to single ended signals utilizing only two conductors to convey a signal, without limiting the effectiveness of the device.
Signal 1 and Signal 26 are conveyed over coaxial cable(s) 4 and 29 respectively. Coaxial cables are preferred in connection with this invention because the coaxial nature of the cables offers the special benefit that both conductors respond nearly identically to magnetic field interference by virtue of the high degree of axial symmetry possible around the major axis of the cable run. By virtue of this symmetry, the outer conductor will respond to magnetic fields in substantially the same way as the inner conductor will in accordance with Lenz's law which relates an induced voltage to the rate of change of magnetic field strength. Hence magnetic field disturbances in the vicinity of said cables will induce substantially the same voltage in the outer conductor as such interference will induce in the inner conductor.
The present invention is particularly effective at rejecting the influence of any electric currents conducted by each shield that would tend to shift the reference potential of each signal at its source. This is often a problem because the ground potential impedance of the source is less than ideal in practice. Since each signal is generated with respect to its own reference potential more exactly than with respect to any shared reference potential, and since all such current will only substantially flow into that source reference impedance, affecting both the signal source ground potential and signal potential substantially equally, the present invention will be very effective in eliminating interference so induced. The extreme high impedances of the power supply circuit in the preferred embodiment provides for this principle in a novel and especially effective way at a much lower cost than other techniques.
This power supply circuit is developed in the preferred embodiment by very high impedance current source circuits composed of field effect transistors 47, 22, 50 and 24 in combination with current programming resistors 46, 21, 51 and 25 and opamps 48, 23, 52 and 26. These opamps provide the biasing necessary for the transistors to conduct exactly that current required to produce that voltage across the resistors that match the biasing voltages produced by zener diodes 80 and 85 in combination with resistors 82 and 84. Capacitors 81 and 86 are included to further reject any interference which nay be present on the power supply as provided by contacts 91, 89 and 90. In this way an exact current is precisely metered through each transistor to operate opamps 13, 16, 38, and 41. Because this current is metered so precisely, any changes in potential at the opamp supply pins will have no bearing on the current delivered. As a result, the effective impedance of the power supply will be extremely high. The quality of this high impedance current source is limited only by the gate-to-drain capacitance of the field effect transistors used, which can be very small depending on the device characteristics. Field effect transistors with capacitances on the order of 0.05 pf are known to exist in metal gate transistors designed for VHF mixers. Such transistors would easily provide 3 mega-ohms of equivalent isolation at 1 Mega-Hz provided opamps 13, 16,38 and 41 could handle that frequency accurately.
Other transistors could be used as well. While field effect transistors are preferred, ordinary PNP and NPN transistors have proven to work satisfactorily, but available device characteristics are not as ideal as field effect transistors for this purpose. General purpose small signal transistors are limited in isolation by the offset of the base current which varies with collector voltage, and by larger base to collector capacitances, two effects which compromise the performance of this circuit. Careful selection of high B types or darlington configurations can go a long way towards improving such circuits.
Each signal from source 1 or 26 is then subjected to resistor 5 and 30 respectively. This resistance is provided primarily as a path for the input bias current necessary for the operation of operational amplifiers 13 and 38. Such resistors are not, however, required to carry out the present invention, yet are preferred to enable the device to carry out the present invention in every possible context. For example, a common context for the device involves an input signal source that is blocked with a coupling capacitor which would not permit the necessary bias current to flow in the steady state without resistor 5 and 30. These resistors should be designed with the highest resistance value practical considering the effect of the resistor on the source electronics and cable characteristics engendered in sources 1 and 26 and cable 4 and 29.
Capacitors 6, 9, 33 and 34 along with resistors 8 and 32 and inductors 7 and 31 are all part of a Pi-filter arrangement designed to reject frequencies far higher than the frequencies of interest in the signal. Such a filter is preferred to prevent such high frequency interference from interacting with various non-linear elements in typical operational amplifiers, such as are indicated as 13 and 16 in the drawings, and so prevent the demodulating or converting of such high frequency interference to frequencies that would otherwise interfere with the frequencies of interest.
Opamps 13 and 38 along with resistors 10, 11, 35 and 36 form buffer amplifiers which may be designed to include gain according to the ratio of the values of resistors 11 and 36 with respect to resistors 10 and 35. Because the gain of these amplifiers may be important in instances where differential signals are conditioned, these gains should be well matched. However, in the case of a single input, or multiple unrelated inputs, the precision of the gain of this stage will not be important because each input and each amplifier corresponding to each input refers to its own ground reference potential separately. In order to refer to each ground reference potential separately, such as local ground potentials as indicated as 3 and 28, each such buffer opamp 13 and 38 must be powered by separate and independent sources of power whose ground return potentials can assume any value. Signal ground reference potentials 3 and 28 may present by way of the ground conductors of cable 4 and 29. In this way the opamp circuit can not inject any currents into the signal carrying conductor, which would otherwise be possible through various stray capacitances and internal opamp circuits if the opamp's power supplies did not track the reference ground potential of each input. Such injected currents could produce severe feedback instabilities in addition to permitting the expression of any noises that may be included with those injected currents.
Each such opamp 13 and 38 provides, at its output, a signal proportional to the signal provided at its input, but it provides that signal potential with a much lower output impedance. Hence, components may then be connected to the output of the opamps, such as resistors 53 and 56, which inject interference currents into the output of these amplifiers that are directly related to the interference potential between the respective source signal grounds 3 and 28 and the output signal ground 79. The expression of these currents is suppressed, to a large degree, by the ratio of output impedance of the amplifier(s) 13 and 38 and the impedance of resistors 53 and 56 respectively. In the preferred embodiment configured for balanced signal sources as shown in FIG. 1, such interference due to said opamps is additionally cancelled by the differential action of the circuit comprising opamp 61, and resistors 53,56,59 and 57. In this way rejection of the common mode interference is limited primarily by the precision of the resistors 53 and 56 viz-a-viz resistors 57 and 59. This result makes it possible to utilize smaller values for these resistors and hence makes wider bandwidth and lower noise levels possible.
Additional rejection of such opamp characteristics is offered by the incorporation of opamps 16 and 41,which are especially beneficial when the signal source is single ended and comprises only signal 1. In this case, the circuit comprised of opamp 16, resistor 14 and resistor 15 may be altered in design by connecting resistor 39 to the positive input of opamp 38 instead of the connection shown, and by matching the ratio of resistors 36 and 35 with the ratio of resistors 40 and 39 so connected. Such an arrangement will produce the same common mode injected errors in opamp 16 as are produced by opamp 13, and these errors will then be subtracted by the differential action of the circuit of opamp 61 in combination with resistors 53 and 55. This improvement could also be applied to the balanced input source case by applying the aforementioned modifications to the input circuit for the complementary source.
Each signal presented at the output of opamps 13 and 38 is then appropriately summed along with inverted signals produced by opamps 16 and 41. These signals and their individual complements hence produce twice the voltage level possible between their outputs than the single opamp 13 or 38 could provide. In addition, this complementary output is presented symmetrically with reference to the source ground potential as is related by the respective cable shield 4 or 29, thus permitting the cancellation of the common mode interference included in that reference potential as compared to the destination reference potential. This arrangement makes it possible to design the following differential gain stage with opamp 61 and resistors 53-57 and 59 with 1/2 the gain that would otherwise be necessary, and this fact also reduces the sensitivity of the resultant output to that common mode interference. When all component sensitivities are taken into account, a worst case improvement of 4 db in said common mode rejection ratio can be expected without increasing the precision of the resistors required by said differential gain stage.
In any event, the signal from opamps 13, 38, 41 and 16 are summed by the following difference amplifier stage as follows: The signal from opamp 13 is applied to opamp 61 by way of resistor 53 to provide for the expression of that potential minus the inverted version of that potential expressed with reference to the input signal reference potential as presented by the shield conductor of cable 4 by way of resistor 55. Likewise, resistor 54 provides for the expression of its respective signal potential minus the inverted version of that potential expressed about the input signal reference potential ground 28 as presented by the shield conductor of cable 29 by way of resistor 54. Furthermore, resistor 57 provides for the addition of the output reference ground 79 as presented by the shield conductor of cable 75 to the signal output of opamp 61. In this way the output potential of opamp 61 may present a potential at its output that not only calculates the differences between the input potentials and their ground reference returns, but also adds in the output reference potential so that the signal then tracks the reference potential used by the destination receiving the output of opamp 61. These relationships expressed mathematically are as follows:
Where
Vout=Output of opamp 61
Vog=Output ground reference potential as presented by the shield of cable 75
Vin1+=Input from source 1 as presented by cable 4
Vin1g=Input ground reference potential from ground 3 as presented by cable 4
G1=gain of opamp 13=(R10+R11)/R10
VG1+=Output of opamp 13=G1×Vin1++Vin1g
VG1-=Output of opamp 16=-G1×Vin1++Vin1g
Vin2+=Input from source 26 as presented by cable 29
Vin2g=Input ground reference potential from ground 28 as presented by cable 29
G2=gain of opamp 14=(R35+R36)/R35
VG2+=Output of opamp 38=G2×Vin2++Vin2g
VG2-=Output of opamp 41=-G2×Vin2++Vin2g
G3=gain of differential amplifier stage with opamp 61=R60/R55=R60/R56=R57/R53=R57/R54
Vog=output ground potential as presented by the shield of cable 75
Vout=output of opamp 61=VG1+-VG1--VG2++VG2-+Vog.
Then the preferred embodiment of the present invention provides for the following relationship:
Signal Output=Vout-Vog=
G3×(2×G1×Vin1+)-G3×(2×G2×Vin2+)=
2×G3×((G1×Vin+)-(G2×Vin2+))
if G1=G2, which is normally the case:
Signal Output=2×G3×G1×(Vin1+-Vin2+)
In order to properly track the output reference potential, while also driving the signal with respect to that reference potential, it is also necessary to supply opamp 61 with power whose reference return potential will accurately assume the same value as the output reference ground 79 as presented by cable 75. This is done in this embodiment by providing opamp 61 with its own separate and independent source of power whose reference ground potential can freely assume any value. Transistors 67 and 69 provide for such power by implementing very high impedance current sources in the same manner as described previously in connection with opamps 13 and 41.
The output of opamp 61 is also filtered, according to the present invention to prevent the interaction of high frequencies picked up in the output cable from being detected by the non-linearities of the opamp at those high frequencies. Also, the inductor 72 and resistor 73 serve to provide a finite, but higher impedance to the opamp at higher frequencies than the capacitor 74 and the capacitance of the cable 75 would present at high frequencies, and which would otherwise render opamp 61 unstable in the servo action of its gain controlling feedback. Also, inductor 72 provides for very low impedance at lower frequencies so that the output cable 75 can be driven with extremely low impedance which can be very effective in shunting any currents that may be injected by electric fields along the cable, or by the electronic device to which the cable may be connected. In addition, the low output impedance afforded by inductor 72 makes it possible for opamp 61 to more accurately drive any cable capacitance that may be presented by cable 75. This is possible because a higher output impedance, as would be necessary without inductor 72, could result in a low pass RC filter (the R being resistor 73 and the C being the sum of capacitor 74 and the effective capacitance of cable 75) that would have a significant effect on the fidelity of the signal being conveyed. In addition, such low drive impedance also shunts the effects of the dielectric of the cable 75. This dielectric may not be ideal as it may be subject to hysteresis-like effects such as dielectric absorption. Low output impedance will effectively reject such characteristics.
In addition, capacitors 58 and 60 may also be added to minimize the tendency of some opamps to amplify higher frequencies in a manner that is not consistent with feed back resistor values, and which could compromise signal fidelity. Capacitor 60 shunts higher frequencies that may be delivered by resistors 55 and 56 while capacitor 58 increases the feedback applied to opamp 61 while it shunts higher frequencies that may be delivered by resistors 53 and 54 to the output. To minimize the effects of these capacitors in the frequency bands of interest, capacitors 58 and 60 should have values that are inversely proportional to resistors 57 and 59 respectively.
One problem with a signal conditioning apparatus intended to interface between two electronic subsystems is the range of different types of inputs to which the device will be connected. Destination devices can vary from having a ground connection that is ultimately connected to the system ground potential to fully isolated differential connections where there is equal, but finite, and sometimes large impedances between the destination signal ground connection and the system ground. Preferably, the present invention is utilized in a system in which the destination signal ground connection is connected to the system power return potential. Since this is not always the case with all destination devices, however, additional means to guarantee such a connection may be included in the present invention.
There is often the occasion to provide signal conditioning for more than one signal at a time. In such instances arrays of signal conditioning devices may be required, such that each signal may be processed by completely separate signal conditioning apparatus. In such instances the power supplies are independent in their ability to relate to the respective signal ground potentials.
Since the present invention utilizes only six matched resistors to condition a balanced source input, it requires only four matched resistors to condition a single ended source input. Further, because of the addition of an inverted circuit placed judiciously with the input circuit, an almost two fold increase in the effective interference rejection of the device may be accomplished for the same resistor matching. As a result, system cost for a given specification is reduced substantially.
As it is often desirable to adjust the gain of the subject signal conditioning embodiment, this gain may be adjusted without affecting the absolute level of unrejected interference. Hence, the present invention is unique in that common mode forms of interference are rejected with a rejection ratio that is actually proportional to the gain so that the interference residuals of each signal's common mode remains constant in spite of the increased gain. Only common mode interferences between differentially applied signals would be proportional to this gain, but these interferences are typically very small in relation to the normal common mode interferences.
The foregoing has set forth exemplary and preferred embodiments of the present invention. It will be understood, however, that various alternatives will occur to those of ordinary skill in the art without departure from the spirit and scope of the present invention. | A signal conditioning circuit that receives inputs from at least one pair of conductors connected to its input. Each such input is processed by an input filter and presented to a buffer amplifier. Each such input filter and buffer amplifier refers to and is powered by independent power sources whose power return reference potentials are independently determined by the potential of the corresponding input signal potential reference conductor for the signal frequencies of interest. The outputs of all such buffer amplifiers, the power return reference potentials, and the power return reference potential of the conditioning circuit output are all appropriately added or subtracted in the next circuit stage. This circuit stage consists of an amplifier buffer having low output impedance which is powered by another independent power source whose power return reference potential is independently determined by the potential of the output signal reference conductor. The output of this circuit stage is connected to an output inductor circuit which in turn drives the output signal conductor. The output includes a filter, and is designed to decouple unstable loading conditions while rejecting external influences on the output signal. The invention also includes means that connect the reference potential of the destination of the output conductors to the system power ground potential. The invention also applies to arrays of such signal conditioning apparatus. | 7 |
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
This application is a division of pending prior application Ser. No. 884,437, filed Mar. 8, 1978 now U.S. Pat. No. 4,223,502.
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates, in general, to the building panel art, and more particularly, to the art of manufacturing and mounting on buildings, an exterior facade formed of integrally joined thin granite or marble.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIOR ART
In the past, several methods have been employed to provide a building structure, such as a skyscraper, with a facade of a selected facing material such as marble or granite. Although each of the methods was moderately successful, each had inherent weight or structural disadvantages which the present invention has overcome.
In an early construction method, selected pieces of facing material of marble or granite were handset directly on the structural steel skeleton or poured concrete structure of the building and held thereto by bolts or the like. In this construction, the panels of the stone facing material were required to be at least several inches thick in order to have the strength to support their own weight without cracking. Such thick panels were both costly to make and difficult to handle if made with a desirably large height and width to speed covering of the building surface. If panels having small height and width dimensions were used, an increased number of panels were required to cover a building surface, thus also increasing the number of time-consuming panel mounting operations required.
A later method of attaching granite or marble facing to a building is shown in Castellarin, U.S. Pat. No. 3,724,152 to include backing the selected architectural grade facing material with a supporting member of a suitable hard stone such as marble or granite and then backing this stone with a layer of conventional concrete. The facing material and its stone and concrete backing were then fastened to the building structure by suitable fastening means such as bolts. In this method, relatively thin panels of a facing material were used, but the stone and concrete backing itself was required to have a great weight and thickness in order to support its own weight, and the weight of the panel, without cracking.
Bourke, U.S. Pat. No. 3,723,233, shows a marble faced composite wall panel comprising a marble lamina bonded by an adhesive to a backing. The backing is a structure of metal honeycomb skinned with a layer of glass fiber. Bourke, U.S. Pat. No. 3,963,846, replaces the structure of metal honeycomb of the '233 patent with a multi-cellular paper core. The core consists of a honeycomb structure of phenolic resin impregnated paper in the form of a sheet, with individual cells extending perpencicularly to the planes of both the sheet and the marble lamina. Adhesive bonding of stone panels and non-stone backing material are peculiarly subject to unbonding caused by differences in the expansion coefficients of the materials when subjected to the effects of the sun or cold temperatures after mounting on a building.
Martin, U.S. Pat. No. 3,885,008, while not relating to the cladding of buildings with marble or granite, discloses a prefabricated wall panel which is molded as a unit for mounting on wood frame buildings.
As will be discussed more fully below, the present invention overcomes the inherent weight and structural limitations of the prior art, by overlaying the back of a number of pre-sized panels of a selected facing material such as marble or granite, having anchor means, partially disposed therewithin, with a relatively thin, sprayed-on layer of fiberglass-strengthened concrete backing. The resulting building panel is then adapted to be secured to a building structure by suitable fastening means secured to a plurality of integral, concrete support ribs formed upon the rear surface of the building panel.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
A principal object of the present invention is to provide an improved method of covering a building structure with marble or granite facing.
Another object is to provide a building panel structure which is lightweight and includes a plurality of relatively thin panels of facing material such as marble, granite or the like.
Still another object is to provide an improved means for interconnecting a plurality of granite or marble facing slabs for rapid and secure attachment to a building.
Another object is to provide a means for cladding a building with marble or granite which has the additional result of increasing the ease with which the building can be fireproofed.
Still another object is to provide a granite or marble cladding panel which can be factory manufactured and which can be insulated prior to installation.
One more object of the present invention is to provide a method of forming a granite or marble faced building panel by placing a plurality of pre-sized granite or marble facing panels into a supporting form, securing anchors to the back sides of the granite or marble facing panels, forming a slurry of concrete and segmented glass fiber strands, spraying the slurry on the back surface of the facing panels to join them and overlaying the anchors to structurally connect the panels to the concrete, forming a plurality of support ribs from the slurry, each rib extending laterally across the back surface of the panels, and curing the concrete slurry.
The foregoing and other objects, features, and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent in the light of the detailed description of a preferred embodiment thereof set forth hereafter, and illustrated in the accompanying drawings.
DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 is a front perspective view of one embodiment of a typical building panel made according to the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a rear perspective view of one typical embodiment of a building panel constructed according to the present invention.
FIG. 3 is a cross sectional view taken along lines 3--3 of FIG. 1.
FIG. 4 is a section view taken along lines 4--4 of FIG. 3. FIG. 5 is a flow diagram illustrating one typical method of forming a building panel in accordance with the present invention.
FIG. 6 is a pictorial representation showing the typical initial steps of forming a building panel in accordance with the present invention.
FIG. 7 is a pictorial representation showing additional typical steps in forming a building panel in accordance with the present invention.
FIG. 8 is a pictorial representation showing still further typical steps in forming a building panel in accordance with the present invention.
FIG. 9 is a pictorial representation showing the final steps in forming a typical building panel in accordance with the present invention.
FIG. 10 is a top plan view of one typical embodiment of a building panel secured to a building structure.
FIG. 11 is a cross-section view of a typical building panel made according to the present invention with a layer of insulation attached.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT
In one embodiment of the present invention, as shown in FIGS. 1-4, the building panel, shown generally at 1, comprises a plurality of pre-sized granite or marble facing panels 8 arranged in edge-to-edge relationship, each panel 8 having a plurality of anchor means 12 therein, and a thin, fiberglass-strengthened, concrete backing 24 overlaying both the backs of panels 8 and the anchor means 12. As will be described in detail hereafter, use of the fiberglass-strengthened concrete backing 24 allows the formation of a plurality of integral structural support ribs 25 disposed upon the back surface of building panel 1, which ribs not only strengthen the panel but also facilitate attachment of the panel to a building. Referring now to the flow chart of FIG. 5, and associated FIGS. 6-9, one method of forming a building panel in accordance with the present invention will be described below.
The mold or form, shown generally at 2, is constructed to the shape of the desired finished building panel. As shown in the embodiment of FIGS. 6-9, the form 2 is a column cover having a generally L-shape, with hinge means 4 being provided to facilitate removal of the form 2 after the building panel has been initially cured. It will be understood that other panel and form shapes may also be used in the practice of the present invention to form not only column covers, but also spandrels and solid wall sections. Form 2, is constructed from any suitable rigid material such as wood, steel, fiberglass, or the like. Hinging means 4 are old per se and their location is a matter of choice.
A slab of a selected facing material 6, such as granite, marble, stone, exposed aggregate concrete, or the like, having a thickness of as little as one-half each, and generally being between one-half and one inch in thickness, is first sawed or otherwise cut to the desired size and shape. As shown, the slab 6 is cut into a plurality of building panels 8 for placing into form 2. It will be understood, however, that a single large panel, or any number of smaller panels may also be used to practice the invention.
Once the building panels 8 have been cut from the slab 6, they are placed face down within form 2 in edge-to-edge relationship as shown in FIG. 7. The adjacent edges of the building panels 8 are then sealed with a gasket 10 to prevent the slurry from running onto the face of the building panel 1 or the form 2. Gasket 10 is constructed from neoprene rubber or any suitable sealing means.
A plurality of anchor means 12 may then be secured to the back surface of the panels 8 such that anchor means 12 extend partially into the surface of panels 8 and partially above the surface of the panels 8 (see FIG. 4). As shown, the anchor means are a plurality of semi-circular clips having an opening 14 and ends 13 at the bottom thereof. The clips 12 can be constructed from any rigid substantially rust resistant component such as stainless steel. As shown in FIG. 4, anchors 12 are secured within the back surface of panel 8 in a plurality of holes 16 drilled into the rear surface thereof. Adjacent holes 16 form a hole pair 17, and are disposed within the rear surface of panels 8 at acute angles with respect to the rear surface of the panels. The distance between holes 16 forming a hole pair 17 is smaller than opening 14 of the clip 12, and in this manner when the plurality of clips 12 are inserted into hole pairs 17, clip ends 13 are urged against the sides of holes 16. The number of clips per panel may be varied responsive to the thickness of the stone panel 8, the type of facing material selected, and the environment in which the building panel will be placed. An American Cement Institute standard requires at least one clip per two square feet of panel with a minimum of two clips per panel.
After anchor means 12 have been secured to the rear surface of panels 8, a connectional bond breaker 19 is applied to the rear surface of the panels. The bond breaker 19 prevents the cracking and breaking of the concrete slurry due to differences in expansion coefficients of the stone panels 8 and the concrete slurry.
A mixture of concrete is then prepared using cement, sand, and water. In the presently preferred embodiment, one hundred pounds of cement is mixed with thirty pounds of sand and enough water, approximately forty pounds, to make a flowable mix. It is to be understood that the weight of sand in the concrete mix can be varied from near zero to a weight equal to that of the cement without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention. The cement, sand, and water are mixed in a conventional concrete mixer (not shown), and pumped to sprayer 18 (see FIG. 8) through line 20. A substantially continuous strand of glass fiber 22 is run to sprayer 18 from a roll or the like, where it is chopped into a plurality of short segments and mixed with the concrete at the time it is sprayed. Chopper-sprayer 18 is old per se. The percentage of chopped glass fiber in the slurry of glass fiber strengthened concrete 24 may be varied from 2 to 6 percent of the weight of the concrete as desired to meet strength needs. The length of the chopped glass fibers may also be varied, but it has been found that a length of 1.5 inches is satisfactory for most uses. Glass fiber strand 22 must be an alkali resistant glass fiber. One type which has been found satisfactory is marketed under the name LEM-FIL Alkali Resistant Glass Fiber by LEM-FIL Corporation of Nashville, Tenn.
The slurry of glass fiber and concrete 24 is then sprayed over the backs of panels 8, with care being taken to completely cover anchor means 12. Although the thickness of the fiberglass-strengthened concrete mixture 24 may be varied, it has been found that a satisfactory building panel capable of supporting a number of granite or marble pieces on a building may be formed with a thickness of as little as three-eights of an inch, it being understood that the thickness of the slurry over the anchors will be greater to increase the strength of the connection between the granite or marble facing and the glass fiber strengthened concrete support structure.
The plurality of laterally extending support ribs 25 are formed from the fiberglass-strengthened concrete mixture 24 by placing forms 26 on the rear surface of panels 8 and spraying mixture 24 on one side thereof. The mixture 24 is allowed to cure prior to the removal of forms 26. Forms 26 may be constructed from any suitable material, preferably the same material as that used in form 2. It is to be understood that although form 26 is shown in FIGS. 8 and 9 as having an L-shape, other shapes could also be used to accomplish the goals of strengthening the panel and providing a means for connecting the completed panel to a building. The number of laterally extending support ribs 25 will depend upon the size of building panel 1, and the type and thickness of facing material. As stated above, the plurality of laterally extending support ribs act both as stiffening and strengthening members for the building panel, and as means by which the building panel is secured to a structure 28. Referring to FIG. 10, it can be seen that the building panel may be secured to a structure 28 by fastening means 30 disposed within holes located at the ends of the support ribs 25. The glass fiber reinforced concrete ribs, although relatively thin, are sufficiently strong to support the weight of the building panel on a building without additional reinforcement around fastening means 30.
As the glass fiber reinforced concrete mixture 24 is sprayed on the back of the plurality of panels 8 in the form 4, it is rolled and compacted by means of rollers 32 or other suitable means. Additional rolling and compacting of the glass fiber strengthened concrete mixture 24 may be needed prior to curing.
After the glass fiber concrete slurry 24 has been applied to the rear surface of the plurality of panels 8, and the plurality of support ribs 25 have been formed, the building panel 1 is allowed to cure in the form 2 for a period of approximately 12 hours. After that time, form 2 is unhinged and removed, and the building panel is allowed to cure for approximately an additional 7 days. During this time, the building panel is maintained in a moist environment such as by intermittent spraying with water. It is to be understood that the curing times mentioned above are only approximate and may be varied somewhat without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.
After the building panel has been completely cured, a conventional caulking material 33 is applied to the front face of the building panel between the adjacent edges of the plurality of granite or marble panels.
If desired, a layer of insulation may be applied on the rear surface of the building panel 1. Insulation 34 may be sprayed on, or as shown in FIGS. 2 and 11, may be applied to the rear surface of the panels 8 by gluing a plurality of pins 36 thereto, and securing the blanket of insulation 34 thereon by fastener means, such as snap-on nuts 38 or the like. Application of insulation at factory where the building panel is fabricated, eliminates the often difficult and time consuming task of applying insulation at the building site after installation.
There has thus been described a preferred embodiment of a building panel having a granite or marble facing, and a method of making same in accordance with the present invention. The terms granite and marble have been used interchangeably herein because the present invention is believed to solve problems which have existed with respect to the use of both of those natural stones as either exterior or interior wall coverings. It will be obvious to anyone skilled in the art that the teachings of this invention may be used to advantage in any situation where it is necessary to provide a light-weight building panel with a facing of a natural stone material such as granite or marble. Therefore, it should be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes and omissions in the form and detail thereof may be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. | A method for making a panel adapted for mounting on a building, the panel being formed from a plurality of thin panels of a selected stone facing material, such as granite or marble, backed and interconnected by fiberglass-strengthened concrete underlaying the plurality of thin panels and covering and engaging anchor means mounted in the backs of the stone panels. The method of forming the building panel involves placing the granite or marble panels face down in a form, mounting anchor means in the backs thereof, and overlaying both the plurality of thin panels and the anchor means with a fiberglass-strengthened concrete mixture, and curing the mixture both within and without a support form. | 4 |
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a current source and a control device. These current sources are particularly used in a control device, which is particularly provided for the use for one or several piezo actuators.
Increasingly strict legal regulations regarding the permitted pollutant emissions of combustion engines, which are arranged in vehicles, make it necessary to undertake diverse measures, by which the pollutant emissions are reduced. A starting point here is to reduce the pollutant emissions generated during the combustion process of the air/fuel mixture. The formation of carbon-particulate matter is especially heavily dependent on the conditioning of the air/fuel mixture in the respective cylinder of the combustion engine. So as to achieve a very good mixture preparation, fuel is increasingly added under a very high pressure. In the case of diesel combustion engines, the fuel pressures are up to 2000 bar. For these uses, injection valves are increasingly used with a piezo actuator as actuator. Piezo actuators are characterized by very short reaction times. Injection valves of this type are thus possibly suitable to metering fuel several times within a work cycle of a cylinder of the combustion engine.
A particularly good mixture preparation can be achieved if one or more pre-injections take place prior to a main injection, which is also referred to as pilot injection, wherein a very small amount of fuel mass is to be metered for the individual pre-injection. A precise piloting of the injection valve is particularly important in these cases.
In connection with the precise piloting of the injection valve, an important role is accorded to the charging and discharging of the piezo actuator. For this purpose, a performance end step is regularly provided, which however cannot discharge the piezo actuator completely during the discharge process or cannot perform this with the demanded and available durations. For the complete discharging, a switching element is provided in this regard which can assume this object, but which is thereby subject to thermal loads. The switching element is part of a current sink, which can also be called current source.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is the object of the invention to create a current source and a control device which is simple and reliable.
The object is achieved by the characteristics of the independent claims. Advantageous embodiments of the invention are characterized in the dependent claims.
The invention is characterized by a current source with a first switching element, which has a control input and is formed and arranged in such a manner that an output current can be adjusted at the output side of the current source as a function of a control signal at its control input. A reference resistor is electrically coupled to the first switching element in such a manner that a voltage drop over the reference resistor is representative of the output current. A regulator unit is provided, the input signal of which depends on the voltage drop over the reference resistor. The input signal of the regulator unit is the control signal of the first switching element. It comprises a timing relay which limits a first amount of the output current to a maximum duration and afterwards reduces the amount of the output current. With a suitable setting of the maximum duration, a high amount of the output current can thus be adjusted for the maximum duration, without thermally damaging the first switching element. The first switching element is further protected better against the thermal destruction in the case of a short circuit at the output of the current source on a supply potential by the reduction of the amount of the output current occurring after the maximum duration. In particular, a very high protection against thermal destruction can thus be ensured by a suitable reduction of the output current, that is, without a high wiring effort, and thereby, a very economical current source is possible. The current source is thus particularly short-circuit proof with regard to its output.
The invention is achieved by the use of such a current source with regard to the control device. According to an advantageous embodiment of the current source, the maximum duration depends on an integral of the output current. Thus, a thermal overload of the first switching element can be reliably avoided even with an interim switching off of the output current.
According to a further advantageous embodiment of the current source, the first amount of the output current can be adjusted again after a given relaxation duration. This has the advantage that the first amount can quickly be adjusted again with a suitable choice of the relaxation duration and that a thermal damage of the first switching element can be avoided at the same time in this manner.
According to a further advantageous embodiment of the current source, it is embodied in such a manner that the relaxation duration starts with the omission of an external source which drives the output current. Such an external source can for example be a piezo actuator or also a voltage source, such as for example a wiring system supply. Thus, a targeted and short-circuit proof discharge of the piezo actuator is possible in a particularly reliable manner.
According to a further advantageous embodiment of the current source, the timing relay comprises a RC member, which is formed by a resistor and a capacitor arranged electrically in series. The RC member is arranged electrically parallel to the reference resistor. A control input of a timing relay switching element is electrically coupled to a measuring tap point of the RC member, which lies electrically between the resistor and the capacitor of the RC member. The timing relay switching element is arranged in such a manner that it influences the input signal of the regulator unit as a function of its control signal. The timing relay is formed particularly simply in this manner.
According to a further advantageous embodiment of current source, the timing relay comprises a resistor and an auxiliary timing relay switching element, which are arranged electrically in series. The resistor can be connected in an electrically parallel manner to the reference resistor by means of the auxiliary timing relay switching element. A control input of a further timing relay switching element is electrically coupled to a measuring tap point, which lies electrically between the resistor and the auxiliary time relay switching element. The further timing relay switching element is arranged in such a manner that it influences the input signal of the regulator unit as a function of its control signal. A simple wired realization is thus possible.
In this connection, it is particularly advantageous if a control output of a control unit is electrically coupled to a control input of the auxiliary timing relay switching element. This control input can thus be used simply, and possibly other influential magnitudes can be considered during adjustment of the maximum duration or possibly the relaxation duration.
Exemplary embodiments of the invention are explained below with reference to the schematic drawings, in which:
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWING
FIG. 1 shows an injection valve with a control device including a current source,
FIG. 2 shows a more detailed illustration of the control device with the current source, and
FIG. 3 shows a further embodiment of the current source.
DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
Elements having the same construction or function are designated with the same reference numerals in all figures.
An injection valve ( FIG. 1 ) has an injector housing 1 with a recess, into which is inserted a piezo actuator PAKT 1 , that is, a piezo actuator, which is coupled to a transducer 6 . The transducer 6 is arranged in a leakage space 8 . A switching valve 10 , which is preferably formed as a servo valve, is arranged in such a manner that it de-energizes a leakage fluid depending on its switching position, which is preferably fuel in this embodiment. The switching valve is coupled to the piezo actuator PAKT 1 via the transducer 6 , and is driven thereby, that is, the switching position of the switching valve 10 is adjusted by means of the piezo actuator PAKT 1 . The piezo actuator PAKT 1 can possibly also act on the switching valve 10 without the interconnection of the transducer 6 . The switching valve 10 is arranged in a valve plate 12 . It comprises a valve member, the position of which can be adjusted by means of the piezo actuator PAKT 1 and which is in abutment with the valve plate in a switching position and prevents the de-energization of fuel into the leakage space in this manner. In a further switching position, it is distanced from a wall of the valve plate 12 and enables the de-energization of the fuel into the leakage space 8 in this manner. The piezo actuator comprises a stack of 60 piezo elements. The stack 60 of piezo elements includes for example 200 piezo elements, which are layered on one another. The stack 60 of the piezo elements is preferably surrounded by a tubular spring, which clamps the stack 60 of the piezo elements between the transducer 6 and a closure element.
The injection valve further comprises a needle guide body 14 and a nozzle body 16 . The valve plate 12 , the needle guide body 14 and the nozzle body 16 form a nozzle component assembly, which is secured to the injector housing 1 by means of a nozzle clamping nut 18 .
The needle guide body 14 has a recess which is continued as a recess of the nozzle body 16 in the nozzle body 16 , and in which is arranged a nozzle needle 24 . The nozzle needle 24 is guided in the needle guiding body 14 . A nozzle spring 26 clamps the nozzle needle 24 into a closure position, in which it prevents a fuel flow through an injection aperture 28 .
A control space 30 is formed at the axial end of the nozzle needle 24 , which faces the valve plate 12 , which space is hydraulically coupled to a high pressure bore 32 by means of an inlet throttle 31 . If the switching valve 10 is in its closure position, the control space 30 is hydraulically decoupled from the leakage space 8 . This results in the pressure in the control space 30 essentially adapting to the pressure in the high pressure bore 32 after the closure of the switching valve 10 . The high pressure bore 32 is hydraulically coupled to a high pressure fuel store during the use of the injection valve in a combustion engine and is supplied with fuel under a pressure of for example up to 2000 bar in this manner.
Due to the fluid pressure in the control space 30 , a force is applied to a front surface of the nozzle needle 24 in the closure direction of the nozzle needle 24 via the control space 30 . The nozzle needle 24 further comprises a shoulder, which is axially spaced from its front surface, which is charged with fluid flowing through the high pressure bore 32 in such a manner that a force acting in an opening manner acts on the nozzle needle 24 , that is, opposite to the closure direction. In its closure position, the nozzle needle 24 prevents a fuel flow through the injection nozzle 28 . If the nozzle needle 24 moves into the control space 30 starting from its closure position, it releases the fuel flow through the injection nozzle 28 , in particular in its opened position, in which it is in abutment with the region of the wall of the control space 30 , which is formed by the valve plate 12 .
Whether the nozzle needle 24 is in its opened or closed position depends on whether the force which is generated at the shoulder of the nozzle needle 24 by the pressure of the fluid prevailing there, is larger or smaller than the force which is generated by the nozzle spring 26 and the pressure acting on the front surface of the nozzle needle 24 .
If the switching valve 10 is in its opened position, fluid flows from the control space 30 through the switching valve 10 into the leakage space 8 . With a suitable dimensioning of the inlet throttle, the pressure in the control space 30 drops then, which finally leads to a movement of the nozzle needle into its opened position. The pressure of the fluid in the leakage space 8 is clearly smaller than the pressure of the fluid in the high pressure bore.
A control device 38 is assigned to the injection valve. The control device 38 is embodied so as to generate an input signal SG for the piezo actuator PAKT 1 of the injection valve. The control device 38 is preferably further embodied so as to generate input signals for further piezo actuators PAKT 2 - 4 , which are assigned to further injection valves.
The input signal SG is preferably a current signal, which is preferably pulse-height modulated. Starting with a start of a charging process, a given number of pulses, as for example 20, is preferably generated with a given temporal duration and period, until the charging process is finished. The electric energy to be supplied to the piezo actuator PAKT 1 during the charging process is adjusted via the height of the respective pulse. The energy to be supplied to the piezo actuator PAKT 1 during a charging process LV is determined as a function of operating parameters. The energy supplied to the piezo actuator PAKT 1 influences its axial lift and thereby also the course of the pressure in the control space 30 .
The control device 40 is further embodied so as to carry out a discharge process of the piezo actuator PAKT 1 . A given number of discharge pulses is preferably generated for this, as e.g. 20, with a given temporal duration and period. The electric energy which is removed from the piezo actuator PAKT 1 during the discharging process is adjusted via the height of the respective discharge pulses. The energy removed from the actuator influences its axial lift reduction.
One part of the control device 38 is depicted according to FIG. 2 . The control device 38 comprises a voltage amplifier 42 , which is also called DC/DC transducer, and which is electrically coupled to a wiring system 40 , which is embodied so as to supply the voltage amplifier 42 with a given voltage, and thus forms a voltage source. The wiring system comprises a vehicle battery for example.
The voltage amplifier 42 is electrically coupled to a performance end stage 46 . A capacitor 44 is preferably interconnected, and in such a manner that in the interim electrical energy can be stored in the capacitor 44 during the discharge process of the respective piezo actuators PAKT 1 to PAKT 4 and can be used for future charging processes.
The performance end stage 46 of the control device 38 is electrically coupled to the piezo actuators PAKT 1 to PAKT 4 , which are embodied separately from the control device 38 , that is, in the injection valves. One performance end stage 46 is preferably assigned to several piezo actuators PAKT 1 to PAKT 4 due to cost reasons. The choice of the respective piezo actuator PAKT 1 to PAKT 4 to be charged or discharged preferably takes place via choice switching elements TSEL 1 to TSEL 4 .
During a discharge process, which is controlled by the performance end stage 46 , a residual charge remains in the respective piezo actuator PAKT 1 to PAKT 4 after the given number of discharge pulses. If this residual charge is to be removed from the respective piezo actuator PAKT 1 to PAKT 4 , a current source 48 of the control device 38 is activated, which is provided for this purpose.
The current source 48 comprises a regulator unit 52 and a first switching element T 1 . The first switching element T 1 is embodied and arranged in such a manner that an output current I_A can be adjusted at the output side of the current source 48 depending on a control signal at a control input 54 of the first switching element T 1 . The output current I_A adjusts itself in the illustrated current direction. It represents a discharge current for the respective piezo actuator PAKT 1 to PAKT 4 . During the operation, the regulator unit 52 generates an input signal at its output, which is the control signal of the first switching element T 1 .
The current source 48 further comprises a reference resistor R_S, which is electrically coupled to the first switching element T 1 in such a manner that a voltage drop over the reference resistor R_S is representative of the output current I_A. A voltage divider comprising resistors R 1 and R 2 is arranged in an electrically parallel manner to the reference resistor R_S. A control input 56 of a second switching element T 2 is electrically coupled to a measuring tap point, which electrically lies between the resistors R 1 and R 2 . The control input of the second switching element T 2 is thus loaded with a control signal, which is preferably a voltage U 1 .
The second switching element T 2 influences an input signal of the regulator unit 52 , which acts as a control signal on the control input 54 of the first switching element T 1 . The second switching element is preferably a bipolar transistor in an emitter circuit with a coupling against the current which takes place via a resistor R 3 . An output 57 of the regulator unit is electrically coupled to the input of the first switching element T 1 , and to a resistor R 7 , which is again connected to a supply potential U_V. The resistor R 7 thus acts as a series resistor. The switching element T 2 thus generates the input signal for the control input 54 of the first switching element in dependence on the voltage drop over the reference resistor R_S. In particular, it drives a current through the resistor R 7 , the amount of which depends on the voltage drop at the reference resistor R_S. The amount can be adjusted by the corresponding dimensioning of the voltage divider, which is formed by the resistors R 1 and R 2 , the resistor R 3 , and also the resistor R 7 and by the supply potential U_V.
The current flow through the resistor R 7 then leads to a voltage drop over the resistor R 7 and thus adjusts a voltage U 2 at the control input 54 of the first transistor, which preferably forms the control signal at the control input 54 of the first transistor. A desired first amount of the output current I_A of the current source 48 can thus be adjusted by a suitable dimensioning of the resistors R 1 , R 2 , R 3 , R 7 and the reference resistor R_S, further the second switching element T 2 and the first switching element T 1 and the supply potential U_V.
The first amount of the output current can for example be between 2 and 5 A. The first amount of the output current I_A leads to a high heat input into the first switching element T 1 . The first switching element T 1 is dimensioned with regard to its heat storage capacity and its heat removal in such a manner, that it can accommodate the first amount of the output current I_A only for a limited duration without the danger of a thermal damage. It is thereby dimensioned in such a manner that a discharge of the residual charge in the respective piezo actuators PAKT 1 to PAKT 4 after the completion of the given number of the discharge pulses, which are controlled by the performance end stage 46 , can discharge by means of the first amount of the output current I_A via the current source 48 .
A third switching element T 3 is provided for switching the output current I_A on and off, which is operated in such a manner that the control signal of the first switching element can be brought to a switching-off value as a function of a control signal at its control input 64 , by the first switching element not allowing a flow of the output current I_A. The third switching element T 3 is therefore preferably electrically coupled to the resistor R 7 at its output side, and can couple this electrically to the reference potential GND in dependence on its switching position. This results in that, in the switching position of the third switching element, in which the resistor R 7 is electrically coupled to the reference potential GND via the third switching element T 3 , the voltage U 2 takes up a lower voltage level in the vicinity of the reference potential GND, and thus blocks the first switching element T 1 . However, if the third switching element T 3 is in its switching position, in which it does not couple the resistor R 7 to a reference potential GND, the voltage U 2 can be adjusted by the regulator unit 52 . The third switching element T 3 is preferably electrically coupled to an output of the control unit of the current source or the control device with its control input 64 . The control signal preferably applies a voltage U 4 to the control input 64 .
The regulator unit 52 further comprises a timing relay 58 . The timing relay 58 is formed to limit the first amount of the output current I_A to a maximum duration and afterwards to reduce the amount of the output current I_A. The timing relay comprises a RC member, which is an electrical series connection of a resistor R 5 and a capacitor C 1 . The RC member is arranged in an electrically parallel manner with the reference resistor R_S. The timing relay 58 further comprises a timing relay switching element T_ZG, which has a control input 62 , which is electrically coupled to the RC member between the resistor R 5 and the capacitor C 1 . A voltage U 3 is preferably applied as input signal to the control input 62 of the timing relay switching element T_ZG. The timing relay switching element T_ZG is electrically coupled to the output 57 of the regulator unit 52 on the output side and thus influences the input signal of the regulator unit and thus the control signal of the first switching element T 1 . The timing relay switching element T_ZG is preferably a bipolar transistor, which is arranged in an emitter circuit and which is coupled against a current by means of the resistor R 4 . It thus drives a current through the resistor R 7 , which depends on the voltage U 3 at its control input 62 .
If the third switching element T 3 , starting from its switching position, in which it couples the resistor R 7 to the reference potential GND, is controlled into the switching position, in which it decouples the resistor R 7 from the reference potential, the first amount of the output current I_A will first adjust itself, namely controlled by means of the second switching element T 2 , and leads to the corresponding voltage drop over the reference resistor R_S, and thus also over the RC member connected in parallel. This results in the charging of the capacitor C 1 , until the voltage U 3 at the control input of the timing relay switching element T_ZG leads to an interconnection of the timing relay switching element.
The current through the resistor R 7 is thus also influenced depending on the voltage U 3 at the control input 62 of the timing relay switching element T_ZG, and thereby leads to a reduction of the amount of the output current I_A with a suitable dimensioning of the capacitor C 1 and the resistor R 5 or also the resistor R 4 and R 7 and the reference resistor R_S.
A maximum duration can thus be adjusted by suitable dimensioning, while the output current can adopt the first amount. By the integrating behavior of the RC member, an interim switching off of the output current or an interim reduction of the output current can be considered. The maximum duration is thereby suitably provided in such a manner that a thermal damage of the first switching element T 1 can be prevented by the heat entry which is introduced by the first amount of the output current I_A.
By the dimensioning of the component of the timing relay 58 , that is, the resistors R 4 , R 5 , the capacitor C 1 and the timing relay switching element T_ZG, the amount of the reduction of the output current I_A can then be further adjusted after the expiration of the maximum duration, and thus a suitable lower second quantity of the output current of for example 100 to 200 mA can be adjusted, by means of which a complete discharge from a fully loaded state of the respective piezo actuators PAKT 1 to PAKT 4 is possible for example in the case of a failure of the end stage, or the thermal destruction of the first switching element T 1 can also be avoided reliably during a short circuit of the output of the current source 48 to the wiring system 40 .
But the reduction of the output current I_A caused by the timing relay 58 then leads again to a reduction of the voltage drop over the reference resistor R_S.
The RC member, the resistor R 4 and the reference resistor R_S are dimensioned in such a manner that, even with an interconnected timing relay switching element T_ZG, the voltage U 3 stays at a value at which the timing relay switching element T_ZG remains interconnected, as long as a current is driven as output current of the current source through an external source. The external source can for example be the respective piezo actuator PAKT 1 to PAKT 4 , or also the voltage source 40 .
A relaxation duration then only starts with the omission of the external source, which can also be caused by taking up the switching position of the third switching element T 3 , into which it couples the resistor R 7 with the reference potential GND.
In this manner, the relaxation duration can be adjusted in a suitable manner, after which the timing relay switching element T_ZG blocks again and thus the first amount of the output current can be adjusted again. By a suitable choice of the relaxation duration, the first amount of the output current I_A can on the one hand be adjusted again as fast as possible, but it can also be ensured on the other hand that the first switching element T 1 is not thermally overloaded.
A resistor R 6 is provided as protective circuit.
In a second embodiment of the current source 48 (see FIG. 3 ), the timing relay 58 is distinguished in that the resistor R 5 is connected in series with an auxiliary timing relay switching element T_HZG instead of the RC member, namely in such a manner that the resistor R 5 can be electrically connected in parallel to the reference resistor R_S in a switching position of the auxiliary timing relay switching element T_HZG, namely through coupling with the reference potential, and is electrically decoupled from the reference potential GND in a further switching position of the auxiliary timing relay switching element T_HZG. In this case, a control input 66 of the auxiliary timing relay switching element T_HZG is preferably electrically coupled to a further output of the control unit, which is also called timer output, and the reduction of the first amount can thus be adjusted at the control input 66 of the auxiliary timing relay switching element T_HZG via corresponding control signals. For this, the control unit 53 is then preferably suitably designed for sensing the output current I_A or a magnitude representing it, and possibly for integrating and thus determining the corresponding maximum duration or relaxation duration. The control signal at the control input 66 of the auxiliary timing relay switching element T_HZG is preferably a voltage U 5 . A resistor R 8 is furthermore preferably provided.
Of course, the timing relay can alternatively also be embodied in such a manner that the maximum duration is not dependent on the integral of the output current and is for example only related to the switching-on of the output current I_A. The same also applies for the relaxation duration. | A current source contains a first switching element which is provided with a control input and is embodied and arranged in such a way that an output flow on an output side of a current source can be adjusted according to a control signal at the control input. The current source also contains a reference resistance that is electrically coupled to a first switching element in such a way that a potential difference above the reference resistance represents the output flow. The adjustment signal of a regulator unit depends on the voltage difference above the reference resistance, is the control signal of the first switching element, and contains a time function element which limits a first value of the output flow to a maximum duration and then reduces the value of the output flow. | 7 |
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to an adminiculum for use in administering mitomycin C and doxorubicin.
Mitomycin C, blue-violet crystals or crystalline powder of molecular formula C 15 H 18 N 4 O 5 , combines with tumor cell DNA and degrades it. It also inhibits DNA synthesis, thereby suppressing division of tumor cells. (Shibata, S. et al., Biken's J. 1, 193 (1958); Szybalski, W. et al., Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. 50, 355 (1963)). Doxorubicin hydrochloride, orange-red colored crystalline powder of molecular formula C 27 H 29 NO 11 .HCl, inhibits the synthetic pathway of tumor or cell DNA and inhibits division of tumor cells; in particular, it combines with DNA to inhibit RNA polymerase. (K. Tatsumi et al., GANN 65, 237 (1974)). As is well known, mitomycin C and doxorubicin hydrochloride show strong antitumor activities; however, their clinical use has to be limited due to serious side-effects, such as leukopenia and thrombocytopenia.
An object of the present invention is to provide an adminiculum for mitomycin C and doxorubicin.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an adminiculum which increases the antitumor activity of mitomycin C and doxorubicin hydrochloride while reducing the side-effects of both drugs.
DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
We have found that an aqueous extract or an extract with an aqueous solution of a suitable organic solvent of mixture of crude preparations of Astragali radix, Cinnamomi cortex, Rehmanniae radix, Paeoniae radix, Cnidii rhizoma, Atractylodis lanceae rhizoma, Angelicae radix, Ginseng radix, Hoelen and Glycyrrhizae radix will stimulate the antitumor activity of mitomycin C and doxorubicin hydrochloride and reduce their side-effects, in particular leukopenia.
Accordingly, an adminiculum for the antitumor agents mitomycin C and doxorubicin hydrochloride (hereinafter designated simply as the adminiculum of the present invention or the present adminiculum) is prepared from suitable amounts of crude preparations of Astragali radix, Cinnamomi cortex, Rehmanniae radix, Paeoniae radix, Cnidii rhizoma, Atractylodis lanceae rhizoma, Angelicae radix, Ginseng radix, Hoelen and Glycyrrhizae radix.
More particularly, it is preferable to use 2.0-4.0 parts by weight of Astragali radix, 2.0-4.0 parts Cinnamomi cortex, 2.0-4.0 parts Rehmanniae radix, 2.0-4.0 parts Paeoniae radix, 2.0-4.0 parts Cnidii rhizoma, 2.0-4.0 parts Atractylodis lanceae rhizoma, 2.0-4.0 parts Angelicae radix, 2.0-4.0 parts Ginseng radix, 2.0-4.0 parts Hoelen and 0.5-2.5 parts Glycyrrhizae radix.
As a preferred combination the traditional Chinese medicine (herb medicine) Juzentaihoto can be mentioned. The composition of Juzentaihoto in parts by weight is as follows:
Astragali radix: 2.5-3 parts
Cinnamomi cortex: 3 parts
Rehmanniae radix: 3 parts
Paeoniae radix: 3 parts
Cnidii rhizoma: 3 parts
Atractylodis lanceae rhizoma: 3 parts
Angelicae radix: 3 parts
Ginseng radix: 3 parts
Hoelen: 3 parts
Glycyrrhizae radix: 1.5 parts
As used in the specification and claims, the "crude preparations" employed according to the invention are further defined as follows:
Astragali radix (Astragalus root)-Root of Astragalus membranaceus Bunge or another variety (genus Leguminosae);
Cinnamomi cortex (Cinnamon bark)-Bark (surface thereof optionally omitted) of Cinnamomum cassia Blume or another variety (genus Lauraceae);
Rehmanniae radix (Rehmannia root)-Root (raw or steamed) of Rehmannia glutinosa Liboschitz var. purpurea Makino or another variety (genus Scrophulariaceae);
Paeoniae radix (Peony root)-Root of Paeonia lactiflora Pallas (Paeonia albiflora Pallas var. trichocarpa Bunge) or related variety (genus Paeoniaceae);
Cnidii rhizoma (Cnidium rhizome)-Rhizome, usually passed through hot water, of Cnidium officinale Makino (genus Umbelliferae);
Atractylodis lanceae rhizoma (Atractylodes lancea rhizome)-Rhizome of Atractylodes lancea De Candolle or a related variety (genus Compositae);
Angelicae radix (Japanese Angelica root)-Root, usually passed through hot water, of Angelica acutiloba Kitagawa or a related variety (genus Umbelliferae);
Ginseng radix (Ginseng)-Root (raw or treated by passing through hot water) of Panax ginseng C. A. Meyer (Panax schinseng Nees) (genus Araliaceae);
Hoelen (Hoelen)--Sclerotium, outer layer deleted, of Poria cocos Wolf (Pachyma holen Rumph) (genus Polyporaceae);
Glycyrrhizae radix (Glycyrrrhiza)-Root and stolon of Glycyrrhiza glabra Linne var. glandulifera Regel et Herder, Glycyrrhiza uralensis Fischer or another related variety (genus Leguminosae).
The adminiculum of the present invention can be prepared by extracting the above ten kinds of crude preparations with water or an aqueous solution comprising 5-50% v/v of a suitable water miscible organic solvent, such as an alcohol (preferably ethanol), filtering the thus-obtained extract and optionally drying by a conventional drying process, such as spray-drying, lyophilization or concentration drying. The present adminiculum can be prepared by extracting a mixture of the above ten kinds of crude preparations, or by mixing the extracts from each crude preparation. Extraction can be at room temperature or with heating, preferably at 50°-100° C.
The adminiculum of the present invention can be used as the crude extract, or in powder, granule, tablet or capsule form with conventional adjuvants or additives. The extracts can optionally be purified by conventional methods, such as dialysis or chromatography.
Preparation of the present adminiculum is exemplified in the following examples.
EXAMPLE 1
Water (285 ml) was added to a mixture of crude preparations of Astragali radix (3.0 g), Cinnamomi cortex (3.0 g), Rehmanniae radix (3.0 g), Paeoniae radix (3.0 g), Cnidii rhizoma (3.0 g), Atractylodis lanceae rhizoma (3.0 g), Angelicae radix (3.0 g), Ginseng radix (3.0 g), Hoelen (3.0 g) and Glycyrrhizae radix (1.5) and the mixture extracted at 100° C. for one hour. The extract was filtered and spray-dried to obtain a dry extract powder (2.3 g).
EXAMPLE 2
Aqueous ethanol (142.5 ml, 25% ethanol (v/v)) was added to the mixture of crude preparations as in Example 1, and refluxed at 70° C. for 30 minutes. The extract was filtered and dried to obtain a dry extract (1.9 g).
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
With reference to the accompanying drawings,
FIG. 1 shows the effect of the drug preparation of leukopenia induced by mitomycin C in male BDF 1 mice;
FIG. 2 shows the effect of the drug preparation on body weight loss induced by mitomycin C in male BDF 1 mice;
FIG. 3 shows the effect of the drug preparation on leukopenia induced by doxorubicin hydrochloride in male BDF 1 mice;
FIG. 4 shows the effect of the drug preparation on the survival curve with single administration of mitomycin C (9 mg/kg) in male BDF 1 mice;
FIG. 5 shows the effect of the drug preparation on the survival curve with multiple administration of mitomycin C (3 mg/kg) in male BDF 1 mice;
FIG. 6 shows the variation of GOT (Glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase=aspartate aminotransferase, L-aspartate: 2-oxoglutarate aminotransferase, E.C. 2.6.1.1.) and GPT (Glutamic pyruvic transaminase=alanine aminotransferase, L-alanine: 2-oxoglutarate aminotransferase, E.C. 2.6.1.2.) in clinical patients treated according to the invention compared with a control group;
FIG. 7 shows the number of erythrocytes and hemoglobin levels in clinical patients treated according to the invention compared with a control group;
FIG. 8 shows the numbers of leukocytes and platelets in clinical patients treated according to the invention compared with a control group;
FIG. 9 shows the number of lymphocytes and gammaglobulin level in clinical patients treated according to the invention compared with a control group;
FIG. 10 shows the body weight change in clinical patients treated according to the invention compared with a control group;
FIG. 11 shows the total protein and albumin levels in clinical patients treated according to the invention compared with a control group;
FIG. 12 shows changes in electrolyte levels in clinical patients treated according to the invention compared with a control group; and
FIG. 13 shows the blood creatinine levels in clinical patients treated according to the invention compared with a control group.
EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
The following experimental results demonstrate the effect of the present adminiculum in increasing the antitumor activity of mitomycin C and doxorubicin hydrochloride and in relieving leukopenia. Furthermore, these data show that the adminiculum of the present invention prevents or minimizes body weight loss and reduces mortality due to toxicity.
EXPERIMENT 1
Male BDF 1 (C57BL/6 X DBA/2) mice, age 4-4.5 weeks, were inoculated intraperitoneally with P-388 leukemia cells, 1×10 6 , on day 0. The effects of the present adminiculum prepared according to Examples 1 and 2 on life prolongation were compared with mitomycin C or doxorubicin hydrochloride administered alone and in combination with an adminiculum according to the invention.
Mitomycin C (3 mg/kg) or doxorubicin hydrochloride (2.5 mg/kg) dissolved in physiological saline was administered intraperitoneally on days 1 and 7. The adminiculum obtained in Examples 1 and 2 dissolved in distilled water was administered orally, 2 g/kg/day, once a day through stomach probe, from day 1 throughout the experimental term.
Table 1 shows the effects of mitomycin C, the adminiculum obtained in Examples 1 and 2, and a combination of the adminiculum and mitomycin C on the average life-span of P-388 inoculated mice. Table 2 shows similar results using doxorubicin hydrochloride.
As shown in Tables 1 and 2, the present adminiculum per se does not show antitumor activity; however, the antitumor activities of mitomycin C and doxorubicin hydrochloride are significantly increased by therapy employing the combination according to the invention.
TABLE 1______________________________________ Average life spanTreated group (day) T/C (%)*______________________________________Control 9.8 100Adminiculum obtained 10.6 108in Example 1 - (1)Adminiculum obtained 10.1 103in Example 2 - (2)Mitomycin C (MMC) 14.4 147MMC + (1) 21.0 214MMC + (2) 19.8 202______________________________________ ##STR1##
TABLE 2______________________________________ Average life spanTreated group (day) T/C (%)*______________________________________Control 11.4 100Adminiculum obtained 11.0 96in Example 1 - (1)Adminiculum obtained 11.2 98in Example 2 - (2)Doxorubicin hydro- 18.3 161chloride (DHCl)DHCl + (1) 24.0 211DHCl + (2) 22.4 196______________________________________ ##STR2##
EXPERIMENT 2
The effects of the dried extracts obtained according to Examples 1 and 2 on leukopenia and body weight loss caused by administration of mitomycin C were examined using male BDF 1 mice, aged 4-4.5 weeks, having a leukocyte number within the normal range.
Mitomycin C was administered, 3 mg/kg intraperitoneally, on day 1 and day 7. Extracts obtained according to Example 1 or 2 were administered, 2 g/kg/orally, from day 1 once a day for 17 days. The number of leukocytes and the body weight were measured each day throughout the experiment.
FIG. 1 shows the effect of the extracts of Examples 1 and 2 on leukopenia caused by mitomycin C. FIG. 2 shows the effect of the extracts of Examples 1 and 2 on body weight loss caused by mitomycin C. As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, a combination of mitomycin C and the adminiculum of the present invention is effective in reducing leukopenia and body weight loss.
EXPERIMENT 3
The effects of the dried extracts obtained according to Examples 1 and 2 on leukopenia and body weight loss caused by administration of doxorubicin hydrochloride alone, 5 mg/kg intraperitoneally, were examined using male BDF 1 mice, aged 4-4.5 weeks, having a leukocyte number within the normal range. Preparations according to Example 1 or 2 were administered orally 2 g/kg/day, once a day throughout the experiment.
FIG. 3 shows the effects of extracts according to Examples 1 and 2 on leukopenia caused by doxorubicin hydrochloride. As shown in FIG. 3, the adminiculum of the present invention promotes recovery from leukopenia caused by doxorubicin hydrochloride.
EXPERIMENT 4
The effects of a combination of mitomycin C and the present adminiculum were examined using male BDF 1 mice, aged 4-4.5 weeks. Mitomycin C was administered, 9 mg/kg, intraperitoneally by single administration, or 3 mg/kg/dose, intraperitoneally in three administrations, on days 1, 4 and 7. The dried extracts according to Example 1 or 2 were administered orally 2 g/kg/day, from day 1 throughout the experiment once a day.
FIG. 4 shows the effect of the preparations according to Examples 1 and 2 on the survival curve with single administration of mitomycin C (9 mg/kg). FIG. 5 shows the effect of the drug on the survival curve with repeated administration of mitomycin C (3 mg/kg). As shown in FIG. 4 and FIG. 5, therapy using a combination of mitomycin C and the adminiculum of the present invention is effective in delaying or preventing death caused by the toxicity of mitomycin C.
The acute toxicity of the present adminiculum was examined using male ddY mice and male Wister rats. No death was observed from administering the preparations of Examples 1 and 2, 15 g/kg orally. Therefore, the present adminiculum has very low toxicity.
Considering the experimental data and the low acute toxicity, an effective dosage of the adminiculum of the present invention is, though varying dependent on the age, body weight and level of disease of the patients, generally about 2-10 g per single dosage, administered orally 3 times a day for adult. The present adminiculum can be administered separately, or prescribed together with mitomycin C or doxorubicin hydrochloride.
CLINICAL TESTS
Clinical studies of the adminiculum of the present invention was performed on patients who had undergone surgical operations for cancer. The object of the study was to investigate the effects of the present adminiculum on the recovery of constitutional power after surgery and in the prevention of the side-effects of cancer chemotherapy.
Double-blind tests using the envelop method were carried out by administering an antitumor agent with the adminiculum of the present invention (group A) and without the adminiculum of the present invention (group B, anticancer agent only).
The adminiculum was administered to the patients of group A 1-2 weeks after surgical operation for cancer, at the time when oral or rectal administration was possible, 7.5 g/day, three times a day before meals for 12 weeks. During the same period, mitomycin C and other drug therapy (bleomycin, mitomycin and/or 5-fluorouracil) were administered. Each clinical item was checked pre- and post-operation, at drug administration on day 0, and thereafter every 4 weeks for 20 weeks. The control group (group B) was monitored the same way.
Table 3 shows the number of objective cases.
TABLE 3______________________________________Disease group A group B______________________________________cancer of the esophagus 2 2stomach cancer 4 (1) 3valter nipple cancer 1pancreas cancer 1*cancer of the colon 1 2breast cancer 1ileus 1chronic pancreatitis 1Total 9 (1) 10______________________________________ *non-erasion case () = excluded case
Table 4 shows the ages of the patients.
TABLE 4______________________________________ A (9 cases) B (10 cases)______________________________________age 53-77 38-83average 64 61______________________________________
Table 5 shows the sex of the patients.
TABLE 5______________________________________ A B______________________________________male 8 5female 1 5______________________________________
CLINICAL EFFECTS
1. Subjective and objective symptoms (Table 6)
TABLE 6______________________________________ group A group BSymptoms (9 cases) (10 cases)______________________________________increase of appetite 9 (100) 7 (70)reduction of languor 8 (89) 6 (60)eruption 2 (22) 3 (30)stomatitus 4 (44) 6 (60)thirst 2 (22) 5 (50)palpitation 1 (11) 2 (20)vertigo 1 (11) 4 (40)______________________________________
As shown in Table 6, the patients in group A exhibited an improvement in condition relative to those of group B.
2. Body weight change (FIG. 10):
In group B, a slow increase in body weight was observed from the 4th week after operation; however, complete recovery was not observed after 20 weeks. In contrast, on the 12th week after starting the administration of the present adminiculum, recovery of body weight to the preoperation level was observed in group A. Thus, the effectiveness of the present adminiculum for reducing body weight loss induced by mitomycin C and other tumor-chemotherapeutics, such as bleomycin, mitomycin, and/or 5-fluorouracil, is observed.
3. Total protein and albumin (FIG. 11):
There was no differentiation between groups A and B in the amount of total protein and albumin.
4. Change in electrolyte levels (FIG. 12):
With reference to electrolyte level, sodium was observed higher in group A, and potassium was lower.
5. Blood creatinine (FIG. 13):
Blood creatinine was seen to increase after operation in both groups A and B; however, no difference was observed between the groups.
6. Variation of GOT and GPT (FIG. 6):
GOT and GPT were determined for liver function. No extreme changes were observed in either group A or B.
7. Number of erythrocytes and amount of hemoglobin (FIG. 7):
The number of erythrocytes and the amount of hemoglobin were observed to increase in both groups A and B; however, no difference was found between the groups.
8. Number of leukocytes and platelets (FIG. 8):
The number of leukocytes in group B decreased during the administration of chemotherapeutics; a slight decrease was also observed in group A. The results seem to indicate that the administration of the adminiculum of the present invention prevents or minimizes leukopenia. No difference in platelet number was found.
9. Number of lymphocytes and gamma-globulin (FIG. 9):
The number of lymphocytes slightly increased in group A as compared with group B. No characteristic changes were observed in gamma-globulin.
The following examples further illustrate the present invention but are not construed as limiting.
EXAMPLE 3
A preparation (200 g) produced according to Example 1 or 2 (hereinafter, "the preparation") (200 g) was mixed with lactose (89 g) and magnesium stearate (1 g). The mixture was tableted by a single tableting machine to produce slag tablets which were crushed by an oscillating machine and the granules sifted to obtain granules of 20-50 mesh.
The granules are prescribed as an adminiculum for mitomycin C or doxorubicin hydrochloride therapy at 3-15 g (corresponding to 2.07-10.34 g of the preparation of the present invention) per single dosage, 3 times a day, during the treatment term for oral administration.
EXAMPLE 4
The preparation (200 g) was mixed with fine crystalline cellulose (20 g) and magnesium stearate (5 g). The mixture was tableted by single tableting machine to produce tablets of 7 mm diameter and 225 mg weight. One tablet contains 200 mg of the preparation. 10-50 tablets are taken orally per administration, 3 times per day.
EXAMPLE 5
The preparation (500 mg) was encapsulated in a hard capsule. 4-20 capsules are administered per administration, 3 times per day.
EXAMPLE 6
The preparation (200 g) and mitomycin C (100 mg) were mixed with fine crystalline cellulose (20 g) and magnesium stearate (5 g). The mixture was tableted by single tableting machine to process tablets of 7 mm diameter and 225 mg weight. Each tablet contains 200 g of the preparation and 0.1 mg of mitomycin C. 10-30 tablets per administration were taken 3 times per day. | Adminiculum increasing the antitumor activities of mitomycin C and doxorubicin hydrochloride and decreasing the side effects associated with their use comprising an aqueous or aqueous organic solvent extract of a crude preparation of Astragali radix, Cinnamomi cortex, Rehmanniae radix, Paeoniae radix, Cnidii rhizoma, Atractylodis lanceae rhizoma, Angelicae radix, Ginseng radix, Hoelen and Glycyrrhizae radix, a method for preparing said adminiculum and a method for its use. In addition, compositions and methods for treating tumor-bearing patients are disclosed. | 0 |
FIELD AND BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
In sewing corners with a two-needle sewing machine, in known fashion the inner corner is worked on, after stitch formation the needle which produces the inner seam is inactivated, the outer needle continues to sew into the outer corner, and the machine is disengaged with the outer needle in the down position. After the workpiece is rotated into the new sewing direction, sewing is continued with the outer needle until it comes opposite the inner (corner point, then the inner needle is activated again.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,526,114, such a method is illustrated and described. According to U.S. Pat. No. 4,526,114 when working on the inner corner the outer and inner needles execute stitches in tandem on the workpiece, when the inner needle executes a shortened stitch to form the corner stitch, the outer needle also executes an identical shortened stitch. In the great majority of cases, this shortening of stitches is required, in order to be able to end the stitching exactly at the predetermined point of the inner seam. The short stitch in the outer seam causes distortion of the entire seam formation. A shortened stitch is only acceptable in the corner region.
A short stitch within a seam structure is undesireable and lowers the quality of the product.
SUMMARY AND OBJECT OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the invention to devise a method of sewing corners with a two-needle sewing machine, wherein the stitches ahead of and following a given corner stitch are of identical length.
The inventive method solves the above mentioned problem on a two-needle sewing machine which accurately controls arrival at the given corner point by shortening the stitch and provides the possibility of producing a second seam which is not interrupted by a short stitch by use of a needle which continues to sew in cases where the advance by the first needle necessitates a shortened stitch. Thereby a seam is produced which does not have the appearance of a defect.
Accordingly, it is an object of the invention to provide a method of sewing corners of a double seam running any distance from an edge of the workpiece, including an inner seam and an outer seam using a two-needle sewing machine having first and second needles which may be moved mutually independently into an operating position and a disengaing position. The sewing machine is capable of being set at a stitch length L. The method according to the invention includes the steps of computing the distance and the arrival of the inner needle at a corner point of the inner seam, advancing the material to a stitch length L required to reach the detected arrival at the corner point of the inner seam and forming a stitch with the inner needle of the length required while simultaneously preventing stitch formation by the outer needle, advancing the material to a stitch length L equal to the distance between the set stitch length L and the length required for the inner needle to reach the corner point of the inner seam, and forming a stitch with the outer needle so as to form the terminal end of the stitch at the corner point of the outer seam, meanwhile, simultaneously preventing stitch formation by the inner needle.
In accordance with the inventive method, the sewing machine to practice the inventive method includes at least one adjustable feed dog material advancing means, at least one sensor which is disposed upstream or ahead of the needles and which triggers the process of positioning the respective inner and outer needle at the corresponding inner and outer seam corner point, the triggering occuring when the edge of the workpiece passes the sensor. The sewing machine additionally includes a pulse generator coupled to the main shaft of the sewing machine so as to be active only during the transport phase, or the workpiece advancing phase of the feed dog so as to provide counting pulses for a pulse counter corresponding to movement of the workpiece. The sewing machine additonally, advantageously, includes a micro computer which controls the operation of the feed dog or workpiece advancing means in accordance with pulses emitted by the sensor and pulses emitted by the pulse generator.
This arrangment piece allows for controlling the arrival at the corner point of the inner seam so as to allow disengagement of the inner needle rod, further sewing to the corner point of the outer seam, while storing the value of the distance by which the workpiece is advanced between the corner point of the inner seam and the corner point of the outer seam. By use of the control system, sewing may be stopped while the outer needle penetrate the workpiece so that the workpiece may be rotated so that the outer seam may be sewn until the length of the outer seam reaches a value equal to the previously stored advancing distance.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a method of sewing the corners of a double seam running at a distance from the edge of a workpiece, and an apparatus to perform the method which is simple in design, rugged in construction and economical to manufacture.
The various features of novelty which characterize the invention are pointed out with particularity in the claims annexed to and forming a part of this disclosure. For a better understanding of the invention, its operating advantages and specific objects attained by its uses, reference is made to the accompanying drawings and descriptive matter in which a preferred embodiment of the invention is illustrated.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
In the drawings:
FIG. 1 is an elevation view of a two-needle sewing machine;
FIG. 2 is a diagrammatic prespective view of the drive mechanism of the sewing machine, with tower workpiece drive mechanism and with needle drive mechanism;
FIG. 3 is a schematic representation of various elements of the control system required for providing a controlled, predetermined end point of a seam; and,
FIG. 4 is a schematic illustration of a corner-sewing operation.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT
The machine frame 1 (FIG. 1) supports a sewing machine 2, which is driven by means of a positioning motor 3. A V-belt pulley 5 is attached to the drive shaft 4 of the motor, and a V-belt 8 passes around pulley 5 and a hand wheel 7. The wheel 7 is provided with its own V-groove and is mounted on the main shaft 6 (FIG. 3) of the sewing machine.
As shown in FIG. 2, a drive mechanism 10 is provided for needle rods 11 and 12 which are disposed in the head 9 of the machine 2. On the lower end of each of the needle rods (11 and 12 respectively, needle holders 13 and 14 are provided for mounting the thread-guiding needles 15 and 16 respectively. The needle rods 11 and 12 are movable up and down in a guide frame 17 which is attached to a swingable shaft 18 which is pivotally mounted in the machine housing. The driving movement for the needle rods 11 and 12 is transmitted via an eccentric 19 which is surrounded by an eccentric rod 20. The free end of rod 20 is pivotally connected to the crosspiece part, 21, of a forked, two-arm lever 22 which is swingably mounted in the machine housing by bearing pins 23, fork members 24 and 25 are connected to crosspiece 21 and act as driven arms.
Arm 24 is connected to a crank arm 31, via an articulated linkage comprising a pair of rods 26 and 27 using pivot pins 28, 29 and 30. Crank arm 31 is connected to an intermediate shaft 32 which is pivotally mounted in the machine housing and runs parallel to the main shaft at a distance therefrom. Fork arm 25 is connected to a crank arm 38, via an articulated linkage comprising a pair of rods 33 and 34 using pivot pins 35, 36 and 37. Crank arm 38 is connected to a bushing 39 which is rotatably mounted on an intermediate shaft. The distance between the bearing pins 23 of the lever 22 and the pivot pins 28 and 35 on the fork arms 24 and 25 is the same as the distance between the pivot pins 28 and 35 and the articulations 29 and 36 respectively of the respective articulated linkage pair 26, 27 and 33, 34.
A crank arm 40 is affixed to the intermediate shaft 32, the free end of which arm 40 is connected to the left needle rod 11 via an intermediate linkage 41; and the bushing 39 has a crank arm 42 mounted on it, the free end of arm 42 is connected to the right needle rod 12 via an intermediate linkage 43.
The switching means for the drive mechanism 10 comprises two stop plates 44 and 45 which are swingably mounted on a bearing pin 46 fixed in the machine housing, and are connected with the link pins 29 and 36 in the articulation of the respective articulated linkage pairs 26, 27 and 33, 34, via respective connecting rods 47 and 48 which act as guiding link rods.
Two simple air cylinders 49 and 50 serve to swing the stop plates 44 and 45. The piston rods 51 and 52 of the respective cylinders 49 and 50 are pivotally connected to respective arms 55 and 56 of the respective stop plates 44 and 45.
In order to kinematically define the operative and inoperative positions for the needle rods 11 and 12, the stop plates 44 and 45 each have two stop surfaces 57, 58 and 59, 60 respectively which interact with detents (not shown) on the interior of the machine housing.
As shown in FIG. 3, the pneumatic cylinders 49 and 50 are controlled via pneumatic valves 64 and 65 connected to the cylinders by flexible tubing 66 and 67. Additional features of the drive mechanism 10 for the two needle rods 11 and 12 are described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,569,297.
Rotary hook (not shown) and a material feed dog 69 (FIG. 2) cooperate with the needles 11 and 12. The feed dog 69 is attached to a support 71 which is accommomated under the stitch plate 70 (FIG. 4) of the sewing machine.
The support 71 is connected to a forked crank 73 attached to a rotationally oscillating shaft 74 rotatably mounted in the machine housing. For driving shaft 74, an eccentric 76 is attached to a shaft 75 which is driven by the main shaft 6 at a mechanical ratio of 1:1. The eccentric rod 77 on eccentric 76 is pivotally connected to a pin 78, which in turn is pivotally connected to a link rod 79 which is connected, by a pin 80, to a crank 81 affixed to the shaft 74. The pin 78 also has a link rod 82 pivotally mounted to it, in lateral relationship to the eccentric rod 77. Rod 82 encloses a pin 84 borne by a crank 83. The effective length of rod 79 is equal to that of link rod 82, so that when the two pins 80 and 84 are aligned the shaft 74 remains at rest even if the eccentric rod 77 is moved.
To vary the range of movement of the eccentric rod 77 which movement may have an action on the shaft 74, the crank 83 is rigidly clamped to a setting shaft 85. The members 74, 76 and 85 comprise a setting drive 86 for the magnitude and direction of the stroke of the material feed dog 69. Setting shaft 85 bears a crank 87 connected to another crank 89 via a link rod 88. Crank 89 is connected to another setting shaft 90 which is rotatably mounted in the machine housing. Shaft 90 bears a yoke 91, between the arms of which another yoke 92 is pivotally mounted by means of pins 93. The arms of yoke 92 are connected by a pin 94 which is driven in swinging movement around pin 93 by means of an eccentric rod 96 and an eccentric 95 attached to the main shaft 6. A link rod 97 is pivotally mounted on the pin 94, and is pivotally connected to a crank 99 via a pin 98. One end of crank 99 is affixed to the swingable shaft 18. Members 90-99 comprise a setting drive 100 for the magnitude and direction of the strokes of the needles 15 and 16.
The crank 87 is connected to one end of a rocking lever 106 via a connecting rod 105. Lever 106 is affixed to a shaft 107 which is rotatably mounted in the machine housing. The free end of rocking lever 106 has a spherically shaped projection which extends between the side walls of a control slot 108 in a setting member [lit., "device"] 109 which is mounted on an axle 110 affixed to the housing. By rotating setting member 109, the magnitude of the strokes of the material feed dog 69 and the needles 15 and 16 is established; accordingly the slot 108 has a spiral shape such that the feed dog 69 and needles 15 and 16 can be set for stitch lengths of, e.g., 1-6 mm.
A tension spring 112 engages crank 87. The other end of spring 112 is suspended on the machine housing. The result of the action of spring 112 is that the projection on the rocking lever 106 which engages the setting slot 108 is pressed continuously against the outwardmost wall of the slot 108, and the material feed dog 69 cooperates with the needles 15 and 16 to advance the workpiece in the forward direction. To reverse the material advance direction, a control lever 113 is affixed to the end of shaft 107 which extends outside the machine housing. By pressing lever 113, the rocking lever 106 can be swung against the inwardmost wall of slot 108.
A potentiometer 114 is disposed on the machine housing. The positioning member 115 of potentiometer 114 is rigidly mounted in an axial bore of the setting shaft 85.
The support 71 of the material, feed dog 69 is connected to a frame 116 pivotally mounted on a pin 117 which is also engaged by a lever arm 118 which is pivotally mounted on a pin 119 fixed in the machine housing.
An eccentric 120 is attached to the shaft 75. The eccentric rod 121 is connected to a crank 122 affixed to a shaft 123 which is pivotally mounted in the machine housing. A second crank 124 is mounted on the shaft 123, which crank is connected to one end of a link rod 125 the other--forked--end of which is pivotally connected to a pin 126. A second link rod 127 is pivotally mounted on the pin 126 which rod 127 is supported by the pin 117 and forms an articulated drive linkage in combination with the link rod 125. A torsion spring 129 is mounted on pin 117. One end of spring 129 is braced against frame 116, and the other end acts on link rod 127. Rod 127 has a dog member 127a which pushes the torsion spring 129 against a transverse web 16a of the frame 116. The link rod 127 is provided with a projection 127b which extends into the path of a forcing surface 131a of a control member 131 which is pivotally mounted on a pin 119. Control member 131 has a slot 131b which serves as a guide for a pin element 132 which is attached to a bracket 133 which in turn is attached to a piston rod of a compressed air piston-and-cylinder device 134.
The shaft 75 bears a pulse disc 136 having a plurality of dividing marks 135, which disc 136 cooperates with a pair of pulse generators 137 and 138 disposed 180° apart. The pulse generators are connected to a microcomputer 141 (FIG. 3) via electrical connections 139 and 140 respectively.
The dividing marks 135 (FIG. 2) are provided only on part of the impulse disc 136, namely that part which passes through the pulse generator 13 during the transport phase of the material feed dog 6 and needles 15 and 16. In this way, pulses are produced from generator 137 only during the transport phase of the sewing machine, and are passed over connection 139 (FIG. 3) to the microcomputer 141; and generator 138 sends pulses to the microcomputer 141 only during the non-transport phase.
One input of the microcomputer is connected to the potentiometer 114 via a conductor 142. Another input is connected to a data input device 144 (shown schematically) via an electrical connection 143; and still another input is connected to a sensor 146 via electrical connection 145. Sensor 146 is affixed to the machine housing ahead of the needles 15 and 16 and above the stitch-forming location.
One output of the microcomputer 141 is connected to the control magnet of a 4/2-way servo valve 148 via an amplifier (not shown) and a conductor 147. The servo valve 148 provides controlled pressurization of the compressed air cylinder 134, and is connected to a compressed air source 150 via a flexible tube 149 which is also connected to valves 64 and 65. The control [electro] magnets of valves 64 and 65 are also connected to outputs of the microcomputer 141, via amplifiers (not shown) and conductors 151 and 152 respectively. Another output of the microcomputer 141 is connected to the control switch of the positioning motor 3, via a connection 153.
Finally, a counter 154 is connected to an input of the microcomputer 141 via a conductor 155, and to an output of the microcomputer via a conductor 156. The counter 154 is resettable to zero by means of another output of the microcomputer 141, to which the counter is connected by a conductor 157.
The microcomputer 141 processes the incoming pulses from the pulse generator 137 and the sensor 146, in a manner which is per se known. It also receives the values correlated with the rotational position of the potentiometer 114, which values represent the stitch length to which the machine is set at the time. Alternatively, instead of using the potentiometer, the desired stitch length can be input to the microcomputer 141 manually over the data input device 144, when a change in the setting is desired.
When the desired stitch length L is set using the setting member 109, the setting shaft 85 is rotated via the rocking lever 106, the connecting rod 105, and the crank 87. At the same time, the resistance of the potentiometer 114 (connected to the setting shaft 85) is changed correspondingly, and this value is input to the microcomputer 141 via the conductor 142.
Advantageously, the sensor 146 contains two sensor elements disposed next to each other, which elements each comprise a light source and a light receiver. These elements serve, in known fashion, to determine the magnitude of the corner angle alpha of the workpiece W, with the aid of which the microcomputer 141 calculates the necessary pulse values for positioning the inner and outer corner points (E1, E2) of the double seam.
The sensor 146 disposed at a distance ahead of the path of the needles 15 and 16 on the head 9 of the sewing machine 2 cooperates with a reflective foil 158 adhesively bonded to the stitch plate 70 of the machine 2. The light emitted by the light sources of the sensor elements of the sensor 146 falls on a scanning point (A, B, respectively). If a given such point is not covered by the workpiece W, the light is reflected back to the light receiver of the given sensor element. As soon as an edge 159 of the workpiece W (e.g. a collar) moves over the scanning point A, the workpiece W interrupts the reflected light of the associated beam, and the sensor 146 sends a switching pulse to the microcomputer 141 via the conductor 145.
In operation., with the needle rods 11 and 12 in engagement as per FIG. 2, the main shaft 6 of the machine 2 is driven by the engaged controlled positioning motor 3, via the V-belt pulley 5, V-belt 8, and hand wheel 7 attached to said shaft 6. Swinging movement is imparted to the lever 22 via the eccentric 19 (attached to the main shaft 6) and the eccentric rod 20. This movement is transmitted to the oscillating shaft 32, via the pair of articulated link rods 26 and 27 and the crank arm 31; and from shaft 32 the left needle rod 11 is moved up and down, via the crank arm 40 and the intermediate link rod 41. At the same time, swinging movement is imparted to the bushing 39 which is coaxial to oscillating shaft 32, via the pair of articulated link rods 33 and 34 which are connected to the driven arm 25 of the lever 22, and the crank arm 38; and from bushing 39 the right needle rod 12 is moved up and down, via crank arm 42 and intermediate link rod 43.
During the formation of the double seam comprised of seams N1 and N2 on workpiece W, a report is received from, e.g., sensor 146 that the edge 159 of the workpiece W has left exposed the scanning point A on the stitch plate 70 (i.e., on the reflective foil 158 adhesively bonded thereto), resulting in the sensor 146 sending a switching pulse to microcomputer 141 via conductor 145. In turn, the microcomputer switches the positioning motor 3 to a predetermined low rpm value, via the conductor 153. With the positioning motor 3 then running at low rpm, when the predetermined corner points E1 and E2 are later reached, the machine 2 will stop.
At the same time, counter 154, which has been reset to zero, is switched into connection with the conductor 139 of the pulse generator 137, by means of the microprocessor 141, via conductor 156. Thereafter, when further sewing takes place, the pulses generated by the pulse generator 137 will each cause an increase in the count by counter 154.
The switching-in of the counter 154 occurs during the transport phase of the machine 2, because that is the only time during which the edge 159 of the workpiece W moves over the scanning point A. In FIG. 4, the points 160 and 161 indicate the positions of the needles 15 and 16 at the instant the counter 154 is switched in. After the edge 159 of the workpiece W passes over the second scanning point B, the sensor 146 sends a second pulse to the microcomputer 141, the micro computer then can calculate the correct distances S and S' from the response of the scanning point A to the two corner points E1 and E2 which are to be subjects of control.
The counter 154 counts the pulses generated by the pulse generator 137 during the leftover (remaining) stitch length L1, from the generation of the first switching pulse by the sensor 146 to the completion of the already begun stitch. The microcomputer 141 queries the pulse count at the completion of the "leftover" stitch; and immediately thereafter it calculates (based on the distance S and the set stitch length L) the number of complete stitches to be executed following the "leftover" stitch L1, and also calculates the pulse count for the difference between the stitch length L and the calculated leftover stitch length L2 for the last, shortened stitch L2 prior to the corner point E1.
After execution of the calculated number of normal stitches each with stitch length L, i.e. after stitching to points Pl and P2, the microcomputer 141 controls the inactivation of the right needle rod 12, which is caused to stop at its upper dead point. This is brought about in a first stitch-formation cycle in that the microcomputer 141, via connection 152, switches the pneumatic valve 65 into the "on" position wherein the working piston of the pneumatic cylinder device 50 is subjected to compressed air from the compressed air source 150, via the flexible tube 151 and the pump connection P of the valve 65, whereby the piston rod 52 is forced downward. Rod 52 causes stop plate 45 to swing counterclockwise around bearing pin 46 until the stop surface 60 on the stop plate 45 comes to rest against the corresponding detent which determines the disengaged position of the right needle rod 12. The swinging of the stop plate 45 causes the articulated pair of link rods 33 and 34 to be moved out of the engaged position shown in FIG. 2 and into the disengaged position, via the connecting rod 48 which connects to their articulation 36. In this disengaged position the longitudinal axis of the pivot pin 23 of rod pair 33 and 34 and the longitudinal axis of the pivot pin 23 of lever 22 are aligned, and needle rod 12 is in its highest position. In this position of the drive parts, the link rod 33 executes purely rotational oscillatory movements around pivot pin 36, so that no driving movements are transmitted to the needle rod 12.
At the same time, the microcomputer 141 actuates compressed air cylinder 134 via servo valve 148, prior to the execution of (i.e., movement of the workpiece through) the leftover stitch length L2, at a time at which the prior advance of the workpiece W by the material dog feed 69 and the needle rods 15 and 16 has just ended.
The piston of compressed air cylinder device 134 (FIG. 2), via pin element 132, swings forcing surface 131a against the projection 127b on link rod 127, thereby raising said projection, and surface 131a then presses against the bottom side of lever arm 118, causing arm 118 to swing by an amount determined by the end of the stroke of the adjustably mounted air cylinder 134. This process causes the articulated link rod mechanism 128 to swing outward, in consequence of the swinging of projection 127b, thereby disturbing the firm connection between the frame 116 and the crank 124. The additional swinging of the lever arm 118 results in lifting of the frame 116 (under the action of forcing surface 131a), whereby the support member 71 bearing the material feed dog 69 is swung upward. As a result, the teeth of feed dog 69 are moved through the stitch plate 70. At the same time, the microcomputer 141 (FIG. 4) resets the counter 154 to zero, via conductor 157, and switches conductor 139 to "off" and conductor 140 to "on".
The pulse generator 138 now delivers pulses to the counter 154, via computer 141 and conductor 140, until the count in counter 154 reaches a value i' corresponding to the difference between the normal stitch length L and the calculated leftover stitch length L2 for the last, shortened stitch.
In the sequence of events just described, the workpiece W is moved by a distance which equals the difference between stitch length L and leftover stitch length L2, by the rearward movement of the needle 15 and the material feed dog 69. When the count, in the counter 154, reaches i' the counter 154 sends a pulse to the microcomputer 141 via conductor 155, whereby microcomputer 141 abruptly disengages air cylinder 134 via conductor 147 and servo valve 148, whereupon control member 131 is swung back to its lower end position.
Under the influence of torsion spring 129, the two link rods 125 and 127 are then returned to their extended position up to the point where stop member 127a lies against frame 116, whereby frame 116 is moved downward, and the material feed dog 69 is lowered below the stitch plate. After the feed dog 69 is retracted, the needle 15 and feed dog 69 move back by the distance of the leftover stitch length L2, to their starting positions, without transporting the workpiece, whereupon the needle 15 then stitches a distance L2 on the workpiece from the last stitch which had length L. Accordingly, the last stitch before the corner point E1 has only the leftover stitch length L2.
The stitch formation cycle for producing the leftover stitch L2 on the seam N1 is thus completed, and a second stitch formation cycle begins for producing a normal stitch with length L, in seam N2, parallel to the stitch, in seam N1, with length L2.
As soon as the last stitch, with length L2, is completed in seam N1, the microcomputer 141 switches the pneumatic valve 65 back to its null position, via conductor 152, whereby air cylinder 50 is depressurized, via flexible tube 67 and valve 65 (which is returned (R) to its original position). The working piston of air cylinder 50 is thereby pushed upward, and thereby the stop plate 45 is swung clockwise around pivot pin 46, into the engagement position of right needle rod 12, whereby the stop surface 59 is moved up against the associated detent which determines the engaged position. When the stop plate 45 is swung, the articulated pair of link rods 33 and 34 is moved into the engagement position for the needle rod 12, via the connecting rod 48.
At the same time, the microcomputer 141 switches pneumatic valve 64 into the "on" position, via conductor 151, whereby the left needle rod 11 is disengaged via air cylinder 49, in a manner similar to the disengagement of needle rod 12 discussed above.
The microcomputer 141 calculates the leftover stitch length L3 remaining to be executed, which equals the difference between the normal stitch length L (of the given setting) and the leftover stitch length L2 in the inner seam N1. This length L3 is namely the length remaining to achieve a stitch length of L.
L3=L-L2.
At the same time, the microcomputer 141 calculates the number of pulses which are experienced during advancing movement from corner point El to corner point E2, which number corresponds to a distance S"; and this calculated number is stored.
In the second stitch formation cycle, for stitch formation in the region of the inner corner point E1 of seam N1, the advance is reduced to the calculated stitch length L3, wherewith the microcomputer 141 brings about a backward movement of the workpiece W by a distance L2, in a manner similar to that described above for seam N2, namely by appropriate temporary actuation of air cylinder 134 via servo valve 148, prior to the execution of the leftover stitch length L3.
The effective stitch lenqth negotiated by the outer needle 16 in these two stitch cycles is thus exactly the normal stitch length L.
Additional stitches with length L may be sewn by outer needle 16 prior to the point P2' from which a leftover stitch length L4 must be executed to reach outer corner point E2 i.e., in a situation (not shown) where the distance (S"-L3)>L.
Similarly to the above description, the microcomputer 141 controls the actuation of air cylinder 134 for adjustment for the corner stitch with stitch length L4; resets counter 154 to zero; and shuts off pulse generator 137 and turns on pulse generator 138.
Pulse generator 138 sends pulses to counter 154 via conductor 140 and microcomputer 141, until the pulse count in counter 154 reaches i", corresponding to the difference between stitch length L and the calculated leftover stitch length L4 for the final, shortened stitch.
In the sequence just described, the workpiece is moved rearward (by material feed dog 69) with the rearward movement of the needle 16 and the feed dog 69, said movement being by the distance (L-L4). When the count in the counter 154 reaches i", the counter 154 sends a pulse to the microcomputer 141 via conductor 155, whereby microcomputer 141 abruptly disengages air cylinder 134 via conductor 147 and servo valve 148, whereupon control member 131 is swung back to its lower end position.
In this way, as described supra, the material feed dog 69 is lowered below the stitch plate. After the feed dog 69 is thus lowered, the needle 16 and feed dog 69 move back by the distance of the leftover stitch length L4, to their starting positions, without transporting the workpiece W, whereupon the needle 16 then stitches a distance L4 on the workpiece, from the last stitch which had full length. Accordingly, the last stitch before the corner point E2 has only the leftover stitch length L4.
At the same time that air cylinder 134 is shut off, the microprocessor 141 sends a shutoff command to the positioning motor 3, via conductor 153, whereby the machine 2 is then held in the lowered position of needle 16, in known fashion. Thus the seam is ended exactly at the predetermined corner point E2, whereupon the workpiece W is rotated around the needle 16 (which now serves as a pin to fix the center of rotation).
At the same time, the microcomputer 141 turns pulse generator 137 on, via conductor 139, and turns pulse generator 138 off, via conductor 140.
After workpiece W has been rotated into the new position, the machine 2 is started again, and first only the outer seam N2, is sewed, using needle rod 12. As soon as seam N2' reaches a length corresponding to a leftover length (S"-L) such that outer needle 16 cannot execute another stitch with length L without passing the inner corner point E1, microcomputer 141 causes needle rod 11 to be engaged. From this point on, the sewing of the double seam proceeds on both seams (N1', N2').
There are other ways of achieving the prevention of stitch formation in the outer seam N2 in the first stitch formation cycle when the corner stitch in corner point E1 of the inner seam is being formed--ways other than merely disengaging the outer needle rod 12. The said restriction can also be accomplished by the known technique of failing to catch the loop of the thread of needle 12 by the associated hook means. With such a technique, the needle 16 proceeds to execute the stitch in the workpiece W, thereby forming a stitch hole in it, but actual stitch formation is not accomplished. Only in the second stitch formation cycle is a stitch formed, namely a stitch with length L, executed in outer seam N2.
Obviously, the invention is not limited to a sewing method with a two-needle machine of a type which employs needle translation in addition to transport of the material feed dog, and which therefore is well suited for sewing corner seams in workpieces which are difficult to work with. However, a two-needle machine suitable for the inventive method must operate with transport of the workpiece from underneath. This feature simplifies the electronic control, because each stitch shortening takes place during the advancing phase of the material feed dog, during which also the needles are engaged and disengaged.
While a specific embodiment of the invention has been shown and described in detail to illustrate the application of the principles of the invention, it will be understood that the invention may be embodied otherwise, without departing from such principles. | A method of sewing the corners of a double seam, employing a two-needle machine the two needle rods of which each may be mutually independently engaged and disengaged. The method uses control means to arrive at the corner point of the inner seam, disengaging the internal needle rod, furthersewing to the corner point of the outer seam, stopping the sewing machine with the outer needle penetrating the workpiece, then rotating the workpiece, sewing the thus rotated outer seam, and engaging the inner needle rod. The sewing machine comprises at least one adjustable feed dog means, at least one sensor which is disposed ahead of the needles and which triggers the process of positioning the respective needle at the corresponding corner point, said triggering occurring when the edge of the workpiece passes said sensor, a pulse generator coupled to the main shaft of the sewing machine, which pulse generator provides counting pulses for a pulse counter, a microcomputer which controls the operation of the feed dog means in accordance with pulses emitted by the sensor and the pulse generator.
To avoid a shortened stitch in the outer seam when forming stitches with the two needles in the region of the corner point of the inner seam, the stitch formation is carried out in two stitch forming cycles, in the first cycle stitch formation by the outer needle rod is prevented, and the advancing is reduced to the stitch length required to reach the corner point of the inner seam, and in the second cycle the inner needle rod is disengaged and the advancing is reduced to the distance comprising the difference between the normal stitch length (as set) and the stitch length executed in the first cycle. | 3 |
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of building construction and more particularly to the field of prefabricated building construction.
(2) Description of the Related Art
Currently, houses are built in a standard sequence. The following is a typical sequence.
Grading and site preparation
Construction of foundation. Typically premixed concrete is poured or pumped into molds constructed on the site.
Erection of framing on the foundation. Wood and steel are usually used for framing members. Openings are left in the framing for placement of doors and windows.
Installation of windows and doors.
Construction of roofing on top of the framing.
Installation of exterior walls and/or siding.
Installation of rough electrical wiring.
Installation of rough plumbing.
Installation of rough heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC).
Installation of alarm system wiring.
Installation of phone system wiring.
Installation of local area network LAN wiring.
Installation of insulation in exterior walls and attic.
Attachment of drywall to interior of framing.
Installation of underlayment for floors.
Installation of trim
Painting.
Installation of finish electrical, such as switches and lights.
Installation of finish alarm system.
Installation of LAN and phone system jacks and cover plates.
Installation of bathroom and kitchen counters and cabinets
Installation of finish plumbing, such as sinks, toilets and faucets.
Installation of carpet and other flooring.
Installation of HVAC units.
Hookup to water main or well.
Hookup to sewer or septic system
Correction of problems.
Homes are built to the current standards and government codes and with the latest available amenities. But such construction does not allow for adaptability and installation of new technology. For example, demolition and reconstruction are required if the homeowner wishes to upgrade the existing home's layout and fixtures, or they wish to upgrade the infrastructure (plumbing, electrical, communications, etc.). Since the home's infrastructure is so integrated into the superstructure, it is nearly impossible to simply rearrange spaces without also reconfiguring the main systems of the house as well.
Another problem with typical home construction is that it takes a long time. Usually the foundation is poured quickly and the framing is built very fast but after that it takes a long time to for all the subcontractors to install the electrical, plumbing, etc.
A number of inventors have attempted to solve one or other of these problems.
(1) U.S. Pat. No. 4,447,996
This Patent is directed to prefabricated building structures for use in buildings with multiple units. The building will have modules to accept cubicles that are factory built containing an entire bathroom complete with lavatory, bathtub, water closet, and their associated plumbing, electrical wiring, outlets, exhaust fan and the like. The module likewise could be a complete kitchen with appliance, wiring and the like. The prefabricated module that receives the cubicle can be placed to form the building by means of a crane and if the crane is of sufficient capacity the prefabricated cubicle could be positioned in the module and both installed at the same time. The cubicle will have one wall that is an exterior wall so that at a time to upgrade or repair a fire damaged unit a refurbished or new unit can be brought on site and the old one removed with the aid of rollers so that it can be rolled out to the crane. It would also be possible to change the type of cubicle from for instance kitchen to bathroom or bathroom to kitchen.
(2) U.S. Pat. No. 6,301,838
This Patent is directed to building modules that can be prefabricated and installed in a building structure complete. The first building module is shown in FIG. 1 is for one bathroom and the larger module shown in FIG. 6 is for two rooms, electrical junction boxes and supply lines to light fan outlets and other fixtures conveniently extended within the module making it convenient and easy to connect the module to the electrical supply lines. Likewise with the dryer vent, hot and cold water lines, gas conduit and the waste lines. The toilets are off the floor water closet. The rooms preferably toilets with lavatory or wash basins, bath and shower may otherwise be laundry rooms, kitchens, custodian rooms, rest rooms, or other kinds of rooms requiring one or more waste conduits to carry away waste water and likely require cold water and electricity and possibly hot water. Such rooms may further require gas dryer vents and other lines or conduits.
(3) U.S. Pat. No. 5,528,866
This Patent is directed to a method and apparatus' for constructing multi-rise stacked modules for human occupancy. The construction is in a pinwheel array with the method of construction providing for individual models that may be readily positioned and removed without affecting the structural integrity of the multi-rise structure. The modules are prefabricated, electrical and water services may be provided through hookups to a vertically extending electrical and water surface panels supported about a central open core. The dwelling modules could encompass habitat for residence, office, manufacture, or other human uses.
(4) U.S. Pat. No. 7,540,120
This patent is directed to a multi-level apartment building that includes a vertically extending stairway system with support walls that contain rectilinearly vertically extending utility service conduits used to receive standard utility services such as HVAC, plumbing, exhaust, etc. that extend in vertical straight line paths in the building thus the single stair support assembly vertically extending in each of the plurality of vertically aligned apartments function to consolidate plumbing, HVAC and other utilities into a single assembly having a straight vertical and unobstructed path. The apartment modules preferably includes a plurality of pairs of apartments vertically stacked in alternating mirrored patterns and a plurality of such vertically stacked pairs of apartments horizontally aligned with one another.
(5) U.S. Pre-Grant Publication 2009/0031642
This reference is directed to interactive building modules that move between a collapsed configuration which is sized and shaped similarly to a standard shipping container that can be erected where it forms a building of greater space. The modules are connected together to form a single storied or multi-storied building. A series of standardized ceiling panels located within the common area create accessible services duct for placement of hydraulic, electrical, and that illumes. Hot water is distributed to each module via a continuous hot water loom. A network managing system interactively manages resources. Scenarios for use of modules are virtual space, serviced office, hotel or serviced apartment or residential uses. The scenarios are not mutually exclusive. The design principle enables the same space to be used for different uses over time. The transference of a module from one use to another beside changing the furniture possibly the reprogramming or alternation of certain services to suit the requirements of the occupant and the new use of the module. The internal fit-out may consist of a range of standard plug-in modular components providing a variety of function and form.
(6) U.S. Pat. No. 4,327,529
This reference is directed to a prefabricated building comprising: a plurality of exterior and interior wall sections joined together in a selected configuration; a plurality of ceiling panels extending between the walls; a plurality of roof trusses overlying the ceiling panels; a roof supported by the trusses; a prefabricated utility core comprising: a plurality of vertical connected core walls extending vertically, one of the core walls providing an exterior wall of the building, an access door in this exterior wall, a main sewer line supported in the core and extending through the exterior core wall and having a plurality of lateral sewer lines extending through the core walls, a main water line extending through the exterior core wall and supported in the core and having a plurality of lateral water lines extending through the core walls, a water heater in the core connected to the main water line, a main hot water line connected to the heater and having a plurality of lateral hot water lines extending through the core walls, a breaker box in the core, a plurality of electrical conduits extending from the breaker box; and fixtures utilizing water and discharging sewage connected to selected the appropriate lateral lines.
(7) U.S. Pat. No. 4,655,011
This reference is directed to a prefabricated building system comprising a portable wall unit having a supporting frame and utility apparatus mounted on the supporting frame. The utility apparatus preferably is adjustably mounted on the supporting frame and may comprise plumbing, electrical, heating and/or cooling apparatus for the rooms adjacent to the portable wall unit in the building in which it is to be installed. Prefabricated wall partitions for the adjacent rooms can be assembled with the portable wall unit before shipment to the building site or at the building site. The portable wall unit is provided with means for aligning the wall unit with the adjacent wall partitions to facilitate the assembly thereof.
(8) U.S. Pat. No. 5,127,201
This reference is directed to a compact service core structure. The walls of the prefabricated compact service core structure are higher than the total height of the floor, wall and ceiling structure of an ordinary one-storey residential building, but lower than the total height of a two-storey building of any kind. The height of the walls is large enough to e.g. accommodate the serviced fixtures of complete main floor bathroom, kitchen, and possibly laundry and utility rooms, as well as lower parts of the same rooms of the second storey of a two-storey structure. On the other hand, the height is small enough to make the prefabricated compact service core structure possible to ship on standard low trailers anywhere in the world. The prefabricated compact service core structure allows for factory completion of all major plumbing, heating, ventilation, and electrical work for a two-storey building, and easy on site hook-up to sewer, water, gas and electrical services from the bottom of the prefabricated compact service core structure ventilation and possibly electrical services may be extended above the top of the core through one or more extension service panels. As all portions of the floor of both storeys and high plumbing wall are suspended, pre-manufacturing of the service core in the plan can easily match all custom designed floor heights or deviations from them usually originating from the supply of building lumber of irregular dimensions.
(9) U.S. Pat. No. 5,890,341
This reference is directed to a modular structure consisting of three modular units of approximately the same size, the center module being the primary module containing the mechanical components of the building, with plumbing, air conditioning and heating ducts, and electrical wiring in the slab floor structural foundation and door jambs. The primary module used to transport the entire structure is completed at the factory, requiring no further work at jobsite, with heating and cooling unit, hot water heater, cabinets and appliances, plumbing and light fixtures and accessories installed at the factory in permanent locations. The major exterior walls, slab floor foundation panels, and ceiling/roof panels for all three modules are similarly manufactured in one piece in full width and the length of the building, eliminating joints, speeding assembly and strengthening the components. The major components of the side modules, consisting of the slab floor foundation panels, ceiling/roof panels and the exterior side walls, are all hinged so that they fold to the side and on top of the primary module. Accessories and wall panels and partitions not hinged are placed on top of the primary module for transportation. Two end walls are bolted to the center module during transportation to the site. At the pre-leveled permanent site, the primary module is lowered to the ground and the hinged slab floor foundation panels, which include hinged and folded exterior walls, along with the ceiling/roof panels, are unfolded and permanently fastened in place for that site, but can be refolded if later relocation is needed. The slab floor foundation panels for all three modules are placed directly on the ground or on a pre-built foundation, single or multi-level design. If a pitched roof was ordered, trusses and pre-sized roofing panels transported on top of the primary module are attached to the flat roof of the center module. Two or more of these triple modules can be joined side-to-side or end-to-end or on top of each other, for erection of multiple-unit buildings.
However, none of these inventions allow a house to be built without waiting for installation of services and none of these inventions allow for ease of maintenance or avoidance of damage during remodeling and renovations.
What is needed is a way of allowing a house to be built without waiting for installation of services and which, when built, would be easy to maintain and remodel.
Development of a way to allow houses to be built without waiting for installation of services and which, when built, would be easy to maintain and remodel represents a great improvement in the field of construction and satisfies a long felt need of the contractor and homeowner.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The instant invention is a core for a building comprising: an exterior wall section and three interior shear wall sections joined together to form a room at least two storeys tall. The outsides of the interior wall sections are finished with an interior finish; the outside of the exterior wall section are finished with an exterior finish.
A structural hold down which is used to attach the core to the foundation, is attached to the core at each corner. At least one interior platform is provided attached to the inside of at least one of the walls. There is a means for attaching a floor, external to the core, to each of the interior walls. There is an access door and a fresh air louver in the exterior wall. Water main and gas main connections are provided on the exterior wall and sewer connections are located inside the core.
A water heater is installed in the core. Clothes washer, drier and dishwasher connections are located adjacent and outside of one of the interior wall sections. Preferably a toilet mechanism is located within at least one of the interior wall sections. This is a special mechanism with a bowl that will be installed later. The mechanism is installed so that the bowl will install from outside of the core.
Faucets and mixing valves are attached to the outside of at least one of the interior wall sections. Plumbing and shut off valves interconnect the water main connection, gas main connection, sewer connection, water heater, clothes washer connection, drier connection, dishwasher connection, toilet mechanism, faucet and mixing valve as necessary and appropriate. The shut off valves are located adjacent the insides of the interior walls as close as possible to the appliances and the interior connections.
An irrigation connection, connected to the water main, is located outside the exterior wall section. An electric mains connection is located on the exterior of the exterior wall section. A breaker box is located within the core and electrically connected to the electric mains connection.
At least one forced air unit and an air conditioning condenser unit are installed within the core and connected to each other by appropriate piping. The condenser unit is located near the fresh air louver so that hot air produces by the condenser can readily escape through the louver. A return air duct stub and a supply air duct stub are connected to the forced air unit through one of the interior wall sections.
Phone line and television signal connections are located outside the exterior wall section. The phone line connection is punched down to a punch block within the core. The television signal connection is connected to a signal splitter located inside the core.
A modem is provided inside the core and electrically connected either the telephone punch block via a DSL line or the signal splitter. A security panel is provided inside the core and electrically connected to either telephone punch block or the modem.
A fire suppression unit is located within the core and connected by a plumbing line to the water main connection. Sprinkler line stubs run from the fire suppression unit through the interior walls of the core.
An exhaust fan is provided within the core. Inlet ducts run through interior walls of the core to the exhaust fan and an outlet duct runs from the fan to the fresh air louver. A control switch is attached to the outside of at least one of the interior wall sections and electrically connected to the exhaust fan.
A drier vent runs from behind the eventual location of the clothes drier through an interior wall through the core and through the exterior wall.
A range hood is attached to the inside of one of the interior walls over the eventual location of the range. A range exhaust fan is provided in the core. This is connected via ducting to the range hood. Exhaust ducting runs from the range exhaust fan to the fresh air louver and control wiring runs from the switch in the range hood to the range exhaust fan.
A core exhaust fan is located in the core adjacent the fresh air vent and a thermostatic control is located inside the core and electrically connected to the core exhaust fan.
This invention may include an internet protocol switching lighting control panel located within the core and electrically connected to the breaker box.
This invention may include a water filtration unit in the plumbing between the water main connection, and the appliances and the interior connections. This invention may further include a reverse osmosis unit to supply drinking water.
The modem may be a wired modem, wireless modem or a wired/wireless modem.
The invention may also include a central vacuum system. This comprises a canister in the core, vacuum outlets in the interior walls and vacuum tubing interconnecting them.
This invention may include a server within the core.
This invention may also include an interior room within the core. This is formed by attaching an interior floor to the wall sections one storey below the tops of the wall sections. This room is preferably a bathroom, which preferably includes another special toilet mechanism installed within at least one of the interior wall sections. This time the mechanism is installed so that the bowl for the toilet will install from inside of the core. The bathroom also includes faucets and mixing valves attached to the inside of at least one of the interior wall sections. Then plumbing and shut off valves are installed to interconnect the appliances in this interior bathroom with the water main connection, the sewer connection, and the water heater as necessary and appropriate; the shut off valves for these appliances being located under the interior floor as close as possible to the appliances.
The present invention is a module that will allow a house to be built without waiting for installation of services. This is because the module is prefabricated with all services already built in. Further, this module allows access to all of the services thus allowing for ease of maintenance and avoidance of collateral damage during renovations and remodeling. It will be recognized by those familiar with the art to which this invention pertains that this invention could, alternatively, be built on site.
The module of this invention separates the infrastructure from the superstructure in a way that allows the two buildings to be altered independent of each other. This is done by prefabricating an “Infrastructure Core,” which contains all the plumbing, mechanical and electrical/communications equipent into one central location that serves the entire house and is easily accessible.
A central infrastructure core makes distribution much simpler. Plumbing only needs to go a short distance, making repairs and replacements easier, and electrical and mechanical systems also benefit from the location of the core and are able to radiate out into the home in an efficient manner.
This core serves as: 1. the housing for all the home's mechanical, plumbing and electrical sources, and 2. a major structural support, providing three shear walls to the structure.
This infrastructural core houses the utilities and electronics of the home in such a way that allows the remaining floor plan to be substantially more flexible than traditional floor plans.
The house will preferably be wired with smart technology that will allow the lighting and electrical systems to be remotely observed and controlled. Individual web sites will allow home owners to monitor, control and maintain the health of their house from inside or remotely over the internet.
The core has an inherent effect on the architecture of the house in the following ways. 1. The vertical orientation of the core, designed to maximize efficiency in floor space and materials, lends itself to a multi-story home. 2. Because of the consolidation of infrastructure in the core, there are fewer ducts and wires running through the home, resulting in fewer essential walls and fixed floor planes. 3. By using lower ceiling heights, three floors can be provided in a space that would normally accommodate only two floors in a traditional home.
Balloon framing was chosen as the main method of construction for the wall panels for several reasons: 1. Components can be created off-site, saving time and money while increasing accuracy. 2. Vertically-oriented walls work seamlessly with window systems. 3. They make it easy to run electric and communication wiring up and down.
It is an objective of this invention to provide a central core for a house that includes all the functionality of a modern infrastructural system. Modern infrastructure needs to be upgradeable, interconnected and monitorable. For example a modern infrastructure should provide notification when FAU filters need to be changed, the water filtration needs filter change, a backup battery for the security system or tech rack needs to be changed, etc.
It is an objective of this invention to provide a core that contributes to the structural stability of the house. The shell of the core provides lateral stability and floor/roof support for the rest of the house. It can be either a wood structure or steel structure. It can be made up of either a rigid frame construction with infill panels or it can be stud wall system.
It is an objective of this invention to provide end use plumbing fixtures such as valves, faucets and toilets, already connected to the hot, cold and sewer distribution system. This minimizes plumbing time at the site and yields better and more consistent quality work since it is completed in a more controlled environment.
It is an objective of this invention to provide 90% of the infrastructural distribution (i.e. pipes, ducts and wires) and 100% infrastructural source hardware (i.e. FAUs, condensers, low voltage controls for lighting or security, water filtration system, electrical panels, fire sprinkler riser, ventilation fans, etc.) within a prefabricated core. This minimizes the work, the time, and the need for many of the trades.
It is an objective of this invention to provide a house in which repair, upgrade or maintenance can be easily and readily accomplished. This obviates the need to tear up concrete floors, finished ceilings or finished walls to access a defective solder joint that was leaking. It also obviates the need to cut into bathroom walls to replace worn out shower valves. In this invention all hardware is organized and installed so that it is easily accessible. Any aspect of the infrastructure can be updated, maintained or repaired without touching the finishes. One does not have to open the superstructure or structure to access any aspect of the infrastructure.
It is an objective of this invention to provide the most efficient vertical and horizontal distribution of the infrastructural elements. This invention is crawl space plus attic plus the vertical and horizontal chases and raceways. This invention facilitates the interconnectivity of the modern infrastructural system. For example: the HVAC system needs electricity, hot & cold water, sewer drain and low voltage control; the security system needs electricity, phone and network connection; the water heater needs electricity or gas, ventilation, connection to the water mains and connection to the plumbing fixtures; security cameras need electricity, back up batteries, phone system and access to the network. All of this access and more is provided conveniently and accessibly within the core of this invention.
It is an objective of this invention to provide a complete, sophisticated and ideal infrastructural system to a house while consuming very little time in construction schedule. It is not only that minimizing the construction time saves money. But also the inherent efficiency of the system plus its factory production will make it cost much less than a site built house. Further, since the core of this invention is factory built it is less likely to be built wrongly. The core of this invention will be pretested and thus will be fully functioning at installation. It will be recognized by those familiar with the art to which this invention pertains, that this invention could, alternatively, be built on site.
It is an objective of this invention to provide a core that is sized to be carried on smaller semi trailers without wide load transport provisions. This invention is light and rigid which makes it easy to transport and install. There are no finishes such as tile or paint that would be vulnerable to damage in shipment.
It is an objective of this invention to provide data on water and electricity consumption, and to operate switches, control temperature, control irrigation system, turn the security system on or off, view the security cameras, and move the shades up and down.
It is an objective of this invention to provide consumer benefits because one company is behind the entire infrastructural system. Instead of dealing with multiple subcontractors customers will deal with the manufacturer of this invention.
It is an objective of this invention to provide remote monitoring through the internet of many aspects of the health of the infrastructure through sensors, cameras and internet.
An appreciation of the other aims and objectives of the present invention and an understanding of it may be achieved by referring to the accompanying drawings and description of a preferred embodiment.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 is a perspective view of the balloon framing of the 3 storey core.
FIG. 1A is an elevational view of an alternate type of framing.
FIG. 2 is a perspective view of the balloon framing of the 3 storey core showing the floor framing.
FIG. 3 is a perspective view of the 3 storey core illustrating attachment of sheeting which provides structural support to the core and the whole building.
FIG. 4 is a typical ground floor plan for the core.
FIG. 5 is a front elevational view of the 3 storey core.
FIG. 5A is a detail of a structural hold down.
FIG. 5B is a detail showing attachment of the floors of the house to the core.
FIG. 6 is perspective view of the 3 storey core illustrating plumbing aspects of the core.
FIG. 7 is a typical ground floor plan for the core illustrating plumbing aspects.
FIG. 8 is an elevational view of the 3 storey core as seen from the line 8 - 8 on FIG. 7 .
FIG. 9 is perspective view of the 3 storey core illustrating waste handling aspects of the core.
FIG. 10 is a typical ground floor plan for the core illustrating waste handling aspects.
FIG. 11 is an elevational view of the 3 storey core as seen from the line 11 - 11 on FIG. 10 .
FIG. 12 is perspective view of the 3 storey core illustrating fuel aspects of the core.
FIG. 13 is a typical ground floor plan for the core illustrating fuel aspects.
FIG. 14 is an elevational view of the 3 storey core as seen from the line 14 - 14 on FIG. 13 .
FIG. 14A is a floor plan of a typical third floor bathroom.
FIG. 15 is perspective view of the 3 storey core illustrating power aspects of the core.
FIG. 16 is a typical ground floor plan for the core illustrating power aspects.
FIG. 17 is an elevational view of the 3 storey core as seen from the line 17 - 17 on FIG. 16 .
FIG. 18 is perspective view of the 3 storey core illustrating lighting aspects of the core.
FIG. 19 is a typical ground floor plan for the core illustrating lighting aspects.
FIG. 20 is an elevational view of the 3 storey core as seen from the line 20 - 20 on FIG. 19 .
FIG. 21 is perspective view of the 3 storey core illustrating air distribution aspects of the core.
FIG. 22 is a typical ground floor plan for the core illustrating air distribution aspects.
FIG. 23 is an elevational view of the 3 storey core as seen from the line 23 - 23 on FIG. 22 .
FIG. 23A is an elevational view of the 3 storey core as seen from the line 23 A- 23 A on FIG. 22 .
FIG. 24 is perspective view of the 3 storey core illustrating air water filtration aspects of the core.
FIG. 25 is a typical ground floor plan for the core illustrating water filtration aspects.
FIG. 26 is an elevational view of the 3 storey core as seen from the line 26 - 26 on FIG. 25 .
FIG. 27 is perspective view of the 3 storey core illustrating telephone, data and security aspects of the core.
FIG. 28 is a typical ground floor plan for the core illustrating telephone, data and security aspects.
FIG. 29 is an elevational view of the 3 storey core as seen from the line 29 - 29 on FIG. 28 .
FIG. 30 is perspective view of the 3 storey core central vacuum aspects of the core.
FIG. 31 is a typical ground floor plan for the core central vacuum aspects.
FIG. 32 is an elevational view of the 3 storey core as seen from the line 32 - 32 on FIG. 31 .
FIG. 33 is perspective view of the 3 storey core illustrating fire suppression aspects of the core.
FIG. 34 is a typical ground floor plan for the core illustrating fire suppression aspects.
FIG. 35 is an elevational view of the 3 storey core as seen from the line 35 - 35 on FIG. 34 .
FIG. 36 is perspective view of the 3 storey core illustrating central fan aspects of the core.
FIG. 37 is a typical ground floor plan for the core illustrating central fan aspects.
FIG. 38 is an elevational view of the 3 storey core as seen from the line 38 - 38 on FIG. 37 .
FIG. 39 is perspective view of the 3 storey core illustrating exhaust aspects of the core.
FIG. 40 is a typical ground floor plan for the core exhaust aspects.
FIG. 41 is an elevational view of the 3 storey core as seen from the line 41 - 41 on FIG. 40 .
FIG. 42 is a perspective view of the balloon framing of the 2 storey core.
FIG. 43 is a perspective view of the balloon framing of the 2 storey core showing the floor framing.
FIG. 44 is a perspective view of the 2 storey core illustrating attachment of sheeting which provides structural support to the core and the whole building.
FIG. 45 is perspective view of the 2 storey core illustrating some plumbing and sewer aspects.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT
While the present invention is described herein with reference to illustrative embodiments for particular applications, it should be understood that the invention is not limited thereto. Those having ordinary skill in the art and access to the teachings provided herein will recognize additional modifications, applications, and embodiments within the scope thereof and additional fields in which the present invention would be of significant utility.
FIGS. 1-5 show structural aspects of the 3 storey core. The core is essentially a room 14 which has one exterior wall segment 18 and three interior wall segments 22 , 26 , 30 . The core is two or more storeys high and built of framing in standard fashion. Preferably the framing is balloon framing (illustrated in almost all of the Figures), in which the studs 34 run from the foundation 38 to the roof (not shown). Balloon framing is stronger and more rigid than platform framing. An alternate type of framing is shown in FIG. 1A . This type of framing has steel corner posts 31 and beams 32 which are connected with very rigid joints or reinforced with cross braces 33 . In this case, intermediate studs 34 a are not necessary but may be included to frame openings.
Openings 42 , 46 are constructed in the framing for the outside wall for an access door and a fresh air louver. One or more spaces 50 are constructed in one or more of the inside walls 22 , 26 , 30 for a toilet mechanism. Structural hold downs 54 are attached to the core at each corner 58 . These hold downs 54 are used to attach the core to the foundation 38 at the construction site.
FIG. 5B is a detail of a structural hold down 54 . The hold down 54 is bolted to a stud 34 and to the sill 36 and foundation 38 .
Built in to the core are one or more interior platforms 62 for mechanical units such as the HVAC unit. In cores three storey or more in height, a floor supported by joists 66 is located one storey below the top 68 .
The outside of the framing is sheathed with panels 70 so that the walls 18 , 22 , 26 , 30 of the core become shear walls, i.e. able to resist lateral loads. To conform to standard building codes, the panels 70 must be structural plywood. Then the outsides 74 of the interior wall segments 22 , 26 , 30 are finished with an interior finish, preferably with wall board, to match the interior finish of the house and the outside 78 of the exterior wall segment 18 is finished with an exterior finish, for example, stucco or siding to match the exterior finish of the house.
FIG. 5B shows how interior floors of the house are attached to the interior wall segments of the core. Floor joists 82 are attached to a ledger board 85 provided on the outsides 74 of each of the interior segments 22 , 26 , 30 with joist hangers 84 . This is typically done with nails 83 . The floor joists 82 will be attached after delivery of the prefabricated core to the site.
FIGS. 6-14 show plumbing, waste and fuel aspect of the core. The main utilities, i.e. water 86 and gas 90 , come into the core from outside the building footprint. Preferably these are provided from underground. Connection 94 , 98 is made with main shut off valves (not shown) just outside the outside 78 of the exterior wall segment 18 . An irrigation line 96 for hose bibs and sprinklers (not shown), branches off the water main 94 just outside the outside wall 18 . A sprinkler controller 100 may be installed on one of the walls of the core and connected electrically to each sprinkler circuit.
Sewer connections 102 are provided within the core. The main sewer line 106 from the street comes under the core slab 38 and branches out to three stub outs 110 . The branching and stub outs 110 will be done before the slab 38 is poured in a coordinated location that will connect to the sewer lines 114 , 118 of the core. When the core is built all 3 main sewer lines 114 will terminate about 6″ above ground. Once installed the sewer lines 114 will be connected to the stub outs 110 . The 6″ will allow for some adjustment, just in case the core's sewer lines 114 and stub outs 110 are not perfectly aligned.
In the core, the cold water line 122 is connected to a water heater 126 , and to shut off valves (not shown) for all cold water appliances such as faucets 130 , toilets 134 , mixing valves 138 , washers 142 , etc. The valves will be located just behind the interior walls 22 , 26 , 30 . Piping will run from these shut off valves through the interior walls 22 , 26 , 30 of the core. Faucets 130 , toilets 134 and mixing valves 138 will be attached to the pipes on the outsides of an interior wall section 22 , 26 , 30 . The other appliances will be attached to the piping later. In the core, the gas line 146 is connected to the water heater 126 and gas cocks for appliances such as ranges 150 , driers 154 , ovens 158 , etc, if they are gas powered. Piping will run from these cocks through the interior 22 , 26 , 30 walls of the core. All such appliances will eventually be located next to the outside 74 of an interior wall 22 , 26 , 30 . In the core, the hot water line 162 from the water heater 126 is connected to shut off valves (not shown) for all hot water using appliances, such as faucets 130 , mixing valves 138 , washers 142 , etc. Again the valves will be located just behind the interior walls 22 , 26 , 30 and piping will run from these shut off valves through the interior walls 22 , 26 , 30 of the core. Faucets 130 , and mixing valves 138 will be attached to the pipes on the outsides of an interior wall section 22 , 26 , 30 . The other appliances will be attached to the piping later.
The water heater 126 is located within the core. It may be tankless and attached to the inside 166 of one of the wall segments 18 , 22 , 26 , 30 or it may have a tank and may be attached on one of the interior platforms 62 . All other appliances are wall mounted and located next to or attached to the exterior of an interior wall segment. The operating mechanism 134 of all toilets, usually the tank and flush valve, is installed in specially provided openings 50 in the interior wall segments 22 , 26 , 30 . Then the bowl 170 is attached to the mechanism 134 on the outside 74 of the interior wall segment 22 , 26 or 30 . Suitable toilets for this application are available from Duravit AG of Hornberg, Germany. All cold water piping 122 and gas piping 146 are run within the core and only go through the wall 22 , 26 , 30 just behind the appliance. Sewer pipes (not illustrated) run from the appliances, such as sinks 174 , toilets bowls 170 and washers 142 through the wall 22 , 26 , 30 directly behind the appliance and then are connected via vertical 114 and lateral runs 118 within the core to the main sewer line 106 .
Alternatively, in three storey houses, i.e. ones incorporating three storey cores, the third floor may be a bathroom. In this case the walls 18 , 22 , 26 , 30 of the core are finished and the fixtures are attached to the insides 166 of the interior walls 22 , 26 , 30 . The toilet 134 , 170 in such a third floor bathroom is also, preferably wall mounted. A floor plan of such a third storey bathroom is shown on FIG. 14A . A more conventional floor mounted toilet could be used, however this would necessitate increased plumbing labor at a later stage in construction of the house.
In either case, when the core is provided prefabricated, all fixtures are attached in their proper locations prior to delivery of the core to the job site. Then it is only necessary to do any final wall finish, such as tile, paint or wallpaper, and attach any necessary trim and the toilet bowls 170 .
FIGS. 15-17 show the electrical power aspect of the core. The electric main 190 is provided to the building, preferably underground. The main 190 runs to a meter 194 located on the exterior of the building, preferably on the outside 78 of an exterior wall segment 18 of the core. From here a line 198 runs inside the core to a main electric subpanel 202 . Electric circuits 206 are later run from here to all wall outlets in the house.
Lighting could be done with standard high voltage circuits and switches with circuits 206 running from the main electric subpanel. Preferably, however, lighting will be done with internet protocol (IP) switches. Suitable systems are available from Lutron of Coopersburg, Pa. In this case lighting will be done as shown in FIGS. 18-20 . A lighting control panel 210 is electrically connected to the main electric subpanel. From here power runs to each light fixture 218 or zone of light fixtures 218 over a switched power line 226 that runs through conduit 230 . Also from panel 210 Category 5 (CAT 5) cable, which is the standard cable used for connecting computer networks, or plain twisted pair wiring 214 runs to a low voltage switch 222 for each light 218 or zone of lights 218 . The standard RJ45 connectors on the ends of the cable 214 simply plug into the switches 222 and the control panel 210 . Twisted pair wiring 214 is connected with connector blocks. Alternatively, the switches may be wireless. Wired or wireless controls 222 can be located wherever desired within the house. Programming of each control 222 is accomplished from the lighting control panel 210 . Preferably power line 226 runs through conduit 230 . IP lighting systems are complicated. It is not possible to fully describe such systems in this document. For further details one should consult the technical literature issued by Lutron or equivalent companies.
FIGS. 21-23 show air distribution aspects of the core. Preferably, in larger houses there are two forced air units 234 , 238 and an air conditioning condenser unit 242 mounted on the platforms 62 inside the core. In smaller houses there would preferably be only one forced air unit 234 and an air conditioning condenser unit 242 . All ducting 246 , 250 is preinstalled in the core during prefabrication. Supply air and return air stubs 258 run through the interior walls 22 , 26 , 30 of the core. These are then connected to the supply air and return air ducts in the remainder of the house, after the house has been constructed around the core. Hot air blown out of the air conditioner condenser unit 242 is able to exit the core through the fresh air louver 254 . Air flow is indicated by arrows on FIGS. 21 and 23 .
FIGS. 24-26 show the optional whole house water filtration aspects of the core. These are designed to remove, sediments, objectionable tastes and odors, organic chemicals, chlorine and dissolved solids from the water delivered by the mains. To accomplish this there may be one or more filters 262 ; a water softener 266 with backwash tank 268 ; and reverse osmosis equipment 274 in the incoming water line.
FIGS. 27-29 show the telephone, TV, data and security aspects of the core. Telephone and cable connections may be located on the outside of the exterior wall section 18 of the core. Inside the core are a security panel 290 , a phone punch block 286 and a signal splitter 306 . The modem (either DSL or cable), server (if desired) and computer (if desired) are mounted in the rack 298 . The incoming phone/DSL 282 or cable line 278 connects to the input of the modem. From there the data lines 310 go through a switch and patch panel to specific locations within the house, where computers or other equipment need to be connected to the network. Alternatively or additionally a wireless modem (not shown) may be connected to the switch and mounted within the core. If only a wireless modem is used, data connections 310 to specific locations within the house will be unnecessary. Incoming phone lines 282 are punched down in the punch block and telephone lines 314 run from there to specific locations within the house where telephone equipment is to be located. Low voltage wiring 302 runs from the security panel 290 to switches on doors and windows; interior detectors; and other security devices.
The house may be provided with a central vacuum system. FIGS. 30-32 show the central vacuum aspect of the core. A central vacuum canister 318 is located in the core. Ducts 322 run from the canister to outlets 326 on each floor, on the exterior of the core. An exhaust duct 330 runs from the canister 318 through the exterior wall segment 18 , to the exterior of the core.
FIGS. 33-35 show the fire suppression aspect of the Core. Conventional fire suppression systems are used. A main line 334 runs from the water mains 86 to the riser box 338 , which is mounted inside the core and electrically connected to the alarm system in conventional fashion. Fire sprinkler lines 342 run from there to stubs 346 passing through the walls 22 , 26 , 30 of the core. These are then connected to fire sprinkler lines and heads throughout the house after it is constructed around the core.
FIGS. 36-38 show the central exhaust aspect of the core. The bathrooms and laundry room are exhausted by a remote fan 338 . Inlet ducting 342 passes through the walls 22 , 26 , 30 of the core and connects to the fan 338 . An exhaust duct 346 runs from this fan 338 to the fresh air louver 254 so the air can be vented outside the core. Control switches 350 , electrically connected to the fan are located in each room. A drier vent runs from the rear of the drier through the core and then through an outside wall of the core.
FIGS. 39-41 show discharge of hot air. A wall fan 358 is installed near the top of the fresh air louver 254 to push the air out. A thermostat switch 362 , electrically connected to this fan 358 , is located on the inside of one of the interior walls 22 , 26 , 30 of the core. In this way the core is cooled when the temperature rises above a preset level. This helps in cooling the whole house also. In addition the kitchen air vent 366 is connected via ducting 370 to an exhaust fan 374 within the core. This fan 374 is connected to an exhaust duct 378 which vents through the fresh air louver 254 .
FIGS. 42-44 show structural aspects of the two storey core. The two storey core is built similarly to the three storey core except there is no third storey, no third storey floor and no third storey bathroom. All other facilities and appliances are installed and attached the same way in the two and three storey cores. By way of example, FIG. 45 shows some plumbing and waste aspects of the two storey core.
This invention is preferably made prefabricated. It is light and rigid which makes it easy to transport. It is sized to be transported on a standard semi-trailer without wide load provisions. It will be understood that the following items will be installed during prefabrication of the core: structural hold downs 54 , interior platforms 62 , an access door, a fresh air louver 254 , a water main connection 94 , a gas main connection 98 , drain lines 114 , 118 and sewer connections 102 , a clothes washer connection, a drier connection (including the gas connection 178 ), stove and oven connections (including the gas connection 182 ) a dishwasher connection, toilet mechanisms 134 , all faucets 130 and mixing valves 138 , all plumbing 122 , 146 , 162 and shut off valves, a water heater 126 , an electric mains connection, a breaker box 202 , at least one forced air unit 234 , an air conditioning condenser 242 , a return air duct 246 and stub, a supply air duct 250 and stub 258 , a phone line connection, a television line connection, a punch block 286 , a signal splitter 294 , a modem, a security panel 290 , a fire suppression unit 338 , sprinkler line 342 and stubs 346 , an exhaust fan 338 with inlet 342 and outlet ducting and control switches 350 , a drier vent 354 , a range hood 336 with remote fan 374 , ducting 370 , 378 and electrical wiring, and a core exhaust fan 358 with thermostatic control 362 .
The foundation, with sewer connections incorporated in it is poured on the job site. Then the core is delivered and placed in its proper place on the foundation and secured with the structural hold downs. Construction then proceeds as follows.
Erection of framing for the rest of the house on the foundation. Wood and steel are usually used for framing members. Openings are left in the framing for placement of doors and windows.
Construction of upper floor(s), connecting them to the interior walls of the core and the rest of the framing.
Installation of windows and doors.
Construction of roofing on top of the framing.
Installation of exterior walls and/or siding.
Running electrical wiring from subpanel.
Running alarm system wiring from alarm panel.
Running of phone system wiring from punch block.
Installation of local area network LAN wiring from modem.
Installation of insulation in exterior walls and attic.
Attachment of drywall to interior of framing.
Installation of underlayment for floors.
Installation of trim
Painting.
Installation of finish electrical, such as switches and lights.
Installation of finish alarm system.
Installation of LAN and phone system jacks and cover plates.
Installation of all sinks
Installation of bathroom and kitchen counters and cabinets
Installation of faucet décor and toilet bowls.
Installation of carpet and other flooring.
Hookup to water main or well.
Hookup to sewer or septic system
Correction of problems.
It will be understood from the above descriptions that in a house constructed with the core of this invention, the bathrooms, kitchen and laundry room are located next to the outside of an interior wall segment.
The following reference numerals are used on FIG. 1 through . . . :
14 room of core 18 exterior wall segment 22 interior wall segment 26 interior wall segment 30 interior wall segment 31 steel corner post 32 steel beam 33 steel cross brace 34 stud—usually of wood 34 a steel stud 36 sill 38 foundation 40 threaded stud 42 access door opening 44 nut 46 fresh air louver opening 48 bolt 50 space for toilet mechanism 54 structural hold down 58 corner 62 interior platform 66 floor joist interior to core 68 top of core 70 sheathing panel 74 outside of interior wall segment 78 outside of exterior wall segment 82 floor joist exterior to core but interior to house 83 nail 84 joist hangers 85 ledger board 86 water main 90 gas main 94 water main connection 96 irrigation line 98 gas main connection 100 sprinkler controller 102 sewer connection 106 main sewer line 110 sewer stub 114 vertical drain 118 lateral drain 120 sewer vent 122 cold water line 126 water heater 128 water heater vent 130 faucet 134 toilet mechanism 138 mixing valve 142 clothes washer 146 gas line 150 range 154 clothes drier 158 oven 162 hot water line 166 inside of interior wall segment 170 toilet bowl 174 sink 178 drier gas connection 182 range gas connection 186 forced air unit gas connection 190 electric main 194 electric meter 198 main electrical wiring 202 electric subpanel 206 electric circuits 210 lighting control panel 214 low voltage light control cable (CATS or twisted pair) 218 light fixture(s) 222 light control 226 lighting power line 230 conduit for lighting power line 234 first forced air unit 238 second forced air unit 242 air conditioning condenser unit 246 return air duct 250 supply air duct 254 fresh air louver 258 air stubs 262 filtration tanks 266 water softener 268 backwash tank for water softener 270 reverse osmosis control panel 274 reverse osmosis tank 278 cable line 282 telephone line 286 phone punch block 290 security system control panel 292 incoming cable box 294 splitter 298 data rack 302 internal security line 306 coax cable carrying TV signal 310 data lines 314 internal phone line 318 central vacuum canister 322 vacuum duct 326 vacuum connection 330 exhaust duct 334 main fire suppression system water line 338 remote fan 342 room exhaust ducting 346 main exhaust duct 350 control switch 354 drier vent 358 wall fan 362 thermostat switch 366 kitchen range hood 370 range hood exhaust ducting 374 fan 378 exhaust duct
Thus, the present invention has been described herein with reference to a particular embodiment for a particular application. Those having ordinary skill in the art and access to the present teachings will recognize additional modifications, applications and embodiments within the scope thereof
It is therefore intended by the appended claims to cover any and all such applications, modifications and embodiments within the scope of the present invention. | A prefabricated core for a building with all services already built in. The core serves as: 1. the housing for all the home's mechanical, plumbing and electrical sources, and 2. a major structural support, providing three shear walls to the structure. This invention allows access to all of the services thus allowing for ease of maintenance and avoidance of collateral damage during renovations and remodeling. | 4 |
This application is a divisional of application Ser. No. 09/926,823, filed Dec. 26, 2001, which is now abandoned.
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a cushioning material for packaging and a method and a device for manufacturing it, particularly to a recyclable cushioning material for packaging made of a corrugated fiberboard that is used for protecting a distributed article from an impact, and a method and a device for manufacturing it.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
When an article such as a precision machine that is apt to damage due to an impact applied from the external part is distributed, the precision machine is stored in a corrugated fiberboard case, and a cushioning material made of styrene foam resin is disposed between the precision machine and the corrugated fiberboard case. Even when the impact is applied from the external part, the cushioning material made of styrene foam resin absorbs this impact, so that the impact is not directly transferred to the precision machine and therefore the precision machine is protected from the impact.
The cushioning material made of styrene foam resin has high shock absorbing ability, but a die for foam molding corresponding to the shape of each cushioning material must be prepared. The die therefore increases a molding cost. The cushioning material made of styrene foam resin is bulky. Additionally, when the cushioning material is abolished and burned out, the cushioning material may produce black smoke to make the environment worse or radiate high heat to damage a furnace.
A cushioning material made of a corrugated fiberboard is therefore conventionally suggested. A cylinder body is assembled with a corrugated fiberboard punched in a predetermined shape, and its joint is locked with a metallic wire. A feather core or a pad punched from the similar corrugated fiberboard is installed in this cylinder body assembled with the corrugated fiberboard, thereby assembling a cushioning material having a predetermined cushioning material effect.
Such conventional cushioning material made of a corrugated fiberboard requires a plurality of members punched from the corrugated fiberboard, and is formed in combination of them. The cushioning material therefore disadvantageously has a complex structure, must be manually assembled because of difficulty of automatic assembling, and hence requires higher processing cost. Since the joint of the outer cylindrical body is locked with a copper wire, this wire must be removed for recycling the cushioning material and the cushioning material is unsuitable for recycle.
Additionally, a cushioning material formed by folding a blank is conventionally known. However, the manufacturing method requires not only one step of folding the blank but also a plurality of steps of folding it from two or more directions, and thus the folding and assembling steps are complex. Therefore, the manufacturing device also must be more complex and larger.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a recyclable cushioning material for packaging which can be formed with one sheet of corrugated fiberboard without using a plurality of individual members, assembled only by the folding step at a single station, and easily and rapidly manufactured by a simple manufacturing step with a simple manufacturing device, and does not require metal or the like at all. It is another object of the present invention to provide a method and a device for manufacturing the cushioning material.
DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION
A cushioning material for packaging of the present invention comprises a blank obtained by forming, in one corrugated fiberboard sheet, a plurality of substantially parallel folding lines for partitioning the corrugated fiberboard sheet into a plurality of unit corrugated fiberboard and openings as article receiving parts. The plurality of unit corrugated fiberboard inter-coupled through the folding lines are alternately oppositely folded, laminated, and joined with each other to provide a corrugated fiberboard laminated structure. The openings are formed in part of the plurality of unit corrugated fiberboard to provide receiving parts. The receiving parts receive an article.
The folding lines can employ various shapes, but are preferably formed by cutting the sheet of corrugated fiberboard intermittently remaining connecting parts. Each connecting part is formed so that a pair of short notches is formed orthogonally to a cutting line, and the cutting line is divided in a region between these notches, thereby further facilitating the folding even when the corrugated fiberboard is thick. The folding lines are formed orthogonally to the corrugation direction of the corrugated fiberboard, and the receiving parts are formed so as to support the article in the corrugation direction. Thus, rigidity in the article support direction can be increased advantageously. The plurality of unit corrugated fiberboard is inter-joined using paste, thereby requiring no metal such as a wire and improving recycling suitability. A receiving plate disposed in the opening in the unit corrugated fiberboard that corresponds to the surface of the cushioning material during the assembling is connected to the end of the opening, and the receiving plate is folded to cover the end of the opening. An article receiving surface thus becomes flat advantageously.
The manufacturing method of the cushioning material for packaging of the present invention comprises the following steps:
a blank forming step of forming a plurality of parallel folding lines for partitioning the sheet of corrugated fiberboard into unit corrugated fiberboard and openings as article receiving parts;
a zigzag folding step of folding the blank alternately oppositely along the folding lines;
a pasting step of pasting the joint surfaces of the unit corrugated fiberboard inter-coupled in a zigzag shape; and
a laminating step of pressing and inter-joining the pasted unit corrugated fiberboard to form a laminated body.
In the zigzag folding step, the blank is pressed relatively from both sides using a crest folding plate body and a trough folding plate body. Here, the crest folding plate body comprises a plurality of folding plates disposed on one side of a conveying route of the blank, and the trough folding plate body comprises a plurality of folding plates disposed on the other side of the conveying route of the blank. The blank can be thus simultaneously folded in the zigzag shape along the plurality of parallel folding lines for partitioning the sheet of corrugated fiberboard. Another zigzag folding step can be employed in which the blank is folded one by one using a crest folding plate and a trough folding plate. Here, the crest folding plate feeds the blanks with a conveyer and simultaneously moves vertically and horizontally, and the trough folding plate presses the folding lines to be trough-folded and simultaneously moves horizontally. The later method can rapidly respond to dimension change or the like of the cushioning material for packaging.
In the pasting step, preferably, pasting nozzles are disposed on both sides of the conveying route of the blank folded in the zigzag shape, and the pasting nozzles paste the joint surfaces of the unit corrugated fiberboard inter-coupled in the zigzag shape. The pasting step may be performed not only after the zigzag folding step but also before it.
When the relation between the crest folding and the trough folding at the folding lines of the blank is reversed in the zigzag folding step, mutually bilaterally symmetric cushioning materials for packaging having an opposite receiving part can be provided by the same device.
The manufacturing device of the cushioning material for packaging of the present invention manufactures a cushioning material for packaging from a sheet of corrugated fiberboard made blank comprising a plurality of parallel folding lines for partitioning a sheet of corrugated fiberboard into unit corrugated fiberboard and openings as article receiving parts. The manufacturing device comprises the following elements:
a zigzag folding means comprising a crest folding plate and a trough folding plate that fold the unit corrugated fiberboard at the folding lines in the zigzag shape, and are disposed engagably with the folding lines for blank surfaces on both sides of the moving route of the blank;
a pasting means disposed on both sides of the conveying route of the blank for pasting the joint surfaces of the blank; and
a laminated body forming means for pressing and interjoining the pasted unit corrugated fiberboard to form a laminated body.
The zigzag folding means is capable of simultaneously holding the plurality of parallel folding lines, by forming a pair of folding plate bodies having a zigzag folding device. The folding plate bodies have the plurality of interval-adjustably folding for folding the unit corrugated fiberboard in the zigzag shape. The zigzag folding devices are disposed movably vertically to the blank surfaces on both sides of the moving route of the blank. The folding plates are structured so that they are automatically displaced by a motor in the narrowing direction of an interval between the folding plates in response to the progress of the zigzag folding. Thus, the folding plates can perform smooth zigzag folding.
Another zigzag folding means can be employed which comprises a pusher conveyer for feeding the blank orthogonally to the folding lines, a driving mechanism of the crest folding plate that is disposed under the pusher conveyer and moves the crest folding plate reciprocatingly in the blank feeding direction and vertically, a driving mechanism of the trough folding plate that is disposed over the pusher conveyer and reciprocates in the blank feeding direction, and a pressing mechanism. The driving mechanism of the crest folding plate, the driving mechanism of the trough folding plate, and the pressing mechanism are integrally controlled in response to control amount of the pusher conveyer, thereby facilitating the control and response to a model change. Preferably, the cushioning material manufacturing device has a laminated body molding means that presses, with a molding plate, the surface rectangular to the laminating direction of the laminated body formed by the laminated body forming means to uniform the height of the laminated body.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 is an expansion plan view (a plan view of a blank) of a cushioning material for packaging in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 2 is an expansion perspective view of the cushioning material.
FIG. 3 is a perspective view of the blank alternately folded at cutting lines.
FIG. 4 is a perspective view of the cushioning material in a state in which unit corrugated fiberboard is joined with each other.
FIG. 5 is a perspective view of the cushioning material in state in which a receiving plate is folded inside.
FIG. 6 is a longitudinal sectional view of a part having a receiving part.
FIG. 7 is a longitudinal sectional view of a part having a connecting part.
FIG. 8 is an assembled perspective view of the symmetric cushioning material.
FIG. 9 is an exploded perspective view of a packaging state of an article using the cushioning material.
FIG. 10 is a longitudinal sectional view of a corrugated fiberboard case after packaging.
FIG. 11 is a schematic perspective view of a device for assembling the cushioning material.
FIG. 12 is a schematic plan view of a zigzag folding means.
FIG. 13 is a schematic side view of the zigzag folding means.
FIG. 14 is a schematic side view of a zigzag folding means in accordance with another exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 15 is a front view of a main part of a driving mechanism of a crest folding plate of the zigzag folding means.
FIG. 16 is a flow chart of a zigzag folding method by the zigzag folding means.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
Referring to FIG. 1 and FIG. 2 , there is shown a blank 10 comprising a sheet of corrugated fiberboard used for assembling a cushioning material in accordance with the embodiment of the present invention.
In this blank 10 , 11 cutting lines 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 as folding lines are formed in substantially parallel in the direction rectangular to the corrugation direction of the corrugated fiberboard. These cutting lines 11 through 21 partition the blank 10 into 12 unit corrugated fiberboard 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 .
Each of the cutting lines 11 through 14 includes five connecting parts 25 intermittently. Each of the cutting lines 15 , 17 , 19 , 21 includes three connecting parts 25 . Each of the cutting lines 16 , 18 , 20 includes four connecting parts 25 . Each of these connecting parts 25 is formed, by forming a pair of short notches 26 orthogonally to the cutting lines 11 through 21 so that each of the cutting lines 11 through 21 is divided in a region between the notches 26 . The connecting parts 25 therefore connect the unit corrugated fiberboard 41 through 52 mutually foldably in the extending direction of the corrugation of the blank 10 .
The unit corrugated fiberboard plate 46 has an opening 30 . One side of the opening 30 corresponds to the cutting line 15 . The unit corrugated fiberboard 47 , 48 have a shared opening 31 . The unit corrugated fiberboard 49 , 50 have a shared opening 32 . The unit corrugated fiberboard 51 , 52 have a shared opening 33 . A receiving plate 34 projecting into the opening 33 is formed. This receiving plate 34 is connected to the unit corrugated fiberboard plate 52 through eight intermittent connecting parts 35 .
An operation of assembling a cushioning material 57 with the blank 10 will be described hereinafter.
The flat blank 10 shown in FIG. 2 is folded at the cutting lines 11 through 21 alternately by crest folding and trough folding. In other words, the crest folding is performed at the cutting lines 11 , 13 , 15 , 17 , 19 , 21 of the blank 10 , and the trough folding is performed at the cutting lines 12 , 14 , 16 , 18 , 20 . These cutting lines 11 through 21 partition the unit corrugated fiberboard 41 through 52 into each other, however the blank 10 does not fall to pieces because each of the cutting lines 11 through 21 has a plurality of connecting parts 25 . The blank 10 is folded while the unit corrugated fiberboard 41 through 52 are inter-coupled at the connecting parts 25 .
Before the folding of the blank 10 , an adhesion means such as glue paste is applied to each of the joint surfaces of the unit corrugated fiberboard 41 through 52 to be inter-joined. The blank 10 is folded as shown in FIG. 3 after the application, ad the folded unit corrugated fiberboard 41 through 52 are bonded together by pressure to provide a state shown in FIG. 4 . The unit corrugated fiberboard 41 through 52 forms a substantially square pole shape in the joint state.
The openings 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 previously formed in the blank 10 form a recessed part 55 functioning as a receiving part. The receiving plate 34 is folded into the recessed part 55 at the intermittent connecting parts 35 , as shown in FIG. 5 and FIG. 6 , so as to cover the upper ends of the unit corrugated fiberboard 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 in the recessed part 55 . At this time, also, glue paste has been previously applied to the inside surface of the receiving plate 34 , and the receiving plate 34 is adhered to the upper ends via he glue paste.
The cushioning material 57 is assembled by the operation discussed above as shown in FIG. 5 through FIG. 7 . The recessed part 55 of the cushioning material 57 has a lower surface comprising the receiving plate 34 , and the upper surface of he receiving plate 34 receives a bottom surface of a corner of an article. The unit corrugated fiberboard 46 through 52 are upright under the receiving plate 34 for receiving the bottom surface, so that seven upright unit corrugated fiberboard 46 through 52 receive the load of the corner of the article. Additionally, the unit corrugated fiberboard 46 through 51 are upright in the corrugation direction of the corrugated fiberboard, so that the article is supported using the wale of the corrugation of the blank 10 . This structure has a larger strength.
FIG. 7 shows parts of the unit corrugated fiberboard 41 through 52 having the connecting parts 25 . The unit corrugated fiberboard 41 through 52 are inter-coupled at their ends through the connecting parts 25 . In other words, using the connecting parts 25 previously formed in the blank 10 including the unit corrugated fiberboard 41 through 52 , the fiberboard 41 through 52 can be inter-coupled. One cut blank 10 is folded along the cutting lines 11 through 21 alternately by crest folding and trough folding to assemble the cushioning material 57 . As a result, a single blank 10 forms the cushioning material 57 .
The cushioning material formed with such blank 10 has a feature that a cushioning material 58 symmetry with the cushioning material 57 can be assembled using a blank 10 with the same structure as shown in FIG. 8 . The cutting lines 11 through 21 of the blank 10 are folded simply oppositely between the crest folding and the trough folding, thereby forming the cushioning material 58 shown in FIG. 8 .
Speaking in detail, the blank 10 is folded by crest-folding the cutting lines 12 , 14 , 16 , 18 , 20 and trough-folding the cutting lines 11 , 13 , 15 , 17 , 19 , 21 , and 12 unit corrugated fiberboard 41 through 52 are inter-joined. A cushioning material 58 obtained in this method is reversed upside down to provide a cushioning material 58 shown in FIG. 8 . This cushioning material 58 is symmetric with the cushioning material shown in FIG. 4 and FIG. 5 . A part of the article received by the cushioning material 58 is on the opposite side of the part received by the cushioning material 57 shown in FIG. 4 and FIG. 5 .
For storing an article such as a precision machine 61 in a corrugated fiberboard case 62 , four cushioning materials 57 , 58 , 59 , 60 as shown in FIG. 9 and FIG. 10 are employed. The cushioning material 57 has the shape shown in FIG. 4 and FIG. 5 . The cushioning material 58 has the shape shown in FIG. 8 . The upper cushioning materials 59 , 60 with a similar structure are also prepared.
The precision machine 61 is stored in the corrugated fiberboard case 62 as shown in FIG. 10 . In other words, the cushioning material 57 , 58 receive corner parts of two facing edges on the lower part of the precision machine 61 , respectively, and the upper cushioning materials 59 , 60 receive corner parts of two facing edges of the precision machine 61 , respectively. The precision machine 61 is packed by closing the lid of the corrugated fiberboard case 62 , and then distributed.
In this packing, an external impact is absorbed by cushioning materials 57 through 60 made of the corrugated fiberboard interposed between the precision machine 61 and the corrugated fiberboard case 62 , and therefore is not transferred to the precision machine 61 . The precision machine 61 is therefore prevented from damaging during distribution.
Referring now to FIG. 11 there is schematically shown a cushioning material manufacturing device for assembling the cushioning materials 57 , 58 from the blank 10 .
The cushioning material manufacturing device of the present invention comprises a blank supply means, a zigzag folding means, a pasting means, a laminated body forming means, and a laminated body molding means.
The blank supply means has a cylinder 71 , and a pressing plate 73 is mounted to a piston rod 72 of the cylinder 71 . The pressing plate 73 presses the lowest blank 10 of a plurality of piled blanks 10 forward with an operation of the cylinder 71 .
The blank 10 pressed by the cylinder 71 is fed to a zigzag folding means having a pair of trough folding plate body 80 and crest folding plate body 81 , and inserted between the trough and crest folding plate bodies. The trough folding plate body 80 and the crest folding plate body 81 comprise a plurality of interval-adjustable folding plates 77 , 78 positioned over and under a blank moving route, respectively. When the folding plate body 81 positioned on the downside is raised by links 79 , and hence folding plates 78 are raised to press up the crest folding lines, the folding plates 77 positioned on the upside inevitably press down the trough folding lines. When both folding plates further displace telescopically, the cutting lines 11 through 21 of the blank 10 are folded as shown in FIG. 3 .
For simultaneously folding all unit corrugated fiberboard along the folding lines of the blank, the folding plates 77 and/or the folding plates 78 must be vertically moved and simultaneously respective intervals between the folding plates 77 and between the folding plates 78 must be narrowed. In the present embodiment, only the folding plates 78 are vertically moved. A specific mechanism of the trough folding plate body positioned on the upside will be hereinafter described in FIG. 12 and FIG. 13 .
FIG. 12 and FIG. 13 schematically show a state just before the start of the zigzag folding of the right half and a state after the completion of the zigzag folding of the left half, respectively.
The trough folding plate body 80 in the present embodiment alternately comprises folding-plate fixing beams 63 having a folding plate 77 and pusher mounting beams 66 . The pusher mounting beams 66 endlessly and rotatably support, using a chain 65 , pushers 64 for feeding the zigzag folded blank to the next process. Each folding-plate fixing beam 63 has a pair of guide holes and is slidably engaged with a pair of guide rods 75 , 75 born by a frame 74 . Each pusher mounting beam 66 has a pair of guide holes and is slidably engaged with the pair of guide rods 75 , 75 . One end projecting sideward of the pusher mounting beams 66 has a screw hole, and is screwed with a screw bar 67 rotated by a servomotor 76 .
The manufacturing device of the present embodiment in FIG. 12 has three folding plates on the right side of the central part and three folding plates on the left side. The screw bar 67 has screws opposite between the right and left sides and the screws have smaller pitch with approaching the central part so that the folding plates come to the central part with the progress of the folding.
The folding-plate fixing beams 63 and the pusher mounting beams 66 are inter-coupled through a telescopic link mechanism 68 as shown in FIG. 12 . Each pusher mounting beam 66 has a pair of slide grooves 69 , pair shafts at both ends of a link of the telescopic link mechanism 68 are engaged with the slide grooves to provide a slider. A crossing part disposed in the intermediate part of the link is rotatably mounted to each folding-plate fixing beam 63 . A beam disposed in the center of the device of barns of the telescopic link mechanism is fixed to the frame. Therefore, when the screw bar 67 rotates with the progress of the folding, the pusher mounting beams 66 move in accordance with the screw pitch, the folding-plate fixing beams also shift toward he center, and the interval between the beams become narrower.
Blank support members 84 , 85 in FIG. 12 and FIG. 13 support both ends parallel with the folding lines of the blank and shift to the center with the rotation of the screw bar 67 with the progress of the zigzag folding. The bases of the blank support members are screwed with the screw bar. A servomotor 76 rotates the screw bar 67 . Chain sprockets 95 , 96 drive and guide a chain having the pushers 64 endlessly. The pushers rotate by rotation of the chain sprockets to press the zigzag folded blank to a next process.
The crest folding plate body that is disposed on the downside has a structure similar to that of the trough folding plate body disposed on the upside. The difference between them is simply a fact that pitch of the crest folding plates shifts by a half pitch from the trough folding plates and the assembly moves upward to hit the folding lines of the folding plates to be folded. Detailed description of the crest folding plate body is eliminated.
In a zigzag folding operation, the interval between the tips of the trough folding plates 77 match the interval between the through folding lines until the tips of the trough folding plates 77 come into contact with the folding lines of the blank, and the crest folding plates 78 are maintained at the interval between the crest folding lines. When the crest folding plate body 81 rises with an operation of the links 79 , the crest folding plates 78 hit the folding lines at the crest folding positions, the folding lines at the trough folding positions hit the trough folding plates, and the folding is started. The motor 76 rotates the screw bar 67 synchronously with the operation. The folding plates spaced from the center having a longer moving distance displace largely with the progress of the folding, and the folded blank is positioned in the center of the conveying direction at the completion of the folding.
Change of the size or the like of the manufactured cushioning material is allowed by adjusting the screw positions of the pusher mounting beams with the screw bars. For providing a cushioning material for packaging bilaterally symmetric with the cushioning material discussed above, which has an opposite receiving part and a reverse relation between the crest folding and the trough folding, set positions of the blank support members are mutually shifted right or left by the distance between the folding lines. Thus, the crest folding places and the trough folding places are reversed, and the latter cushioning material for packaging can be easily manufactured by the same device. Instead of the method discussed above, a blank can be simply supplied inside out to the zigzag folding means to provide the latter cushioning material.
After the zigzag folding of the blank, the upper and lower folding plates 77 , 78 are opened, the folded blank is pressed by the pusher 64 further forwardly and passed through a position having the pasting means. The pasting means, as shown in FIG. 11 , comprises a pair of pasting nozzle groups 82 , 83 that are arranged directed to the passing positions of the folds on the upper and lower sides of the conveying route of the zigzag folded blank.
When the blank passes through the position, the pair of pasting nozzle groups 82 , 83 supply glue paste to coat the joint surfaces of the unit corrugated fiberboard 41 through 52 with the glue paste. The blank 10 coated with the glue paste is fed to the front side of a pressing plate 89 of a piston rod 88 of a cylinder 87 . The cylinder 87 is disposed rectangularly to the blank feeding direction by the cylinder 71 , has the pressing plate 89 at the tip of the piston rod 88 , and forms a laminated body forming means together with a shutter 90 disposed forward of the moving direction.
When the folded blank reaches the front side of the pressing plate 89 , the cylinder 87 operates to press the piston rod 88 . At this time, the blank 10 folded as shown in FIG. 3 is folded and pressed against the shutter 90 by the pressing plate 89 . The unit corrugated fiberboard 41 through 52 of the blank 10 are thus inter-joined as shown in FIG. 4 to form a cushioning material comprising a corrugated fiberboard laminated body.
The shutter 90 is then opened and the cushioning material is pressed out to a cushioning material receiving shelf 95 . The cushioning material receiving shelf 95 has a laminated body molding means over it. The laminated body molding means comprises a pressing cylinder 92 for pressing and unforming the cut surface of the laminated unit corrugated fiberboard. When the cushioning material 57 is supplied to the downside of the pressing cylinder 92 , the cushioning material 57 is pressed from the upside by a molding plate 94 mounted to the tip of a piston rod 93 of the pressing cylinder 92 so that recessed and projecting parts of the upper surface are eliminated, and adequately molded. Thus, the cushioning material 57 is assembled.
The cushioning material for packaging of the present embodiment is thus assembled fully automatically, by automatically folding one blank 10 cut as shown in FIG. 1 and FIG. 2 with the manufacturing device as shown in FIG. 10 and FIG. 11 and by performing the glue paste adhesion. Folding the blank 10 at he the cutting lines 11 through 21 alternately by the crest folding and the trough folding have assembled the cushioning material 57 . Reversing the relation between the crest folding and the trough folding at the cutting lines 11 through 21 , mutually bilaterally symmetric cushioning materials with the cushioning material 57 can be assembled. In such a structure, the cushioning materials can be assembled from a single kind of blank 10 . Therefore, a single punching die is only required and the blank 10 is punched only by the punching die.
The cushioning materials 57 , 58 of the present embodiment can be assembled perfectly mechanically without any manual operation, thereby allowing drastic cost reduction. The cushioning materials can be assembled with manpower of 1/10 of that required for a conventional cushioning material with a similar structure, thereby largely saving manpower.
Additionally, the corrugated fiberboard is used setting the corrugation direction to be vertical, so that higher strength than the prior art can be obtained. The strength obtained in this case is about 10 times higher than that in the case that the corrugation direction is set transverse. In the present embodiment, the blank 10 is simply folded and assembled, so that another material is not required and especially metal is not used at all. Therefore, a completely recyclable cushioning material can be obtained.
When an article is packaged for short distance transportation or short term stocking, the article is surrounded with four cushioning materials 57 through 60 without using the corrugated fiberboard case 62 shown in FIG. 9 and FIG. 10 , and the surrounded article is tied with a string. Thus distribution with bare packaging is allowed. A plurality of cushioning materials can be assembled by sufficiently extending the dimension in the length direction of the cutting lines 11 through 21 as shown in FIG. 1 , forming the plurality of cushioning materials together, and then cutting them at predetermined positions. Such cushioning material can be also used as a core material of a corrugated fiberboard pallet.
Referring now to FIG. 14 through FIG. 16 , there is shown a zigzag folding device in accordance with another embodiment in the cushioning material manufacturing device of the present invention. In this embodiment, zigzag folds are sequentially folded while the blank is fed, instead of simultaneously folding of all the folds. The zigzag folding device can be therefore formed only with a pair of upper and lower folding plates, so that the zigzag folding can be easily performed only by die change or motor control.
The zigzag folding device 100 of this embodiment mainly comprises a pusher conveyer 101 for feeding the blank 10 rectangularly to the folding lines, a crest folding plate driving mechanism 106 disposed under the pusher conveyer, a trough folding plate driving mechanism 107 , and a pressing mechanism 108 .
The pusher conveyer 101 comprises a plurality of narrow belts having a pusher 102 in parallel, and feeds the blank 10 to a zigzag folding position with a servomotor 103 synchronously with the progress of the folding. The blank 10 supplied from a blank stacker onto the pusher conveyer 101 with a blank supply device 105 is pressed and fed by the pusher to hit a stopper 104 disposed at the downstream end to start the zigzag folding.
The crest folding plate driving mechanism 107 , as shown in FIG. 15 , has crest folding plates 109 in a comb tooth shape that are formed so as to vertically move between the narrow belts of the pusher conveyer, and moves the crest folding plates vertically or laterally in the conveyer progressing direction. The crest folding plates 109 are slightly tilted in the blank feeding direction as shown in FIG. 14 , so that the crest folding plates 109 easily and adequately butt on the folding lines at the crest folding positions. The crest folding plates 109 are slidably disposed on movable frames 113 to which collar members 112 are fixed. The collar members 112 are screwed with vertically driven screw bars 111 stood on a fixing frame 110 . The movable frames 113 are vertically moved by a screw operation when a motor 114 rotates the screw bars 111 . A guide rod 115 is used for vertically moving the movable frames disposed on the fixing frame.
The fixing frame 110 has a pair of first rails 116 for allowing the crest folding plates 109 to move in the conveyer progressing direction, and slidably supports a plate 118 having guide pieces 117 engaging with the rails. A pair of rods 119 fixed to bases of the crest folding plates is vertically movably engaged with a pair of collars 120 disposed on the plate 118 . A collar 123 screwed with a screw bar, which is driven by a motor for driving the crest folding plates 109 in the conveyer progressing direction, is fixed to the plate 118 . When the screw bar 124 is rotated, the plate 118 moves along the first rails 116 via the collar 123 . When the plate 118 moves, rods 119 transfer the moving information to the crest folding plates 109 , second guide pieces 122 move on the second rails 121 , and the crest folding plates 109 can move in the blank moving direction. While, the motor 114 operates to vertically move the movable frames 113 via the screw bar 111 . Thus, the crest folding plates 109 can perform a mixed motion of a vertical movement and a movement in the blank conveying direction.
Trough folding plates 125 , as shown in FIG. 14 , has a comb tooth shape tilting down in the blank conveying direction, and their tips are bent slightly hooklike so as to easily engage with the folding lines. The trough folding plates 125 are capable of translating in parallel along the upper part of the pusher conveyer. Their bases are fixed to a collar member 128 screwed with a screw bar 127 rotated by a motor 126 , and their tips are engaged with the trough folding lines, so that the trough folding plates 125 can move with the blank.
The pressing mechanism 108 further presses, toward the stopper, the blank formed in a crest folding shape by both folding plates to certainly assist the folding and hold the folding state, and a pressing plate 130 can move vertically and laterally. In FIG. 14 , a motor 131 is used for horizontal movement, and a motor 132 is used for vertical movement.
Referring now to FIG. 16 , there is shown a zigzag folding method using a flow chart in the present embodiment having the structure discussed above.
The blank 10 is pressed by the pusher 102 to be fed to hit the stopper 104 . At this time, the crest folding plates 109 , the trough folding plates 125 , and the pressing plate 130 are positioned at home positions at which they do not engage with each other. When the crest folding plates 109 rise in the present state, their tips hit the first crest folding line. In this state, the crest folding plates 109 further rise and move ahead. At this time, the tips of the trough folding plates move on the above part of the trough folding line. Therefore, when the rising of the crest folding plates 109 moves up the blank, the trough folding lines hit the trough folding plates to prevent the further rising of the crest folding plates ( FIG. 16 b ). The trough folding plates also move ahead in cooperation with the forward movement of the crest folding plates in the present state, so that the crest folding line is pressed to provide good crest folding. In the crest folding state ( FIG. 16 c ), the crest folding plates 109 go down and return to initial positions. At this time, the pressing plate 130 goes down to slightly falling position from the top of the crest folding part to engage with the part to prevent the fold from returning following the falling of the crest folding plates.
After the crest folding plates 109 are perfectly pulled out of the blank, the pressing plate 130 and the trough folding plates 125 further go ahead to strengthen folding until thickness between the trough folds becomes α. The pressing plate 130 then continues to press the left end of the folding part as shown in the diagram while the crest folding plates 109 return to positions engaging with the folding line of the next crest folding part. The trough folding plates 125 return to positions engaging with the third trough folding line from the right end ( FIG. 16 d ). Then, the steps discussed above are repeated from the present state to provide the second crest folding, and then the crest folding plates and the trough folding plates return to provide the state shown in FIG. 16 c. Here, steps in FIG. 16 d and FIG. 16 e are repeated to provide sequential zigzag folding. During the steps, the pusher of the conveyer always presses the blank, and the pusher conveyer always moves in synchronization with the movements of the crest folding plates 109 , the trough folding plates 125 , and the pressing plate 130 . An encoder measures a rotation angle of the servomotor 103 for driving the pusher conveyer, and the pusher conveyer is controlled. Based on the control amount, the crest folding plate driving mechanism 106 , the trough folding plate driving mechanism 107 , and the pressing mechanism 108 are integrally controlled.
When the movements of the pusher conveyer 101 , the crest folding plates 109 , the trough folding plates 125 , and the pressing plate 130 are previously programmed based on the movement of the pusher conveyer 101 and stored in a controller, automatic rapid zigzag folding can be performed only by specifying the program. Blanks with different size can be zigzag folded only by specifying the moving directions with the program, so that a special die change work is not required and rapid response is allowed.
After the completion of the zigzag folding, the blank is pressed vertically to the paper surface as shown in FIG. 14 and the next laminating process is started. In the manufacturing device of the present embodiment, the pasting nozzles are arranged on both sides of the passing route of the blank in the front of the zigzag folding device as shown in FIG. 11 . A pasting process is finished before the folding process (not shown). Thus, even when the zigzag folding is tightly performed, pasting failure does not occur, and sufficient pasting can be performed. However, the pasting may be performed after the zigzag folding process similarly to the previous embodiment.
Cushioning materials for packaging, and methods and devices for manufacturing the cushioning materials in accordance with embodiments of the present invention have been described. The present invention should not be limited by the foregoing embodiments, but various design changes are allowed in the following claims. For example, a shape of the receiving part of an article should not be limited to the shape discussed above, but may be arbitrary in response to the supported article. The terms “crest folding” and “trough folding” described in the description are relative, and are not limited to an element positioned on the downside or upside.
INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITY
A cushioning material for packaging, and a method and a device for manufacturing the cushioning material of the present invention are useful as a cushioning material for packaging when an article such as a precision machine apt to be damaged by an external impact, and a method and a device for automatically manufacturing the cushioning material. Especially, simply folding one corrugated fiberboard can assemble perfectly recyclable cushioning material, and automatic assembling by a machine is allowed. Thus, labor and cost can be drastically reduced to improve industrial applicability. | A recyclable cushioning material for packaging obtained by forming a cushioning material for packaging used to protect articles supplied for physical distribution from being impacted with one sheet of corrugated fiberboard and a method and device for manufacturing the cushioning material, wherein a plurality of cutting lines ( 11 to 21 ) are formed in one sheet of corrugated fiberboard ( 10 ) in parallel with each other in the direction perpendicular to a direction in which the pleats of the corrugated fiberboard extend and a plurality of connection parts ( 25 ) are formed intermittently on each of these cutting lines so that a plurality of unit corrugated fiberboard ( 41 to 52 ) can be folded up alternately each other, openings ( 30 to 33 ) including the cutting lines are formed in the plurality of unit fiberboard ( 46 to 52 ) located on the inner side, and zig-zag foldings at the cutting lines ( 11 to 21 ) in which hump-folds and trough-folds are formed alternately each other are performed simultaneously by a zig-zag folding device ( 70 ), and the pleats are glued with gluing nozzles ( 82, 83 ) and pressed by a cylinder ( 87 ) so as to connect and stack the unit corrugated fiberboard ( 41 to 52 ) to each other, whereby the cushioning bodies for packaging ( 57 to 60 ) formed of a corrugated fiberboard stacked body having an article supporting part ( 55 ) can be assembled automatically. | 8 |
This application claims the benefit of Provisional Application 60/052,911 filed Jul. 14, 1997.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
This invention is directed toward the drilling of a well borehole, and more particularly directed toward apparatus and methods for maintaining drilling fluid circulation while attaching joints of pipe to a drill string.
Most deep well boreholes, such as oil and gas well boreholes, are drilled with rotary drilling rigs which are well known in the art. A brief description of rotary drilling will be presented as a background for understanding the objects, apparatus and methods of the present invention.
A rotary drilling apparatus comprises a drill string terminating at a lower end with ad rill bit, and terminating at the upper end with a typically square sided joint of pipe known as a kelly. The drill string is an assembly of typically thirty foot long sections or "joints" of cylindrical pipe which are threaded together. The kelly is positioned in a fitted opening of a rotary table, and the rotary is driven by a motor thereby rotating the kelly and attached drill string and drill bit. As the rotating drill bit cuts through and penetrates earth formation, the entire drill string advances into the borehole requiring additional joints of pipe to be added to the drill string to extend the borehole. Weight is applied to the drill bit in the form of drill collars to aid in the drilling operation. Rotary drilling apparatus, or "rigs", have been used to routinely drill boreholes to depths of 25,000 feet or deeper.
The action of the rotating drill bit produces pieces of formation, or "cuttings", as the bit advances within the earth formation. These cuttings are removed from the borehole by circulating drilling fluid, which is often referred to as drilling "mud". More specifically, drilling mud is pumped from a reservoir at the surface down through the drill string and out of the drill string through openings in the drill bit. The drilling mud then is forced to return to the surface of the earth through the annulus defined by the borehole wall and the outer surface of the drill string. This return flow carries cutting from the vicinity of the drill bit to the surface where they are removed prior to returning the mud to the reservoir, or "mud pit", for recirculation. The returned mud can also contain gas from formations penetrated by the drill bit. The drilling mud typically has a density of more than twice that of water. Drilling mud performs other functions in the rotary drilling operation in addition to removing bit cuttings. These functions include cooling the rotating drill bit, lubricating the bit, and providing a hydrostatic pressure head within the borehole to prevent "blow outs" of high pressure formations penetrated by the drill bit. The drilling mud is, therefore, a critical element in a rotary drilling operation and the circulation of mud at all times is critical in controlling pressure within the well and in maintaining the physical integrity of the drilled borehole.
In prior art drilling operations, the circulation of mud is terminated when additional joints of drill string are added to, or removed from, the drill string. This is because the flow conduit from the mud pump to the drill bit is interrupted when the drill string is disconnected from the kelly to add or remove threaded joints. Although the hydrostatic pressure of the mud column remains in the borehole, the additional pressure supplied by the action of the mud pump is lost when the mud pump is shut down. Reduced pressure can threaten the integrity of the borehole where the pressure drop permits sections to cave in. Furthermore, if the weight of the mud has been adjusted so that the hydrostatic pressure of the column plus the pressure supplied by the mud pump slightly "overbalances" formation pressure, cessation of pumping can result in an "under balanced" condition thereby inviting a blow out which is extremely harmful to life and property. The results of shutting down the mud pump to add or remove joints of drill pipe can also affect the mud invasion and mud cake build-up process which, in turn, can affect subsequent production, logging and even measurement-while-driving (MWD) operations.
From the discussion above, it is apparent rotary drilling apparatus and methods are needed which will allow drilling mud to be circulated during the addition of joints to the drill string as the drill bit advances in the earth, or during the removal of joints as the drill string is removed or "tripped" from the drilled borehole. In addition, apparatus and methods are needed which will allow the mud pump to circulate mud during joint addition and removal at a pressure which is essentially the same as that supplied when the drill string is rotating.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In view of needs in prior art rotary drilling operations, and object of the present invention is to provide apparatus and methods for continuing the circulation of drilling mud during the addition or removal of joints from a rotary drill string.
Another object of the present invention is to provide apparatus and methods for circulating drilling mud while removing or adding drill string joints at a pressure which is essentially equal to the pressure provided during drill string rotation.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide apparatus and methods for circulating drilling mud during the addition or removal of drill string joints which is easy to use and which is safe for personnel and property in the vicinity of the rotary drilling rig.
there are other objects and advantages of the present invention that will become apparent in the following disclosure.
A continuous mud flow chamber is provided to accomplish the stated objects of the invention. The continuous flow chamber is preferably in the shape of a right cylinder and made from two movable, cylindrical components. The first component is an outer cylinder with a lower end late. The second component is an inner cylinder, which fits tightly within the outer cylinder, and which is capped with an upper end plate. The two components combine to form a right cylindrical chamber which can be expanded and contracted, or "telescope", along the major axis by movement of the inner cylinder with respect to the outer cylinder. Both the upper and the lower end plates have concentric openings through which the drill string passes. The flow chamber is split along the major axis and hinged along the outer perimeter of both the inner and outer cylinders. This allows the flow chamber to be opened and closes in a "clam shell" fashion, and easily fitted and removed around the drill string. The chamber is held close with clamps opposite the hinges and secured the drill string with conventional slips.
The continuous flow chamber is positioned preferably over the joint between the kelly and the upper most joint of drill pipe. This is the joint that must be broken and remade in order to add an additional joint of drill pipe. When the flow chamber is closed around the joint, an upper seal ram forms a hydraulic pressure seal above the joint and a lower seal ram forms a hydraulic pressure seal below the joint. Both the upper and lower seal rams are bearing mounted so that the drill string can be rotated either clockwise or counter clockwise and still maintain the seals at the rams.
Drilling mud flows into the chamber through a valve and inlet which is positioned above the lower seal ram, and out of the chamber through an outlet and valve positioned above the inlet but below the upper seal valve.
The flow cylinder is suspended from the derrick of the rotary drilling rig with cables or a movable arm. This allows operators to easily position and remove the chamber from the drill string.
Assume for purposes of discussion, a joint of pipe is being added to the drill string. The drill string is lifted and held with pipe slips such that the kelly-upper pipe joint is far enough above the rotary so that the flow chamber can be clamped around this joint. Once clamped, the chamber is further secured to the drill string with chamber slips. Drilling mud is pumped down the drill string in a normal drilling mode. The inlet open inlet valve allows pressure to equalize inside the chamber with the pressure of mud circulating in the drill string, and the outlet valve of the chamber is closed.
The joint is next disconnected by rotating the kelly with respect to the pipe using methods well known in prior art rotary drilling operations. Once the joint is broken, the drilling mud, which is pressured by the mud pump, flows into the chamber and then down the borehole through the drill string. The pressure of the drilling mud also expands the chamber in the vertical direction. The upper portion of the chamber is then isolated, and mud flow is diverted through the lower part of the chamber and down the borehole through the drill string. There can also be a pressure component due to the release of dissolved gas from the mud. Arms extend from opposite sides of the chamber, preferably perpendicular to the major axis of the chamber, and each is terminated with an arm eyelet. An insert ring is attached to the kelly above the chamber with insert rings on opposite sides. A shock absorbing air cylinder is attached between each arm and insert ring. These two shock absorbers control the vertical expansion of the cylinder when the interior is exposed to mud pump pressure. The kelly is then lifted away from the pipe joint forming a gap. A blind ram closes in the gap between the kelly and the pipe joint thereby dividing the chamber into an upper sub chamber and a lower sub chamber. The blind ram forms a hydraulic pressure seal between the upper and lower sub chambers. At this point in the operation, the inlet valve is opened such that mud flows directly from the mud pump, through the lower sub chamber, and down the drill string thereby providing an uninterrupted flow of mud while the kelly joint is broken. The outlet valve is also opened so that mud can drain from the kelly through the upper sub chamber and through the outlet where it is diverted to the mud pit. It is noted that at this point of the operation, pressure in the lower sub chamber is determined by the action of the mud pump, while the pressure in the upper sub chamber is essentially atmospheric pressure.
Once mud circulation is established through the lower sub chamber, the air cylinders and kelly insert ring are disconnected, the upper sealing ram is relaxed so that the kelly can be withdrawn from the upper sub chamber, the kelly is then attached to the next or "mousehole" joint of pipe, the mousehole joint is raised to the floor level of the derrick and stabbed through the top of the flow cylinder and into the upper sub chamber, and the upper sealing ram is again tightly set against this joint. The outlet valve is closed and mud flow from the pump is diverted through the kelly and mousehole joint thereby building pressure within the upper sub chamber to a pressure which equals pressure within the lower sub chamber. Once the pressure equalizes, the blind ram is opened. The cylinder retracts or collapses thereby pulling down the kelly pin joint into the rotary box joint, the gap between the mousehole joint and existing joints of pipe is closed and this joint is made, and the inlet valve is closed thereby diverting all mud flow back through the kelly and attached drill string thereby again maintaining mud circulation within the well borehole. The upper and lower sealing rams are retracted, the continuous flow chamber is unclamped and disconnected from the drill string, and the advancement of the borehole by the rotating drill bit is resumed.
The above process is repeated each time an additional joint of pipe is added to the drill string. The apparatus and method can also be modified to remove pipe from the drill string. In either application, drilling mud is continuously circulated, at mud pump pressure, through the borehole at all times.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
So that the manner in which the above recited features, advantages and objects of the present invention are attained can be understood in detail, more particular description of the invention, briefly summarized above, may be had by reference to the embodiments thereof which are illustrated in the appended drawings.
It is to be noted, however, that the appended drawings illustrate only typical embodiments of the invention and are therefore not to be considered limiting of its scope, for the invention may admit to other equally effective embodiments.
FIG. 1 shows a prior art rotary drilling rig;
FIG. 2 shows a perspective view of a continuous flow chamber;
FIG. 3 shows a top view of the continuous flow chamber illustrating the clam shell hinge and clamping arrangement;
FIG. 4 shows the chamber positioned over a drill string joint to be broken;
FIG. 5 shows the drill string pipe joint separated within the chamber from the lower end of the kelly, while downhole mud circulation is retained;
FIG. 6 shows a mousehole joint positioned within the chamber prior to making with a previous joint, with downhole mud circulation being maintained; and
FIG. 7 shows the mousehole joint made up with the existing joint within the chamber, with mud circulation reestablished through the drill string.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT
Attention is directed to FIG. 1 which illustrates some of the major components of a prior art drilling rig. Other major components, such as the derrick, are omitted for purposes of clarity. The discussion of the operation of the rig will be used as a precursor to the detailed discussion of the present invention, and the cooperation of the present invention with components of a rotary drilling rig.
Still referring to FIG. 1, the rotary drilling apparatus is denoted as a whole by the numeral 10 and comprises a drill string 12 terminating at a lower end with a drill bit 14, and terminating at the upper end with a typically square sided joint of pipe 22 known as a kelly. The joint, which is typically a threaded joint, is identified by the number 26 and will be an important element in the disclosure of the invention. The drill string 12 is an assembly of typical thirty foot long sections or "joints" of cylindrical pipe which are threaded together. The kelly 22 is positioned in a fitted opening of a rotary table 24, and the rotary is driven by a motor (not shown) thereby rotating the kelly and attached drill string and drill bit. As the rotating drill bit 14 cuts through and penetrates earth formation 20, the entire drill string 12 advances into the borehole requiring additional joints of pipe to be added to the drill string to advance the borehole 18. Weight is applied to the drill bit in the form of drill collars 16 to aid in the drilling operation.
Referring again to FIG. 1, drilling mud 32 is drawn from a reservoir or "mud pit" 30 at the surface of the earth 48 through an intake 34 by a mud pump 36. Mud passes through a hose 38 to a good neck 40 which is attached to a swivel 42. The good neck and swivel, as well as the attached kelly 22, is suspended by a crown block assembly 44 which is suspended from a derrick (not shown). Pumped mud flows from the swivel down through the drill string 12 and out of the drill string through openings in the drill bit 14. The drilling mud 32 then is forced to return to the surface of the earth 48 through the annulus defined by the wall of the borehole 18 and the outer surface of the drill string 12, and through an annulus defined by surface casing 27 and the drill string, and into a return flow line 28 to the mud pit 30. This return flow carries cutting from the vicinity of the drill bit to the surface 48 where they are remover prior to returning the mud to the mud pit 30 for recirculation.
COMPONENTS OF THE CONTINUOUS FLOW CHAMBER
FIG. 2 shows a perspective view of the continuous flow chamber, identified as a whole by the numeral 50. The continuous flow chamber 50 is preferably in the shape of a right cylinder about three feet long and about three feet in diameter. Other dimensions can be used and still maintain the functions of the chamber and related components. The chamber 50 is made from two components which move with respect to each other. The first component is an outer cylinder 52 with a lower end plate 57, best seen in FIGS. 4-7. The second component is an inner cylinder 54, which bits tightly within the outer cylinder 52, and which is capped with an upper end plate 56. The two components combine to form the right cylindrical chamber 50 which can be expanded and contracted, or "telescope", along the major axis as will be illustrated in subsequent discussions. Both the upper and the lower end plates 56 and 57, respectively, have concentric openings 58 through which the drill string 12 and/or kelly passes.
Arms 66 extend preferably perpendicularly to the major axis of the flow chamber on opposite sides and are terminated with eyelets 68. The function of these arms will be described in detail in a subsequent section of this disclosure. Inlet 60 and outlet 62 are positioned near the lower and upper ends of the chamber, respectively, and are flow conduits through which drilling mud flows into and from the chamber. The inlets are preferably 4 inch diameter fittings so that normal flow of mud is received.
Referring to both FIG. 2, and to FIG. 3 which is a tope view of the flow chamber 50, it can be seen that the chamber is split along the major axis and hinged along the outer perimeter of both the inner and outer cylinders 54 and 52, respectively. A hinge strap 72 and pin 73 is used to pivot the halves of the inner cylinder 54, and a strap 70 and pin 71 is used to pivot the halves of the outer cylinder 52. It should be understood that other hinge arrangements can be used with equal effectiveness. The hinge assemblies allow the flow chamber 50 to be opened and closes in a "clam shell" fashion, and easily fitted and removed around the drill string 12 and kelly 22. The chamber 50 is held closed with clamps 64 opposite the hinges and is further secured the drill string with chamber slips 80.
OPERATION OF THE CONTINUOUS FLOW CYLINDER
Attention is now drawn to FIG. 4 which shows the continuous flow cylinder positioned on the drill string/kelly joint 26. Assume, for purposes of discussion, that a joint of pipe is being added to the drill string 12. The drill string is lifted and held with tapered slips 81 such that the kelly-upper pipe joint is far enough above the rotary table 24 so that the flow chamber 50 can be clamped around the joint 26. The chamber 50 is secured to the drill string 12 with chamber slips 80 and positioned over the joint 26 between the kelly and the upper most joint of drill pipe. This is the joint that must be broken and remade in order to add an additional joint of drill pipe. When the flow chamber 50 is closed around the joint 26, an upper seals ram 86 forms a hydraulic pressure seal above the joint 26, and a lower seal ram 88 forms a hydraulic pressure seal below the joint. Both the upper and lower seal rams are bearing mounted so that the drill string 12 and kelly 22 can be rotated either clockwise or counter clockwise and still maintain the ram seals. The seal rams are preferably hydraulically operated in the same manner as the rams in a commercially available blowout preventer. Apparatus to operate these rams is not shown for purposes of clarity and brevity.
Still referring to FIG. 4, drilling mud is shown being pumped down the inside of the drill string in a normal drilling mode as indicated by mud flow arrows. Both an inlet valve 61 connected to the inlet 60, and an outlet valve 63 connected to the outlet 62, are closed. At this step of the operation, the closed valve 61 blocks the flow of mud from the mud pump 36, and all mud flow is diverted through the hose 38 to the swivel 42 and through the kelly 22 as previously described.
The next step in the operation involves the disconnecting of the joint 26 while still maintaining drilling mud circulation down through the drill string 12 to the drill bit 14. This step is illustrated in FIG. 5. The joint 26 disconnected by rotating the kelly 22 with respect to the drill string 12 as is well known in rotary drilling operations. This relative rotation is possible because the upper and lower seal rams 86 and 88, respectively, are bearing mounted. Once the joint is broken, the drilling mud, which is pressured by the mud pump 36 (see FIG. 4), flows through the open inlet valve 61 and inlet 60 into the chamber 50. The pressure of the mud forces the upper cylinder 54 away from the lower cylinder 52 thereby expands the chamber 50 in the vertical direction. An insert ring 77 is attached to the kelly 22 above the chamber 50 with insert eyelets 79 on opposite sides. The insert rings is bearing mounted so that the kelly can rotate. A shock absorbing air cylinder 70 is attached between each arm and insert ring by means of the rings 68 and 79. These two shock absorbers 70 control the vertical expansion of the cylinder 50 when the interior is exposed to mud pump pressure. The kelly 22 is then lifted away from the pipe joint forming a gap. A blind ram 90 closes in the gap between the kelly and the pipe joint thereby dividing the chamber into an upper sub chamber and a lower sub chamber. The blind ram 90 forms a hydraulic pressure seal between the upper and lower sub chambers. As mentioned previously, the inlet valve 61 is opened such that mud flows directly from the mud pump 36, through the lower sub chamber, and down the drill string 12 thereby providing an uninterrupted flow of mud within the borehole 18. The outlet valve 63 is also opened so that mud can drain from the kelly 22 through the upper sub chamber and through the outlet 62 where it is diverted to the mud pit 30 by means of flow conduits (not shown). The paths of the mud flow in both the upper and lower sub chambers are shown by the flow arrows. It is noted that, at this point of the operation, pressure in the lower sub chamber is quite high due to the action of the mud pump, while the pressure in the upper sub chamber is essentially atmospheric pressure. The sliding contact joint between the upper cylinder 54 and the lower cylinder is exposed to high mud pressure for short periods of time, therefore, high pressure sealing means, such as a sliding o-ring seal (not shown), is also required at this contact joint.
Once pressure has been lowered in the upper sub chamber, the air cylinders 70 are disconnected from the kelly insert ring 77, upper sealing ram 86 is relaxed so that the kelly 22 can be withdrawn from the upper sub chamber, the kelly is then attached to a next, or "mousehole", joint 13 of pipe, the mousehole joint 13 is raised to the floor level of the derrick and stabbed through the opening 58 (see FIG. 2) of the plane 56 and into the upper sub chamber, and the upper sealing ram 86 is again tightly set against mousehole joint 13. Referring to FIG. 6, the outlet valve 63 is closed and mud flow from the pump 36 is diverted through the kelly 22 and mousehole joint 13 thereby building pressure within the upper sub chamber. This mud flow, illustrated with flow arrows, equalized pressure within the upper sub chamber with the pump pressure within the lower sub chamber. The ring 77 can be attached to the joint 79 in order to prevent separation of the upper cylinder 54 from the lower cylinder 52 as pressure builds within the upper sub chamber. Alternately, force can be applied to the kelly and joint 13 by other means, or the kelly can be held fixed by other means, to prevent separation of the upper and lower cylinders. The shock absorbing cylinders 70 are shown detached in FIG. 6.
After the pressure in the upper and lower sub chambers is equalized, the blind ram 90 is opened as shown in FIG. 7. The cylinder 50 is then retracted or collapsed thereby pulling down the kelly pin joint into the rotary box joint, the gap between the mousehole joint 13 and existing joint 12 of pipe is closed and this joint 94 is made, and the inlet valve 61 is closed thereby diverting all mud flow through the kelly 22 and attached drill string as indicated by the flow arrows. Normal joint threading or unthreading requires controlled torque and is safely done by tongs gripping the drill string above the joint being threaded or unthreaded. This flow path maintains the uninterrupted mud circulation within the well borehole.
Once the "normal" flow through the kelly and drill string is reestablished, the continuous flow chamber is removed from the drill string. This is accomplished by retracting the upper sealing ram 86 and lower sealing ram 88, removing the chamber slips 80, unclamped the clamps 64 (see FIG. 2) on the chamber 50, and opening the chamber as illustrated in FIG. 3 to disconnect it from the drill string. The chamber is then moved away from the drill string, the rotary table again rotates the kelly and attached drill string, and normal drilling operations are continued.
The process illustrated in FIGS. 4-7 and described above is repeated each time an additional joint of pipe is added to the drill string. The apparatus and method can also be modified to remove pipe from the drill string. In either application, drilling mud is continuously circulated, at mud pump pressure, through the borehole at all times thereby meeting all stated objects of the invention.
While the foregoing is directed to the preferred embodiments of the invention, the scope of the invention is determined by the claims that follow. | Apparatus and methods are disclosed for maintaining drilling fluid circulation while attaching joints of pipe to a drill string during the operation of drilling a well borehole. A chamber is clamped over a thread joint connecting two joints of drill string pipe. An inlet valve is opened to flow drilling fluid into the chamber under pressure. The thread joint is then broken, the chamber is partitioned with a ram thereby forming an upper and lower sub chambers, and drilling fluid circulation is continued through the lower sub chamber and down the borehole through the drill string. The thread joint of another joint of drill string to be added is positioned in the upper sub chamber, pressure is equalized between the upper and lower sub chambers, the ram is opened, the thread joint is made, and drilling fluid is reestablished through the drill string without interruption. | 4 |
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a new and improved indicia disc and the manner in which it is made.
Indicia discs are commonly utilized in phototypesetting apparatus. Small discs are used in the form of unsupported photographic film. Commonly, a 7 mil polyethylene terephthalate disc is used as the film base, and an edge guide is used to stabilize the rotating disc. The indicia discs have previously been made by covering one side of a glass base member with a silver photo sensitive coating and forming transparent characters in the coating. Although the glass indicia discs have been satisfactory in operation, they are relatively fragile and expensive to replace if they become broken. Further, if the emulsion is scratched, the entire disc is destroyed.
The glass disc of the prior art practice is a carefully made glass plate, coated with emulsion, exposed and developed as a photographic negative, and then finished. The finishing steps include some sizing, drilling and polishing that are relatively high in damage risk.
Further, each font requires a separate disc.
To overcome the breakage problem, indicia discs have been made from relatively flexible sheets of plastic. Although the sheet plastic indicia discs are more durable than the glass indicia discs, the flexibility of the sheet plastic discs limits the distance at which fonts of characters can be disposed outwardly of the center portion of the discs. To overcome both the breakage problem inherent with the glass indicia discs and the flexibility problem of discs formed of sheets of plastic, a clamp arrangement has been utilized to hold a film disc in the manner disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 332,477, filed Feb. 14, 1973, by William Rosenstein and entitled Composite Photocomposing Font Disc, now U.S. Pat. No. 3,821,770. Also, guides have been employed to serve as stabilizers for film discs, but effective guides are expensive, and they must be cleaned of abraded disc bits.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention provides an improved indicia disc having a rigid support plate and a flexible sheet film disc carrying one or more fonts of characters. The flexible film disc is held against separation from the rigid support plate by atmospheric pressure against an outer surface of the disc. If the glass support plate should be cracked or broken, the relatively expensive film disc can be reused in association with a replacement support plate.
In accordance with one feature of the present invention, the indicia disc is constructed by placing a rigid support plate in abutting engagement with a flexible film disc setting forth various fonts of characters. The film disc and support plate are then rotated about their central axes at a relatively high speed to expel the atmosphere from between the film disc and the support plate under the influence of centrifugal force. As atmosphere is expelled from between the film disc and the support plate, the atmospheric pressure on the outer surface of the film disc presses the inner surface of the film disc firmly against the support plate to hold them against movement relative to each other.
According to this invention, a glass disc is finished without emulsion. If broken, the loss is only a fraction of the prior art disc loss. Further, each machine requires only one disc whereas prior practice requires a disc for each font.
The surprising discovery of this invention is that a separate film will cling to the surface of a rotating support plate as tightly as if adhered thereto, but without being permanently attached.
An experiment was performed to gain some insight into the effect of different conditions when the film disc was run without a guide using a glass disc cover plate as a support.
The first experiment was with a shim 0.028 thick and 6 inch in diameter, between the font and the glass disc, concentric with the spindle. At the 2100 RPM speed the 81/2 inch diameter film disc clung tightly to the cover plate. Examination with a synchronized strobe indicated total stability from the radii of the two font rows out to the extreme edge of the disc.
A variable speed motor was then attached to the spindle assembly and the speed was slowed to 300 RPM.
Gradually the speed was increased to 600 RPM noting that the font vibrated relative to the cover glass. At 900 RPM this phenomenon disappeared, the 0.028 shim between film font and cover glass notwithstanding. The system was stable.
The film font was then removed and rolled into a tight cylinder about 11/2 inch in diameter. It uncurled with a positive curl away from flat, the arc being about 18 inch radius. The film disc was replaced, curl away from the glass cover plate. The 0.028 shim was still between the film disc and the glass cover plate. It was not until 1600 RPM that the centrifugal effect flattened the film disc against the glass cover plate. However, at 1600, the system appeared stable under a synchronized strobe light.
Finally the shims were removed and the film type disc placed directly between the back up plate and the glass cover plate. At 900 RPM there was no doubt that the centrifugal effect flattened out the film type font and held it stable against the glass.
To provide flexibility in associating various fonts of characters, in one embodiment of the invention the film disc is formed in two segments. Both of the segments are held against a support plate by atmospheric pressure.
Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide a new and improved indicia disc by securing a flexible sheet member to a rigid support member under the influence of atmospheric pressure forces against an exposed surface of the flexible sheet member.
Another object of this invention is to provide a new and improved method of making an indicia disc by simultaneously rotating a flexible sheet member and a support member about a common axis to expel atmosphere from between the flexible sheet member and support member so that atmospheric pressure against an outer surface of the sheet member will hold it firmly against the support member.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 is a plan view of an indicia disc constructed in accordance with the present invention;
FIG. 2 is a side view, taken generally along the line 2--2 of FIG. 1;
FIG. 3 is a plan view of a flexible film disc which forms a part of the indicia disc of FIG. 1;
FIG. 4 is a plan view of a rigid support plate which is utilized as a base for the flexible film disc of FIG. 3;
FIG. 5 is a schematic illustration depicting rotation of the flexible film disc of FIG. 3 and support plate of FIG. 4 about a common axis;
FIG. 6 is a schematic illustration depicting the mounting of the film disc on the support plate;
FIG. 7 is a plan view of an indicia disc forming a second embodiment of the invention;
FIG. 8 is a side view, taken generally along the line 8--8 of FIG. 7;
FIG. 9 is a plan view of a film segment utilized in the indicia disc of FIG. 7;
FIG. 10 is a plan view of a second film segment utilized in the indicia disc of FIG. 7; and
FIG. 11 is a sectional view, taken generally along the line 11--11 of FIG. 7.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT
An indicia disc 20 constructed in accordance with the present invention is illustrated in FIG. 1 and includes a film disc 22 which is formed of a flexible transparent plastic sheet material and is mounted on a relatively rigid glass support plate 24 (see FIG. 2). The film disc 22 is provided with a circular array of position marks 28 and a plurality of fonts 30, 32 and 34 of print characters. The position marks 28 and circular fonts of characters 30, 32 and 34 are designed to cooperate with a known phototypesetting apparatus. This phototypesetting apparatus cooperates with the marks 28 to locate the indicia disc 20 relative to an optical system and light source to expose a photosensitive film (not shown). When the indicia disc 20 has been located in the proper position relative to the film, a flash tube is activated to project a beam of light through the transparent support plate 24 and a transparent character of one of the type fonts 30, 32 or 34 onto the film in a known manner. Although many different types of phototypesetting apparatus could be utilized in association with the indicia disc 20, one suitable phototypesetting apparatus is disclosed in U.S. Pat No. 2,755,172.
For convenience of illustration and description, the areas of the film disc 22 which form the transparent characters of the type fonts 30, 32 and 34 and the transparent timing marks 28 have been illustrated in the drawings as being dark areas. The opaque areas of the film disc 22 have been illustrated in the drawings as light areas.
In accordance with a feature of the present invention, the flexible film disc 22 is secured against movement relative to the rigid glass support plate 24 under the influence of atmospheric pressure and without the use of adhesives. To interconnect the film disc 22 (see FIG. 3) and the support plate 24 (see FIG. 4), a major side surface 40 of the film disc 22 is placed in abutting engagement with a circular major face surface 42 of the support plate 24 (see FIGS. 5 and 6). A back plate 46 is placed against a major outer side surface 38 of the film disc 22 and is connected with a locking member 48 by a plurality of pins which extend through openings 50 in the film disc 22 and openings 52 in the support plate 24 (see FIGS. 3 and 4).
After the side surface 40 of the film disc 22 has been positioned in abutting engagement with the side surface 42 of the support plate 24, a drive shaft 56 rotates the film disc 22 and support plate 24 about a common central axis at a relatively high speed. As the film disc 22 and support plate 24 are rotated, atmosphere is expelled from between the film disc and support plate under the influence of centrifugal force in the manner illustrated schematically in FIG. 6. As air, indicated by the arrows 58 in FIG. 6, flows out from between the film disc 22 and support plate 24, a partial vacuum is established. As this occurs, the film disc 22 is pressed firmly against the support plate 24 by atmospheric pressure, represented by the arrows 62 in FIG. 6, Although the film disc 22 is shown as being separated at its radially outer end portion from the support plate 24 in FIG. 6, it should be understood that as the film disc and support plate are rotated by the drive shaft 56, the film disc is pressed flat against the support plate (in the manner shown in FIG. 2). The atmospheric pressure against the outer surface 38 of the film disc 22 is effective to maintain it in flat abutting engagement with the support plate 24 without adhesives when the rotation of the film disc 22 and support plate 24 is interrupted.
The speed specification above is qualitative, because a specific example, as given under the Summary title, is dependent on a few variables. These variables only require a test of minutes' duration to determine whether a given assembly qualifies as being a derivative of this invention, and may be done by any machine operator or technician.
If the glass support plate 24 should be broken due to rough handling or other reasons, the film disc 22 can be disengaged from the pieces of the glass support plate and mounted on another glass support plate by rotating the film disc and replacement support plate together in the manner illustrated schematically in FIG. 5. This enables the relatively expensive film disc 22, on which the fonts of characters 30, 32 and 34 are disposed, to be reused even though the glass support plate is broken. It should be noted that the major surface 42 of the rigid glass support plate 24 functions as a focal plane for the film disc 22 and that the rigid support plate prevents the flexible film disc from being deflected transversely during use.
In the embodiment of the invention illustrated in FIGS. 1-6 the film disc 22 is formed as an integral member with a plurality of type fonts 30, 32, and 34. It is contemplated that different users of the indicia disc 20 will want different combinations and sizes of type fonts. For example, one user may want a combination of Roman and Italic characters while another user may desire a combination of Greek letters, Roman letters and numerals. In order to provide increased flexibility in associating the various fonts of characters, the embodiment of the invention illustrated in FIGS. 7-11 provides a film disc which is made up of two segments. It is contemplated that a relatively large number of standard disc segments having different fonts of characters will be made up. By selecting any two of the plurality of different disc segments, a user can select any one of a plurality of different fonts of characters. Since the components of the embodiment of the invention illustrated in FIGS. 7-11 are similar to the components of the embodiment of the invention illustrated in FIGS. 1-6, the same numerals will be utilized to designate the components of the embodiment of the invention illustrated in FIGS. 7-11 as were utilized in association with the components of FIGS. 1-6. However, to avoid confusion, the suffix letter a will be associated with the numerals utilized to designate the components of FIGS. 7-11.
An indicia disc 20a (see FIGS. 7 and 8) includes a film disc 22a which is mounted on a rigid transparent support plate 24a. The film disc 22a includes a pair of flexible sheet film segments 70 and 72 (see FIGS. 7 and 10). Each of the sheet film segments 70 and 72 includes a plurality of complete fonts of alpha numeric characters. Thus, the film disc segment 70 includes two complete fonts of characters 76 and 78 which are arranged in a semicircular array. Similarly, the sheet film disc segment 72 includes a plurality of complete fonts 82 and 84 of alpha numeric characters which are arranged in a semicircular array. Although the various fonts of characters 76, 78, 82 and 84 could be identical, it is contemplated that each of the fonts will contain characters of a different size or configuration.
The two flexible film disc segments 70 and 72 are secured to the rigid front plate 24a under the influence of atmospheric pressure applied against outer surface 86 and 88 of the film disc segments (see FIG. 11). In mounting the film disc segments 70 and 72 on the support plate 24a, the two film disc segments are positioned relative to the support plate by a plurality of pins 92, 94 and 96. Thus, the two film disc segment 70 and 72 are formed with projecting central portions 98 and 100 (see FIGS. 9 and 10) which are disposed in an overlapping relationship on the support plate 24a (see FIG. 11). The pins 92, 94 and 96 extend through aligned openings in the sets of projections 98 and 100 on the film disc segments into engagement with a backing plate 46a (FIG. 8) and a locking assembly 48a.
The two film disc segments 70 and 72 are provided with tabs 104 and 106 which are disposed in an overlapping relationship. Thus, the tab 104 on the film disc segment 70 is disposed in an overlapping relationship with a film disc segment 72 (see FIG. 7). Similarly, the tab 106 on the film disc segment 72 is disposed in an overlapping relationship with the film disc segment 70. Since the indicia disc 20a is rotated in the direction of the arrow 107 in FIG. 7, the tabs 104 and 106 extend from the trailing edge portions of the disc segments 70 and 72 and are effective to press them against the support plate 24a.
Once the film disc segments 70 and 72 have been positioned adjacent the support plate 24a, the support plate and film disc segments are rotated about a common axis by a drive member, similar to the drive shaft 56 of FIG. 5. As the film disc segments 70 and 72 are rotated with the support plate 24a, air is expelled from between the film disc segments and the support plate so that atmospheric pressure presses the film disc segments against the support plate in the same manner as previously explained in connection with the embodiment of the invention illustrated in FIGS. 1-6. The atmospheric pressure against the disc segments 70 and 72 is effective to hold them in place on the support plate 24a without using adhesives between the segments and support plate.
In view of the foregoing description it can be seen that the present invention provides an improved indicia disc 20 having a rigid support plate 24 and a flexible sheet film disc 22 carrying one or more fonts of characters. The flexible film disc is held against movement relative to the support plate independently of adhesives by artificially induced atmospheric pressure differential forces against an outer surface 38 of the sheet film disc. To provide for flexibility in associating various fonts of characters, the sheet film disc can be divided into two segments 70 and 72 in the manner illustrated in FIG. 7. | An improved indicia disc for use in association with phototype setting apparatus includes a rigid glass support plate and a flexible photographic film disc carrying a plurality of fonts of alpha numeric characters. The flexible film disc is held against movement relative to the support plate by atmospheric pressure against an outer surface of the film disc. To mount the film disc on the support plate, they are rotated together at a relatively high speed about their central axes. As they are rotated, centrifugal force expels the atmosphere from between the film disc and support plate. Atmospheric pressure against the outer side of the film disc is then effective to press it securely against the support plate. In one embodiment of the invention a one-piece film disc is utilized. In another embodiment of the invention a two-piece film disc is utilized to provide greater flexibility of choice in associating various fonts of characters. | 1 |
RELATED APPLICATION
This is a Continuation-in-Part of U.S. Ser. No. 08/341,881, filed Nov. 15, 1994 and a Continuation-in-Part of U.S. Ser. No. 08/658,855 filed on May 31, 1996.
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates to the biomaterials in tissue repair and replacement. The invention further relates to methods of securing the biomaterials to existing tissue.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Collagen, fibrin, elastin and various other elastin-based biomaterials are known biomaterials. Collagen is an insoluble fibrous protein that occurs in vertebrates as the chief constituent of connective tissue fibrils and in bones. Fibrin is a white insoluble fibrous protein formed from fibrinogen by the action of thrombin especially in the clotting of blood. Elastin is an extracellular matrix protein that is ubiquitous in mammals. Other biomaterials include silicone, poly(etherurethane urea),poly(etherurethane), poly(esterurethane), poly(ethylene), poly(prolene), poly(tetrafluoroethylene), polyvinylidene fluoride, polycarbonate, poly(ethylene terephthlate), poly(methyl methacrylate), polystyrene, poly(vinylchloride), poly(2-hydroxyethylmethacrylate),poly (vinylpyrrolidone), poly(acrylonitrile), polygycolide, poly(gycolide-L-lactide), poly(ester-ether), poly(glycolide-E-caprolactone) copolymer, poly(glycolide-trimethylene carbonate), random block copolymer, polyglycolic acid, collagen-based tissues and matrices, tissue engineered materials, bioartificial tissues(living tissue grafts), and bioinert ceramics.
Elastin is found, for example, in skin, blood vessels, and tissues of the lung where it imparts strength, elasticity and flexibility. In addition, elastin, which is prevalent in the internal elastic lamina (IEL) and external elastic lamina (EEL) of the normal artery, may inhibit the migration of smooth muscle cells into the intima. Elastin in the form of solubilized peptides has been shown to inhibit the migration of smooth muscle cells in response to platelet-derived factors (Ooyama et al, Arteriosclerosis 7:593 (1987). Elastin repeat hexapeptides attract bovine aortic endothelial cells (Long et al, J. Cell. Physiol. 140:512 (1989) and elastin nonapeptides have been shown to attract fibroblasts (U.S. Pat. No. 4,976,734). The present invention takes advantage of these physical and biochemical properties of elastin.
Thirty to forty percent of atherosclerotic stenoses that are opened with balloon angioplasty restenose as a result of ingrowth of medial cells. Smooth muscle ingrowth into the intima appears to be more prevalent in sections of the artery where the IEL of the artery is ripped, torn, or missing, as in severe dilatation injury from balloon angioplasty, vessel anastomoses, or other vessel trauma that results in tearing or removal of the elastic lamina. While repair of the arterial wall occurs following injury, the elastin structures IEL and EEL do not reorganize. Since these components play major structural and regulatory roles, their destruction is accompanied by muscle cell migration. There are also diseases that are associated with weakness in the vessel wall that result in aneurysms that can ultimately rupture, as well as other events that are, at least in part, related to abnormalities of elastin.
Prosthetic devices, such as vascular stents, have been used with some success to overcome the problems of restenosis or re-narrowing of the vessel wall resulting from ingrowth of muscle cells following injury. However, their use is often associated with thrombosis. In addition, prosthetic devices can exacerbate underlying atherosclerosis. Nonetheless, prostheses are often used.
Until relatively recently, the primary methods available for securing a prosthetic material to tissue (or tissue to tissue) involved the use of sutures or staples. Fibrin glue, a fibrin polymer polymerized with thrombin, has also been used (primarily in Europe) as a tissue sealant and hemostatic agent.
Laser energy has been shown to be effective in tissue welding arterial incisions, which is thought to occur through thermal melting of fibrin, collagen and other proteins. The use of photosensitizing dyes enhances the selective delivery of the laser energy to the target site and permits the use of lower power laser systems, both of which factors reduce the extent of undesirable thermal trauma.
OBJECTS AND SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is a general object of the invention to provide a method of effecting tissue repair or replacement using a biomaterial.
It is a specific object of the invention to provide an biomaterial suitable for use as a stent, for example, a vascular stent, or as conduit replacement, for example, as an artery, vein or a ureter replacement. The biomaterial can also be used as a stent or conduit covering or lining.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a biomaterial graft suitable for use in repairing a lumen wall.
It is another object of the invention to provide a biomaterial material suitable for use in tissue replacement or repair, for example, in interior bladder replacement or repair, in intestine, esophagus or colon repair or replacement, or skin repair or replacement.
It is also an object of the invention to provide a method of securing a biomaterial to an existing tissue without the use of sutures or staples.
The present invention relates to a method of repairing, replacing or supporting a section of a body tissue. The method comprises positioning a biomaterial at the site of the section and bonding the biomaterial to the site or to the tissue surrounding the site. The bonding is effected by contacting the biomaterial and the site, or tissue surrounding the site, at the point at which said bonding is to be effected, with an energy absorbing agent. The agent is then exposed to an amount of energy absorbable by the agent sufficient to bond the biomaterial to the site or to the tissue surrounding the site.
More specifically, a tissue-fusible biomaterial can be produced using the process of the present invention which comprises a layer of a biomaterial and a tissue substrate each having first and second outer surfaces, and an energy absorbing material applied to at least one of the outer surfaces. Preferably, the energy absorbing material penetrates into the biomaterial.
The energy absorbing material is energy absorptive within a predetermined range of light wavelengths depending on material thickness. The energy absorbing material is chosen so that when it is irradiated with light energy in the predetermined wavelength range, the intensity of that light will be sufficient to fuse together one of the first and second outer surfaces of the biomaterial and the tissue substrate. Preferably, the first and second outer surfaces of the biomaterial are major surfaces. Typically, the energy absorbing material is indirectly irradiated by directing the light energy first through the biomaterial or tissue substrate and then to the energy absorbing material.
In a preferred process of this invention, the energy absorbing material comprises a biocompatible chromophore, more preferably an energy absorbing dye. In one form of the present invention, the energy absorbing material is substantially dissipated when the biomaterial and the tissue substrate are fused together. In another form of this invention, the energy absorbing material comprises a material for staining the first or second surface of the biomaterial. The energy absorbing material can also be applied to one of the outer surfaces of the biomaterial by doping a separate biomaterial layer with an energy absorbing material and then fusing the doped separate biomaterial layer to the biomaterial. In any case, the energy absorbing layer is preferably substantially uniformly applied to a portion of at least one of the outer surfaces, and more preferably in a manner wherein the energy absorbing material substantially covers substantially the entire outer surface of the biomaterial. Although the energy absorbing material can be applied directly to the tissue substrate, it is not the preferred method because of the difficulty in controlling penetration into the intertices of the tissue substrate.
Some of the key properties which effect the process of the present invention regarding fusing the biomaterial and tissue substrate include the magnitude of the wave length, energy level, absorption, and light intensity during irradiation with light energy of the energy absorbing material, and the concentration of the energy absorbing material. These properties are arranged so that the temperature during irradiation with light energy for period of time which will cause fusing together of one of the first and second outer surfaces of the biomaterial and the tissue substrate is from about 40 to 140 degrees C., and more preferably from about 50 to 100 degrees C., but if well localized to the biomaterial tissue interface can be as high as 600 degrees C. Furthermore, the average thickness of the energy absorbing material in the preferred process of this invention is from about 0.5 to 300 microns.
Further objects and advantages of the invention will be clear from the description that follows.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1. Application of laser energy to biomaterial and exposed native tissue.
FIG. 2 Placement of biomaterial into artery.
FIG. 3. Use of biomaterial as intestinal patch.
FIG. 4. Scanning electron micrograph of biomaterial (prepared according to Rabaud et al using elastin, fibrinogen and thrombin) fused to porcine aorta using continuous wave diode laser.
FIG. 5. Light microscopic picture of biomaterial fused to porcine aorta using a pulsed diode laser, where E=elastin biomaterial; A=aorta.
FIG. 6. Light microscopic photomicrograph of biomaterial derived from arterial digest welded to porcine carotid artery, where E=elastin biomaterial; A=aorta.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to biomaterials and to methods fusing of such biomaterials to tissue using laser energy. Biomaterials suitable for use in the present invention can be prepared, for example, from elastin (eg from bovine nuchal ligament), fibrinogen and thrombin as described by Rabaud et al (U.S. Pat. No. 5,223,420), as well as from collagen, fibrin, and various other known biomaterials . . . (See also Aprahamian et al, J. Biomed. Mat. Res. 21:965 (1987); Rabaud et al, Thromb. Res. 43:205 (1986); Martin, Biomaterials 9:519 (1988). Such biomaterials can have associated thrombogenic property that can be advantageous in certain types of tissue repair. Biomaterials suitable for use in the invention can also be prepared from elastin and type III collagen, also as described by Rabaud and co-workers (Lefebvre et al, Biomaterials 13(1):28-33 (1992). Such preparations are not thrombogenic and thus can be used for vascular stents, etc. A further type of biomaterial suitable for use in the present invention is prepared as described by Urry et al (see, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,132,746 and 4,500,700) (See also U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,187,852, 4,589,882, 4,693,718, 4,783,523, 4,870,055, 5,064,430, 5,336,256). Elastin matrices resulting from digestion of elastin-containing tissues (eg arteries) can also be used. Digestion results in the removal of cells, proteins and fats but maintenance of the intact elastin matrix. The biomaterial used will depend on the particular application.
Biomaterial of the invention prepared from soluble elastin (see Rabaud et al above) can be molded so as to render it a suitable size and shape for any specific purpose. Molded biomaterial can be prepared as follows. Elastin (eg soluble elastin MW 12-32,000 daltons) is washed and swollen in buffer. Fibrinogen or cryoglobulins (prepared, for example, according to Pool et al, New Engl. J. Med. 273 (1965 are added to the swollen elastin, followed by thiourea, with or without a protease inhibitor (such as aprotinin), and collagen. Thrombin is added with stirring and the resulting mixture is immediately poured into an appropriate mold. The mold is then incubated (for example, at 37° C.) while polymerization of the fibrin/elastin material is allowed to proceed, advantageously, for from between 15 minutes to 1 hour, 30 minutes being preferred. The reaction can be carried out at temperatures less than 37° C., but the reaction proceeds more rapidly at 77° C. Heating the reaction to over 40° C., however, can result in denaturation of the thrombin. Cooling of the mixture while stirring allows more time for mixing to occur. For polymerization to occur, it is important to have calcium and magnesium in the buffer and to use undenatured thrombin.
Following polymerization in the mold, the resulting biomaterial can be further cross-linked using gamma radiation or an agent such as glutaraldehyde (a solution of glutaraldehyde, formic acid and picric acid being preferred). When radiation is used, the samples are, advantageously, subjected to gamma-irradiation from a Cobalt-60 source. The amount of irradiation can range, for example, from 10 to 10 OMRAD, with 25 MRAD being preferred. It has been shown that the amount of gamma-irradiation can affect the strength of the material (Aprahamian, J. Biomed. Mat. Res. 21:965 (1987).
Sheets of biomaterial can be prepared that are of a controlled thicknesses by using appropriate molds. Sheets of the biomaterial can be made in thicknesses ranging, for example, from 200 microns to 5 mm. Sheets are generally made as thin as possible to allow for penetration of laser energy while maintaining sufficient strength. By way of example, a sheet suitable for use as an intestinal patch can range in thickness from 200 microns to 5 mm, with about 2 mm being preferred. A patch requiring greater strength, such a patch for use in the bladder, is typically thicker. Arterial stents or patches can be thinner (eg 100 μm-1000 μm).
Biomaterial prepared from soluble elastic or insoluble elastin fragments can also be molded into tubular segments for example, by injecting the material into tubular molds. Crosslinkage of the elastin solution present between the inner and outer tubes can be effected prior to withdrawal of biomaterial from the mold or after the tubes are removed. Tubular segments of different inner and outer diameters, as well as of different lengths, can be prepared using this approach by varying the diameters of the inner and outer tubes. A mold of this type can be made in virtually any size with the inner and outer tubes varying in diameter. A small tube can be used for a coronary arterial stent. A large tube of 1-5 inches in diameter can be made and used as an angularly welded patch for anastomosis of the small intestine or colon. Various molding techniques and molding materials can be used; the foregoing is merely an example.
As indicated above, biomaterial suitable for use in the present invention can be prepared from digests of tissue containing an elastin matrix. Tissues suitable for use as a starting material include arteries (e.g. coronary or femoral arteries, for example, from swine), umbilical cords, intestines, ureters, etc. Preferably, the matrix material is (derived from the species of animal in which the implantation is being performed so that biocompatibility is increased. Any method of removing (digesting away) cellular material, proteins and fats from the native matrix while leaving the extracellular elastin matrix intact can be used. These methods can involve a combination of acidic, basic, detergent, enzymatic, thermal or erosive means, as well as the use of organic solvents. This may include incubation in solutions of sodium hydroxide, formic acid, trypsin, guanidine, ethanol, diethylether, acetone, t-butanol, and sonication. Typically, the digestion proceeds more quickly at higher temperatures. The optimal temperature and time (of incubation depend on the starting material and digestive agent used, and can be readily determined.
One skilled in the art will appreciate that while tubular segments result from digestion of tubular starting materials, those segment can be opened and shaped to yield sheets suitable for use as tissue grafts. Alternatively, such segments can be opened and then reconstructed as tubular segments having a diameter different than the starting tissue. Preferably, however, when tubular products are sought, the starting material is selected so as to yield a tubular segment after digestion having the appropriate diameter so that subsequent manipulations (other than adjustment of length) can be avoided.
The biomaterial of the invention, whether prepared from elastin powder or from tissues digests, is normally secured to existing tissue. Various techniques for effecting that attachment can be used, including art-recognized techniques. However, it is preferred that the biomaterial be secured using a tissue welding energy source and an agent that absorbs energy emitted by that source. Advantageously, the energy source is an electromagnetic energy source, such as a laser, and the absorbing agent is a dye having an absorption peak at a wavelength corresponding to that of the laser. The elastin biomaterial and the tissue to be welded have much less absorption of light at this wavelength and the effect therefore is confined to a zone around the dye layer. A preferred energy source is a laser diode having a dominant wavelength at about 808 nm and a preferred dye is indocyanine green (ICG), maximum absorbance 795-805 nm (see WO 91/,4073). Other laser/dye combinations can also be used. It is preferred that the dye be applied to that portion of the biomaterial that is to be contacted with and secured to the existing tissue. The dye can also be applied to the surface of the structure to which the elastin biomaterial is to be welded or secured. The dye can be applied directly to the biomaterial or the surface of the biomaterial can first be treated or coated (eg primed) with a composition that controls absorption of the dye into the biomaterial so that the dye is kept as a discrete layer or coating. Alternatively, the dye can be bound to the elastin biomaterial so that it is secured to the surface and prevented from leeching into the material. The dye can be applied in the form of a solution or the dye can be dissolved in or suspended in a medium which then can be applied as a thin sheet or film, preferably, of uniform thickness and dye concentration.
Tissue welding techniques employing a soldering agent can be used. Such techniques are known (WO 91/04073). Any proteinaceous material that thermally denatures upon heating can be used as the soldering agent (for example, any serum protein such as albumin, fibronectin, Von Willebrand factor, vitronectin, or any mixture of proteins or peptides). Solders comprising thrombin polymerized fibrinogen are preferred, except where such materials would cause undesirable thrombosis or coagulation such as within vascular lumens. Solders are selected for their ability to impart greater adhesive strength between the biomaterial and the tissue. The solder should be non-toxic and generally biocompatible.
In accordance with the present invention, the laser energy can be directed to the target site (eg, the dye) directly from the laser by exposure of the tissue (eg, during a surgical procedures). In some cases, i.e. endovascular catheter-based treatments where open surgical exposure does not occur, the laser energy is directed to the bonding site via optical fibers. When ICG is used as the dye, targeting media wavelengths of around 800 nm can be used. Such wavelengths are not well absorbed by many tissues, particularly vascular tissues, therefore, there will be a negligible effect on these tissues and thermal effects will be confined to the dye layer. The biomaterial of the invention similarly has little optical absorbance in this waveband, as compared to the energy absorbing dye. Thus, the laser energy can pass through either the biomaterial or the native tissue and be absorbed by the dye layer as shown in FIG. 1. Once the surgeon has exposed the surface or vessel where the biomaterial reinforcement or replacement is to be effected, the dye-containing surface of the biomaterial is placed in contact with the native tissue at the site and laser energy delivered by directing the laser beam to the desired location. The absorbance of the dye (eg ICG) layer is ideally previously or concurrently determined so that the optimal amount of light for optimal bonding can be delivered. Pressure can be used to ensure adequate approximation of the tissue and biomaterial. With a diode laser source, the diode laser itself, or a condenser or optical fiber based optical delivery system, can be placed against the material to ensure uniform light delivery.
In cases where a new elastin lining or new-internal elastic lamina is required, for example, following an open surgical endarterectomy, once the artery has been surgically cleared of the atheroma or other lesion, the biomaterial is then put in place, dye side down (see FIG. 2). The biomaterial can be deployed as a flat patch or as a tubular segment. A tubular segment can be hollow or filled with a material that supports the lumen during placement and that is melted with low grade heat or dissolved or removed with a variety of means. When necessary, a small number of surgical sutures (eg stay sutures) can be used to appose the edges of the vessel together or to sew the vessel. Once the biomaterial is in place, the laser energy is directed through the vessel wall or through the biomaterial to the absorbing dye, the appropriate laser energy having been previously determined based upon the measured absorbance in the biomaterial. Alternatively, the dye can be applied at the time of the surgery to the biomaterial or the vessel wall or both and then laser energy delivered. In this embodiment, absorbance can be determined at the time of the surgery to the biomaterial or the vessel wall or both and then laser energy delivered or with a feedback device that assesses the adequacy of the bonding or thermal effect. (FIG. 4 is a SEM of elastin-based biomaterial fused to porcine aorta.)
In addition to the above, the biomaterial of the invention can be used as a patch material for use in intestinal or colon repairs which frequently do not heal well with current techniques, particularly when the patient has nutritional or other problems or when the patient is in shock, such as in the case of multiple gunshot wounds or other abdominal injuries (see FIG. 3). The use of such a patch can, for example, seal off intestinal contents and thereby reduce the likelihood of peritonitis. In addition, a patch can be used on a solid organ, such as the liver, when lacerations have occurred. Similarly, the biomaterial of the invention can be used to repair or replace portions of the urinary system i.e., from the calyces of the kidney on down to the urethra. The patch can also be used to seal a defect in a cardiac chamber, such as an atrial septal defect, as well as bronchial or rectal fistulas. The biomaterial can also be used as a cerebrovascular patch for an aneurysm. The biomaterial can be sealed in place with targeted laser fusion. For applications where direct exposure is not possible or not desirable, a variety of catheter or endoscopic systems can be employed to direct the laser energy to the target site.
The elastin-based biomaterials to which the invention relates can be used in a variety of other clinical and surgical settings to effect tissue repair graft. For delivery of biomaterial in the form of an intravascular stent, the biomaterial can be pre-mounted upon a deflated balloon catheter. The balloon catheter can be maneuvered into the desired arterial or venous location using standard techniques. The balloon can then be inflated, compressing the stent (biomaterial) against the vessel wall and then laser light delivered through the balloon to seal the stent in place (the dye can be present on the outside of the biomaterial). The balloon can then be deflated and removed leaving the stent in place. A protective sleeve (eg of plastic) can be used to protect the stent during its passage to the vessel and then withdrawn once the stent is in the desired location.
The biomaterial of the invention can also be used as a biocompatible covering for a metal or synthetic scaffold or stent. In such cases, simple mechanical deployment can be used without the necessity for laser bonding. Laser bonding can be employed, however, depending upon specific demands, eg, where inadequate mechanical bonding occurs, such as in stent deployment for abdominal aortic aneurysms. An alternative catheter-based vascular stent deployment strategy employs a temporary mechanical stent with or without a balloon delivery device.
A further catheter-based vascular stent deployment strategy employs a heat deformable metal (such as nitinol or other similar type metal) scaffold or stent or coating that is incorporated into the catheter tubing beneath the stent biomaterial. The stent is maneuvered into the desired location whereupon the deformable metal of the stent is activated such that it apposes the stent against the vessel wall. Laser light is then delivered via an optical fiber based system, also incorporated into the catheter assembly.
The biomaterial can also be used to replace portions of diseased or damaged vascular or nonvascular tissue such as esophagus, pericardium, lung plura, etc. The biomaterial can also be used as a skin layer replacement, for example, in burn or wound treatments. As such, the biomaterial serves as a permanent dressing that acts as a scaffolding for epithelial cell regrowth. The biomaterial can include antibiotics, coagulants or other drugs desirable for various treatments that provide high local concentrations with minimal systemic drug levels. The elastin biomaterial can be deployed with a dye on the tissue side and then fused with the appropriate wavelength and laser energy.
In addition to repair of tubular body structures, the biomaterial of the present invention can also be used in organ reconstruction. For example, the biomaterial can be molded or otherwise shaped as a pouch suitable for use in bladder reconstruction. The biomaterial of the invention can also be molded or otherwise shaped so as to be suitable for esophageal replacement. Again, metal or synthetic mesh could also be associated with the implant if extra wall support is needed so as to control passage of food from the pharynx to the stomach. This could be used for stenosis of the esophagus, repair from acid reflux for erosive esophagitis or, more preferably, for refurbishing damaged esophageal segments during or following surgery or chemotherapy for esophageal carcinoma.
For certain applications, it may be desirable to use the biomaterial of the invention in combination with a supporting material having strong mechanical properties. For those applications, the biomaterial can be coated on the supporting material (see foregoing stent description), for example, using the molding techniques described herein. Suitable supporting materials include polymers, such as woven polyethylene terepthalate (Dacron), teflon, polyolefin copolymer, polyurethane polyvinyl alcohol or other polymer. In addition, a polymer that is a hybrid between a natural polymer, such as fibrin and elastin, and a non-natural polymer such as a polyurethane, polyacrylic acid or polyvinyl alcohol can be used (sets Giusti et al, Trends in Polymer Science 1:261 (1993). Such a hybrid material has the advantageous mechanical properties of the polymer and the desired biocompatibility of the elastin based material. Examples of other prostheses that can be made from synthetics (or metals coated with the elastin biomaterial or from the biomaterial/synthetic hybrids include cardiac valve rings and esophageal stents.
The prostheses of the invention can be prepared so as to include drug; that can be delivered, via the prostheses, to particular body sites. For example, vascular stents can be produced so as to include drugs that prevent coagulation, such as heparin, or antiplatelet drugs such as hirudin, drugs to prevent smooth muscle ingrowth or drugs to stimulate endothelial damaged esophageal segments during or following surgery or chemotherapy for esophageal carcinoma.
For certain applications, it may be desirable to use the biomaterial of the invention in combination with a supporting material having strong mechanical properties. For those applications, the biomaterial can be coated on the supporting material (see foregoing stent description), for example, using the molding techniques described herein. Suitable supporting materials include polymers, such as woven polyethylene terepthalate (Dacron), teflon, polyolefin copolymer, polyurethane polyvinyl alcohol or other polymer. In addition, a polymer that is a hybrid between a natural polymer, such as fibrin and elastin, and a non-natural polymer such as a polyurethane, polyacrylic acid or polyvinyl alcohol can be used (sets Giusti et al, Trends in Polymer Science 1:261 (1993). Such a hybrid material has the advantageous mechanical properties of the polymer and the desired biocompatibility of the elastin based material. Examples of other prostheses that can be made from synthetics or metals coated with the elastin biomaterial or from the biomaterial/synthetic hybrids include cardiac valve rings and esophageal stents.
The elastin-based prostheses of the invention can be prepared so as to include drug; that can be delivered, via the prostheses, to particular body sites. For example, vascular stents can be produced so as to include drugs that prevent coagulation, such as heparin, drugs to prevent smooth muscle ingrowth or drugs to stimulate endothelial regrowth. Vasodilators can also be included. Prostheses formed from the elastin based biomaterial can also be coated with viable cells, preferable, cells from the recipient of the prosthetic device. Endothelial cells, preferably autologous (eg harvested during liposuction), can be seeded onto the elastin bioprosthesis prior to implantation (eg for vascular stent indications). Alternatively, the elastin biomaterial can be used as a skin replacement or repair media where cultured skin cells can be placed on the biomaterial prior to implantation. Skin cells can thus be used to coat elastin biomaterial.
Certain aspects of the invention are described in greater detail in the non-limiting Examples that follow.
EXAMPLE 1
Preparation of Sheets of Elastin-Based Biomaterial from Soluble Peptides
Materials used for biomaterial production:
Phosphate buffer: The phosphate buffer used contained 1 mM sodium phosphate, 150 mM sodium chloride, 2 mM calcium chloride, 1 mM magnesium (chloride, pH 7.4.
Soluble elastin peptides: Bovine ligamentum nuchae elastin powder was obtained from Sigma, St. Louis, Mo. The following procedure was used to obtain the soluble elastin peptides: 2.7 g elastin powder was suspended in 35 ml of a 1M KOL solution in 80% ethanol. The suspension was stirred at 50° C. for 2.5 hr. Next, 10 ml deionized water was added and the solution neutralized with concentrated 12M HCl to pH 7.4. The solution was cooled at 4° C. for 12 hrs. The clear solution was decanted from the salt crystals, and the supernatant centrifuged for 15 mins at 2000 rpm. The solution was then dialyzed against three changes of tap water at two hour intervals and one 15 hr interval using a 10,000 MW cutoff dialysis tubing. The dialysis was continued with six changes of deionized water at two hour intervals and one for 15 hrs. The resulting dialyZate was lyophilized and stored at -20° C. The yield was 40%.
Cryoglobulin preparation: A modification of the method of Pool and Shannon was used to Produce the cryoglobulins (New Engl. J. Med. 273 (1965). Cryoglobulins are principally fibrinogen (40 mg/ml) and fibronectin (10 mg/ml) (concentrations of fibrinogen and fibronectin will vary). Briefly, blood was collected from swine in a standard 500 ml blood collection bag containing adenine, citrate and dextrose anticoagulant. The blood was transferred to twelve 50 ml plastic centrifuge tubes and centrifuged for 15 mins at 1500 rpm. The plasma was decanted from the erythrocyte layer and frozen at -70° C. for 12 hrs. The plasma was then thawed at 4° C. The cryoglobulins were collected by centrifugation of the plasma at 4° C. for 15 mins at 1500 rpm. The supernatant was decanted and the cryoglobulins collected by removing the precipitate with a pasteur pipette. Each tube was also rinsed with 3 ml of a sodium citrate solution containing 0.9% NaCl, and 0.66% sodium citrate. The cryoglobulins were pooled, frozen at -70° C., lyophilized and stored at -20° C. until use.
Thiourea: Reagent grade thiourea. was obtained from Sigma, St. Louis, Mo. A O.S mg/ml solution was used.
Type I collagen: Acid soluble type I collagen was obtained from Sigma. It was preferred from rat tail tendon by a modification of the method of Bornstein. Two mg of collagen was heated in 0.6 ml phosphate buffer to 60° C. for 10 minutes until the collagen dissolved. It was then cooled to 37° C. and used.
Thrombin: Thrombin from bovine plasma was obtained from Sigma in lyophilized form. When reconstituted with 1 ml water, the solution contained 106 NIH units per ml.
Aprotinin: Aprotinin from bovin lung was obtained from Sigma. It contained 15-30 trypsin inhibitory units (TIU) per ml.
Preparation:
Six molds were made by gluing a 620 μm quartz fiber to one side of a glass plate ˜40 mm×25 mm and attaching a second glass plate to the first using a rubber band. Each mold so constructed held about 0.5 ml.
The biomaterial was prepared by successively adding and mixing the following: 200 mg soluble kappa-elastin or kappa-elastin powder in 2 ml phosphate buffer (PB) (1 mM P041 150 mM NaCl, 2 mM Ca21 1 mM Mg21 PH 7.4) at 37° C.
______________________________________160 mg cryoglobin in 1 ml P:B (37° C.) 2 mg collagen in 0.6 ml PB (60° C. 37° C.) 200 μ11 thiourea (0.5 mg/ml) 200 μl aprotinin (5 Units)______________________________________
A 0.6 ml aliquot of the above solution was loaded into a test tube and 50 μl thrombin solution was added (˜6 units). The resulting solution was immediately loaded into the mold. Certain of the resulting sheets were crosslinked with glutaraldehyde for 2 mins.
Results: The sheets prepared as described above were slightly yellowish and opaque. The glutaraldehyde-fixed sheets were less stretchy and tore more easily than non-fixed sheets. Glutaraldehyde fixed sheets were subjected to election microscopy. These sheets had a smooth cohesive surface appearance at 100× and 1000×.
EXAMPLE 2
Tissue Welding of Sheets of Elastin-Based Biomaterial
Pre-welding procedure: A 1 mg/ml ICG solution was applied to fresh swine aorta that had been carefully trimmed of adventitia, washed in a sterile 0.9% NaCl solution, and cut into 1 cm2 squares. The 1 mg/ml ICG solution was applied to the lumenal side of the aorta for ˜3 min and wiped off. (ICG was obtained from Sigma and contained 90% dye and 10% sodium iodide. Absorption coefficient measured at 780 nm with a 7.25×10 -6 M solution was found to be 175,000 M -1 cm -1 . The adsorption maximum shifts to 805 nm when ICG is bound to serum proteins (Landsman et al, J. Appl. Physiol. 40 (1976). A small amount of cryoglobulins, containing approximately 40 mg/ml fibrinogen and 10 mg/ml fibronectin doped with ICG, was also applied and the biomaterial placed on it. The two materials were placed between two glass slides. This was submerged in a 0.9% saline solution.
Welding Procedure: Sheets of biomaterial made as described in Example 1 were equilibrated in phosphate buffer, pH 7.4, and welded to ICG stained porcine aorta using an aluminum gallium arsenide diode array laser. The maximum output was at 808+/-1.5 nm. The laser was coupled to a 1 μm quartz fiber with polyethylene cladding material. The laser energy was collimated with a focusing lens and coupled to the quartz fiber. The spot size at the distal end of the fiber could be varied from 1 mm to 4 mm by adjusting the distance between the focusing lens and the proximal end of the fiber. The laser operated continuously, CW, and the output measured at the distal end of the fiber was 1.5 W.
The quartz fiber was positioned directly above the glass slide, biomaterial, aorta. Before welding, the spot size of the laser was measured. Welding appeared to occur under saline at irradiances of 0.85 W but not 1.32 W. Twenty seconds was sufficient time to weld and 40 seconds caused a brown co:Lor change and charring of the biomaterial.
EXAMPLE 3
Preparation of Elastin-Based Biomaterial from Artery Digest
Fresh 4 cm lengths of porcine carotid artery were dissected clean and washed in two changes of 0.9% saline overnight. Vessels were then placed in 0.5M NaOH and sonicated for 120 minutes (a modified method of Crissman, R. 1987) See Crissman, Rogert S. "Comparison of Two Digestive Techniques for Preparation of Vascular Elastic Networks for SEM Observation", Journal of Electron Microscopy Techniques 6:335-348 (1987). Digested vessels were then washed in distilled water and autoclaved at 225° F. for 30 minutes. Digested vessels appear translucent, pearly white in color and collapsed when removed from water indicating the absence of collagen and other structurally supportive proteins.
Welding of the artery digests to porcine aorta was accomplished through the following methods. Fresh porcine aorta was coated with 5 mJ/ml ICG for 5 minutes. Excess ICG solution was blotted off. One×one cm sections of NaOH-sonicated digested carotid artery elastin segments were placed upon the freshly stained aortas. An array of pulsed aluminum gallium arsenide diode lasers (Star Medical Technologies) was used to weld the segments. Five millisecond pulses at 790-810 light was emitted at 2 joules and applied to the tissue with a condenser that created a uniform beam 4×4 mm which was placed on the elastin digest covered by a glass coverslip. Good welds were achieved with up to 10 pulses. A light microscopic photograph of the elastin digest welded to the porcine aorta is shown in FIG. 6.
EXAMPLE 4
Preparation of Elastin-Based Biomaterial & Fusion to Porcine Aorta
Materials: Bovine nuchal elastin powder (Sigma St. Louis Mo.) Was sifted with a 40 μm screen and swollen with phosphate buffer. Elastin fragments were then reacted with 67 mg of fibrinogen (Sigma):in phosphate buffer, 2 m acid soluble Type 1 collagen (Sigina), 2.8 mg thiourea, 2 mM Ca 2+ , 1 mM Mg 2 + and 75 units of thrombin and injected into molds and heated to 77° C. One mm thick sheets and tubes of this biomaterial were removed and stored in 33% ethanol for later use.
Indocyanine green dye was dissolved in de-ionized water to provide a 1% solution and applied to the lumenal surface of fresh porcine aorta. The dye was in place for 5 minutes then the residual dye was blotted off. The elastin biomaterial was placed on the ICG stained aorta and covered with a glass coverslip. Laser energy was applied with a condenser which collected the output of an array of gallium arsenide diode lasers emitting light at 800 nm in 5 msec pulses. Six mm2 Spots were irradiated with 2.89 Joules for 1-10 pulses which provided adequate welds. Samples were then bisected and fixed in formalin for microscopic study. FIG. 5 is a light microscopic photograph of such a weld stained with an elastin stain. Excellent welding of the elastin biomaterial to porcine aorta is noted with no detectable thermal or other injury to the biomaterial or aorta.
EXAMPLE 5
Preparation of Elastin-Based Biomaterial & Fusion to Porcine Aorta
Materials: Bovine ligamentum nuchae elastin, Fibrinogen from porcine plasma, and acid soluble type I collagen from rate tale tendon were obtained from Sigma Chemical Corp. (St. Louis, Mo.). Elastin was solubilized in 1M KOL/80% ethanol at 50°% C. for 2.5 hrs. (Hornebreck). Cryoprecipitates were obtained from porcine plasma according to the method of Pool and Shannon (Pool and Shannon). Fresh porcine aorta was obtained from Carlton Packaging Co. (Carlton, Oreg.) and stored at -20° C. until thawed for use.
Elastin-fibrin biomaterials was prepared similarly to methods developed by Rabaud (Rabaud). Patches made of solubilized elastin and cryoprecipates were prepared by successive addition with thorough mixing of 200 mg. soluble elastin dissolved in 2 ml buffer, 160 mg. lyophilized cryoprecipitate dissolved in 1 ml buffer, 2 mg type I collagen dissolved in 0.6 ml buffer, and 0.2 ml thiourea solution (0.5 mg/ml H 2 O). 6 units of thrombin were added to 0.5 ml. aliquots of the mixture, thoroughly mixed in a 1 ml syringe, and injected into 4 cm 2 glass molds. The molds were incubated at 37° C. for 30 min. and subjected to 25 mrad of ofg-radiation (cobalt source>>. The biomaterial was stored at 4° C. in 33% etOH. Prior to use the biomaterial was washed several times with saline.
Patches were also made with insoluble elastin and fibrinogen. Lyophilized elastin from Sigma was passed through a U.S. no 4000 mesh sieve (Tyler) prior to use. Only the 40 μm or smaller particles were used. 28-0 mg of the filtered elastin was swollen and washed overnight in an excess of phosphate buffer. the mixture was centrifuged (1000 rpm, 10 min) and the excess buffer discarded. The swollen elastin was suspended in 2 ml of phosphate buffer. Successively added to this suspension are 67 mg. lyophilized fibrinogen dissolved in 1 ml buffer, 2 mg type I collagen dissolved in 0.6 ml buffer, and 0.2 ml thiourea solution (0.5 mg/ml H 2 O). Finally, 33 units of thrombin were added and the mixture was thoroughly vortexed and quickly poured into 3 cm×7 cm molds. The molds were incubated at 37° C. for 30 min.the biomaterial was stored in 4° C. in 33% EtOH. Prior to use the biomaterial was washed several times with saline solution.
The soluble elastin-cryoprecipitated patch was fused to porcine aorta using an Aluminum Gallium Arsenide diode array laser emitting 808 nm continuous wave optical radiation. Fresh porcine aorta was washed in 0.9% NaCl and trimmed into 2 cm 2 portions. Indocyanine green (Sigma) in aqueous concentrated of 1 or 5 mg/ml was applied to aorta via a pasteur pipette, left undisturbed for 5 min. and then blotted away. The tissue was then equilibrated in a 0.9% saline solution for 15 minutes to remove any unbound dye. The biomaterial was then applied to the lumenal surface of the aorta. The laser beam was directed at the biomaterial surface via a 1 μm fused silica fiber (Polymicro Technologies Phoenix, Ariz.) through a glass coverslip as shown in FIG. 1. The spot size of the laser beam varied between 1-4 mm. The laser output measured from the fiber tip was 1.5 Watts and exposed durations varied from 5 to 4 seconds.
The insoluble elastin-fibrinogen patch was fused to porcine aorta using an Aluminum Gallium Arsenide diode array laser emitting 790-810 nm pulsed optical radiation (Star Medical Technologies). Thawed porcine aorta was prepared and stained with 5 mg/ml aqueous ICG solution as previously described for fresh aorta. After applying the biomaterial to the stained luminal surface of the aorta, laser radiation was directed at the biomaterial via a copper coated condenser placed against a glass coverslip. The laser output was set at 2 J and 5 msec pulse durations.
EXAMPLE 6
Preparation of Elastin-Based Biomaterials and Fusing of Same
Bovine ligamentum nuchae elastin, fibrinogen from porcine plasma, and acid soluble type I collagen from rat tale tendon were obtained from Sigma Chemical Corp. (St. Louis, Mo.).
1 mg. indo cyanine green is dissolved in 1 ml of 24% human serum albumin. 67 mg of fibrinogen was dissolved in 1 ml phosphate buffer (@37° C.). Just prior to mixing 16.6 units of thrombin are added to the indocyanine green solution. The mixtures were cooled to 4° C. The two mixtures are rapidly mixed and injected, or poured, into a 3×7 cm mold and incubated for 30 min. at 37° C.
Lyophilized elastin from Sigma was passed through a U.S. No. 400 mesh sieve (Tyler) prior to use. Only the 40 μm or smaller particles were used. 210 mg of the filtered elastin was swollen and washed overnight in an excess of phosphate buffer. The mixture was centrifuged (1000 rpm, 10 min.) and the excess buffer discarded. The swollen elastin was suspended in 1.5 ml of phosphate buffer. Successively added to this suspension were 67 mg lyophilized fibrinogen dissolved in 0.75 ml buffer, 2 mg type I collagen dissolved in 0.45 ml buffer, and 0.15 ml thiourea solution (0.5 mg/ml H 2 O). Finally, 26 units of thrombin were added and the mixture was thoroughly vortexed and quickly poured onto the fibrin matrix doped with indocyanine green in the 3 cm×7 cm molds. The molds were again incubated at 37° C. for 30 minutes. When removed from the mold, the two layers are inseparable and the preparation yields a single patch.
EXAMPLE 7
Welding of Elastin Fibrin Biomaterial to Porcine Intestine
Fresh porcine intestine was obtained from Carlton Packing Co. (Carlton, Oreg.). The intestine was rinsed with tap water and stored at -20° C. in Ziploc freezer bags. Prior to use the intestine is thawed in ambient air and kept on saline soaked gauze to prevent drying out.
The elastin fibrin biomaterial prepared as described in Example 4 was fused to porcine intestine using a Aluminum Gallium Arsenide diode array laser (Star Medical Technologies) as follows: Indocyanine green in aqueous concentrations of 5 mg/ml was applied to the serosa of thawed porcine intestine with a pasteur pipette, left undisturbed for 5 minutes and then blotted away with a Kimwipe EXL wipe. Elastin-fibrin biomaterial was cut into 1×1 cm patches an excess moisture was blotted away with a Kimwipe EXL wipe. The biomaterial was then positioned on top of the ICG stained serosa of the intestine and a glass microscope coverlip is positioned on top of the biomaterial. A scale was placed underneath the intestine. Laser radiation was directed at the biomaterial via a 4×4 mm copper coated condenser placed against the glass coverslip. Laser output was set at 1.99-2.19 joules and 5 msec pulses. During laser exposure, manual force was applied to the glass coverslip with the condenser. The amount of pressure applied was monitored on the scale placed underneath the intestine. 5 pulses and 500 to 1600 grams of force resulted in successful adhesion of the elastin-fibrin biomaterial to the intestine. Figure XXX (FIG. 14 of army grant proposal) is a light microscope slide of elastin fibrin biomaterial welded to porcine intestine (1.99 joules per pulse, 10 pulses, 500 g force).
EXAMPLE 8
Preparation and Welding of Coronary Vessel Digests
Fresh left anterior descending, right main, and circumflex coronary arteries were excised from a porcine heart. Excess fat and thrombus were removed from the excised vessels. The vessels were cut in half and the distal halves were washed in saline and sonicated in 0.5M NaOH for 45 min at 65° C. The distal halves were then removed from the alkali, immersed in 500 ml distilled water for 30 min, and finally immersed in boiling distilled water for another 30 min. The NaOH-sonicated vessels are hereafter referred to as heterografts. The proximal half of the vessels were saved and stored on saline soaked gauze until use. Right main coronary heterografts were welded to right main and left anterior descending arteries with an Aluminum Gallium Arsenide pulsed dioded laser emitting 790-810 nm optical radiation (Star Medical Technologies). 5 mg of indocyanine green (ICG) was dissolved in 1 ml of distilled water. This solution was then diluted with 4 ml of 25% human serum albumin (HSA) with careful mixing avoiding the formation of excessive air bubbles. The heterografts were coaxed onto a percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty balloon measuring 3.0 mm in diameter when inflated. The heterograft covered balloon was inflated to 4 psi and immersed in the ICG-HSA for 5 minutes to stain the heterograft. After removing the heterograft and balloon from the staining solution, the balloon is deflated and inserted into the untreated proximal half of a right main or LAD coronary artery. Following insertion, the balloon is inflated to 8 psi. The inflated balloon/heterograft is placed on a benchtop and a coverslip is placed over the region to be welded. A 4×4 mm copper coated condenser is placed against the coverslip. The laser output was set for 2.3 joules of energy and 5 msec pulse durations. After 5 pulses, the balloon is rotated approximately 30 degrees and another region is illuminated with 5 pulses. This procedure is repeated until the entire circumference of the balloon has been illuminated. The balloon is then deflated, leaving behind the heterograft, now fused to the luminal surface of the artery.
All documents cited above are hereby incorporated in their entirety by reference. One skilled in the art will appreciate from a reading of this disclosure that various changes in form and detail can be made without departing from the true scope of the invention. | It is a general object of the invention to provide a method of effecting tissue repair or replacement using a biomaterial. It is a specific object of the invention to provide a biomaterial suitable for use as a stent, for example, a vascular stent, or as a conduit replacement, as an artery, vein or a ureter replacement. The biomaterial can also be used as a stent or conduit covering or lining. The present invention relates to a method of repairing, replacing or supporting a section of a body tissue. The method comprises positioning a biomaterial at the site of the section and bonding the biomaterial to the site or to the tissue surrounding the site. The bonding is effected by contacting the biomaterial and the site, or tissue surrounding the site, at the point at which said bonding is to be effected, with an energy absorbing agent. The agent is then exposed to an amount of energy absorbable by the agent sufficient to bond the biomaterial to the site or to the tissue surrounding the site. | 0 |
This application is a continuation of application Ser. No. 07/354,660 filed May 19, 1989, now abandoned.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates to a system for performing an assay of a cell sample to provide an accurate quantitative analysis of a characteristic of the cells which have been sampled. More particularly, the invention is directed to a system which receives images of stained cells and enhances the cell images prior to further processing to determine an amount of oncogene protein product in the cells of a cell sample.
One of the problems which faces pathologists in their clinical practice is that of determining whether a cell sample taken from a patient during a biopsy procedure or the like is benign, malignant and if malignant the classification or cell type. Although a surgeon may have a good intuition about the type of tissue mass which he has removed, nevertheless he must confirm his preliminary diagnosis with a histological examination of the cell sample removed from the patient. The histological examination entails cell staining procedures which allow the morphological features of the cells to be seen relatively easily in a light microscope. A pathologist after having examined the stained cell sample, makes a qualitative determination of the state of the tissue or the patient from whom the sample was removed and reaches a conclusion as to whether the patient is normal, or has a premalignant condition which might place him at risk of a malignancy in the future or has cancer. While this diagnostic method has provided some degree of predictability in the past, it is somewhat lacking in scientific rigor since it is heavily reliant on the subjective judgement of the pathologist. In addition, it is sometimes difficult for the practitioner to determine the stage which the tumor has reached. Such a determination often allows the clinician to select a particular treatment by balancing the tumor's resistance to therapy with the potential harm resulting from the selected therapy.
Attempts have been made to automate the cellular examination process. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,741,043 to Bacus for Method and Apparatus for Image Analyses of Biological Specimens, an automated method and a system for measuring the DNA of cells are disclosed which employ differential staining of the DNA in cell nuclei with a Feulgen Azure A stain and image processing.
U.S. application Ser. No. 315,289, filed Feb. 24, 1989, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,086,476 for Method and Apparatus for Determining a Proliferation Index of a Cell Sample to Bacus, assigned to the instant assignee, discloses a system for determining the proliferation index of cells by microscopic examination of cell samples which have been stained with a proliferation substance stain and a nuclear stain. The system includes a computer coupled to a pair of monochrome television cameras, which receive optically filtered images of the magnified cell images, and an image processor. The system computes the proliferation index from the optical characteristics of the stained cell sample.
Recently certain genes have been discovered that appear to contribute to the onset and growth of cancers. These genes, known as oncogenes and proto-oncogenes, also may contribute to the growth and development of human beings in the early stages of their lives. Ongoing research has found that certain of these oncogenes seem to be related to specific cancers. One of them, the neu HER-2 proto-oncogene, appears to be related to human breast and ovarian cancers. It has also recently been found that neu HER-2 proto-oncogenes and the oncogene protein product that is expressed from neu HER-2 appear, when in elevated amounts, to be correlated with the virulence of the cancer, Slamon D.J. et al., "Studies of the HER-2/neu Proto-oncogene in Human Breast and Ovarian Cancer," Science Vol. 244, pp. 707-712, May 12, 1989. Thus the ability to quantitate the amount of neu HER-2 proto-oncogene and/or its oncogene protein product will allow a clinician to better predict the likelihood of a patient surviving her cancer after completing a selected treatment regimen. By having such information, the clinician will also be better able to select an appropriate treatment regimen to maximize the patient's likelihood of survival.
There would appear to be two ways in which the measurement could be made. The number or amount of neu HER-2 proto-oncogene could be determined in a cell sample using gene probes, which would be expensive and inefficient. Alternatively, the amount of oncogene protein product in the cytoplasm could be measured. While the second choice appears to be more attractive, there are a number of problems encountered with such an approach which prevent easy measurement. The typical tissue specimen biopsied from human breast or ovarian tissue is frozen and then sectioned for microscopic examination. Pathologists favor being able to inspect visually the frozen sections since the portions having malignant cells may be scattered throughout the tissue specimen. It is also difficult to easily determine the locations of cell boundaries in a crowded field because the cancer cells have irregular boundaries. In addition, the monoclonal antibody based stains for visualizing the oncogene protein product work best on frozen sections, as opposed to other types of prepared cell samples. Unfortunately, the sectioned tissue suffers from the problem that while a number of whole cells are present in the section, a number of fractional portions of cells are also present, preventing assaying simply by counting of the cells in an image field of a microscope. It is important to know the sum total of cells being examined because the assay of oncogene protein product is on the basis of the amount of oncogene protein product per cell.
What is needed is a method and apparatus for automatically and quickly assaying the amount of oncogene protein product in the cells of frozen sectioned tissues taken from a human patient.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention provides a rapid and convenient method and an apparatus for practicing the method for determining the amount of oncogene protein product in the cells of a cell sample. The invention is practiced upon samples of tissue taken from sites of suspected malignancies, in particular human breast and ovarian cancers. The tissue sections are cell samples comprising frozen sections of connected cells. Cell samples may also be made from touch preparations, which are made by touching a freshly microtomed or sectioned surface of a piece of frozen tissue to a microscope slide to which the cells cling.
In particular, the apparatus and method employ a mouse alkaline phosphatase based staining system with an anti-rabbit mouse bridging antibody, wherein rabbit antibodies for a protein product of the genes being assayed are connected to the bridging antibody. In particular, the gene may be neu HER-2, the number of copies of which have been found to be an indicator of the long-term survival of a patient suffering from human breast cancer. The alkaline phosphatase antibodies are complexed with an enzyme, in this embodiment alkaline phosphatase. The cells are contacted with the rabbit primary antibody, which binds only to portions of the cytoplasm of the cells having epitopes identifying them as having the protein product of the neu HER-2 oncogene. After applying the bridging antibody, and the alkaline phosphatase antibody, a stain, in this embodiment Napthol ASTR phosphate and Fast Red KL chromogen, v is placed in contact with the cells having the antibody-alkaline phosphatase conjugate bound to their neu HER-2 protein product sites. The alkaline phosphatase catalyzes a chromogen forming reaction only at the areas where it is bound. The catalyzed chromogen forming reaction produces a red chromogen comprised of a red azo dye at the oncogene protein product sites.
The cells also are stained with a conventional stain for DNA, in this instance a thionine stain using the Feulgen technique which yields a blue stain at cellular sites where there is DNA. The image of the cells is magnified in a light microscope and split into a pair of separated images. The separated images are enhanced by a pair of narrow bandpass optical filters. One of the narrow bandpass optical filters preferentially transmits light having a wavelength at the transmission region of the blue DNA stain thereby producing an optically enhanced oncogene protein product image which only has background and the red chromogen. The background of the oncogene protein product image is composed of the cell nuclei, cytoplasm and the like which have substantially zero optical density. The oncogene protein product sites have a relatively high optical density. Thus the only features which are easily perceivable are the oncogene protein product sites.
The other narrow bandpass optical filter preferentially transmits in the regions of spectral absorption for the blue stain. This filter produces an optically enhanced DNA image of all portions of the cells, with and without neu HER-2 protein product. The apparatus senses the enhanced oncogene protein product image with a first monochrome television camera. The enhanced DNA image is sensed by a second monochrome television camera. Analog signals representative of the images are fed to respective image processors. The image processors convert the analog signals to digitized arrays of pixels which are stored in internal frame buffers. When a tissue section is being examined the apparatus computes a summed optical density of the oncogene protein product image which has high optical density, yielding an area measure weighted by the average pixel optical density for the oncogene protein product in that image field.
In order to avoid the sectioning errors associated with the sectioning techniques used for frozen sections, the invention includes the steps of quantitating a standardized cell sample for DNA in order to determine the linear relationship between the summed optical density of pixels of each cell image in the cell image field having a value indicative of an optical density greater than a selected threshold value. This controls for error which might be introduced by staining variations. A touch preparation is made of cells from the frozen section of the tissue to be examined. This is done by touching the frozen tissue to the warmed slide also having the standardized cells for DNA calibration thereon. The touch preparation comprises a whole cell preparation. In order to obtain the amount of DNA per cell, it is necessary to segregate the pixels associated with each separated cell into separate categories. This is done by the system in conjunction with the human operator. The summed optical density of each of the cell image pixels for each of the sampled cells is also determined in order to determine the average amount of DNA in picograms per cell in the cell sample taken from the patient. This is done in order to remove error introduced by sectioning the tissue sample when the frozen section is made. Thus an average is obtained for the amount of DNA per cell in the cells of the tissue sample. With this information, the clinician then can proceed to the next step in the quantitation of the cytoplasm material, specifically the oncogene protein product. Thus while the whole cell preparation allows an accurate assay of the amount of nuclear material, it cannot be used to assay the cytoplasm. This is because the cytoplasm is relatively fragile and is not completely transferred to the warmed slide in the touch preparation procedure.
Next, a second slide is prepared with a standard cell line thereon having a known amount of DNA per cell and having a known amount of oncogene protein product in the cytoplasm of its cells and the frozen section from the tissue sample taken from the patient. Both samples on the second slide are stained with the thionine stain and the alkaline phosphatase staining system. The first sample is quantitated for both DNA and the oncogene protein product so that the system can create a pair of linear equations relating the optical densities of the pixels sensed by the two optical trains to the known amounts of DNA and oncogene protein product in the calibration sample on the second slide.
The frozen section cell sample containing what may be cancer cells is then examined using the apparatus. Since the cancer cells of the frozen section do not have well defined borders, it is impractical to allow the apparatus and or the human operator to assign areas of the image field uniquely associated with single cells. As a result, the optical densities of the pixels associated with the red chromogen as detected by the 500 nanometer optical train, and exceeding a second preselected threshold, are summed for the entire image field to provide a summed or total value for the amount of oncogene protein product in the cells in the image field. The total amount of DNA in the image field is also determined by summing the pixels of the image from the 620 nanometer optical train exceeding the first threshold to yield a total for the amount of DNA in the cells in the image field.
The amount of DNA in the image field is divided by the average value for the DNA in the whole cell sample previously determined by examination of the touch preparation thereby yielding the sum total of whole and fractional cells in the image field. The image field cell total for the image field is then stored. The total amount of oncogene protein product is then divided by the image field cell total to yield the amount of oncogene protein product per cell in the image field.
It is principal aspect of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for quantitating an amount of oncogene protein product for a tissue sample.
It is another aspect of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for determining an amount of an oncogene protein product in a frozen section of a tissue sample.
Other aspects and advantages of the present invention will become obvious as one peruses the specification and claims in light of the accompanying drawings.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 is an isometric view of an apparatus for determining an amount of an oncogene protein product embodying the present invention;
FIG. 2 is a block diagram of the apparatus of FIG. 1;
FIG. 3 is an elevational view of an optical conversion module of the apparatus of FIG. 1;
FIG. 4 is a magnified view of a stained cell sample as seen through the microscope of FIG. 1 without optical filtering;
FIG. 5 is a magnified view of the stained cell sample of FIG. 4 as seen through a 620 nanometer narrow band optical filter which yields a DNA or nuclear material image;
FIG. 6 is a magnified view of the stained cell sample of FIG. 4 as seen through a 500 nanometer narrow band optical filter which yields an oncogene protein product image;
FIG. 7 is a graph of the spectral response of a red chromogen, a thionine stain and the narrow band optical filters;
FIG. 8 is an elevational view of a microscope slide including a calibration zone;
FIG. 9 is an elevational view of a second microscope slide including a calibration zone;
FIG. 10 is a depiction of a display screen shown by the system displaying a histogram of the per cell cytoplasmic mass in optical density units, of a set of control cells;
FIG. 11 is a depiction of a display screen shown by the system displaying a histogram of the per cell DNA or nuclear mass of a set of control cells;
FIG. 12 is a depiction of a display screen shown by the system displaying a scattergram of the cytoplasmic mass versus the DNA or nuclear mass of the same cells; and
FIG. 13 is a depiction of a screen display shown by the system displaying the average number of picograms of oncogene protein product per cell from a frozen section from a patient.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT
Referring now to the drawings and especially to FIG. 1, an apparatus embodying the present invention and generally identified by numeral 10 is shown therein. The apparatus 10 comprises an optical microscope 12, which may be of any conventional type but in this embodiment is a Reichart Diastar or Microstar. An optical conversion module 14 is mounted on the microscope 12 to enhance optically a magnified image of a cell sample viewed with the microscope 12. The optical conversion module 14, as may best be seen in FIG. 3, has a cell nuclei or DNA sensing means comprising a cell nuclei image optical enhancement unit 16. The cell nuclei image optical enhancement unit 16 has a 620±20 nanometer red narrow bandpass optical transmission filter 18 and a television camera 20 for receiving a filtered image from the filter 18. An oncogene protein product sensing means comprising an oncogene protein product optical enhancement module 22 has a green 500±20 nanometer narrow bandpass optical transmission filter 24 and a television camera 26 and is also part of the optical conversion module 14. Each of the television cameras 20 and 26 generates a standard NTSC compatible signal representative, respectively, of an enhanced DNA or cell nuclear material image and an enhanced oncogene protein product image. An image processing system 28 is connected to the television cameras 20 and 26 to receive the enhanced DNA image signal and the enhanced oncogene protein product image signal and to store a DNA pixel array and an oncogene protein product pixel array therein. The image processor 28 is connected to a computer 32, in the present embodiment, an IBM personal computer model AT for processing of the DNA and oncogene protein product pixel arrays.
The computer 32 includes system bus 34, connected to the image processor unit 28. An 80286 microprocessor 36 is connected to the system bus 34. A random access memory 38 and a read only memory 40 are also connected to the system bus 34 for storage of information. A disk controller 42 is connected by a local bus 44 to a Winchester disk drive 46 and to a floppy disk drive 48 for secondary information storage. A video conversion board 50, in this embodiment an, EGA board having 256K bytes of memory, is connected to the system bus 34 to control an instruction monitor 52 connected to the EGA board 50. A keyboard processor 54 is connected to the system bus 34 to interpret signals from a keyboard 56 which is connected to the keyboard processor 54. A printer 58 is connected to the system bus 54 for communication therewith. An X Y or image field board 60 is connected to the system bus 34. The X Y board 60 also is connected to a slide holder of the microscope 12 to sense the relative position of a slide 62 with respect to a microscope objective 64 and thus identify a field being viewed. Included are a Y position sensor 66 and an X position sensor 68. The Y position sensor 66 is connected via a communication path 70 to the X Y board 60. The X position sensor 68 is connected via a communication path 72 to the X Y board 60. The microscope 12 also includes an eyepiece 76 in optical alignment with the objective 64 for magnification of light forming an image of a cell sample on the slide 62.
The method of the instant invention is practiced by collecting a cell sample, which may be in the form of a tissue section made from a frozen section or a paraffinized section and having both cell nuclei, cell fragments and whole cells therein. The cells of the cell sample are placed on the slide 62 and fixed thereon. A rabbit monoclonal antibody for a protein product of the neu HER-2 proto-oncogene to be detected in the cells is then placed in contact with them. The monoclonal antibody selectively binds to all points on and within the cells where the neu HER-2 protein product is present. The monoclonal antibody also has bound thereto a bridging anti-rabbit mouse antibody and an alkaline phosphatase complex. The alkaline phosphates complex comprises an anti-mouse antibody which also specifically binds to the alkaline phosphatase enzyme. The alkaline phosphatase enzyme is bound to the antibody and held through the chain of antibodies to the neu HER-2 protein product in the cells.
In order to view and measure the oncogene protein product sites, a quantity of a mixture containing Napthol ASTR and Fast Red KL chromogen is applied to the cell sample on the slide. The Napthol ASTR and the Fast Red KL react to form a red azo chromogen. The usual rate of reaction however is relatively low. The alkaline phosphatase catalyzes the chromogen-forming reaction only at the points where the alkaline phosphatase is localized. Thus, red chromogen is found only at the points in the cells where protein product of the neu HER-2 oncogene is present and the cells are preferentially stained only at the points where they have the oncogene protein product. After a period, any remaining unreacted Napthol ASTR and Fast Red KL chromogen are removed from the cell sample. The cells are then stained with a thionine stain using the Feulgen technique which leaves a blue stain preferentially bound with the DNA in the cell nuclei. Thus, the DNA is stained blue and the points within the cells having oncogene protein product are stained red.
The microscope slide 62 is then placed on a carrying stage of the microscope 12 and the objective 64 is focused thereon. Light from the objective 64 travels through the eyepiece 12 where it may be viewed by an observer. In addition, the optical converter module 14 includes a beam-splitting mirror 80 which carries off approximately 90% of the light to other portions of the converter. The light is fed to a dual prism dichroic mirror 82 which reflects a portion of the light to the red filter 18. The remaining portion of the light is filtered by the dichroic mirror 82 and fed to the green filter 24. The dichroic mirror 82 selectively passes light having wavelengths greater than 500 nanometers to the filter 18 and having a wavelength of less than 500 nanometers to the filter 24. Thus, the dichroic mirror 82 acts as a first color filter before the light reaches the color filters 18 and 24.
When the light passes through the filter 18, the filter 18 preferentially blocks light from the blue stained DNA and provides a high contrast cell nuclei image to the camera 20. The optical characteristics of the blue stain and the red chromogen, as well as the optical filters 18 and 24 are shown in the graph of FIG. 7. The camera 20 then generates an NTSC DNA image signal which is fed to the image processor module 28. The image processor module 28 has an image processor 90 and an image processor 92. Each of the image processors 90 and 92 is a model AT428 from the Datacube Corporation. Similarly, the green filter 24 provides a high contrast oncogene protein product image to the camera 26. The camera 26 then feeds the oncogene protein product image signal to the image processor 92. Both of the image processors 90 and 92 contain analog to digital converters for converting the analog NTSC signals to digitized arrays of pixels which are then stored within internal frame buffers. The internal frame buffers may be accessed via the system bus 34 under the control of the microprocessor 36.
The image of the cell sample viewed through the eyepiece 12 is of the type shown in FIG. 4 having red cytoplasm 99 and a blue cell nucleus 100, red cytoplasm 101 and a blue cell nucleus 102, and red cytoplasm 103 and a blue cell nucleus 104. As may best be seen in FIG. 5, the cells are shown therein as they would appear through the red filter 18, which causes all of the blue stained DNA to darken and appear prominently. As may best be seen in FIG. 6, the oncogene protein product image of the cell nuclei of FIG. 4 is shown therein with the DNA of the cell nuclei 100, 102 and 104 being rendered substantially transparent or invisible by the effect of the 500 nanometer filter 24. The 500 nanometer filter 24 transmits at an optical absorbing region of the red stain and at an optical transmission region of the blue stain. The 620 nanometer filter transmits at an optical absorbing region of the blue stain and at an optical transmission region of the red stain. The cytoplasm 99, 101 and 103 having the red chromogen deposited therein, which is an indicator for the protein product of the oncogene, appears clearly in high contrast.
The image of FIG. 5 is stored in the internal frame buffer of the image processor 90. The image of FIG. 6 is formed and stored in the internal frame buffer of the image processor 92. It may be appreciated that the pixel values for the images may be sliced using standard image processing techniques to increase the contrast between the stained areas and the backgrounds. That is, the areas of high optical density in FIG. 6 the cytoplasm 99, 101 and 103 are shown as being very dense and stored as high optical density pixels, while the background areas 110 may be stored as substantially zero optical density pixels in order to provide a clear threshold or difference between the two areas.
Although the general of processing the images of the stained is disclosed above a more detailed of the invention follows. As may best be seen in FIG. 8,a first slide 148 includes a DNA or nuclear material calibration zone 150 and a whole cell preparation measurement zone 152. In the calibration zone 150 is a cell population having a known quantity of DNA, usually 7.18 picograms per cell nucleus in each of the cells. A whole cell preparation is positioned in the whole cell measurement zone 152 and is prepared by making a touch preparation from a frozen section taken from a human breast cancer tumor. The touch preparation is made simply by touching a warm slide to the frozen tumor tissue and allowing the cells from the frozen tumor tissue to cling to the warm slide. It may be appreciated that all of the DNA or nuclear material, including the entire cell nucleus, from the transferred cells clings to the whole cell preparation zone 152 and is thus pulled intact from the frozen tissue sample, although the associated cytoplasm may be damaged in the transfer. The standard cells in the calibration zone 150 and the cells of the whole cell preparation zone 152 are then stained with a the thionine stain using the Feulgen technique in order to optically enhance the DNA. The system then reads the slide 148 by having it placed on the microscope stage where the image is fed through both of the optical trains 16 and 22. The image received by the camera 20 consists of a darkened area where the DNA has been stained blue by the thionine stain and a substantially clear area outside it. The image is digitized and the resulting pixels are stored. The stored pixels are segregated into separate cell images. The pixel values exceeding the threshold are summed to give summed values of optical density for each of the cells in the calibration zone 150. A similar summing technique is employed for the cells of the whole preparation zone 152. The values are stored and may be displayed in histograms by the system, as shown in FIG. 11. The values also are averaged respectively, for the calibration cells and the whole cell preparation cells. Those averages are used to compute the average value of DNA mass per cell for the cells taken from the biopsied tissue and stained in the whole cell preparation zone 152. The average value of DNA mass per cell is used for later normalization of cytoplasm measurements from frozen sections. Since it is known that the summed optical density from the field from the calibration side is equivalent to a concentration of 7.18 picograms a linear equation can be developed relating the optical density of the image to the amount of DNA present in the imaged cells. Thus, the optical density of the summed pixels is measured on the right hand side of the slide 150 summed and sum value is inserted into the equation to compute the average quantity of DNA per cell in the frozen tissue section. If the cells are diploid cells, typically the average quantity will be 7.18 picograms. If the cells are tetraploid, which is often common with cancers, the cells will each typically have 14.36 picograms of DNA per cell nucleus.
Once the average amount of DNA per cell nucleus for a number of fields in the calibration slide have thus been determined, a second calibration slide 160 for calibrating the amount of oncogene protein product is then prepared. The second calibration slide 160 includes a calibration portion 162 having a plurality of cells taken from a standard cell line having a known amount of DNA per cell and a known amount of oncogene protein product per cell. An examination zone 164 on the slide 160 has frozen section of the tissue taken from a human patient who is to be evaluated. The standard cells in zone 162 and the sectioned cells in zone 164 are then contacted with an oncogene protein product rabbit antibody which attaches to the protein products of the neu HER-2 oncogenes present in the cells. A bridging mouse anti-rabbit antibody is conjugated with the rabbit antibody. An alkaline phosphatase antibody and alkaline phosphatase are conjugated to the mouse anti-rabbit antibody. Napthol ASTR and Fast Red KL are then placed on the slide and a red azo chromogen is formed at each of the locations where alkaline phosphatase is present. Thus, the cells in both zones are stained red in the areas in which oncogene protein product is present. The cells also are stained with the thionine stain using the Feulgen technique. This allows the areas having DNA to be identified and measured. The amounts of DNA and oncogene protein product are determined in the same manner as the DNA was quantitated. The system thus has stored therein the average amount of DNA and oncogene protein product per cell for the cells in the calibration zone 162. This allows staining variations to be calibrated out. The distributions of the per cell DNA and oncogene protein product amounts may be output to the user in the form of display information as may best be seen in FIGS. 10, 11 and 12.
Finally, the stained frozen tissue section is examined under the optical microscope. The cell images are fed through the 500 nanometer and 620 nanometer optical trains where respectively, summed optical densities, for the entire image field, of the DNA identified by the thionine stain and the neu HER-2 protein product identified by the red stain are computed. The total number of cells present in the image field under examination is computed by dividing the summed DNA mass by the average amount of DNA per cell, as derived from the measurements made on the whole cell preparation. The summed amount of oncogene protein product is then divided by the number of cells under examination to yield the amount of oncogene protein product per cell, which is output on the display, as may best be seen in FIG. 13. It is this value which will allow the clinician to formulate an appropriate course of action for the patient. Although the invention disclosed herein employs particular materials, it may be appreciated that various other materials may be used. in its practice.
While there has been illustrated and described a particular embodiment of the present invention, it will be appreciated that numerous changes and modifications will occur to those skilled in the art, and it is intended in the appended claims to cover all of those changes and modifications which fall within the true spirit and scope of the present invention. | An apparatus and method for determining an amount of oncogene protein product copies in a cell includes an optical conversion module for measuring an amount of optically enhanced DNA in a cell sample. A subsystem for measuring an amount of an optically enhanced oncogene protein product protein product is coupled to the DNA measuring means. A subsystem for comparing the measured DNA amount and measured oncogene protein product protein product amount produces a oncogene protein product copy measurement which is fed to an output device for producing an output indicative of the amounts of the oncogene protein product in the cells of the cell sample. | 8 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.