Patent Application
20140328146
A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to copyright protection. The Applicant has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever. Further, no references to third party patents or articles made herein are to be construed as an admission that the present invention is not entitled to antedate such material by virtue of prior invention.
This invention relates to bellows for storing and dispensing fluids in a controlled manner. In particular, the invention related to bellows for storing and dispensing fluids in a capillary tube indicator.
What is needed is a method of interfacing with a large actuator while dispensing with a small amount of fluid, in order to prevent thermal expansion or contraction of the fluid from significantly impacting the accuracy of the system.
A bellows is provided for fluid storage and displacement used in precise fluid indication in a capillary tube. The bellows defines a housing made of flexible, watertight material. The housing is made up of an upper portion, a lower portion, and an outer accordion formed portion. The accordion formed portion has a length l and is sealingly connected along a periphery between the upper and lower portions. At least one entry/exit port is formed on at least one of the portions thereof. At least one of the upper and lower portions extends from a periphery of the accordion formed portion substantially within the housing so as to reduce the storage volume within the bellows.
An object of the invention is to provide a large interface to an actuation device while containing and precisely controlling a small volume of fluid in order to minimize the impact of thermal expansion or contraction of the fluid.
Another object of the invention is to control a small volume of fluid which enters a preferably transparent capillary tube.
Those skilled in the art will appreciate that elements in the Figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, dimensions may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help improve understanding of the invention and its embodiments. Furthermore, when the terms ‘first’, ‘second’, and the like are used herein, their use is intended for distinguishing between similar elements and not necessarily for describing a sequential or chronological order. Moreover, relative terms like ‘front’, ‘back’, ‘top’ and ‘bottom’, and the like in the Description and/or in the claims are not necessarily used for describing exclusive relative position. Those skilled in the art will therefore understand that such terms may be interchangeable with other terms, and that the embodiments described herein are capable of operating in other orientations than those explicitly illustrated or otherwise described.
The following description is not intended to limit the scope of the invention in any way as they are exemplary in nature, serving to describe the best mode of the invention known the inventors as of the filing date hereof. Consequently, changes may be made in the arrangement and/or function of any of the elements described in the exemplary embodiments disclosed herein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.
Referring now to
In one embodiment, the bellows 10 is made at least in part, of plastic.
In another embodiment, the bellows 10 is made, at least in part, of a metal such as brass.
In another embodiment, the bellows 10 is made, at least in part, of copper.
In another embodiment, the bellows 10 is made, at least in part, of beryllium copper.
In another embodiment, the bellows 10 is made, at least in part, of a shape memory alloy.
In another embodiment, the bellows 10 is made, at least in part, of aluminium.
The bellows 10 may optionally be coated, at least in part, with a brilliant coating such as gold or titanium nitride. Alternative, the bellows is electrocoated, at least in part, with a titanium nitride coating or a copper coating. Any portion of the bellows made of aluminium may be oxide coated in a variety of colors.
Referring now to
In this figure, it can be seen that the piston shaft 50 is large compared to the displacement distance delta L required to fully actuate the bellows 10 (from position A to position Z). Further, given the thickness t (shown in
It should be appreciated that the particular implementations shown and herein described are representative of the invention and its best mode and are not intended to limit the scope of the present invention in any way.
It should be appreciated that many applications of the present invention may be formulated.
As will be appreciated by skilled artisans, the present invention may be embodied as a system, a device, or a method.
Moreover, the system contemplates the use, sale and/or distribution of any goods, services or information having similar functionality described herein.
The specification and figures should be considered in an illustrative manner, rather than a restrictive one and all modifications described herein are intended to be included within the scope of the invention claimed. Accordingly, the scope of the invention should be determined by the appended claims (as they currently exist or as later amended or added, and their legal equivalents) rather than by merely the examples described above. Steps recited in any method or process claims, unless otherwise expressly stated, may be executed in any order and are not limited to the specific order presented in any claim. Further, the elements and/or components recited in apparatus claims may be assembled or otherwise functionally configured in a variety of permutations to produce substantially the same result as the present invention. Consequently, the invention should not be interpreted as being limited to the specific configuration recited in the claims.
Benefits, other advantages and solutions mentioned herein are not to be construed as critical, required or essential features or components of any or all the claims.
As used herein, the terms “comprises”, “comprising”, or variations thereof, are intended to refer to a non-exclusive listing of elements, such that any apparatus, process, method, article, or composition of the invention that comprises a list of elements, that does not include only those elements recited, but may also include other elements described in the instant specification. Unless otherwise explicitly stated, the use of the term “consisting” or “consisting of” or “consisting essentially of” is not intended to limit the scope of the invention to the enumerated elements named thereafter. Other combinations and/or modifications of the above-described elements, materials or structures used in the practice of the present invention may be varied or adapted by the skilled artisan to other designs without departing from the general principles of the invention.
The patents and articles mentioned above are hereby incorporated by reference herein, unless otherwise noted, to the extent that the same are not inconsistent with this disclosure.
Other characteristics and modes of execution of the invention are described in the appended claims.
Further, the invention should be considered as comprising all possible combinations of every feature described in the instant specification, appended claims, and/or drawing figures which may be considered new, inventive and industrially applicable.
Copyright may be owned by the Applicant(s) or their assignee and, with respect to express Licensees to third parties of the rights defined in one or more claims herein, no implied license is granted herein to use the invention as defined in the remaining claims. Further, vis-à-vis the public or third parties, no express or implied license is granted to prepare derivative works based on this patent specification.
Multiple variations and modifications are possible in the embodiments of the invention described here. Although certain illustrative embodiments of the invention have been shown and described here, a wide range of changes, modifications, and substitutions is contemplated in the foregoing disclosure. While the above description contains many specific details, these should not be construed as limitations on the scope of the invention, but rather exemplify one or another preferred embodiment thereof. In some instances, some features of the present invention may be employed without a corresponding use of the other features. Accordingly, it is appropriate that the foregoing description be construed broadly and understood as being illustrative only, the spirit and scope of the invention being limited only by the claims which ultimately issue in this application.
This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/568,197, filed Dec. 8, 2011, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference thereto.
| Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PCT/IB2012/002641 | 12/10/2012 | WO | 00 | 6/5/2014 |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 61568197 | Dec 2011 | US |
