Pinpointing weaknesses in hot water bottle design

Analysis from the College of Liverpool has highlighted weaknesses in the structural design of hot water bottles. Hot water bottles have been round for generations, but there’s surprisingly little analysis into how they reply to exterior forces. Nevertheless, elevated stories of sudden ruptures inflicting burns prompted a analysis group from the College’s College of Engineering to take a more in-depth look.

Within the first examine of its sort, the researchers analyzed hot water bottle failures utilizing a mixture of real-world compression exams and laptop simulations.

Their examine, printed in Utilized Sciences, reveals structural weaknesses that might result in surprising bursts and leaks, with the neck and edges being particularly vulnerable to failure.

Most hot water bottles are made utilizing vulcanized rubber attributable to its flexibility, sturdiness, and resistance to increased fluid temperatures.

Researchers experimentally examined equivalent brand-new rubber bottles produced by the identical producer and crammed to two-thirds of their capability.

Within the Supplies Laboratory on the College of Engineering, the bottles have been examined to guage how effectively they maintained their structural integrity when subjected to regularly growing exterior load.

The group then simulated the forces appearing on the hot water bottles beneath stress utilizing superior finite-element modeling.

As well as, tensile take a look at strips have been minimize from the central space of a hot water bottle and examined to measure their mechanical properties, together with elasticity, power, and resistance to stretching. This helped decide how materials properties contributed to bottle failures beneath stress.

The exact simulation work confirmed that stress ranges peaked in the neck space, supporting what was noticed in the lab. The seam and cap space skilled essentially the most pressure, growing the chance of sudden failure.

This simulation reveals the weak areas of the present hot water bottle design are the neck and the sides, which was confirmed by experimental testing.

Dr. Ahmed Abass, lecturer in Biomedical Engineering on the College of Liverpool, stated, “For hot water bottle customers, the message from our examine is evident: keep away from placing extreme weight on a crammed hot water bottle, particularly whereas sleeping, as compression considerably raises the chance of rupture, which might result in critical burns.

“For producers, the analysis highlights the necessity to rethink bottle geometry design. Reinforcing the neck and seam areas might enhance sturdiness and make these bottles safer for shoppers.

“Whereas this examine considerably enhances our understanding of hot water bottle mechanics, it additionally reveals that even the best on a regular basis merchandise want cautious engineering to stop harm.”

The analysis group was led by Dr. Abass and concerned Grasp’s and Ph.D. college students from the College of Engineering on the College of Liverpool.