Engineering Design

The transportation of fragile and easily breakable products has been a great challenge to firms and business organizations. Getting fragile and easily breakable goods to their destination either for sale or delivery to the customer’s premises has been faced with a lot of challenges. Many factors are involved in coming up with the best system of transportation, because the producer must take on a process that keeps the cost at a minimum in order to realize maximum benefits. Eggs present a very big challenge during transportation. Therefore, any transportation system must be a safe process and procedure that is economically feasible as well. This document gives details of a simple design of an Energy Absorbing Egg Carrier.

Energy Absorbing Egg Carrier            

General Information

An ‘Energy Absorbing Egg Carrier’ in this context is a special container to be used in the transportation of eggs in a more safe way. The design comprises of the various parts that are aligned in a strategic form to absorb the impact force. It includes egg compartments rigidly fixed together on the top of one another. Each compartment is linked to the other with the use of extensible steel spring yielding attenuators. The extensible steel yielding attenuators are the most important components of this carrier system. They are basically used to absorb any energy released due to impact in the process of transportation. The container should be used as the rear section of a motor vehicle. The carrier is a special design that can be used to carry a voluminous quantity of eggs in a very safe enclosure. It saves on space and reduces the loss by preventing the number of possible breakages.

Construction and Design

The container is a large metal enclosure specifically meant for egg transportation process. Each egg compartment is mainly constructed of wooded racks with a metal casing all round a stack of compartments. The interior side of each compartment is covered with soft wood/paper lining with specially designed egg-shaped spaces. The metal casing is welded on an extensible steel spring yielding attenuator on one end while the other end of the spring is welded on the container roof, top of an egg compartment, bottom of an egg compartment, side of an egg compartment, container side or the floor of the container, whichever is applicable.

The energy absorbing egg carrier offers a number of packing and storing advantages of the eggs. For one, the storage and transport facility maximizes the packaging space. This motivates government regulations, retailer pressure, consumer pressure and the cost of control. It often saves the costs for packaging. Any losses due to packaging and transportation are largely reduced.

Due to the inherent risk of breakage, this energy absorbing egg carrier makes use of soft linings and extensible steel spring attenuators to contain this risk. The egg compartment egg-lining acts as sponges which are used as a buffer between the egg and the container. This helps greatly in reducing damages to the eggs which could otherwise occur during the process of transportation. The extensible steel spring attenuators which are mounted on the compartments are used as shock absorbers in the event where the track passes through a ragged terrain hence absorbing the energy from the impact. The impact energy is transferred and transmitted through the springs rather than directly to the eggs which might cause damages. Moreover, the packing materials are designed in such way that the eggs are placed on an edge.  The idea behind creation is due to the fact that the airspace inside the egg helps to regulate the pressure which is exerted on the shell hence making it rigid.

Role Played by the Energy Absorbing Egg Carrier

Nature has provided the egg with a natural shell package. Regardless of the relative strength of the shell, the egg is still a fragile good and even with the best methods of handling it, serious losses can be realized in the event that the shell is damaged. Economical marketing normally calls for the protection of eggs through the adoption of a specialized handling and packaging procedure (FSIS, 2002). The “Energy Absorbing Egg Carrier” serves this purpose. It is a simple design that takes in account all these factors. This kind of design provides an important component of delivering the high quality eggs to their destination. The carrier embraces both the science and art of preparing goods for storage, transport and ultimately sale.

This design offers a packaging for eggs that comes with a number of protection measures from micro-organisms like bacteria, natural predators, tainting, moisture loss, deterioration temperatures and probable crushing in the process of handling, storage or transportation. This is an appropriate storage and handling facility that helps to control the loss of moisture. Essentially, the design works in a great way to prevent the moisture loss. It allows eggs to breathe by making it possible for the entrance of oxygen. The inner soft lining is made of wood/paper that is easy to clean and free it from bad odor and thus prevents possible contamination and any form of tainting. The materials used in the packaging and transport of eggs in this design can be used over and over again. Possible damage, cleanliness and odors are given the possibility of being mastered and thus, this facility stands out as a very useful design in delivering high quality eggs. Avoiding egg breakage is not the only main goal and objective of this design but all other risks are addressed as well. Of great significance is the ability of the packaging to withstand storage, transportation and handling ways of the most diverse type and to protect the goods against temperatures that are most likely to cause humidity and deterioration. Lastly, consumers are most interested in seeing the thing that they are buying, particularly if it is about the fresh produce.  Generally, the design maintains quality of the eggs and prevents any possible loss that would otherwise arise from transportation through breakages.