Flexible Fluid Coupling System

Given Situation

In this case, the client had designed an excellent upper rack but needed a hydraulically efficient and reliable fluid delivery system for their upper spray arms. Expertise and experience in fluid mechanics, dynamics, materials and dishwasher performance was needed and needed quickly in order to engineer a system which would work reliably, efficiently and keep the project on schedule.

Supplying pressurized wash water to a dishwasher's upper spray arm is one of the many complex hydraulic problems which must be overcome in order to have an efficient, high performance machine.

The best performing dishwasher designs commonly mount a rotating spray arm to the underside of the machine's upper rack. Water must be supplied to this upper spray arm with a minimal amount of leakage or head loss since such losses will adversely affect wash performance. This is a difficult task considering that the supply system must consume a minimal amount of the space and be able to automatically detach and reattached itself from the upper spray arm so that the customer can easily pull the upper rack out of the machine.

The upper spray arm water supply system must also be able to compensate for very large tolerance build-ups and be able to compensate for all the possible vertical and angular positions of the upper rack.

Solution

Dries Engineering formulated several approaches to solve the problem. Each approach was carefully tested for hydraulic efficiency, ease of manufacture, reliability and maximum space inside of the machine for dishes.

The result is a patent pending design which works perfectly with the machine's hydraulics, can adapt to any position of the upper rack, consumes minimal dish-space in the lower rack and is simple and reliable.