Designing A much less lethal gas Can

previously 15 years, fuel cans had been responsible for just about a dozen deaths and 1,200 accidents. A small spark or flame shoots up the nozzle, and boom. recreation over. the newest concept from Somerville, Massachusetts-primarily based product design and consulting agency, the gasoline cube, targets to evolve the gasoline can into one thing prettier, more purposeful, and rather a lot much less bad.

The popular gasoline can hasn’t changed a lot for the reason that Thirties. Developed in Germany for defense force use, then tailored into the acquainted crimson plastic container that we all know these days, the one real design modifications were in response to govt laws: as an example, to make the caps on all gasoline cans child-proof as part of the children’s gasoline Burn Prevention Act in 2008. however that is not to say that the design is timeless. actually, it desperately wants an replace, argues Altitude’s Alex Tee.

In Tee’s fuel cube thought, the chances of the container exploding are dramatically diminished by using the addition of a flame arrestor within the nozzle. This small piece of mesh monitor filters out flames and sparks just like the mesh in front of a hearth. Flame arrestors are not unheard of in gas cans; many already come with them.

in addition to a flame arrestor, the cap of Tee’s gasoline cube has a seal that’s changed once a year to care for the dice’s air tightness, fighting dangerous hydrocarbons from leaking out. This seal additionally says how previous the gasoline inside of is—older gasoline is less environment friendly than new gasoline, and may also be unhealthy to your engines—and what sort it is, so you don’t put diesel in, say, your car by using mistake.

Like other ideas Altitude has launched (for instance, this robotic bottle caps for home mixologists), the gas dice thought is meant to spark a dialog about how design can restoration products that we don’t even really think of as being broken. there’s no motive the gas cube couldn’t turn out to be a reality. Tee estimates that the gas dice’s design adjustments would only cost a few dollars more than current fuel can designs.