Device for indicating the residual life of industrial products

• US 20040181363A1
• Filed: 03/11/2004
• Published: 09/16/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 03/12/2003
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Thermochron S.R.L.
• Original Assignee: Thermochron S.R.L.
• Inventors: Marbot, Isabelle M.J.
• Application Number:
  US10/797,005
• Publication Number:
  US 20040181363A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 702/181
• CPC Class Codes: G01K 3/04 in respect of time
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 33/02 Food
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 33/15 Medicinal preparations ; Physical properties thereof, e.g. dissolubility drug screening with animal cells G01N33/5008

Abstract

Device for indicating the residual life of industrial products, comprising means for sensing one or more environmental variables correlated with the preservation of the product, positioned on the interface between the product and the environment; processing means for acquiring the data read by the sensor means, entering these data into a suitable program for evaluating the residual life of the product on the basis of these data, and returning the data relating to the residual life of the said product; and means of displaying the data concerning the residual life of the product, controlled by the said processing unit.

Claims

1. Device for indicating the residual life of industrial products, comprising means for sensing one or more environmental variables correlated with the preservation of the product, positioned on the interface between the product and the environment;

processing means for acquiring the data read by the sensor means, entering these data into a suitable program for evaluating the residual life of the product on the basis of these data, and returning the data relating to the residual life of the said product; and

means of displaying the data concerning the residual life of the product, controlled by the said processing unit.

2. Device according to claim 1, characterized in that the said device comprises connection means for entering data into the said processing means.

3. Device according to claim 2, in which the said display means comprise a plurality of optical indicators.

4. Device according to claim 3, in which the said display means comprise three light-emitting diodes having three different emission colours.

5. Device according to claim 4, in which the said device comprises switch means for starting the procedure for controlling the said optical indicators.

6. Method for evaluating the residual life of a product, comprising the following steps:

entering the characteristic parameters of a single type of product into a set of generic functions which represent the decay of the properties of a product as a function of time, a constant value of at least one environmental variable being assigned to each function;

measuring, instant by instant, the values relating to the said environmental variable;

entering data relating to the said values into the set of functions;

determining the preservation history of the product and its residual life on the basis of the entered data; and

displaying the residual life data determined in this way.

7. Method according to claim 6, in which the said characteristic parameters comprise the maximum life of the product in optimal preservation conditions and the law of the variation of its properties as a function of the variation of the said environmental variable.

8. Computer program, directly loadable into the internal store of an electronic computer, comprising the appropriate software code for executing the steps of the method according to claim 6, when the said program is started in a computer.