Surgical cassette with compliant clamping zone
First Claim
1. A surgical cassette configured to interface with a clamp of a surgical receiver of a surgical system comprising:
- a body portion comprising an outer wall on a first side of the surgical cassette; and
a clamping portion projecting from the outer wall of the body portion and configured to contact clamp during use, the clamping portion comprising;
an end wall forming an exterior surface of the surgical cassette; and
a set of ribs transversely disposed between the outer wall of the body portion and the end wall of the clamping portion, the set of ribs configured to distribute a load asserted by the clamp on the surgical cassette and to deform elastically and/or plastically to conform to a load profile corresponding to the load asserted by the clamp on the surgical cassette.
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Accused Products
Abstract
Embodiments of the present invention provide a surgical cassette with compliant clamping zones to provide more uniform loading. According to one embodiment of the present invention, a surgical cassette includes a clamping portion that is configured to deform to conform to non-uniform load profile applied to the cassette. The clamping portion can include ribs that are sized and made of a suitable material such that the ribs will deflect predictably in the elastic region and flow plastically when the material yield point is exceeded. The use of ribs creates discrete small load areas that will deflect and distort predictably and non-catastrophically at high loads. This allows for the absorption of accumulated tolerances between the clamping mechanism and cassette (e.g., the non-parallelism between the clamping mechanism and cassette) while still providing a distributed load on the cassette.
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Citations
15 Claims
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1. A surgical cassette configured to interface with a clamp of a surgical receiver of a surgical system comprising:
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a body portion comprising an outer wall on a first side of the surgical cassette; and a clamping portion projecting from the outer wall of the body portion and configured to contact clamp during use, the clamping portion comprising; an end wall forming an exterior surface of the surgical cassette; and a set of ribs transversely disposed between the outer wall of the body portion and the end wall of the clamping portion, the set of ribs configured to distribute a load asserted by the clamp on the surgical cassette and to deform elastically and/or plastically to conform to a load profile corresponding to the load asserted by the clamp on the surgical cassette. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
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Specification