Advances in Engineering Research, volume 128

7th International Conference on Manufacturing Science and Engineering (ICMSE 2017)

Design of New Thermal Lunchbox Based on Humanization Design

Lü Xinxin1, a, Luo Jia2, b
1
School of Fine Arts, Guangdong Polytechnic Normal University, Guangzhou, China
2
School of Fine Arts, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China
a
email: 183472955@qq.com, bemail: 172968380@qq.com

Key words: Humanization, Lunch box, Thermal insulation, Circuit

Abstract. Many office workers choose to bring their own handy for lunch, but the heat preservation
of meal is constrained by the external location and the attributes of the lunchbox. This product is
with humanized design as the breakthrough point, combined with the characteristics of the
physiological, psychological and behavioral aspects of office worker, to the innovative design of
thermal lunchbox, to adapt to the fast-paced life and better meet the demand of health.

Introduction
The rapid development of science and technology bring much convenience to our life, but due to a
lot of reality problems at the same time. The product design of modern life needs to reflect
‘human-oriented’, making the humanistic concept throughout the product design to make the
product that the users really want and to reflect the designer's rational care. As prices rise, the cost
of living in big cities increases obviously and fast food outside causes many health and safety
problems, more and more office workers prefer to bring their own lunch box. In this paper to make
the innovative design of the insulation lunch box to meet the psychological and physiological office
worker needs with the humanization design.

Humanized Design of Thermal Lunchbox

Products of humanized design. Humanized design is based on the rationalization and functionality
of the product , which is the Unity of humanity and materialization.
Humanized design mainly reflects in the people's psychological and physiological needs. The
product humanized design reflects ‘people-oriented’ by making the analysis of the user's
psychological and physiological needs and using ergonomics to meet the multifaceted needs to
make the design combined with people, which better meet the user's demand and improve the
comfort and convenience of product.
The using characteristic analysis of thermal lunchbox. Many office workers who bring their
own lunchbox use microwave lunch box, thermal lunchbox and electric heating container mostly.
According to the survey, for most workers, health and safety, saving money, saving time and quality
are the major considerations of they having meals. Enjoying healthy and delicious meals in a brief
meal time makes them cheerful and improve their working efficiency. Lunch box portability, the
food heat preservation effect and palate comfort become user's standard of choosing thermal
lunchbox.
There are three kinds of common thermal lunchbox: 1) the common thermal lunchbox. Adding
insulation shell outside ordinary lunch box, between inside and outside two layer filling plastic
foam, then to metal plating layer membranes, the hot dish inside insulation effect, which is limited
in holding time, if heating it needs to aid of other heating equipment. 2) Electric lunch box. Food
inside the lunch box directly by heating the body heat, the temperature uncontrollable,it can only
achieve heating and heat preservation.the continuous heating is easy to cause the food moisture loss,

Copyright © 2017, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). 297
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even seriously making food burnt, heating food with the consumption of energy, which cannot meet
the demand of the outdoor workers. 3) Cooking lunch box. By heating the body heat water for
cooking food box base will produce large amounts of water vapor in the heating process, lunch box
isn’t convenient to carry out due to its larger volume, due to using with electricity, which isn’t
suitable for outdoor workers. For electric lunch box and cooking lunch box, If you cannot control
heating time with a correct designated position, then there is a certain security hidden danger and
the high heating preservation makes the people not to eat right away.
Aiming at the shortcomings of the existing technology to design a new type of water heater
temperature control thermal lunchbox. Water heater heating mode of the structure of flexible, able
to adapt to the use environment of indoor and outdoor, achieve accurate temperature control of
heating, simple structure, convenient operation and strong practicability, which can satisfy the
function of bringing their own lunch box and psychological physical need, embodies the
humanization of product design requirements.

A New Type of Thermal Lunchbox Design

This new type of thermal lunchbox has the characteristics of simple structure and the strong
practicability. Simple operation by users can realize in two ways to heat the food and can control the
temperature effectively. The whole appearance of the structure just as shown in Fig.1.

Fig.1 The whole appearance of the structure

Heating function design of the lunchbox. Water heater temperature control thermal lunchbox
designed two kinds of heating mode, the first is that open the shell at the top of the rubber plug, by
in and out of the gate pour hot water in the tank, to realize the tank on the heating of food.
Otherwise, on the basis of the first way, Insert the power cord into the power interface and connect
the power supply, integrated circuit to control the current of the opening and closing, water
temperature sensor can detect temperature of the water in the tank, when the temperature is lower
than a certain degree, the integrated circuit to control the electric heating wire, converts electrical
energy into heat energy, water heating, when the water temperature sensor to the water in the tank
when the temperature higher than 70°C, integrated circuit power automatically, open the power
supply automatically when the water temperature is less than 50°C to continue heating, to ensure
that products continue to intermittent heating food to preheat and heat preservation effect, easy to
use.
Due to the heating temperature is not high, so will not produce a lot of water vapor during the
work, to avoid the expansion of the gas inside the box. Moderate temperature can be set in the
heating process in place to ensure that users can have a meal at any time. Joining in hot water can
also be to simple heating food without plug into sinks, which meets the needs of outdoor workers to

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heat the food. Integrated circuit and temperature sensor is small, the size of the carton size does not
need to be restricted by the parts, so lunch box size conform to the requirements of the portable,
comply with the requirements for an office worker's choice of thermal lunchbox.
The structure design. Based on the above function purpose, to make structural design for the
inlet type heating temperature control lunchbox, the spatial structure and cutaway structure as
shown in Fig.2 and Fig.3 :
1. Circuit. 2. Power interface. 3.Power cord, the active connection of power cord and power
interface. 4.The depression trough, on the power line connector in order to being conductive to put
the power cord from the power outlet. 5.Rubber plug, above the outlet water ,being conducive to
water heating and easy to use. 7.Shell cover, the silica structure which clamps to other shell,being
conductive to heat preservation and hermetic seal. The shell cover sets the tableware clamping
equipment to fixed the tableware,which is convenient for the consume to use. 8.Outer shell. 9.Liner
tank, the PP material, it can make the flexible adjustment according to user's needs, which is
besieged to be two or four grip. 10.Spoon, a fork or spoon. 11.Tableware clamping device, for being
fixed. 12.The water temperature sensing equipment. 13.Heating wire. 14.Mat, to make the function
of buffer and protection, also being conducive to smooth placed boxes. 15.The water tank .

Fig.2 The three-dimensional structure diagram Fig.3 Section structure diagram

The shell box is consist of two shells, the water tank and equipment is connected with inlet and
outlet of the shell. The shell is provided with a power interface, the interface is provided with
heating wire and water temperature induction system which is used to induce to water temperature
in the tank . The IC is connected with the water temperature induction systems to make the water
temperature remain within the set temperature range, its schematic diagram of the control module is
shown in Fig.4, the major components include integrated chip, input circuit, converting circuit,
driven circuit, temperature sensor and memorizer and so on. The heating wire is placed in the water
tank to heat the water in the sink .

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Fig.4 Structure of Control module

Conclusions
The inlet type heating temperature control lunchbox adapt to the needs of different places office
workers to bring lunchbox by heating in the flexible way, through the humanized heating
temperature control, save time for operation and waiting for meals, to a certain extent, satisfy the
user's psychological and physical requirements. Humanized design is the main idea of modern
design, it must rely on user's experience and user's demand analysis, making the design of the
product to meet the function needs and spiritual needs for of the user and leading an important roles
to coordinate and balance the human spirit. The design of the product reflects the social
development and technical progress by from the original simple practicality and the use of spiritual
culture and how to the humanized design and user's experience requirements.

Acknowledgements
This work was financially supported by the Excellent Young Teachers Program in Higher Education
of Guangdong, China (Yq2014110) .

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