Figure 1. Flowchart for the use of the 76 Standard Solutions. (References 12 and 1)
The
“76 Standard Solutions” of TRIZ were compiled by G.S. Altshuller and his
associates between 1975 and1985. They are grouped into 5 large categories or
classes as follows:
1.
Improving
the system with no or little change
13 standard solutions
2.
Improving
the system by changing the system
23 standard solutions
3.
System
transitions
6 standard solutions
4.
Detection
and measurement
17 standard solutions
5.
Strategies
for simplification and improvement
17 standard solutions
Total: 76 standard solutions
(References
1-5, 12)
This
series of articles began in the February, 2000, issue of the TRIZ Journal, with
a tutorial article and the Class 1 problems and solutions.
Class 2 appeared in the March, 2000, TRIZ Journal, Class 3 in May, and
Class 4 in June. In the
spirit of Altshuller, we want to make these interpretations
available to all who are studying and using TRIZ.
Typically,
the 76 standard solutions are used as a step in ARIZ, after the Su-field model
has been developed and any constraints on the solution have been identified.
The model and the constraints are used to identify the class and the
specific solution. As in
other TRIZ instructional material, examples are used to show the application of
the standard solution to a wide variety of problems from many fields.
The
solutions in classes 1-4 frequently make the system more complicated, since many
of them require the introduction of new materials or new fields.
The solutions in Class 5 are methods for simplifying the system, making
it more ideal. After deciding on a solution from classes 1-3 for
a performance problem or class 4 for a measurement or detection problem, use
class 5 to simplify the solution.
See Figure 1 for a flowchart showing in more detail the use of
the various classes of the
76 standard solutions for both problem solving and technology forecasting.
Figure 1.
Flowchart for the use of the 76 Standard Solutions.
(References 12 and 1)
Class
5. Methods for Simplifying and Improving the Standard Solutions.
5.1.
Introducing Substances
5.1.1.
Indirect
ways
5.1.1.1.
Use
“nothing” –add air, vacuum, .bubbles, foam, voids, hollows, clearances,
capillaries, pores,
holes, voids, etc.
Examples:
Imagine
creating warm clothing for swimming underwater.
The standard thinking is to increase the thickness of rubber.
The suit will become very heavy, so making it thicker is not acceptable.
Adding nothing to the rubber creates a foam which weighs less with more
thermal insulation. This is the current wet suit.
Similarly,
a fireproof replacement is needed for wood shingle roofs.
Concrete is fireproof, and can be made to look like the shingles, but it
is too heavy for the structure of a house originally designed for a wood shingle
roof. Air is passed through
the concrete while it is setting, to make a concrete foam that is fireproof and
light weight.
5.1.1.2.
Use a
field instead of a substance.
Example:
It
is necessary to check the hermetic seal during production of small plastic
mustard packs for single servings used at fast food stores.
A complex system is described in 4.. using water pressure and an optical
system. A much simpler system
can be made using vacuum: a
sample of packs are put in a vacuum chamber, and then the air is removed.
. Good packs puff up and bad
packs leak mustard. We have
used the field of the pressure differential between the pack and the atmosphere
to detect bad packages.
To
find a stud behind a wall, without drilling holes in the wall, three kinds of
field detectors are in common use: 1.
Tap on the wall and listen to the differences between open areas and the
stud. 2.
Use a magnet to detect nails, since they will be in the stud.
3. Use an ultrasonic pulse
generator and detector, since the stud will return a much stronger echo than the
open space.
5.1.1.3.
Use an
external additive instead of an internal one.
Example:
The
sheet metal in the earlier example is the external additive.
(See 1.2.1) This is a much
simpler solution than making complex changes to the jack.
5.1.1.4.
Use a
small amount of a very active
additive.
Examples:
Use
thermite explosive to weld aluminum to something else.
Conventional welding for aluminum requires very high heat and corrosive
chemical etchants..
Parts
per million of dopants in silicon can change its electronic properties enough to
govern the properties of an integrated circuit.
Doping the Si with the additive to get the right properties makes it
possible to operate the circuit at much lower voltage, with much smaller circuit
elements than older designs.
5.1.1.5.
Concentrate
the additive at a specific location.
Examples:
Spot
location of spot removal chemicals. Sticks
of detergents and sprays of enzymes are commercially available products for this
purpose. This removes the spot,
without subjecting the whole garment to the extra wear of the strong chemicals
Therapeutic
agents located at the exact location of the disease,
tagged to realease in a preferred organ. The use of iodine to carry other medication to the thyroid is
an example. This avoids dosing
healthy parts of the body with medications that have severe side effects.
Concentrate
fluoride at the site of beginning tooth decay, to remineralize the tooth and
avoid destroying a large amount of the tooth with a conventional filling.
5.1.1.6.
Introduce
the additive temporarily.
Examples:
Chemotherapy
for cancer patients. Very
toxic chemicals are introduced for a short period of time.
They damage the cancer more than they damage the healthy tissue during
the short time, then they are flushed out of the patient’s system.
For
certain kinds of bone injuries, a metal screw is placed in the bone while
healing starts, then removed. Ref.
4.
5.1.1.7.
Use a
copy or model of the object in
which additives can be used, instead of the original object, if additives are
not permitted in the original. In
modern use, this would include the use of simulations, and copies of the
additives.
Examples:
Video
conference calls or computer video conferences permit meetings where all the
participants are not in the same place.
The
video tape of Genrich Altshuller shown at the TRIZCON99 (after his death) was an
additive to the meeting that was otherwise not available.
Test
changes to complex electrical or mechanical devices (test the additives) on a
simulation, rather than by building new devices for each test.
5.1.1.8.
Introduce
a chemical compound which reacts, yielding the desired elements or compounds,
where introducing the desired material would be harmful.
Examples:
People
need sodium for metabolism, but metallic sodium
is harmful. Ordinary salt is ingested, then converted to sodium and
chlorine for use by the body.
Race
cars use nitrous oxide instead of air for combustion to get higher power
5.1.1.9
Obtain
the required additive by
decomposition of either the environment or the object itself.
Example:
Bury
garbage in the garden instead of using chemical fertilizers, to get the benefit
of adding fertilizer without the side effects and wasted energy of the
chemicals.
5.1.2.
Divide
the elements into smaller units.
Examples:
Faster
airplanes require larger propellers
but as the length increases the tip will
be going faster than the speed of sound, causing a shock wave.
Two smaller propellers are better than one large one.
Similarly
for compressors in jet engines, air conditioners in a factory,
etc.
5.1.3.
The
additive eliminates itself after use. Examples:
A
complex shape can be "sand" blasted with dry ice and have no residue
to clean when the dry ice sublimes. Use of sand, artificial sapphire particles,
etc., leaves residue and requires clean-up.
Fuseable
webbing is a nonwoven fabric that
is stitched into a garment to
reinforce high stress areas. After
the garment is completed, it is ironed and the
webbing disappears, becoming part of the fabric.
The older style interfacing remains a separate fabric layer throughout
the life of the garment and can separate, shrink, and wrinkle, causing the
garment to fit badly.
Dissolvable
sutures are absorbed by the body when the injury heals.
Older style sutures require a separate medical procedure to remove the
sutures, causing pain, inconvenience, and the possibility of infection.
5.1.4.
Use
“nothing” if circumstances do not permit the use of large quantities of
material. Example:
Use
an inflatable structure where the weight of a solid object would not be safe. Inflatable “jacks” are used to lift aircraft out of
swampy terrain where mechanical jacks would sink due to their own weight.
Use
an inflatable mattress for guests, then deflate it for compact storage. This is comfortable for the guests, less expensive than
sending them to a hotel, and more convenient for the hosts than having to
maintain a guest room during the time when there are no guests.
5.2.
Use fields
5.2.1.
Use
one field to cause the creation of another field
Examples:
A
Therma-RestTM pad is a backpacking self inflating mattress. The
mattress is stored or carried compressed, with the air expelled and its air vent
closed. Inflation is caused by the
memory of the compressed foam. When
the air valve is opened expansive mechanical force generated by the compressed
foam creates structure and causes a pressure difference to draw air into the
cells. The vent is then closed and
the mattress remains inflated even under the sleeper’s weight.
Dipolar
plastic films are welded by the internal conversion of radio-frequency energy into heat. This
produces heat at the optimum location for welding multiple pieces of plastic
together, and does not require heat to be conducted through the materials.
In
a cyclotron, magnetic fields accelerate particles.
The acceleration produces Cherenkov radiation (light). The wavelength of the light can be controlled by varying the
magnetic field.
5.2.2.
Use
fields that are present in the environment. Examples:
Electronic
devices use heat generated by the individual components to cause air flow
through the device for cooling, without the addition of cooling fans.
This may allow improved performance of the overall design.
Autopilot
steering and controls for sailboats and airplanes use small vanes (called “trim
tabs”) on the control surfaces
that use the pressure of the water or the wind to move the control surfaces to
the desired angle.
A
battery powered radio intended for emergency use can also have photovoltaic
cells for recharging the battery by sunlight.
This allows battery weight and size to be minimized.
A further improvement that can further minimize the need for a battery is
to use a hand wound spring driven generator. This utilizes the field of mechanical energy always available
from a person in the environment, even in the dark.
5.2.3.
Use substances that are the sources of fields. Examples:
In
the example of 5.2.1 for welding dipolar plastics, the plastic material
surrounding the weld can be used as a heat sink (thermal field) for cooling the
actual weld junction.
Pellets
of radioactive material are implanted in a tumor, in order to get gamma rays to
damage the tumor directly. This is
also an example of 5.1.1.6,
since the pellets are removed after a short time.
In
an automobile, the hot engine coolant is used as a source of thermal energy (a
field) to provide heat for the passengers, rather than using fuel directly.
5.3
Phase Transitions
5.3.1.
Phase
Transition 1: Substituting the Phases. Examples:
Use
a-brass
instead of b-brass.
(The crystal structure changes, which changes the mechanical properties,
at a particular temperature.)
Use
gas, liquid, or solid phases of the same material, depending on the
temperature/pressure/volume conditions. Natural
gas is transported as a cryogenic liquid to save space, then expanded and warmed
for use as a gaseous fuel.
5.3.2.
Phase
Transition 2: Dual Phase State. Examples:
In
ice skating, friction is reduced by
using the phase change of
ice to water under the blade, which then changes back to ice and renews the
surface of the area.
Plastic
containers for drinks are stressed in two directions.
First the plastic is
injection molded and cooled, then
heated to just below the glass transition temperature and blow molded, which
orientates the plastic, making it clear and stronger than conventional blow
molding.
5.3.3.
Phase
Transition 3: Utilizing the Accompanying Phenomena of the Phase Change.
Examples:
Hand
warmers for sports or for outdoor work consist
of a plastic pouch containing a
liquid which goes through an exothermic conversion to a solid, triggered by the acoustic energy from bending a thin metal
disk in the liquid. The system is
“recharged” (restored for the next use)
by placing it in hot water or a microwave oven to raise the liquid above
the transition temperature.
See
2.4.7. Another example for
superconductors is that when metallic superconductors reach zero electrical
resistance, they become very good thermal insulators, and can be used as thermal
switches to isolate low temperature devices.
5.3.4.
Phase
Transition 4: Transition to the Two-Phase State. Examples:
Make
a variable capacitance, using a "dielectric-metal"
phase transition material. When
heated some of the layer becomes a conductor and when cooled it becomes a
dielectric. Capacitance is
controlled by temperature.
Gaseous
Si is more easily doped than the solid. The
doped gas then can grow epitaxially on the solid substrate and make a better
crystal structure with more uniform doping than a treated solid.
5.3.5.
Interaction
of the Phases. Increase the
effectiveness of the system by
inducing an interaction between the elements of the system, or the phases of the
system.
Examples:
Make
brandy with double distillation and age it
in wooden casks. The is an
interaction between the wood and the liquid.
Hydrogen
gas can be stored in much higher densities than in its gaseous form by binding
it in platinum and palladium sponges.
Use
chemically reactive material as the
working element of a heat cycle engine. The
dissociation of the material under heating and the recombination when cooling
improves the function of the engine (The dissociated material has lower
molecular weight and therefore transfers heat faster.)
5.4.
Applying the Natural Phenomena (Also called “Using Physical Effects”)
5.4.1.
Self-controlled
Transitions. If an object must be
in several different states, it should transition from one state to the other by
itself.
Example:
Altshuller’s
famous lightning rod that protects a radio telescope (used to illustrate the
steps of ARIZ, ref. 10) is a tube
filled with low pressure gas. When
the electrostatic potential in the area is high, as before a lightning
discharge, the gas in the tube ionizes, making a preferred path for the
lightning. When the lightning has
discharged, the gas recombines, and the environment of the device being
protected is neutral.
Photogray™
glasses become dark in light the
environments and more transparent in dark environments.
5.4.2.
Strengthening
the output field when there is a weak input field.
Generally this is done by working near a phase transition point.
Examples:
For
scuba diving, you need to store large amount of high pressure gas, typically 80
cu.ft. at one atmosphere, stored at 3,000
psi. The small pressure difference
between the external ocean pressure and the inhalation pressure of the diver’s
breath is used to control a valve that regulates the flow of gas.
The
vacuum tube, relay and transistor can all be used to control very large currents
with very small currents.
Formation
of bubbles in superheated liquid indicate very small ionization centers.
The bubble chamber for detection of elementary particles works on this
principle.
5.5.
Generating Higher or Lower Forms of Substances
5.5.1.
Obtaining
the Substance Particles (Ions, Atoms, Molecules, etc. )
by Decomposition.
Examples:
If
hydrogen is needed and not available in the system, but water is available,
convert the water to hydrogen and oxygen by electrolysis.
If atomic oxygen is needed, use ultraviolet light to dissociate ozone.
G.
Altshuller’s first patent as a teenager, for generating oxygen from hydrogen
peroxide to aid in underwater diving, provides an excellent example of obtaining
a substance particle in the desired form by decomposition.
The
catalytic converter in a car converts “bad” molecules into “good”
molecules. It converts NOx
and air to nitrogen and water.
5.5.2.
Obtaining
the substance particles by joining.
Example:
The
Bacteria Thiobacillus ferrooxanads
is used to convert metallic iron into iron oxide in the slag piles of
gold mines. The iron oxide is
soluble in water so it is easily removed, leaving a higher concentration of gold
to be processed conventionally! (Ref. 11.)
A
tree takes in water and carbon dioxide and, using sunlight and photosynthesis,
produces wood, leaves and fruit.
5.5.3.
Applying
the Standard Solutions 5.5.1 and 5.5.2. If
a substance of a high structural level has to be decomposed, and it cannot be
decomposed, start with the substance of the next highest level.
Likewise, if a substance must be formed from materials of a low
structural level, and it cannot be, then start with the next higher level of
structure. In the
antenna problem (5.4.1) the gas
molecules are ionized, not the whole antenna, to create the path for the
lightning, and the ions and electrons are recombined to restore neutrality.
References.
1.
“Golden Classics of TRIZ,” 1996, Ideation International, Inc. and Tools
of Classical TRIZ, Ideation International, Inc., Southfield, MI, USA,
1999.
2.
“Invention Machine Laboratory,” version 1.4,
1993. Invention Machine Corporation.
3.
G. Gasanov, B. M. Gochman, A. P. Yefimochkin,
S. M. Kokin, A. G. Sopelnyak, Birth of an Invention: A
Strategy and Tactic For Solving Inventive Problems. Moscow: Interpraks, 1995. (In Russian)
Chapter 6 and Appendix 9.
4.
J. Terninko, A. Zussman, B. Zlotin, Step-by-Step
TRIZ. Responsible
Management, Nottingham, NH, USA. 1997.
5. H. Altov (Altshuller pseudonym). And Suddenly the Inventor Appeared. Translated by Lev Shulyak. Technical Information Center, Worcester, MA, USA. 1994.
6. J. Terninko, E. Domb, J. Miller, E. MacGran, The TRIZ Journal, May, 1999.
7.
Ideation
International. IWB Software, 1999.
8.
http://www.ferrofluidics.com,
US patent 4,357,021, US patent 5,461,677
9.
US
patent 4,286,080
10.
G. Altshuller. Creativity
as an Exact Science. Translated
by Anthony Williams. Gordon and
Breach, NY, 1988.
11.
D L
Stoner et al., "Use of an Intelligent Control System to Evaluate
Multi-Parametric Effects on Iron Oxidation by Thermophilic Bacteria", Applied
& Environmental Microbiology, Vol 64 , No 11, Nov, 1998. See also Jacob Skir, “Gold recovery and the biological
effect. “ The TRIZ Journal, June,
1999.
12.
Y. Salamatov. TRIZ:
The Right Solution at the Right Time. Edited by Drs.V. Souchkov
and M. Slocum, translated by M. Strogaya and S. Yakovlev.
Insytec, The Netherlands, 1998.
References
1,4,and 12 are available from the
Products and Services page of the TRIZ Journal.
Note of Gratitude:
Our thanks go to Zinovy Royzen for sharing his method of Su-field modeling
called TOP modeling. See “Tool, Object, Product (TOP) Function Analysis” in
the September, 1999, issue of The TRIZ
Journal, http://www.triz-journal.com.