Vial or other container, and carrier therefor

The invention relates to a vial located in a pocket in a carrier. The pocket has an upwardly opening inlet and a plane, bottom cam surface the vial has a complementary, plane, bottom cam surface. Both cam surfaces are inclined to the axes of the vial and pocket so that on lowering the vial into the pocket through its inlet, the cam surfaces interact so that when the vial is fully home in the pocket, it occupies a predetermined position of angular displacement about the vial axis. The carrier may be in the form of a turntable having a plurality of such pockets around the peripheral region of the turntable. The pockets may open outwardly from the center of the turntable through the peripheral surface of the turntable so that labels fixed and appropriately positioned on the vial walls are visible through the openings in the peripheral surface when the vials are fully home in their pockets.

This invention relates to a vial, carrier for a vial, and to the 
combination of a carrier and a vial or other container. 
Various forms of automatic specimen investigating machines, for example for 
use in medical applications such as analysis of blood samples, have been 
devised in which liquid samples, such as samples of serum, plasma, or 
enzymes, are stored in vials located in pockets arranged equally spaced 
around the peripheral region of a horizontal turntable. The turntable is 
advanced in indexing fashion and during each dwell period of the turntable 
a measured quantity of sample is transferred by a sample transfer head to 
the section of the machine where the investigations are carried out on the 
samples. 
A disadvantage which is encountered is that where the vials are rotatable 
in their pockets about their axes, they do not occupy a predetermined 
position of angular displacement when they are fully-home in their pockets 
but instead become fully located in the particular angular displacement in 
which they are inserted. 
The invention aims to overcome this disadvantage. 
According to a first aspect of the invention there is provided a vial 
comprising a side wall which is substantially circular in cross-section 
taken perpendicular to the axis of the vial, the vial further comprising a 
plane bottom cam surface which is inclined at an acute angle to the vial 
axis so that when the vial is lowered into a vial locating pocket in a 
carrier, having an upwardly opening inlet, through which the vial can be 
lowered into the pocket in any position of angular displacement about the 
container axis, and a cam surface which is complementary to the cam 
surface of the vial, the cam surfaces interact in such manner that the 
vial when fully home in the pocket occupies a predetermined position of 
angular displacement about the vial axis. 
According to a second aspect of the invention there is provided a vial 
comprising a side wall and a plane, bottom cam surface which is inclined 
at an acute angle to the vial axis and which extends over only a part of 
the height of the vial, the cam surface being such that when the vial is 
lowered into a vial locating pocket in a carrier, having an upwardly 
opening inlet, through which the vial can be lowered into the pocket in 
any position of angular displacement about the container axis, and a cam 
surface which is complementary to the cam surface of the vial, the cam 
surfaces interact in such manner that the vial when fully home in the 
pocket occupies a predetermined position of angular displacement about the 
vial axis. 
According to a third aspect of the invention there is provided a carrier 
for a vial, including a vial locating pocket with an upwardly opening 
inlet and an internal, plane, bottom cam surface which extends across the 
width of the pocket and is inclined at an acute angle to the pocket axis 
so that when the vial, having a bottom cam surface, which is complementary 
to the cam surface of the carrier, is lowered into the pocket, through the 
inlet thereof, in any position of angular displacement about the vial 
axis, the complementary cam surface interacts with the internal cam 
surface of the pocket in such manner that the vial when fully home in the 
pocket occupies a predetermined position of angular displacement about the 
vial axis. 
According to a fourth aspect of the invention there is provided, in 
combination, a carrier and a vial or other container, the carrier having a 
container locating pocket, in which the container is located, with an 
upwardly opening inlet through which the container can be lowered into the 
pocket in any position of angular displacement about the container axis, 
the container having a plane, bottom cam surface which interacts with a 
complementary cam surface of the pocket, when the container is lowered 
into the pocket, in such manner that said container when fully home in the 
pocket occupies a predetermined position of angular displacement about the 
container axis.

Referring to FIGS. 1 and 2, the carrier is in the form of a circular 
turntable 1 rotatable about a central axis and carrying a plurality of 
substantially cylindrical cups or vials 2 substantially evenly spaced 
around the peripheral region of, and from the central axis of, the 
turntable. 
As FIG. 1 clearly shows, the turntable includes a drive plate 3 mounted on 
a shaft 4 which in use is driven in indexing fashion by any suitable drive 
means (not shown). Mounted above the drive plate and held spaced away from 
the drive plate by way of drive pegs 5 (FIGS. 1 and 2) is a circular upper 
plate 6 having a hub 7 fitted around the shaft 4. These pegs cause the 
upper plate 6 to co-rotate with the drive plate 3 when the latter is 
driven in operation of the turntable. Extending downwardly from the outer 
peripheral region of the plate 6 are a number of spacing columns 8 of 
which one is shown in FIGS. 1 and 2. The lower ends of the columns 8 
carry, through intermediary of an annular centre plate 9, an annular ring 
10. 
The upper plate 6 and centre plate 9 are apertured to provide pockets at 
uniformly spaced apart locations around the peripheral region of the 
turntable, and located within these pockets are the vials 2. Any one of 
the vials may be removed upwardly from its pocket through the opening in 
the upper plate 6 and subsequently reinserted into its pocket. 
Each vial has at the bottom thereof a plane, cam surface 13 which is 
inclined at an acute angle to the longitudinal axis of the vial and 
extends over only a part of the height of the vial, this cam surface 
cooperating with a complementary plane cam surface 14 provided on the 
annular ring 10 so that when the vial is full home in its pocket it 
occupies a predetermined position of angular displacement about the vial 
axis in the pocket. 
Each pocket, in addition to having an upwardly opening inlet in the upper 
plate 6, opens outwardly from the central axis of the turntable through 
the peripheral surface of the turntable as indicated by reference numeral 
12 in FIG. 2. The purpose of the opening 12 is to allow a coded label 11, 
fixed to the vial in such a position as to be visible from the exterior. 
The opening 12 is not, however, large enough to allow the vial to be 
removed from its pocket in the radial direction, the portions of the 
pocket wall which are immediately adjacent the opening 12 preventing such 
removal of the vial. 
Each vial is effectively self-locating, especially if the angle .alpha. 
(FIG. 3), being the angle at which the surfaces 13, 14 are inclined to any 
plane normal to the axis of the vial, is substantially 37.degree., that is 
to say if the surfaces 13, 14 are inclined to the vial and pocket axes by 
substantially 53.degree.. 
Referring to FIG. 3, the wall of each vial is stepped at two levels 15, 16 
to indicate respectively an upper and a lower level in the vial which are 
required for accurate filling purposes. If the user of the turntable fills 
each vial to above the lower level, there will always be a sufficient 
quantity of the sample to allow the desired maximum number of different 
investigations to be carried out. Moreover, providing the sample level is 
beneath the upper level, the degree of "carry-over", i.e. the transfer of 
sample from one vial to the next by a sample transfer head used for 
transferring a measured quantity of sample to an automatic specimen 
investigating machine where the desired investigations are carried out, is 
kept to an acceptable value. The height of each vial is sufficient to 
allow the coded label to be fixed vertically to the outside surface of the 
vial. Moreover, the necessary height required for this purpose is 
sufficient to keep evaporation of the sample to a low value. For long 
storage times, a cap may be fitted to the top of the vial. It will be 
noted from FIG. 3 that the inside and outside surfaces of the vial conform 
closely with one another. This gives a substantially uniform wall 
thickness for ease of manufacture. It is to be noted that because of the 
inclined bottom of the vial, wastage of the sample after sampling tends to 
be less than if the vial were to have a flat bottom. 
It is believed to be most advantageous to make the vials by injection 
moulding of plastics material, but it is alternatively possible for the 
vials to be made of glass. However, to form the turntable by injection 
moulding is thought to prove too expensive and it is for this reason that 
it has been proposed to fabricate the turntable from the various parts 
shown in FIG. 2. 
Preferably, each label has a bar code which is read by a reader mechanism 
which synchronises the code as read with the results obtained from the 
automatic specimen investigating machine so as to correlate the results 
with the samples which gave rise to those results. The label may 
alternatively be simply a stick-on label on which a suitable sample 
identification is written. 
It will be appreciated from the foregoing that the main advantage of the 
described turntable and vials is that the angled cam surfaces of the 
turntable and vials ensures that the vials may be easily placed by the 
user in the pockets in the turntable with the label facing radially 
outwardly.