초록 ▼

A thin-walled elastic sheath that can be stretched axially over an elongated imaging device to closely conform to the device and isolate the device from an external environment, and a method of forming such a sheath, are shown and described. The method includes the steps of heating at least a portio

A thin-walled elastic sheath that can be stretched axially over an elongated imaging device to closely conform to the device and isolate the device from an external environment, and a method of forming such a sheath, are shown and described. The method includes the steps of heating at least a portion of a sheet of an elastomeric material to an elevated temperature to form a malleable heated portion of the sheet, pressing an elongated forming tool against the sheet at a location central with respect to the heated portion of the sheet, stretching the heated portion of the elastomeric material with the forming tool until an elastic conforming portion of the sheet is conformed to at least a portion of the length of the forming tool, and removing the forming tool from the conforming portion of the sheet to leave the thin-walled, elastic sheath having a wall thickness approximately equal to or less than 0.006 inches.

대표청구항 ▼

A thin-walled elastic sheath that can be stretched axially over an elongated imaging device to closely conform to the device and isolate the device from an external environment, and a method of forming such a sheath, are shown and described. The method includes the steps of heating at least a portio

A thin-walled elastic sheath that can be stretched axially over an elongated imaging device to closely conform to the device and isolate the device from an external environment, and a method of forming such a sheath, are shown and described. The method includes the steps of heating at least a portion of a sheet of an elastomeric material to an elevated temperature to form a malleable heated portion of the sheet, pressing an elongated forming tool against the sheet at a location central with respect to the heated portion of the sheet, stretching the heated portion of the elastomeric material with the forming tool until an elastic conforming portion of the sheet is conformed to at least a portion of the length of the forming tool, and removing the forming tool from the conforming portion of the sheet to leave the thin-walled, elastic sheath having a wall thickness approximately equal to or less than 0.006 inches. teps (b) and (c) have been performed for each element of the second representation. 21. The method of claim 20, wherein the step of parsing a component name includes the steps of: (a) identifying a current element as a root of the template hierarchy, and identifying a remaining component name as the component name; (b) constructing a string by concatenating the name of a child element of the current element and the hierarchy delimiter; (c) when the string matches the beginning of the remaining component name, identifying the current element as the child element, and identifying the remaining component name as the portion of the remaining component name that is not matched; (d) repeating steps (b) and (c) using another child element of the current element, and ending the step of repeating when the steps (b) and (c) have been performed for each child element of the current element without producing a match; (e) recording the current element as the identified elem