I’ve noticed that Nalgene water bottles don’t use gaskets on the caps, but many other water bottles use them to stop leakage. How do Nalgenes get away without using these seals?
In: Engineering
The bottle itself is polycarbonate (the newer ones are Tritan, I think.) That bottle material is pretty rigid, while also being tough and crack-resistant.
The lids are polyethylene, and have an internal lip on the top of the inside. That internal lip on the cap fits inside the lip of the bottle itself. The cap-lip is tapered and slightly smaller than the lip of the bottle; when the cap is tightened, the slight ‘give’ in the polyethylene cap-lip seals the liquid.
Internal lip. Look at the inside of a lid and you’ll see a gap with a little ridge. That’s where the top of the water bottle sits.
Science!
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