AUTOMATIC ALIGNING BLOOD COLLECTION TUBE WITH ENCODED INFORMATION

摘要

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an aligning ability of cylindrical or arc-shaped objects to reduce necessity of orientation in manual work of an automatic device. SOLUTION: A tube 10 is provided for biological fluid comprising a blocked bottom 12, an opening top edge 14, and a cylindrical side wall 16 extending between the above two. An aligning key 20 is formed in a selected circular position of the tube 10. A machine-reading information line 26 is formed on the tube 10 at a specified angle relative to the key 20. The key 20 allows the tube 10 inside a device of an analytical organization to accurately align in a rotational position as specified by the relative position between the information line 26 and the operation device for reading the line. The information line 26 may adopt either a magnetic stripe or an optical reading information such as a bar code.