The present invention relates to a hinge motion check friction device for incorporating into a hinge assembly for holding a hinge open at a selected position. In particular, the present invention is useful for incorporating into vehicle door hinges, particularly when the vehicle is being painting during manufacturing, so that the door remains in a desirable fixed position to facilitate painting operations.
Hinges are widely used to connect two or more members, allowing them to rotate relative to one another. Examples of the use of hinges include connecting lids to containers and doors to frames. They are often designed to rotate relatively freely between preset stopping points, such as fully open or fully closed positions. However, in many instances it would be desirable to be able to reversibly position the members at a selected position relative to one another in such a way that they are both held in position and do not further rotate relative to each other in normal use but can be further moved to other selected positions by the use of a force that is greater than that experienced by the members during normal use. By “reversibly position” is meant that the members can be repeatedly moved relative to one another from the position in which they were initially placed, and maintained in that subsequent position regardless of movement of the body to which the members are attached.
The use of such a hinge device would be particularly useful in vehicle doors, and in particular during the vehicle manufacturing process. During manufacturing, vehicles such as automobiles are often painted in a multi-step process on assembly lines. During the painting process, it is often necessary to open, close, and otherwise adjust the positions of doors connected to the bodies of vehicles by hinges relative to the bodies, often in an automated fashion by robots. Doors can be placed and held in desired positions using wire forms or metal brackets, but these supports must be individually installed, adjusted, and removed, which requires intervention by a worker and thus adds complexity to the painting process. Furthermore, after a few cycles in the painting process, it is often necessary to clean the supports, making this technique still more complex and labor-intensive.
It is known to insert a tightly-fitting plastic collar device around a vehicle door hinge pin. The plastic collar has a tab that interlocks the collar to the side of the hinge attached to the door. The collar serves to provide resistance to door rotation. However, during the painting process, the vehicles can go through several heating and cooling steps during which the maximum temperature can reach or exceed 120° C., which can cause the plastic collar to lose its grip on the hinge pin as the plastic is annealed and expands and contracts during the heating and cooling cycles. This can lead to inconsistent and unreliable operation of the device as it will often fail to hold the door firmly in a desired position. Thus a device that can withstand several heating and cooling cycles without losing its grip on a hinge pin would be desirable.
It is an object of the present invention to obtain a device capable of holding two members connected by one or more hinges in an selected position between or including fully open (meaning the hinge surfaces maintain the members as far apart as possible) or fully closed (meaning that the hinge surfaces maintain the members in closest proximity to one another) that did not require the use of supports that must be manually removed and reinstalled each time the position of the members needed to be changed. A feature of the present invention is in one embodiment the use of such a device in a vehicle door hinge assembly. An advantage of the present invention is that such a device can withstand the forces imparted on the vehicle by the jerky motion and starting and stopping of many conveyer operations by not preventing the vehicle door from moving significantly from its set position. These and other objects, features and advantages of the invention will become better understood upon having reference to the detailed description herein.
There is disclosed and claimed herein a hinge motion check friction device for holding a hinge connecting at least two members at an arbitrary position, comprising a collar containing an opening into which is inserted a metal sleeve such that the collar and the metal sleeve are in contact and wherein the collar comprises a tab.
Alternatively there is disclosed and claimed herein an improvement for a device for frictionally connecting hinge members at a selected position, comprising a collar containing an opening into which is inserted a metal sleeve such that the collar and the metal sleeve are in contact. The improvement comprises the metal sleeve frictionally secured within the collar and a tab secured to the collar which maintains the hinge members in the position selected.
The present invention will become better understood upon having reference to the drawings herein.
The friction device of the present invention comprises a collar into which is inserted a metal split tubular sleeve that is interlocked with the collar and through which a hinge pin connecting two or more hinge members is inserted, such that once inserted into the collar, the sleeve is rotationally fixed to the collar and cannot rotate within the collar and can only follow the rotational movement of the collar, should the collar be rotated. The hinge pin is interlocked with one of the hinge members. The collar comprises a tab that interlocks one or more hinge members that are different from the hinge member to which the hinge pin is interlocked, thus impeding relative motion of the hinge members. As used herein, by the term “interlocked”, it is meant that whenever a first part is in intimate contact with a second, separate part, any force applied to the first part to create movement in a particular direction causes simultaneously an equal movement of the second part in the same general direction.
Having reference to
To complete the assembly depicted in
Having reference to
Hinge pin 18 is interlocked to one of the hinge members. When tab 16 is designed such that it contacts the door-side hinge member 20, hinge pin 18 is interlocked with body-side hinge member 22. When tab 16 is designed such that it contacts body-side hinge member 22, hinge pin 18 is interlocked with door-side hinge member 20. Hinge pin 18 may be interlocked with the appropriate hinge member by serrations, scoring, grooves, or other details present in on the hinge pin that mate with complimentary serrations, scoring, groove, or other details on the hinge member when the hinge pin 18 is inserted into the hinge member. Any other suitable method of interlocking hinge pin 18 to the hinge member may also be employed. When sufficient force is applied to the hinge, door-side hinge member 20 will rotate relative to body-side hinge member 22. However, the frictional resistance is great enough that absent such force, door-side hinge member 20 and body-side hinge member 22 will maintain their relative positions, particularly when used to mount a vehicle door to a vehicle that is conveyed along a painting line. As the vehicle moves along the painting line, the position of the door may be adjusted as needed by the application of force sufficient to overcome the frictional resistance between friction device 10 and hinge pin 18. However, the frictional resistance will be sufficient to keep the door in place when subjected to normal motion along the line, which can include jolts from starting and stopping the line, even after subjected to repeated heating and cooling cycles.
Tab 16 is designed such that it may be conveniently removed from contacting a hinge member when it is no longer desirable to hold the hinge members in an selected position, such as when free motion between the members is desired. As shown in
Tab 16 will preferably be molded as an integral part of collar 12. Alternatively, tab 16 may be made from one or more pieces of metal that have been inserted into tab 16. Tab 16 may also be snap-fit or press-fitted or ultrasonically assembled over collar 12. In certain variants of this embodiment, tab 16 may be removed without breakage and could be reusable.
Collar 12 may be made from at least one thermoplastic or thermoset polymer resin or a cast metal such as zinc or cast or extruded aluminum. It will preferably be made from a thermoplastic polymer resin. If made from a thermoplastic polymer resin, it will preferably be formed by a melt-processing procedure such as injection molding. A preferred polymer is polyamide and preferred polyamides include polyamide 6,6, polyamide 6, and semiaromatic polyamides such as terephthalamides. Preferred terephthalamides include hexamethylene adipamide/hexamethylene terephthalamide copolyamide (polyamide 6,T/6,6), hexamethylene terephthalamide/2-methylpentamethylene terephthalamide copolyamide (polyamide 6,T/D,T). The polymer resin will preferably contain reinforcing agents, which are preferably glass fibers. A particularly preferred polymer resin will be a polyamide 6,6 composition comprising about 15% to about 60% weight percent glass fibers or other reinforcing agents. Other useful polymers include polyphenylene oxides, polyphenylene sulfides, polyesters, or other engineering resins with melting points above about 175° C.
Referring to
Other preferred methods of interlocking metal sleeve 14 with collar 12 include knurling the outside of metal sleeve 14 and/or bending one edge of metal sleeve 14 outward to form a radially-directed lip or flange that would engage a corresponding groove cut into the wall of opening 26 of collar 12. Alternatively, metal sleeve 14 could be in the form of an axially-corrugated tube of spring steel. The axial corrugation can take the form of a wave that has a form such as a sinusoidal, square wave, or other waveform. The corrugations would allow the sleeve to expand or contract radially in the direction of the wall of the opening 26.
Metal sleeve 14 will preferably be made from steel, and more preferably a high carbon steel that has been heat treated to give it a spring-like quality. The outer surface of metal sleeve 14 may be splined.
The degree of friction, and hence resistance to rotation, between friction device 10 and hinge pin 18 can be adjusted by a variety of means, including varying the difference between the inner diameter of metal sleeve 14 and the diameter of hinge pin 18; by increasing the wall thickness of metal sleeve 14; by altering the length of metal sleeve 14; by altering the heat and/or surface treatment of metal sleeve 14; and/or by changing the alloy of the metal, preferably steel, used to make metal sleeve 14 Therefore one of sufficient skill in the art to which the invention pertains can with little or no advance experimentation design into the friction device 10 the appropriate degree of friction to suit a specific purpose.
Device 10 may be assembled by inserting metal sleeve 14 into a pre-prepared collar 12 having at least one protrusion 30. Alternatively, collar 12 may be overmolded around metal sleeve 14. Notch 30 may be formed during overmolding. In another embodiment, metal sleeve 14 may be heated to a sufficiently high temperature, such that when pressed into opening 26 of collar 12 while maintaining contact with the sides of opening 26, gap 32 of metal sleeve 14 melts the polymer sufficiently to cut a notch 30. In a further embodiment, metal sleeve 14 may be inserted into collar 12 using an ultrasonic insertion method.
The force required to rotate a hinge pin inserted into device 10 of the present invention is preferably about 5 to about 60 N-m, or more preferably about 15 to about 35 N-m. when deployed for purposes of holding automobile doors in a selected position during the vehicle manufacturing process. For other purposes the preferred force will vary according to the application selected.
A starter hole was drilled into each of several 0.5 inch thick blocks cut from plaques molded from Zytel® 70G33 or Zytel® 70G43 (both of which are glass-reinforced polyamide 6,6 compositions) or a glass-reinforced hexamethylene adipamide/hexamethylene terephthalamide copolyamide. For each block, a slit steel sleeve having an outer diameter of about 12.5 mm (which was about 3 mm greater than the starter hole), an inner diameter of about 9.5 mm, and a wall thickness of about 1.5 mm was heated with a propane torch and pressed into a plaque around the starter hole until the sleeve protruded from the other side of the block. As the sleeve was inserted into the block, molten polymer flowed into the slit opening in the sleeve, forming a tongue that held the sleeve firmly and prevented it from rotating within the block. It was necessary that the sleeve be sufficiently hot to overcome the heat of fusion of the polymer, allowing it to flow around the sleeve and into the slit, but not so hot that it degraded the polymer or melted the polymer to the extent that fit around the metal sleeve was loose. Any excess plastic that came through the slit in the sleeve into the opening was removed by reaming.
The block was trimmed down and installed on a standard automobile door hinge and a hinge pin with a nut welded to its top was inserted into the sleeve inserted in the block. A standard torque wrench was used to measure the force required to rotate the hinge pins within the steel sleeves. Forces between about 15 and about 25 N-m were measured, which was deemed to be an acceptable range.
One set of test samples made from Zytel® 70G33 was heated to about 204° C. for 30 minutes. Table 1 shows the forces in N-m required to rotate the hinge pins clockwise and counter clockwise before and after heating.
This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/616,984, filed Oct. 8, 2004.
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