Patent Application
20250010528
This application claims priority to Taiwanese Invention Patent Application No. 112125480, filed on Jul. 7, 2023, which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.
The disclosure relates to a method for molding a composite component.
Referring to
As shown in
Accordingly, it can be seen from the above description that the formation of the arc-shaped side portion 111 of the curved metal sheet 11 of the metal-polymer composite component 1 is completed solely by means of supplying the pressure produced by injection of the polymer material 102. However, such operation of forming the arc-shaped side portion 111 in one step, i.e., by pressing and stretching the preformed substrate 10A using the aforesaid pressure, is prone to producing cracks due to excessive deformation.
Therefore, an object of the disclosure is to provide a method for molding a composite component that can alleviate at least one of the drawbacks of the prior art.
According to the disclosure, the method for molding the composite component includes steps (a) to (d). Step (a) of the method involves providing a forming mold and a preformed substrate. The forming mold includes a lower mold and an upper mold matched with each other. The lower mold has an inner sidewall surface and an inner lower surface connected to the inner sidewall surface, and the inner sidewall surface and the inner lower surface cooperatively define an accommodating space that accommodates the preformed substrate. In addition, the inner sidewall surface has a shaping portion adjacent to the inner lower surface and recessed inwardly into the lower mold. The upper mold has a sprue spatially communicating with the accommodating space. The preformed substrate is a curved sheet, and has a sidewall portion and a bottom portion. The sidewall portion has a height not smaller than a height of the inner sidewall surface, and is parallel to the inner sidewall surface. The bottom portion is connected to the sidewall portion and parallel to the inner lower surface of the lower mold.
Step (b) of the method involves disposing the preformed substrate into the accommodating space, and clamping the upper mold against the lower mold such that an abutment surface of the upper mold faces toward but not in contact with an abutment surface of the lower mold, thereby forming a gap therebetween, that a mold cavity is formed between the preformed substrate and the upper mold, and that a shaping space is formed between the sidewall portion of the preformed substrate and the shaping portion of the inner sidewall surface of the lower mold.
Step (c) of the method involves injecting a polymer material into the mold cavity from the sprue using an injecting pressure, while pushing the preformed substrate by the polymer material which is injected by the injecting pressure, so that the sidewall portion of the preformed substrate is pressed into the shaping space, thereby forming a first deformed portion.
Step (d) of the method involves further clamping the upper mold against the lower mold using a molding pressure such that the abutment surface of the upper mold and the abutment surface of the lower mold are brought into a tight contact with each other, while pushing the polymer material and the first deformed portion into the shaping space using the molding pressure to deform the first deformed portion into a second deformation portion, thereby obtaining a semi-finished product having a shaped substrate formed from the preformed substrate and a polymer structure formed from the polymer material and covering a surface of the shaped substrate.
Other features and advantages of the disclosure will become apparent in the following detailed description of the embodiment(s) with reference to the accompanying drawings. It is noted that various features may not be drawn to scale.
Before the disclosure is described in greater detail, it should be noted that where considered appropriate, reference numerals or terminal portions of reference numerals have been repeated among the figures to indicate corresponding or analogous elements, which may optionally have similar characteristics.
It should be noted herein that for clarity of description, spatially relative terms such as “top,” “bottom,” “upper,” “lower,” “on,” “above,” “over,” “downwardly,” “upwardly” and the like may be used throughout the disclosure while making reference to the features as illustrated in the drawings. The features may be oriented differently (e.g., rotated 90 degrees or at other orientations) and the spatially relative terms used herein may be interpreted accordingly.
Referring to
First, in step (a), a forming mold 300 and a preformed substrate 200 are provided.
The forming mold 300 includes a lower mold 3 and an upper mold 4 matched with each other.
Specifically, the lower mold 3 has an inner sidewall surface 31 and an inner lower surface 32 connected to the inner sidewall surface 31, and the inner sidewall surface 31 and the inner lower surface 32 cooperatively define an accommodating space 33 for accommodating the preformed substrate 200. The inner sidewall surface 31 has a shaping portion 312 adjacent to the inner lower surface 32 and recessed inwardly into the lower mold 3. In certain embodiments, the inner sidewall surface 31 of the lower mold 3 further includes an upper sidewall portion 311, and the shaping portion 312 is disposed between the upper sidewall portion 311 and the inner lower surface 32.
The upper mold 4 has a sprue 43 spatially communicating with the accommodating space 33. The sprue 43 may penetrate two opposite surfaces of the upper mold 4, and also be located in and extend through the extension portion 42 thereof. In some embodiments, the upper mold 4 includes a cover portion 41 configured to cover the lower mold 3, and an extension portion 42 extending from the cover portion 41. In still some embodiments, the upper mold 4 further includes an annular groove 44 extending from an abutment surface 45 of the cover portion 41 into the cover portion 41 and surrounding the extension portion 42. The annular groove 44 may have a width not smaller than a thickness of the preformed substrate 200. In some embodiments, the extension portion 42 includes a parallel section 421 that has an outer surface parallel to the upper sidewall portion 311 of the inner sidewall surface 31, and a tapered section 422 extending and tapered from the parallel section 421.
The preformed substrate 200 may be made of a material, such as a metal or an alloy, and may be obtained by shaping (e.g. using a stamping method) a flat substrate (no shown) into a desired shape that has an appearance and a size corresponding to and substantially the same as those of the accommodating space 33 of the lower mold 3. To be more specific, the preformed substrate 200 is a curved sheet, and has a sidewall portion 201 and a bottom portion 202. The sidewall portion 201 may have a height not smaller than a height of the inner sidewall surface 31, and is parallel to the inner sidewall surface 31 of the lower mold 3. The bottom portion 202 may be parallel to the inner lower surface 32 of the lower mold 3.
In this embodiment, the preformed substrate 200 has a smooth surface, and the height of the sidewall portion 201 thereof is greater than the height of the inner sidewall surface 31 of the lower mold 3 so that, when the preformed substrate 200 is disposed in the lower mold 3, the preformed substrate 200 has a protruding portion which protrudes from the lower mold 3 and has a protruding height. The annular groove 44 of the upper mold 4 is configured to receive the sidewall portion 201 of the preformed substrate 200 during clamping of the upper mold 4 against the lower mold 3 in step (b) and in step (d). In this embodiment, the annular groove 44 has a depth not smaller than the protruding height.
In other embodiments, as shown in
Thereafter, in step (b), the preformed substrate 200 is disposed into the accommodating space 33 of the lower mold 3, and the upper mold 4 is clamped against the lower mold 3 such that the abutment surface 45 of the cover portion 41 of the upper mold 4 faces toward but not in contact with an abutment surface 34 of the lower mold 3, thereby forming a gap (G) between the abutment surface 45 of the cover portion 41 and the abutment surface 34 of the lower mold 3, such that a mold cavity (M1) is formed between the preformed substrate 200 and the upper mold 4, and such that a shaping space (M2) is formed between the sidewall portion 201 of the preformed substrate 200 and the shaping portion 312 of the inner sidewall surface 31 of the lower mold 3.
Specifically, in this step, during the clamping of the upper mold 4 against the lower mold 3, the extension portion 42 of the upper mold 4 enters the accommodating space 33, the sidewall portion 201 of the preformed substrate 200 and the parallel section 421 of the extension portion 42 are brought to a close contact with each other, and the sidewall portion 201 of the preformed substrate 200 and the upper sidewall portion 311 of the inner sidewall surface 31 of the lower mold 3 are brought to a close contact with each other, i.e., the parallel section 421 of the extension portion 42 and the upper sidewall portion 311 of the inner sidewall surface 31 tightly sandwich the preformed substrate 200, so as to form the mold cavity (M1) and the shaping space (M2). Additionally, in this embodiment, because the height of the sidewall portion 201 of the preformed substrate 200 is greater than the height of the inner sidewall surface 31, the protruding portion that protrudes from the lower mold 3 is therefore put to enter the annular groove 44 of the upper mold 4.
Afterward, in step (c), a polymer material 102 is injected into the mold cavity (M1) from the sprue 43 using an injecting pressure, while pushing the preformed substrate 200 by the polymer material 102 which is injected by the injecting pressure, so that the sidewall portion 201 of the preformed substrate 200 is pressed into the shaping space (M2), thereby forming a first deformed portion 201A.
The polymer material 102 may be a thermoplastic resin or a thermosetting resin. In step (c), the polymer material 102 injected from the sprue 43 under the injecting pressure is in a molten state. It should be noted that the degree of the injecting pressure that allows the polymer material 102 to be injected into the lower mold 3 may vary depending on several factors, such as a viscosity of the polymer material 102, a material of the preformed substrate 200, a predetermined degree of deformation of the preformed substrate 200, and/or the time required for the polymer material 102 to fill up the mold cavity (M1). In some embodiments, the polymer material 102 is a resin having a melting point ranging from 150° C. to 300° C.; and in order to deform the preformed substrate 200, the injecting pressure for the polymer material 102 may range approximately from 100 MPa to 200 Mpa, and the time for injecting the polymer material 102 under the injecting pressure may range approximately from 10 seconds to 60 seconds. Moreover, during injection of the polymer material 102 into the lower mold 3, the forming mold 300 may meanwhile be heated.
In step (d), the upper mold 4 is further clamped against the lower mold 3 using a molding pressure after the polymer material 102 fills up the mold cavity (M1) in step (c) and after the sprue 43 is closed, such that the abutment surface 45 of the upper mold 4 and the abutment surface 34 of the lower mold 3 are brought into a tight contact with each other, i.e., to close the gap (G), while the polymer material 102 and the first deformed portion 201A are pushed into the shaping space (M2) using the molding pressure to deform the first deformed portion 201A into a second deformation portion 201B, i.e, the first deformed portion 201A is compressed and deformed into the second deformed portion 201B having a shape corresponding to that of the shaping portion 312, thereby obtaining a semi-finished product 900 having a shaped substrate 91 that is formed from the preformed substrate 200 and a polymer structure 92 that is formed from the polymer material 102 and that covers a surface of the shaped substrate 91. In step (d), the tapered section 422 of the extension portion 42 and the shaping portion 312 of the inner sidewall surface 31 correspond in position to each other. In some embodiments, the polymer structure 92 may include a base portion 921 covering the surface of the shaped substrate 91, and a protrusion portion 922 protruding from the base portion 921 and corresponding to the sprue 43 in shape and position.
In other embodiments, the method for molding the composite component according to the disclosure may further include step (e), which involves taking the semi-finished product 900 out of the forming mold 300 and removing an upper portion 201C of the shaped substrate 91 that is in contact with the upper sidewall portion 311 in step (d). Specifically, the upper portion 201C is a portion that is connected to the second deformation portion 201B and is on top thereof in step (d). In still other embodiments, the protrusion portion 922 may be removed as well. The composite component is thereby obtained.
In sum, the method according to the disclosure utilizes a two-step method (i.e., steps (c) and (d)) to respectively provide the preformed substrate 200 with the injecting pressure and the molding pressure, thereby deforming the preformed substrate 200 into the shaped substrate 91. Compared to a conventional method of deforming a preformed substrate 10A as shown in
In the description above, for the purposes of explanation, numerous specific details have been set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the embodiment(s). It will be apparent, however, to one skilled in the art, that one or more other embodiments may be practiced without some of these specific details. It should also be appreciated that reference throughout this specification to “one embodiment,” “an embodiment,” an embodiment with an indication of an ordinal number and so forth means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic may be included in the practice of the disclosure. It should be further appreciated that in the description, various features are sometimes grouped together in a single embodiment, figure, or description thereof for the purpose of streamlining the disclosure and aiding in the understanding of various inventive aspects; such does not mean that every one of these features needs to be practiced with the presence of all the other features. In other words, in any described embodiment, when implementation of one or more features or specific details does not affect implementation of another one or more features or specific details, said one or more features may be singled out and practiced alone without said another one or more features or specific details. It should be further noted that one or more features or specific details from one embodiment may be practiced together with one or more features or specific details from another embodiment, where appropriate, in the practice of the disclosure.
While the disclosure has been described in connection with what is (are) considered the exemplary embodiment(s), it is understood that this disclosure is not limited to the disclosed embodiment(s) but is intended to cover various arrangements included within the spirit and scope of the broadest interpretation so as to encompass all such modifications and equivalent arrangements.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 112125480 | Jul 2023 | TW | national |
