Microtiled prismatic cube corner articles
Assignee3M Innovative Properties Company
InventorsKenneth L. Smith, Todd A. Ballen, Nelson D. Sewall
Life of this patent
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Assignee3M Innovative Properties Company
InventorsKenneth L. Smith, Todd A. Ballen, Nelson D. Sewall
Estimating the term…
Cube corner articles such as retroreflective sheeting utilize multiple cube corner arrays in a tiled configuration, each tile containing one array of canted cube corner elements. The tiles may be long and narrow, and the array in each of at least two or three adjacent tiles, or even in every tile, may include at least one lengthwise groove that is parallel to an edge of the tile and parallel to a fixed in-plane axis. Each tile may have a width that is narrow (e.g. 0.2 to 5 mm), and equal to an integer multiple of a lengthwise groove pitch to avoid or reduce ineffective fragmented cube corners along the tile edge. Each array may have a plane of cant and a primary plane of entrance angularity, and the primary planes of entrance angularity for the multiple tiles may be more evenly distributed in azimuthal angle than the planes of cant.
An article having a structured surface that includes a plurality of cube corner arrays arranged into a corresponding plurality of tiles, the structured surface defining a reference plane having an in-plane axis, the cube corner array for each of the plurality of tiles having a given groove set whose grooves extend parallel to the in-plane axis, the cube corner array for each of the plurality of tiles having associated therewith a plane of cant and a primary plane of entrance angularity, and wherein unique ones of the primary planes of entrance angularity for the plurality of tiles are more evenly distributed in azimuthal angle than unique ones of the planes of cant, wherein the unique ones of the primary planes of entrance angularity have a minimum angular separation PhiMin1 and the unique ones of the planes of cant have a minimum angular separation PhiMin2, and wherein PhiMin1 is at least 2 times PhiMin2.
An article having a structured surface, the structured surface being segmented into a plurality of tiles, the article comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.