Biomimetic armrest substrate for a vehicle armrest assembly
AssigneeFord Global Technologies, LLC
InventorsMichael James Whitens, Robert D. Bedard, Siddharthan Selvasekar, Amit Chakravarty, Robert Walter Bartus
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A vehicle door includes a trim panel coupled to a frame. A single-piece armrest substrate is coupled with the frame. The armrest substrate is a three-dimensionally printed member having interior walls that are printed within the armrest substrate according to a virtual force model generated during a virtual impact scenario. The interior walls define a plurality of voids defined within the armrest substrate.
Claims20
A vehicle door comprising:
- a trim panel coupled to a frame;
- and
- a single-piece armrest substrate coupled with the frame, wherein the single-piece armrest substrate is a three-dimensionally printed member having interior walls that are printed within the single-piece armrest substrate according to a virtual force model generated during a virtual impact scenario, and wherein the interior walls define a plurality of voids within the single-piece armrest substrate, wherein the interior walls of the single-piece armrest substrate are positioned in locations corresponding to a plurality of force vectors of the virtual force model, and wherein the plurality of voids are positioned in locations corresponding to regions between the plurality of force vectors of the virtual force model.
A method of forming an armrest substrate, the method comprising steps of:
- performing a virtual impact scenario and a virtual use scenario;
- building a virtual force model using the virtual impact and virtual use scenarios;
- building a virtual design for a single-piece armrest substrate based upon the virtual force model;
- three-dimensionally printing the virtual design for the single-piece armrest substrate to define a printed single-piece armrest substrate;
- and
- attaching the printed single-piece armrest substrate to a vehicle frame.
A method of forming an armrest substrate, the method comprising steps of:
- performing a virtual impact scenario and a virtual use scenario;
- building a force vector model using the virtual impact and virtual use scenarios;
- building a virtual design for a single-piece armrest substrate based upon the force vector model, wherein interior and exterior walls for the virtual design are located according to a location of vectors of the force vector model;
- and
- three-dimensionally printing the interior and exterior walls of the virtual design to define a printed single-piece armrest substrate.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.