Press pad for assembling parts of a shoe
AssigneeNIKE, Inc.
InventorsDerek Kuo, Yen Lin Lee, Dawei Wang, Hugo Lin
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Aspects of this disclosure relate to apparatuses and methods that employ a press pad for forming shoe parts, or subassemblies, for example a sole subassembly. The adaptive pad may conform to a topography of a pattern of recesses of a shoe part and provide sufficient rigidity to facilitate formation of a bond during pressing of the one or more shoe parts to form the sole subassembly.
Claims20
A method of manufacturing a shoe subassembly, the method comprising:
- forming a sole subassembly by applying an adhesive to a first shoe part and by mating the first shoe part with the adhesive to a second shoe part;
- placing the sole subassembly in a cavity of a first plate of a jig, such that the sole subassembly is adjacent to a shoe press pad disposed within the cavity, wherein the shoe press pad comprises a discontinuous shear-thickening material that is flowable about a topography of a tread pattern of the sole subassembly at a noncritical shear force and that is structurally rigid within the topography of the tread pattern of the sole subassembly at a critical shear force, wherein the discontinuous shear-thickening material has a viscosity that increases non-linearly as shear force increases;
- and
- applying a bonding pressure to the sole subassembly, wherein the bonding pressure imparts a shear force to the shoe press pad at or above the critical shear force.
A shoe press pad for coupling a first sole element to a second sole element to form a sole subassembly, the shoe press pad comprising:
- a discontinuous shear-thickening material comprising a suspension of solid particles in a fluid medium, wherein the suspension is formulated such that:
- a viscosity of the suspension increases non-linearly as a shear force applied to the shoe press pad increases;
- at a noncritical shear force, the suspension has a first viscosity, wherein the suspension is flowable about a topography of the sole subassembly at the first viscosity;
- and
- at a critical shear force, the suspension has a second viscosity, wherein the suspension is structurally rigid within the topography of the sole subassembly at the second viscosity.
A shoe part bonding apparatus for bonding a first shoe part and a second shoe part to form a sole subassembly, the shoe part bonding apparatus comprising:
- a first plate comprising a flow-control cavity;
- a shoe press pad disposed within the flow-control cavity of the first plate, the shoe press pad comprising a discontinuous shear-thickening material that is flowable about a topography of the sole subassembly at a first shear force and that is structurally rigid within the topography of the sole subassembly at a second shear force, the shear-thickening material including a suspension of solid particles in a fluid medium with a viscosity that increases non-linearly as shear force increases;
- and
- a second plate that applies pressure to sole subassembly, wherein the sole subassembly is interposed between the shoe press pad and the second plate.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.