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AssigneesKikuchi Co., Ltd., Honda Giken Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorsHisashi Obara, Hiroyuki Komatsu, Noriyuki Yanase, Kouji Shimohigashi, Kazumi Kodama, Hirokazu Watanabe, Fumiaki Niisato
Estimating the term…
A tailored blank article and a manufacturing method thereof, which is used for partitioning an inside and an outside such as a dashboard panel for partitioning an engine room of a car body and the inside of a car room. A thick plate blank and a thin plate blank are joined by a mash-seam welding or a laser welding, and are subjected to a pressing. Thereby, the thin plate blank is bent until an inner surface of the thin plate blank is made flush or almost flush with an inner surface of the thick plate blank, subsequently, a connection part having a portion connected over a welding portion is connected to at least one of an outer surface and the inner surface of the tailored blank article comprising the thick plate blank and the thin plate blank, and then an entire tailored article including the connection part is coated. The connection of the connection part to the tailored blank article, which is performed before the coating, is performed with a portion which corresponds to a welding portion of the connection part spaced from the welding portion, to thereby form a coating film securely onto the welding portion.
A tailored blank article comprising two blanks with overlapped end portions joined together by mash-seam welding and then pressing and being used as at least a part of a material for manufacturing, the two blanks being a thick plate blank and a thin plate blank, the mash-seam welding being performed by overlapping an end portion of an outer surface of the thick plate to be exposed to the outside and an end portion of an inner surface of the thin plate blank, the inner surface of the thin plate blank being bent until it is made flush or almost flush with an inner surface of the thick plate blank, a portion made of the two blanks making a partition portion for partitioning an inside and an outside, and the inner surfaces of the thin plate blank and the thick plate blank serving as attaching surfaces for attaching other parts.
A tailored blank article comprising two blanks with matched end portions joined together by laser welding and then pressing and being used as at least a part of a material for manufacturing, the two blanks being a thick plate blank and a thin plate blank, respective outer surfaces of the thick plate blank and the thin plate blank to be exposed to the outside being made flush or almost flush with each other, an inner surface of the thin plate blank being bent until the inner surface of the thin plate blank is made flush or almost flush with an inner surface of the thick plate blank, a portion made of the two blanks making a partition portion for partitioning an inside and an outside, and the inner surfaces of the thin plate blank and the thick plate blank serving as attaching surfaces for attaching other parts.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.
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From the US filing history. Foreign family members aren’t listed.
Backward citations are indexed for grants only.
For welding longitudinal seams of tubes: lap welding
Resistance welding; Severing by resistance heating: using roller electrodes
Using roller electrodes: for welding rectilinear seams
By welding: seam welding
Term end not estimated
This invention relates to a tailored blank article and a manufacturing method thereof, which is manufactured by a tailored blank obtained by welding a plurality of blanks, and, for example, is applied to an article used at the position where the inside and the outside are partitioned or an article having a portion for partitioning the inside and the outside, such as a dashboard panel of an automobile.
A dashboard panel of an automobile is a partition article for partitioning the inside and the outside since it partitions an engine room to be exposed to the outside air and a car room to be cut off from the air. As disclosed in Japanese Utility Model Laid-open No. Sho 59-172678, in a conventional dashboard panel, a lower panel made of a thick plate and an upper panel made of a thin plate are joined together by a spot welding.
This kind of dashboard panel is manufactured by pressing a thick plate blank and a thin plate blank into predetermined shapes to produce the lower panel and the upper panel, joining these panels by the spot welding, performing a waterproofing to a space between these panels, and coating an entire body.
FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a part of a car body of an automobile manufactured by using a dashboard lower panel of a tailored blank article according to the present invention seen from a car room, in which only the dashboard lower panel is shown in a full line;
FIG. 2 is a plane view of a thick plate blank and a thin plate blank as materials for manufacturing the dashboard lower panel;
FIG. 3 is a plane view showing a state of the thick plate blank and the thin plate blank with these end portions overlapped for a mash-seam welding;
Preferred embodiments will be described with reference to the attached drawings in order to explain the present invention in detail.
The embodiment described below is for a dashboard panel of a car body of an automobile which is formed with tailored articles, especially for a dashboard lower panel. FIG. 1 shows a part of the car body of the automobile, in which the part of the car body is formed by joining a dashboard upper panel B, a front lower panel C and a front pillar inner lower panel D to a dashboard lower panel A.
FIG. 2 to FIG. 13 show the embodiment in which a dashboard lower panel is manufactured by a mash-seam welding. As shown in FIG. 2, materials of the dashboard lower panel are a thick plate blank 11 and a thin plate blank 12 both of which are made of a steel plate, and end portions 11A and 12A of the blanks 11 and 12 overlap each other when joined by the mash-seam welding as shown in FIG. 3. As shown in FIG. 4, they are overlapped with the thick plate blank 11 at the lower side and the thin plate blank 12 at the upper side. Thereby, when the dashboard lower panel is formed of the thick plate blank 11 and the thin plate blank 12, an inner surface 12C of the thin plate blank 12 which is an inner side of a car room to be cut off from the outside air is overlaid on an outer surface 11B of the thick plate blank 11 which is an engine room side to be exposed to the outside air. The thick plate blank 11 and the thin plate blank 12 are clamped together under this condition.