Shaped boron tubular structure support
AssigneeL & W Engineering
InventorsDean Richardson, Jason Bigelow
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method of producing a structure support may include: providing a hollow workpiece composed of a steel material; heating the hollow workpiece to an austenitizing temperature range to provide the steel material with an austenitic microstructure; forming the hollow workpiece into a predefined complex geometry while the hollow workpiece is still in the austenitizing temperature range; and cooling the hollow workpiece with the predefined complex geometry to transform the austenitic microstructure into a martensitic microstructure.
Claims20
A vehicle structure, comprising:
- a hollow body composed of a boron steel material extending along a longitudinal axis between a first end and a second end;
- the boron steel material having a martensitic microstructure;
- the hollow body having a mechanically deformed predefined complex geometry, wherein the mechanically deformed predefined complex geometry includes at least one of a non-round geometry, a transitional shape geometry, and a non-linear geometry.
A method of producing a structure support, comprising:
- providing a hollow workpiece composed of a steel material;
- heating the hollow workpiece to an austenitizing temperature range to provide the steel material with an austenitic microstructure;
- forming the hollow workpiece into a predefined complex geometry while the hollow workpiece is still in the austenitizing temperature range;
- and
- cooling the hollow workpiece having the predefined complex geometry to transform the austenitic microstructure into a martensitic microstructure.
A method of producing a vehicle structure support, comprising:
- providing a hollow metallic workpiece composed of a boron steel material, the hollow metallic workpiece having an initial geometry;
- heating the workpiece to a material transformation temperature range for a predetermined duration to austenitize the boron steel material;
- transferring the workpiece to a press within a specified time period;
- forming a shaped hollow structure support by deforming the workpiece in the press while the workpiece is still in the material transformation temperature range;
- and
- cooling the shaped hollow structure support at a cooling rate sufficient to transform the austenitized boron steel material into martensite;
- wherein the shaped hollow structure has a finished geometry different from the initial geometry of the workpiece.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.