Method of making sheet metal pulley
AssigneeArrowhead Engineering Corporation
InventorFred A. Wolbert
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method for forming the grooves in single and multigroove sheet metal pulleys, including shaping and/or crimping of the groove walls, wherein the grooves are formed by a sequential, single step, continuous process from a punched or drawn blank without intermediate handling and/or displacement of the blank using both axial and radial pressures, wherein the applied radial pressures or forces are substantially less than the applied axial pressures or forces. The pulley may have grooves of the same or different pitch and of the same or different diameter.
Claims16
A process for making a sheet metal pulley having plural grooves therein in a continuous single work cycle from a hollow generally cup-shaped sheet metal blank having an inner hub portion, an outer axially extending flange portion and at least one axially extending wall portion and at least one angular, transversely extending wall portion therebetween comprising the steps of:
- a. supporting said blank in a metal deforming apparatus;
- b. introducing a forming fluid into the interior of said blank to exert pressure against said wall portions;
- c. exerting an axial force on said blank at said hub portion by actuating a ram member disposed thereat to outwardly deform said wall portions by the coaction of said axial force and said forming fluid;
- d. confining and shaping said outwardly deformed wall portions between plural movable forming die members disposed exteriorly of said blank and cooperatively actuating said ram member and said plural forming die members to partially form grooves;
- e. adjusting the pressure and volume of said forming fluid while simultaneously crimping at least one lateral wall of said grooves to complete the formation thereof;
- and
- f. withdrawing said plural movable forming die member.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.