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US 4,397,173 AGranted
Tube expander
AssigneeCaterpillar Tractor Co.
InventorsLarry G. Eftefield, Edward R. Horton
Life of this patent
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AssigneeCaterpillar Tractor Co.
InventorsLarry G. Eftefield, Edward R. Horton
Estimating the term…
A tube expander (10), for extrudably expanding the walls of a tube (12) is disclosed. The clamping force required on a tube (12) to prevent relative movement between the tube (12) and a tube expander (10), generally limits the amount of deformation completed during single stroke forming operations. The present invention provides a tube expander (10) for partially forming the tube (12) during insertion of the expander (10) into the tube (12) and fully forming the tube (12) during withdrawal of the expander (10). The tube expander (10) has an annular forming member (44) moveably mounted on a mandrel (22) for movement between a first position at which a plane (46) of the annular forming member (44) is at a skew angle with respect to a longitudinal axis (32) of the mandrel (22) and a second position at which the plane (46) of the annular forming member (44) is normal to the longitudinal axis (32). The present invention is particularly useful for extrudably expanding the walls of a tube (12) into a plurality of circumferential grooves (17) disposed in a bore (14) of a flange (16).
In a tube expander (10) for extrudably expanding the walls of a tubular member (12) into the bore (14) of a flange (16), said tube expander (10) having a housing (18), a mandrel (22) having a first end portion (24) and longitudinal axis (32) and being at least partially disposed within said housing (18), and a first means (34) for moving said mandrel (22) along said longitudinal axis (32), the improvement comprising:
A tube expander (10), comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.