Product of a two phase, self configuring coreless structural element for furniture and the like

Abstract

A structural element for initial, substantially flat attachment to the surfaces of high impact sheet materials, and adapted for attachment to curved surfaces, includes: a first resilient, semi-flexible, sheet material having a given length and width; a second, flexible sheet material of substantially the same width as the first sheet material; a plurality of parallely-spaced, independent preformed rib members sandwiched between the first and second sheet material and each rib member extending substantially across the width of the first and second sheet material and fixedly attached to both the first and second sheet material by an adhesive with the first and second sheet material being flat, the width and height of the preformed rib members and the distance between adjacent rib members determining the limit of bending of the first or second sheet material; and at least one of the first and second sheet material being shearable, thereby enabling areas and the degree of bending within the areas of the first and second sheet material to be determined by the selective cutting of only the at least one sheet in the spaces formed between the plurality of rib members. In an alternate embodiment only one sheet of flexible material is used and the bending of the structural element is determined solely by the spacing between the rib members and their height and width.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.