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US 5,293,687 AGranted
Wheel manufacturing method
AssigneeAluminum Company of America
InventorsLouis G. Willoughby, Jr., Donald G. Jordan
Life of this patent
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AssigneeAluminum Company of America
InventorsLouis G. Willoughby, Jr., Donald G. Jordan
Estimating the term…
There is disclosed an improved method for manufacturing wheels in a production line by: hot-shaping metal into wheel-shaped articles which are larger in some areas than the wheels to be formed and which have a plurality of complexly-curved inner and outer surfaces; cooling the wheel-shaped articles and removing excess metal from some areas of the wheel-shaped articles. The improvement comprises: inspecting at least some of the wheel-shaped articles at a plurality of points along a transverse plane through the inner and outer surfaces of each article being inspected and at a plurality of transverse plane locations about the perimeter of each such article with a contactless gauging system recently after the articles have been hot-shaped to determine whether the articles are within dimensional requirements to form a wheel therefrom. The improvement further comprises taking corrective action to the hot-shaping operation to minimize the number of unacceptable wheel-shaped articles that are being formed after finding an article which is not within dimensional requirements.
In a method for manufacturing wheels in a production line by hot-shaping metal into wheel-shaped articles which are larger in some areas than the wheels to be formed and which have a plurality of complexly-curved inner and outer surfaces;
In a production line method for forming wheels which includes hot forming blanks of metal into wheel-shaped articles having a plurality of complexly-curved inner and outer surfaces, cooling said articles, and machining excess metal from said articles after they are cooled, the improvement which comprises:
In a production line method for forming wheels which includes hot forging blanks of metal into wheel-shaped articles having a plurality of complexly-curved inner and outer surfaces, cooling said articles, machining excess metal from said articles after they are cooled and taking prompt corrective action to the forming method when a wheel-shaped article is outside of an acceptable range for machining, the improvement which comprises:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.