US 5,348,432 AGranted

Tee nut

AssigneeNagayama Electronic Industry Co., Ltd.

InventorYutaka Nagayama

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Abstract

In order to prevent a flange of a tee nut which is moved along a feed track from overlapping with that of another tee nut so that the tee nut can be smoothly fed along the feed track, the flange is an octagon having linear sides coupling paired the two pawls of each of two pairs of pawls with each other. To firmly and semi-permanently fix the tee nut in an object, a relatively thin-walled flarable or splayable portion is formed on an end of a shaft away from the flange. A female screw forming portion is provided on a portion of the shaft excluding the flarable or splayable portion. When this tee unit is mounted on the object, the pawls bite into the object and the flarable or splayable portion is flared or splayed to form a flared or splayed rim.

Claims15

Dependent claims

A tee nut being made of an integral metal material and comprising a shaft and a flange outwardly extending from a first end of said shaft and comprising an outer peripheral edge, said shaft being in the form of a hollow cylinder and having a relatively thin-walled flarable portion at a second end being opposite to said first end, and a relatively thicker-walled threaded portion at said first end having a female screw threading formed on an inner surface of said threaded portion, said screw threading not extending into said flarable portion, two pairs of pawls being arranged on said outer peripheral edge of said flange in opposite positions along a radial direction of said flange, wherein each of said pawls extends substantially from said first end toward said second end, said outer peripheral edge of said flange having such a shape that the pawls of each pair of said two pairs of pawls are coupled with each other by a respective linear edge of said outer peripheral edge.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.