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US 6,185,977 B1Granted
Method for the production of a sheet metal part by forming
AssigneeAudi AG
InventorsGerhard Schiessl, Hans-Wilhelm Bergmann
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A process of forming a sheet of metal having varying material thickness corresponding to selected strength and/or stiffness requirements generally consisting of varying the degree of heat applied during drawing of the metal to correspondingly vary the elongation coefficient of the sheet across the surface thereof.
Claims11
A process of forming a metal article of varied thicknesses comprising:
- effecting a temperature gradient in a metal sheet to produce at least two zones having different strain coefficients;
- and
- plastically deforming said sheet while heated to provide correspondingly varied thicknesses of said zones.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.