Offering Description
- Product/Process Improvement
- In-depth analysis of a product or process related problem to find underlying key problems
- Solution development suitable for different time lines (incremental as well as disruptive ideas)
- Much more comprehensive than Tech Scouting
- Solutions substantiation (reasons to believe)
- Support for IP (patent) preparation
Background
- A car body includes number of aluminum sheet parts with complex shape.
- The current technology includes sheet extrusion, multi-step stamping and welding.
- Due to large number of operations and applying complex equipment, the current technology is too expensive
- It is necessary to reduce operation cost dramatically
- What should be done?
Trimming and Physical Contradiction
- The problem:
- How to reduce the operation cost?
- Trimming:
- It is necessary to exclude majority of operations from the technological process and delegate their useful functions to one operation: extrusion
- Trimming problem:
- How to extrude an aluminum sheet with complex shape?
- Physical contradiction:
- The die should have one particular shape to provide specific cross-section of the aluminum sheet, but it should have another shape to provide another cross-section
- Separation in time: the die should be able to change its shape in the process of aluminum sheet extrusion
- Inventive Principle: Dynamicity (divide an object to parts capable to move relatively each other.
Solution: Dynamic Extrusion
Idea Description:
- Extrude aluminum sheet with complex shape using existing dies and additional equipment
Benefits:
- Reduced number of steps in the technological process
- Reduced tooling costs
- Productivity close to that of conventional extrusion
- Higher quality of the produced components, which are shaped when aluminum is in a malleable solid state; stamping aluminum in a solid state leads to high stress areas
- Option to change the shape (design flexibility) in terms of thickness and profile
- Weight savings due to improved mechanical performance