3D Laminated Trim Molding with Transfer-Printed Surface Decoration
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Solution Overview
Problem
The existing methods for producing motor vehicle interior trim components with decorative surfaces are limited by the need for multiple stock materials with pre-manufactured patterns, leading to high costs and restricted design options due to the expense of woven fabrics with integrated designs, and the inability to easily change or add new designs without significant inventory management.
Innovation Solution
A unified process and apparatus that integrates transfer-printing, laminating, and molding, allowing for the direct application of sublimatable inks or dyes onto a cover layer, which is then molded onto a structural substrate, enabling a wide variety of surface decorations without the need for multiple stock materials.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Illumination intensity
If patterned woven fabrics are used as decorative cover layers, then the decorative appearance is improved, but the production cost increases significantly and storage requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies transfer printing technology to create decorative patterns on plain fabric cover layers. Instead of using expensive pre-patterned woven fabrics, the invention transfers printed patterns from transfer papers onto the fabric surface through heat and pressure, achieving the desired decorative appearance at lower cost. This copying approach allows flexible design changes without requiring new fabric inventories.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent prepares transfer papers with desired patterns in advance, which are then transferred to the fabric cover layer during the lamination process. This preliminary preparation of patterns on transfer papers enables flexible design selection without requiring pre-patterned fabrics to be stored, reducing both storage requirements and production costs while maintaining decorative quality.
2Adaptability or versatility
If multiple stock materials with different patterns are stored, then design variety is improved, but storage requirements and inventory costs increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses a single plain fabric cover layer material that can serve multiple decorative purposes through transfer printing. The same base fabric can receive different pattern transfers for different designs, making it a universal substrate that replaces the need to store multiple specialized patterned fabrics. This multi-functional approach achieves design variety without increasing inventory of different fabric types.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the decorative parameters of the fabric by transferring different patterns, colors, and designs onto the same base material. Instead of storing fabrics with different inherent patterns, the invention modifies the surface parameters of a single fabric type through the transfer printing process, enabling versatile design options without increasing storage requirements for different material stocks.
3Productivity
If transfer printing is integrated with lamination and molding, then production efficiency is improved, but process complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines transfer printing, lamination, and molding operations into an integrated production process. The transfer paper is positioned on the fabric cover layer before lamination to the substrate, and the subsequent molding process simultaneously forms the three-dimensional shape. This merging of operations eliminates separate processing steps, improving production efficiency while the integrated nature of the process manages complexity through coordinated execution rather than separate complex systems.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This approach allows for the economical production of motor vehicle interior trim components with a high degree of design variability, reducing inventory needs and production costs while enabling quick changes to designs and patterns, thereby enhancing customer choice and reducing manufacturing complexity.
Implementation Method 1
a surface decoration that is visible on the outer surface and that comprises a sublimatable ink or dye which has been transfer-printed onto the outer surface of the cover layer and which has diffused into the cover layer
Implementation Method 2
a structural substrate that comprises natural fibers and synthetic fibers, wherein the synthetic fibers have been at least partly melted so as to hot-melt bond together the natural fibers and the synthetic fibers
Implementation Method 3
an adhesive layer that is disposed between the cover layer and the structural substrate and that has been heated so as to bond the cover layer to the structural substrate
Data Source
AI summary
An apparatus includes a heating station, a laminating and transfer-printing station, and a molding station in succession, and a transport arrangement that transports the material being processed among the stations. In the heating station, a substrate is pre-heated and consolidated. In the laminating and transfer-printing station, a decorative cover layer is laminated onto the substrate and simultaneously a surface decoration (design, pattern, image, colors, text, etc.) is transfer-printed by sublimation of inks or dyes from a transfer paper onto an outer surface of the decorative cover layer. The resulting laminated body with a transfer-printed surface decoration is then three-dimensionally deformed and molded to form a three-dimensionally contoured, molded, laminated article with the transfer-printed surface decoration. The article may be a motor vehicle interior trim component.