Ceramic Rear Cover Composite Structure for Lighter Electronic Housings
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Solution Overview
Problem
Ceramic materials used in electronic devices, such as mobile phones, are heavy and difficult to reduce weight while maintaining strength, especially when trying to create a thinner ceramic rear cover or middle frame that can withstand usage without compromising structural integrity.
Innovation Solution
A rear cover and middle frame design incorporating a ceramic outer housing combined with an inner housing made of a fiber-reinforced composite, where the fiber-reinforced composite provides strength and toughness, allowing for a thinner and lighter structure while maintaining the ceramic's high quality and hardness.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Strength
If a ceramic rear cover or middle frame is used, then high hardness and abrasion resistance are achieved, but weight increases
Solution Approach 1:
The rear cover is divided into two distinct parts: a ceramic outer housing (52) providing hardness and abrasion resistance, and an inner housing (51) made of fiber-reinforced composite material providing strength support. This segmentation allows each material to perform its optimal function while reducing overall weight compared to a solid ceramic construction.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention uses a composite structure combining ceramic material and fiber-reinforced composite material. The ceramic outer housing provides surface hardness and scratch resistance, while the inner fiber-reinforced composite housing provides structural strength and toughness, achieving a weight reduction compared to solid ceramic while maintaining or improving overall mechanical performance.
2Weight of moving object
If the thickness of ceramic rear cover or middle frame is reduced, then weight is reduced, but strength cannot satisfy requirements
Solution Approach 1:
By segmenting the rear cover into outer and inner housings with different materials, the design enables the outer ceramic layer to be thin (reducing weight) while the inner fiber-reinforced composite layer provides the necessary structural strength support, solving the contradiction between thickness reduction and strength maintenance.
Solution Approach 2:
Different regions of the rear cover use different materials optimized for their specific functions: the outer surface uses ceramic for hardness and scratch resistance, while the inner structure uses fiber-reinforced composite for strength and toughness. This local optimization allows thin overall design while maintaining strength requirements.
3Strength
If inner structure design is made on ceramic outer housing, then high quality and hardness are implemented, but manufacturing difficulty increases due to high hardness
Solution Approach 1:
The segmentation of the rear cover into outer and inner housings allows the complex inner structure to be designed and manufactured in the inner housing made of fiber-reinforced composite material, which is easier to form and manufacture than ceramic. The outer ceramic housing can then be simply fitted over this pre-manufactured inner structure, significantly easing the manufacturing process while maintaining ceramic's hardness and quality on the outer surface.
Data Source
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AI summary
Embodiments of this application provide a middle frame, a rear cover, and fabrication methods thereof, and an electronic device. The electronic device may include a mobile or fixed terminal with a frame or a housing, such as a mobile phone, a tablet computer, a notebook computer, an ultra-mobile personal computer (UMPC), a handheld computer, a walkie-talkie, a netbook, a POS terminal, a personal digital assistant (PDA), an event data recorder, a wearable device, a virtual reality device, a wireless USB flash drive, a Bluetooth speaker/headset, or a vehicle-mounted device. Ceramics and fiber reinforced composite are used to form frames of a rear cover and a middle frame, to reduce thicknesses of a ceramic outer housing and a ceramic outer frame, thereby reducing a weight of the electronic device. This resolves a prior-art problem that the electronic device has a relatively large weight when a pure ceramic middle frame and a pure ceramic battery cover are used in the electronic device.