Embossed Cabin-Chassis Bracket for Controlled Collision Rupture
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing heavy-duty vehicle designs face challenges in ensuring that the cabin assembly separates rearwards from the chassis during a truck vs truck rear-end collision while withstanding everyday fatigue stresses and forces without uncontrolled rupture.
Innovation Solution
A bracket design with an embossment line that allows controlled rupture during severe collisions, featuring a main plate with a cabin and chassis attachment portion, and a perpendicular embossment that initiates and propagates rupture along a predefined line, ensuring reliability and low manufacturing costs.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the bracket is designed to break off during frontal collision to allow cabin separation, then passenger safety is improved, but the bracket may rupture uncontrolled during everyday use due to fatigue stresses
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by pre-defining the rupture line through an embossment in the bracket material. This embossment creates a predetermined weak path that will break first under extreme collision forces, ensuring controlled separation. The embossment is created during manufacturing, preparing the bracket in advance for the collision scenario while maintaining full strength during normal operation.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies local quality by creating a localized embossment feature at a specific position in the bracket (at a distance of 5-50mm from the cabin attachment portion). This local modification creates a controlled weak point only where needed, while the rest of the bracket maintains its full structural integrity and strength for withstanding everyday fatigue stresses and forces.
2Duration of action of stationary object
If the bracket is designed with high strength to withstand everyday fatigue stresses, then durability is improved, but the bracket will not break off during collision to protect passengers
Solution Approach 1:
The embossment is pre-created during bracket manufacturing, establishing a predetermined rupture path before the bracket is installed. This preliminary feature ensures that when extreme collision forces are applied, the bracket will break along this pre-defined line, providing reliable passenger protection while maintaining durability during normal use.
Solution Approach 2:
The embossment creates a localized area of reduced material integrity only at the specific position 5-50mm from the cabin attachment portion. This local modification does not compromise the overall strength and durability of the bracket for everyday operation, while ensuring controlled rupture behavior during collision events.
3Manufacturing precision
If the embossment is located close to the cabin attachment portion, then controlled rupture is achieved, but manufacturing precision requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent defines a specific parameter range for the embossment position (5-50mm from the cabin attachment portion). This parameter specification balances the need for controlled rupture with manufacturing feasibility. The range allows sufficient distance from the attachment portion to ensure proper rupture control while remaining within achievable manufacturing precision capabilities.
Data Source
AI summary
A bracket for connecting a cabin to a chassis of a heavy-duty vehicle, wherein the bracket comprises a main plate having a cabin attachment portion for connecting to the cabin and a chassis attachment portion for connecting to the chassis, wherein the main plate of the bracket comprises an embossment which is embossed perpendicularly to the main plate, which is located between the cabin attachment portion and the chassis attachment portion of the main plate, and which extends along an embossment line from or proximate from a rear edge of the bracket, towards a front edge of the bracket. The invention also provides for a heavy-duty vehicle equipped with such bracket for connecting a cabin to a chassis.