Harness Cover With Breakable Portion For Housing Protection
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing assemblies for harness components often require replacement of the entire unit when either the housing or cover is broken, even if only one part is damaged, leading to unnecessary disposal and increased costs.
Innovation Solution
Designing a harness component with a cover that has a breakable portion configured to fail before the housing, allowing for easy repair by replacing only the cover when excess force is applied, thus preventing damage to the housing.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of repair
If the housing and cover are designed with similar strength, then the assembly structure is balanced and durable, but when the cover breaks the entire assembly must be replaced causing waste and increased costs
Solution Approach 1:
The cover is designed with a breakable portion that has locally reduced strength compared to other parts of the cover and the housing. This localized weakness is intentionally created to allow the breakable portion to fail first under excessive force, protecting the housing from damage. The breakable portion can be a thin-walled section, a predefined fracture line, or a structurally weaker region that sacrifices itself to save the more valuable housing component.
2Strength
If the cover is made stronger to protect the housing, then the housing is better protected, but the cover itself becomes more prone to breaking and requiring replacement
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of making the entire cover stronger, the design applies local quality by creating a breakable portion with controlled weakness. The rest of the cover maintains sufficient strength for normal operation, while the breakable portion is specifically designed to fail first. This approach ensures the cover provides adequate protection during normal use but has a predetermined failure mode that protects the housing when subjected to excessive force.
Solution Approach 2:
The design converts the potential harm of cover breakage into a beneficial protective mechanism. By intentionally creating a weak point in the cover, the design ensures that when excessive force is applied, the cover will break in a controlled manner at the breakable portion rather than allowing the force to transfer to and damage the housing. The breakage of the cover becomes a protective sacrifice that saves the housing.
Data Source
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AI summary
An assembly comprises a housing and a cover. The housing is configured to hold a contact. The cover is configured to cover a part of a cable which is connected with the contact. The cover is configured to align a direction of the cable. The housing has a maintaining portion. The cover is attached to an upper part of the housing in an up-down direction. The cover has a maintained portion, an edge portion and a breakable portion. The edge portion forms an outlet for the cable. The maintaining portion is positioned above the maintained portion in the up-down direction to maintain a state where the cover is attached to the housing. The breakable portion is configured to be more breakable than the maintaining portion when a moment of force about a part of the maintaining portion acts on a part of the edge portion.