Foldable Display Hinge Gear-Link Slider Mechanism
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing foldable display devices face issues such as malfunction or breakage due to bending, excessive deformation, and uneven surfaces caused by hinge mechanisms, leading to complex and costly repairs, and they often cannot maintain specific rotation angles or be compact in design.
Innovation Solution
A hinge assembly incorporating a slider mechanism and set of gears that translates rotational movement into translational movement, allowing for 180° rotation without damage and maintaining attachment to housings, enabling versatile folding and unfolding without lifting or curling effects, and allowing for thickness and size variations in housings for a more compact form.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Volume of moving object
If a hinge mechanism is used to fold the flexible display, then the device can be folded and compacted, but the display may malfunction or break due to bending and excessive deformation
Solution Approach 1:
The hinge assembly incorporates a slider mechanism that dynamically adjusts the position of the first housing relative to the second housing during rotation. This dynamic positioning ensures the flexible display maintains an optimal bending radius throughout the folding motion, preventing excessive deformation while enabling compact folding.
Solution Approach 2:
The mechanism changes the geometric parameters of the system by translating rotational motion into translational motion of the slider. This parameter transformation allows precise control over the distance between housing end portions, maintaining the display within safe bending limits while achieving compact form factor.
2Adaptability or versatility
If a hinge mechanism allows rotation, then the device can transform between full and half-display modes, but it cannot maintain specific rotation angles
Solution Approach 1:
The gear mechanism provides mechanical feedback through engaged teeth that naturally stop rotation at predetermined angles. The gear geometry is designed so that specific tooth engagements correspond to desired rotation angles (such as 180 degrees for half-display mode), providing tactile and positional feedback to the user.
Solution Approach 2:
The mechanism pre-positiones the slider and gear components to engage at specific rotation angles before the user completes the folding action. This beforehand positioning ensures that the display naturally settles into stable angular positions, making angle control intuitive and precise without requiring active user adjustment.
3Reliability
If the hinge assembly uses complex mechanisms to prevent display damage, then reliability improves, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The invention merges multiple functions into a single integrated hinge assembly structure. The slider mechanism, gear system, and housing positioning features are combined into one cohesive unit that simultaneously protects the display, enables folding, and controls rotation angles, rather than using separate mechanisms for each function.
Solution Approach 2:
The hinge assembly performs multiple functions: it protects the flexible display from excessive bending, enables transformation between full and half-display modes, controls rotation angles, and maintains compact form factor. This multi-functionality reduces the need for additional protective components, thereby managing overall device complexity.
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
The solution ensures the flexible display is securely attached during folding and unfolding, preventing damage and deformation, while allowing for a thinner and more versatile device that can transform between full and half-display modes, maintaining image quality and ease of use.
Implementation Method 1
a set of gears disposed on the slider and in engagement with one another, and a linkage member connecting the lever and the set of gears together. Upon the relative rotation occurring in a first direction by the second housing, the set of gears rotates and causes the lever to move translationally
Data Source
Figure 1A~1B
Figure 1C~1D
Figure 2A
AI summary
In a general aspect, a foldable display device may include a processor, a memory, a first housing having a first end portion and a second end portion, a first length extending between the first end portion and the second end portion of the first housing, a second housing having a first end portion and a second end portion, a second length extending between the first end portion and the second end portion of the second housing, the second length being different than the first length, a flexible display coupled to the first housing and the second housing, and a hinge assembly coupled to the first housing and the second housing for relative rotation of the first housing and the second housing. The hinge assembly may include a slider, a lever attached to the slider, a set of gears disposed on the slider, and a linkage member connecting the lever and the set of gears together. Upon the relative rotation occurring in a first direction by the second housing, the set of gears rotates and causes the lever to move translationally move the first housing in a first linear direction, and upon the relative rotation occurring in a second direction by the second housing, the set of gears rotates and causes the lever to move translationally move in a second linear direction, the second linear direction being opposite to the first linear direction.