Spring-Biased Mud Flap Hanger With Guidance Surfaces
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional spring loaded mudflap hanger arms often bind or fail to return to their normal position after deflection, and are prone to corrosion due to limited geometries and metal components at the interface with the vehicle frame, leading to manufacturing challenges and increased costs.
Innovation Solution
The use of guidance surfaces on a mounting plate and frame seat maintains alignment and prevents lateral displacement or rotation, allowing the hanger arm to reliably return to its normal position while reducing wear and corrosion by using a high-tension spring and alternative materials like thermoplastic for the mounting plate and injection molded plastic for the frame seat.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If conventional metal fabrication and casting processes are used to manufacture the hanger arm assembly, then the components can be produced with traditional geometries, but the assembly is prone to corrosion and the hanger arm may bind or fail to return to its normal position
Solution Approach 1:
The patent changes the material parameter from traditional metal to thermoplastic polymer, which fundamentally alters the manufacturing process from metal fabrication and casting to injection molding. This material parameter change enables complex geometries including integrated guidance surfaces that prevent binding and eliminate corrosion issues, while the high-tension spring parameter ensures reliable return to normal position
Solution Approach 2:
The patent employs composite material construction by combining thermoplastic polymer for the hanger arm assembly with a high-tension spring mechanism. This composite approach allows the plastic components to provide corrosion resistance and integrated guidance surfaces, while the spring provides the necessary mechanical force for reliable return motion, resolving both reliability and manufacturing concerns
2Strength
If the hanger arm is designed with spring loading to allow flexing away from normal position, then the assembly can withstand deflecting forces, but the hanger arm may bind or fail to return to its normal position
Solution Approach 1:
The patent incorporates curved guidance surfaces on both the mounting plate and frame seat that work in conjunction with the spring-loaded mechanism. These curved surfaces guide the hanger arm through its deflection arc, ensuring smooth motion and reliable return to normal position by preventing binding at the pivot points, thereby resolving the reliability issue while maintaining the strength to withstand deflecting forces
Solution Approach 2:
The guidance surfaces create a mechanical feedback system where the geometry of the surfaces provides continuous directional guidance to the spring-loaded hanger arm during deflection and return motion. This feedback mechanism ensures the arm follows the correct path and reliably returns to normal position, overcoming the binding problem that plagues conventional spring-loaded designs
3Ease of manufacture
If traditional metal components are used at the interface between the hanger arm and vehicle frame, then the assembly can be manufactured with conventional processes, but corrosion occurs primarily in these interface components
Solution Approach 1:
The patent fundamentally changes the material parameter from metal to thermoplastic polymer for all components at the interface between the hanger arm and vehicle frame. This material substitution eliminates corrosion entirely while the injection molding process used to manufacture these plastic components is actually simpler and more cost-effective than traditional metal fabrication and casting processes, resolving both the ease of manufacture and corrosion issues
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 design ensures reliable return of the hanger arm to its undeflected position, reduces corrosion, and simplifies manufacturing by eliminating the need for welding and coatings, thereby lowering costs and improving durability.
Implementation Method 1
a high-tension spring coupled to both the hanger arm assembly and the frame seat, so that the spring biases the mounting plate toward a resting position against the frame seat and thereby biases the hanger arm toward a resting, undeflected position
Data Source
AI summary
Systems and methods for controlling movement of a mudflap hanger arm, to reliably return from a deflected position to a resting position, while providing improved manufacturability and reduced corrosion and wear through the use of guidance surfaces on a mounting plate and a frame seat that form the interface between the hanger arm and a vehicle frame. When the hanger arm pivots about an axis on one side of the mounting plate and frame seat, guidance surfaces on the opposite side are in contact or near-contact, preventing the mounting plate and frame seat from being laterally displaced or rotated with respect to each other. The improved mounting plate and frame seat can reduce or eliminate manufacturing operations such as welding, coating, etc., reducing the cost of the apparatus, while enhancing manufacturability and operation.