Overmolded Bus Bar Openings for Leak-Tight Plastic Components
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing plastic components with integrated metallic busbars face issues of delamination leading to leakage paths, allowing fuel vapors to escape, and require mechanical anchoring that complicates manufacturing.
Innovation Solution
The busbars are designed with openings extending to the exit surface and filled with plastic, dividing the cross-section into enclosed partial sections, ensuring uniform shrinkage forces and secure sealing, while also incorporating additional openings for mechanical anchoring and electrical contacts.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of repair
If separate components (housing, bus bars, contactless coupling elements) are used, then assembly flexibility and ease of repair are improved, but device complexity and number of parts increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines the housing and bus bars into a single integrated component. The bus bars are directly formed as part of the housing structure, eliminating the need for separate bus bar components and reducing the total number of parts while maintaining the functional separation needed for repairability.
Solution Approach 2:
The contactless coupling elements are designed as separate, removable components that can be independently replaced. This segmentation allows specific faulty elements to be replaced without replacing the entire housing or bus bars, improving ease of repair while keeping the overall structure integrated.
2Device complexity
If integrated component design is used, then device complexity and number of parts are reduced, but manufacturing precision and assembly difficulty increase
Solution Approach 1:
The housing is designed with locally optimized features: integrated bus bars in specific regions for electrical functionality, and separate contactless coupling elements in other regions for ease of replacement. This local differentiation allows the integrated design to reduce complexity while maintaining manufacturing feasibility through region-specific design approaches.
Solution Approach 2:
The bus bars are pre-formed as integral parts of the housing during the housing manufacturing process, rather than being assembled separately. This preliminary integration reduces the number of assembly steps and minimizes the need for high-precision post-assembly adjustments, thereby reducing manufacturing precision requirements.
3Ease of manufacture
If bus bars are integrated into housing, then ease of manufacture and device complexity are improved, but reliability and protection against harmful factors worsen
Solution Approach 1:
Contactless coupling elements are introduced as intermediary components between the integrated bus bars and external connections. These elements provide electrical coupling without direct physical contact, protecting the integrated bus bars from harmful factors while maintaining ease of manufacture through the integrated housing design.
Solution Approach 2:
The housing structure incorporates protective enclosures that shield the integrated bus bars from environmental harmful factors. The housing acts as a flexible protective shell that maintains the integrity of the integrated electrical components while allowing for manufacturing simplicity.
Data Source
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AI summary
The invention relates to a plastic component (1), which has metallic bus bars (2) which are enclosed, in particular overmoulded, by the plastic of the plastic component (1) and protrude out of the plastic component (1) from one exit face (4) each on two sides (3.1, 3.2) of the plastic component (1) for electrical contacting, characterised in that at least one of the bus bars (2) has at least one bar opening (5) which is situated in the plastic of the plastic component (1) and extends, as viewed in the direction of the longitudinal extent of the respective bus bar (2), as far as one of the exit faces (4) of the plastic component (1), in particular beyond the exit face (4), and is filled with plastic of the plastic component (1).