Ceramic-Plastic Middle Frame Structure for Lower Phone Housing Weight
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Solution Overview
Problem
Ceramic materials used in mobile phone housings are heavy, making them difficult to reduce weight while maintaining strength, and they are challenging to design internally due to their high hardness.
Innovation Solution
A middle frame and battery cover design combining a metal middle plate with a plastic frame and a gapless ceramic frame, where the ceramic frame is connected through the plastic frame, allowing for reduced thickness and weight while maintaining strength and enabling complex internal structures.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Shape
If a ceramic rear cover or ceramic middle frame is used, then the appearance quality and hardness are improved, but the weight of the electronic device increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the frame into two distinct parts: a ceramic frame portion for external aesthetic coverage and a plastic frame portion for internal structural support. This segmentation allows each material to perform its optimal function - ceramic provides appearance quality while plastic provides strength-to-weight ratio, resolving the contradiction between weight and appearance quality
Solution Approach 2:
The patent employs a composite structure combining ceramic and plastic materials in a single frame assembly. The ceramic outer layer provides aesthetic appearance and hardness, while the plastic inner layer provides structural strength with lower weight, achieving both appearance quality and weight reduction simultaneously
2Weight of moving object
If the thickness of the ceramic rear cover or ceramic middle frame is reduced, then the weight of the electronic device is reduced, but the strength cannot meet the requirement
Solution Approach 1:
The frame is segmented into ceramic and plastic portions where the plastic frame portion assumes the load-bearing function. This allows the ceramic portion to be made thinner for weight reduction while the plastic portion maintains overall frame strength, resolving the contradiction between weight and strength
Solution Approach 2:
The plastic frame portion acts as an intermediary structural element that provides mechanical strength support to the thinner ceramic frame. The plastic material serves as a mediator that compensates for the reduced thickness of the ceramic portion, maintaining overall frame strength while enabling weight reduction
3Strength
If the ceramic frame is used, then the hardness and wear resistance are improved, but the internal structure design becomes difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The frame is divided into ceramic and plastic portions, assigning the internal structure design to the plastic portion. This segmentation allows complex internal structures to be manufactured in the plastic part using conventional techniques while the ceramic part maintains its hardness and wear resistance, resolving the contradiction between hardness and ease of manufacture
Solution Approach 2:
The plastic frame portion serves as an intermediary that accommodates complex internal structures. The plastic material acts as a mediator between the simple ceramic structure and the requirement for complex internal design, enabling easy manufacturing of internal features while the ceramic exterior maintains its hardness
Data Source
AI summary
Embodiments of this application provide a middle frame, a battery cover, and an electronic device. The electronic device may include a mobile or fixed terminal with an edge frame or a housing, such as a mobile phone, a tablet computer, a notebook computer, an ultra-mobile personal computer (UMPC), a handheld computer, a walkie-talkie, a netbook, a POS machine, a personal digital assistant (PDA), an event data recorder, a wearable device, a virtual reality device, a wireless USB flash drive, a Bluetooth speaker/headset, or a vehicle-mounted device. Two types of materials: ceramics and plastic, are used to form a middle frame and a battery cover, thereby reducing a weight of the electronic device. This resolves a problem that is of a relatively large weight of an existing electronic device and that is caused when a pure ceramic middle frame and a pure ceramic battery cover are used in the electronic device.