Press-Hardened Chassis Component Segmentation
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Solution Overview
Problem
The production of chassis components for motor vehicles using press hardening is expensive and often fails to achieve the required rigidity, as one-piece components are costly and time-consuming to manufacture, and methods to avoid crack formation in weld seams are inefficient.
Innovation Solution
Producing components by combining a press-hardened individual component with another component made without press hardening, allowing for variable material thickness and strength distribution, and using welding or gluing techniques to connect them, while avoiding hardening in the weld seam area to prevent crack formation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Strength
If a one-piece component is produced by press hardening to achieve high strength, then the component has high tensile strength, but the production cost increases and rigidity is not achieved
Solution Approach 1:
The component is divided into multiple individual components that are connected together. At least one individual component is produced by press hardening to achieve high strength where needed, while other components can be produced by conventional methods. This segmentation allows selective application of expensive press hardening only where high strength is required, rather than the entire component.
Solution Approach 2:
Press hardening is applied selectively to specific individual components or specific regions of components where high strength is required, rather than uniformly to the entire component. This local quality approach ensures that high-strength material properties are concentrated in critical areas while reducing overall production costs.
2Reliability
If both sheet metal components are hardened to avoid crack formation in weld seams, then crack formation is prevented, but manufacturing complexity and time increase
Solution Approach 1:
Hardening is applied selectively only to the individual components that require high strength, while the other individual component (particularly the one that will be welded) is produced without hardening or with reduced hardening. This local quality approach prevents crack formation in the press-hardened component while simplifying the manufacturing of the weldable component.
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of hardening both components to prevent cracks (conventional approach), the invention inverts the approach by hardening only one component and leaving the other soft and weldable. This reversal simplifies the overall manufacturing process while maintaining reliability.
3Weight of moving object
If high-strength materials are used in deformation-relevant areas to reduce fuel consumption, then weight is reduced, but material formation cost increases
Solution Approach 1:
The component is segmented into multiple parts, allowing the use of high-strength press-hardened materials only in specific individual components where weight reduction is most critical for fuel consumption, while other components use conventional, cheaper materials.
Solution Approach 2:
High-strength press-hardened materials are applied locally to specific individual components or regions where weight reduction has the greatest impact on fuel consumption, rather than using expensive high-strength materials throughout the entire component.
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 method reduces production costs and time, achieves the necessary strength and rigidity, and allows for weight reduction while avoiding the challenges of one-piece component manufacturing and weld seam crack formation.
Implementation Method 1
The blank, which has been heated above the austenitization temperature, is placed in a cooled forming tool and then quenched. This creates a martensitic structure with very high tensile strength.
Implementation Method 2
The blank, which has been heated above the austenitization temperature, is placed in a cooled forming tool and then quenched.
Implementation Method 3
the first individual component and the second individual component are connected to one another, in particular by a welded connection
Data Source
Figure 1~2
AI summary
The aim of the invention is to reduce the weight and lower the production costs of at least two-part chassis parts of vehicles. This aim is achieved in that one component is produced as a sheet-metal component by press hardening and the other component is produced by a conventional production method, i.e., not by press hardening. The component produced by press hardening is a structural component, while the other component is used to reinforce the component produced by press hardening.