Saddle-ride Vehicle Rear Cover Garnish Gap Management
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing saddle-ride-type vehicle rear cover structures face challenges in maintaining appearance quality due to gaps at mating portions, particularly with large-sized mold-formed products, where enhancing molding accuracy is difficult without modifying the mold.
Innovation Solution
A vehicle-body cover structure for a saddle-ride-type vehicle featuring a rear cover with a separate, overlapping garnish that extends along the lower edge of the seat, where the garnish is inserted into a recessed portion of the storing box, enhancing the appearance by eliminating gaps and allowing for improved molding accuracy without mold remodeling.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Area of stationary object
If a large-sized mold is used to form the rear cover, then the rear cover can cover both left and right sides of the seat from below, but gaps are formed at the mating portion with the seat and storing box
Solution Approach 1:
The rear cover is divided into multiple parts: the main rear cover body and separate garnish pieces. The garnish pieces are specifically designed to cover the mating portions with the seat and storing box, allowing these critical areas to be molded with higher precision using smaller, dedicated molds while the main body maintains its large coverage area.
Solution Approach 2:
The garnish pieces are positioned to overlap with the rear cover from above, creating a nested arrangement where the garnish (smaller component) is effectively nested within the overall rear cover assembly (larger component). This nested structure allows the garnish to fill gaps and improve appearance at critical mating portions.
2Manufacturing precision
If the mold is modified to improve molding accuracy, then the appearance at mating portions can be improved, but the mold remodeling becomes difficult and complex
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of modifying the large, complex mold for the entire rear cover, the solution segments the molding process into two simpler molds: one for the main rear cover body and another for the smaller garnish pieces. This segmentation makes the molds easier to manufacture and modify while achieving the desired precision at critical areas.
Solution Approach 2:
The problematic mating portion areas are extracted from the main rear cover molding and formed as separate garnish pieces. This extraction allows these specific areas to be molded separately with appropriate precision without complicating the main mold design.
3Ease of manufacture
If the rear cover is formed as a single large mold-formed part, then manufacturing is simplified, but gaps appear at mating portions deteriorating the appearance
Solution Approach 1:
The rear cover system is segmented into the main rear cover and separate garnish pieces that specifically address the mating portions. While this increases the number of components, the garnish pieces are simple to manufacture and install, maintaining ease of manufacture while dramatically improving appearance quality.
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of uniformly treating the entire rear cover, the solution applies different quality levels to different areas. The garnish pieces provide enhanced appearance quality at critical mating portions (local quality improvement) while the main rear cover maintains its functional coverage, optimizing the balance between manufacturing simplicity and appearance quality.
Data Source
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AI summary
To ease forming by molding of a rear cover which is a large-sized part and exhibits difficulty in mating with a seat with high accuracy and to maintain favorable appearance, a strip-shaped garnish along with a lower end edge of a sheet is interposed between a seat and a rear cover in a state that the garnish overlaps with the rear cover, and an upper end edge of the garnish is mated with a lower end edge of the seat thus maintaining favorable appearance. It is unnecessary to mate an upper end of the rear cover with a lower end edge portion of the seat and hence, even when size irregularities exist, a gap between the seat and the rear cover can be filled with the garnish.