Reel-fed clinch pin lamination for automated handling
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Solution Overview
Problem
Miniature clinch-type fasteners are difficult to handle and manufacture due to their small size, making automated and economical handling commercially challenging.
Innovation Solution
A string of tack pins formed by laminating and bonding individual material pattern layers face-to-face with severable joints, allowing them to be wound on a reel without a carrier strip, enabling easy automated installation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Volume of moving object
If miniature tack pins are made smaller to reduce size, then the fastener size is reduced, but the handling difficulty increases
Solution Approach 1:
The fastener system is segmented into multiple thin material layers that are stacked and bonded together. Each layer contains a pattern of fastener profiles, and the layers are bonded face-to-face to form a multi-layer structure. This segmentation allows the fasteners to be handled as a flexible sheet rather than individual tiny components, solving the handling difficulty while maintaining small fastener size.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention transitions from handling individual three-dimensional fasteners to handling a two-dimensional flexible sheet containing multiple fastener profiles. By arranging fasteners in a planar pattern across multiple bonded layers, the system adds a dimensional aspect (the sheet plane) that facilitates automated handling and feeding while keeping individual fastener dimensions small.
2Manufacturing precision
If individual fasteners are handled separately, then each fastener can be precisely positioned, but the automation complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
Multiple individual fastener profiles are merged into a single flexible sheet structure through layer bonding. The sheet combines multiple fastener units that maintain their individual positioning precision while being fed and positioned as an integrated flexible component, reducing automation complexity compared to handling separate fasteners.
Solution Approach 2:
The fastener profiles are pre-formed and precisely positioned within the layered sheet structure during manufacturing. This preliminary arrangement of fasteners in their correct positions and orientations eliminates the need for complex real-time positioning mechanisms during automated installation, as the sheet delivers pre-positioned fasteners ready for transfer.
3Ease of operation
If a carrier strip is used to hold fasteners, then handling is simplified, but the production cost increases
Solution Approach 1:
The flexible sheet itself serves multiple functions: it acts as both the carrier structure and the fastener array. The bonded layers provide structural integrity for handling while simultaneously containing the fastener profiles, eliminating the need for a separate carrier strip and reducing production costs by consolidating functions into a single component.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention extracts and eliminates the separate carrier strip component from the fastener system. By making the fastener array itself flexible and self-supporting through layer bonding, the carrier function is integrated into the fastener structure, removing the need for additional carrier materials and their associated costs.
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
Enables economical production and automated installation of miniature tack pins without the need for a carrier strip, reducing handling difficulties and production costs.
Implementation Method 1
The layers can be bonded together by soldering, adhesion or by ultrasonic bonding
Implementation Method 2
The layers can be bonded together by soldering, adhesion or by ultrasonic bonding
Implementation Method 3
The layers can be bonded together by soldering, adhesion or by ultrasonic bonding
Data Source
AI summary
A clinch pin fastener comprises a lamination of layers bonded face-to-face. The individual layers can be formed by stamping or photo etching and can be bonded together by soldering, by using an adhesive or by ultrasonic bonding. The heads of the outermost layers may include a tab at the top which extends laterally at a 90-degree angle to the outermost layer. The fasteners are preferably constructed by bonding elongate strips to form a continuous string of fasteners joined side-to-side at integral, severable joints located between adjacent heads of the fasteners. The fasteners can be wound about a supply reel without a carrier and thereafter unwound from the reel as they are installed.