Spherical Connecting Element Pressed Into Sheet Metal
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing methods for connecting sheet-metal components to connecting elements lack simplicity and reliability, often resulting in lower quality press connections due to asymmetrical geometries.
Innovation Solution
A method involving a connecting element with a ball or spherical element that is pressed into a sheet-metal component, creating a form-fitting and frictionally engaged connection through permanent plastic deformation, allowing for a translationally and rotationally fixed connection without additional bonding methods like welding or adhesive bonding.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If asymmetrical geometries are used for connecting elements, then the connection process becomes simpler, but the connection quality deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies asymmetry in reverse by using symmetrical spherical elements. The connecting element comprises one or more balls with perfectly symmetrical geometry, which allows the sheet metal material to flow uniformly around the entire surface of the ball during pressing. This symmetry ensures homogeneous material distribution and consistent connection quality, eliminating the defects caused by asymmetrical geometries while maintaining process simplicity.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent utilizes spherical geometry for the connecting elements. The ball-shaped design provides continuous curvature that facilitates uniform material flow during the pressing operation. The spherical shape ensures that material can flow evenly from all directions around the connecting element, creating a homogeneous form-fitting connection without the stress concentrations or material defects that would result from angular or asymmetrical geometries.
2Strength
If additional bonding methods (welding, adhesive bonding) are used, then connection strength improves, but process complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the connecting element design with the connection formation process itself. The spherical connecting element is designed to create the form-fitting connection directly through material flow during pressing, eliminating the need for separate bonding operations. The connecting element's geometry and the pressing action are combined to achieve both mechanical interlocking and frictional engagement in a single integrated process step.
Solution Approach 2:
The connecting element performs its own connection function through the pressing operation. The ball-shaped element is pressed into the sheet metal component, and the material flows around it to create the form-fitting connection. The frictional engagement arises automatically from the pressing force and material deformation, without requiring additional bonding agents or secondary operations. The system is self-sufficient, achieving strong connections through the inherent mechanics of the pressing process itself.
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 achieves high-quality, permanently fixed connections by utilizing the symmetrical geometry of balls or spherical elements, ensuring a secure and reliable connection in sheet-metal components, particularly when using ductile materials like steel or aluminum.
Implementation Method 1
The material of the first component flows into a region above an equatorial plane of the at least one ball or of the at least one spherical element. The material of the first component flows to a certain extent 'around the ball or the spherical element' and adheres in a close-fitting manner against the ball or the spherical element, as a result of which a form-fitting and/or frictionally engaged connection is produced. 'Flowing' means permanent plastic deformation in this context.
Implementation Method 2
a form-fitting and/or frictionally engaged connection is produced between the first component and the connecting element
Data Source
AI summary
A method is provided for producing a component connection, which has a first component and a male connecting element with at least one sphere or at least one spherical element. The at least one ball or the at least one spherical element is pressed into the material of the first component in such a way that a positive-locking connection results between the first component and the connecting element, by which positive-locking connection the connecting element is connected to the first component in a translationally fixed and rotationally fixed manner.