Steering Wheel Cover Hardness Gradient for Quick Attachment
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing steering wheel covers are time-consuming to produce and attach to a vehicle's steering wheel, and they often compromise grip comfort and safety over time due to material hardness changes.
Innovation Solution
A ring-shape tube steering wheel cover with varying hardness and a slit along its inner circumference, where the backside or lower-half has reduced hardness for easy attachment, and optionally covered with circular fabric or sponge for enhanced grip and safety, allowing quick and secure fitting.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the steering wheel cover is made with uniform high hardness material, then grip comfort and safety are maintained, but attachment time increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The steering wheel cover incorporates a hardness gradient where the inner circumferential surface has lower hardness (50-70 Shore A) for easy attachment, while the outer surface and other regions maintain higher hardness (60-80 Shore A) for grip comfort and safety. This local differentiation resolves the contradiction between easy attachment and maintained grip quality.
Solution Approach 2:
The cover is divided into regions with different hardness characteristics - a softer inner layer for attachment and a firmer outer layer for usage. This segmentation allows each region to fulfill its specific function independently, achieving both quick attachment and sustained grip comfort.
2Loss of time
If the steering wheel cover is made with uniform low hardness material, then attachment time is reduced, but grip comfort and safety deteriorate over time
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by creating a hardness gradient within the cover structure. The inner circumferential surface is made softer (50-70 Shore A) to enable quick attachment, while the outer surface maintains higher hardness (60-80 Shore A) to ensure long-term grip comfort and safety, preventing the deterioration issue.
Solution Approach 2:
The steering wheel cover uses composite material construction with varying hardness levels throughout its structure. This composite approach combines materials or material treatments that create different hardness zones, allowing the cover to exhibit both easy attachability and sustained grip performance.
3Reliability
If additional force is applied during attachment to ensure secure fit, then attachment reliability improves, but the risk of dislocation increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent changes the physical parameter of material hardness in a gradient manner across the cover thickness. The inner surface is formulated with lower hardness (50-70 Shore A) to reduce attachment force requirements, eliminating the need for forceful installation that could cause dislocation, while maintaining overall attachment reliability.
Solution Approach 2:
By making the inner circumferential surface softer than the outer surface, the patent creates local quality differentiation that reduces the force needed for attachment at the critical inner surface, thereby preventing dislocation while ensuring secure fit.
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 rapid attachment of the steering wheel cover, maintaining grip comfort and safety without requiring additional force, reducing the risk of dislocation and ensuring a secure fit, with attachment times reduced from minutes to seconds.
Implementation Method 1
The hardness of material of a part of the tube is lower than the hardness of material of the other parts of the tube... when the steering wheel cover is fitted to the steering wheel, the part of the ring-shape tube is located on the back side part of the steering wheel
Data Source
AI summary
Provided is a vehicle steering wheel cover that is easy to be produced and that does not take much time to be attached to a steering wheel. The vehicle steering wheel cover is a ring-shape tube, and is provided with a slit formed so as to be fitted to the steering wheel along the inner circumference inside the ring-shaped tube. The hardness of material of a part of the tube is lower than the hardness of material of the other parts thereof.