Foldable Vehicle Sunshade Reinforcement for Buckling Resistance
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Solution Overview
Problem
Traditional sunshades for vehicles tend to blow or bend away from the inner surface of vehicle windows due to humidity, temperature, and large window size, reducing their service life and durability.
Innovation Solution
A sunshade design featuring a foldable shade body with flexible joints and a reinforcement member located in a channel of the pocket to provide stiffness, allowing it to resist buckling and maintain its position against the window surface.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Area of stationary object
If the sunshade is made large to cover big vehicle windows, then the coverage area is improved, but the sunshade becomes prone to buckling and bending away from the window surface
Solution Approach 1:
The sunshade is divided into multiple sub-panels (first sub-panel, second sub-panel, third sub-panel, fourth sub-panel) connected by fold sections. This segmentation allows the large sunshade to maintain structural stability by distributing the stress across multiple smaller sections rather than one large continuous panel.
Solution Approach 2:
Reinforcement members are added to the sunshade structure, extending in the vertical direction from the second major surface. These reinforcement members protrude outward to define pockets, creating a three-dimensional structure that resists buckling while maintaining the large two-dimensional coverage area.
2Ease of operation
If the sunshade material is made flexible to allow folding for storage, then the ease of operation is improved, but the sunshade loses stiffness and becomes prone to buckling
Solution Approach 1:
The sunshade has different local properties: the shade body material remains flexible for folding, while reinforcement members made of stiffer material (metal, plastic, or composite) are added at strategic locations to provide local stiffness where needed to prevent buckling.
Solution Approach 2:
The sunshade combines flexible fabric material for the shade body with rigid or semi-rigid reinforcement members (metal, plastic, or composite materials) to create a composite structure that exhibits both flexibility for folding and stiffness for buckling resistance.
3Adaptability or versatility
If environmental humidity and temperature variations occur, then the adaptability to different conditions is improved, but the sunshade material degrades and loses durability
Solution Approach 1:
The reinforcement members maintain their structural parameters (stiffness, shape) across varying environmental conditions, providing stable support that compensates for the shade body material's response to humidity and temperature changes, thereby extending service life.
Solution Approach 2:
The reinforcement members are pre-installed in the sunshade structure to provide ongoing support and protection against buckling and degradation from environmental factors throughout the product's service life.
Data Source
AI summary
A sunshade for vehicles that is durable for use with extra-large windows. The sunshade is foldable and unfoldable between a first, extended, in use configuration and a second, compact, storage configuration. The sunshade is buckling resistance so as to reduce the instances in which buckling occurs during use while positioned proximate an inner surface of the vehicle window.