Automobile Weather Strip with Variable Wall Thickness Sealing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current weather strips for automobiles face issues with water leakage at the side and corner portions, leading to increased costs, weight, and closing resistance, due to uniform wall thickness settings that are excessive for the floor-side side portions.
Innovation Solution
A weather strip with a hollow sealing portion is designed to have a smaller wall thickness for the floor-side side portion and a larger wall thickness for the floor-side corner portion, with seamless continuity between these sections, reducing material usage and weight while maintaining effective sealing.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the wall thickness of the sealing portion is uniformly set based on the upper edge portion where water leakage is likely to occur, then water leakage prevention is improved, but material costs, weight, and closing load increase due to excessive material usage in the floor-side side portion
Solution Approach 1:
The sealing portion is designed with different wall thicknesses for different sections: the upper edge portion (first side portion) has a larger wall thickness to prevent water leakage, while the floor-side side portion (second side portion) has a smaller wall thickness since it is not exposed to rain water. This local differentiation of quality optimizes material usage while maintaining sealing performance where needed.
Solution Approach 2:
The sealing portion is segmented into multiple sections with different wall thickness characteristics. The first side portion (upper edge) is segmented to have greater thickness for water leakage prevention, while the second side portion (floor-side) is segmented to have reduced thickness. This segmentation allows each section to be optimized for its specific functional requirements.
2Reliability
If the wall thickness of the sealing portion is uniformly increased to prevent water leakage, then sealing performance is improved, but weight and closing resistance increase
Solution Approach 1:
The wall thickness is locally optimized: the upper edge portion has increased thickness for sealing performance, while the floor-side side portion maintains reduced thickness. This local quality differentiation ensures sealing performance is improved only where necessary, without unnecessarily increasing the overall weight of the weather strip.
3Reliability
If the wall thickness of the sealing portion is uniformly increased to prevent water leakage, then sealing performance is improved, but closing load increases
Solution Approach 1:
The wall thickness is locally differentiated: the upper edge portion has larger thickness for sealing performance, while the floor-side side portion has smaller thickness. This reduces the overall closing load while maintaining sealing performance at the critical upper edge portion where water leakage occurs.
Data Source
AI summary
The weather strip configured to be attached to the automobile body opening portion is an elongated member having a length configured to correspond to a side portion and a corner portion of the automobile body opening portion and includes a hollow sealing portion. A surface of the sealing portion corresponding to a floor-side side portion and a surface of the sealing portion corresponding to a floor-side corner portion are continuous to each other. A wall thickness of the sealing portion corresponding to the floor-side side portion is set to be smaller than a wall thickness of the sealing portion corresponding to the floor-side corner portion. The sealing portion corresponding to the floor-side side portion includes a portion having a smallest wall thickness among the entire sealing portion.