Wire Staple with Beveled Piercing Points for Metal Sheet Attachment
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing metal staples are inadequate for securely attaching steel and aluminum sheet materials due to insufficient piercing and retention mechanisms, particularly when driven through thicker materials.
Innovation Solution
A staple made of round wire with spaced apart legs, each featuring a metal piercing point with a beveled outside and inside surface and a blunt end, designed to pierce through one sheet and spread apart to anchor within both sheets, ensuring secure attachment.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a typical staple with spaced apart legs is driven through sheet materials, then the sheets can be attached together, but the staple is inadequate for securely attaching steel and aluminum sheet materials, particularly when driven through thicker materials
Solution Approach 1:
The staple legs feature a specialized piercing point configuration with beveled outside and inside surfaces and a blunt end, creating different local geometries along the leg length. The beveled surfaces concentrate stress at the blunt end to facilitate piercing through thick metal sheets, while the rounded body provides flexibility and spring-back for secure anchoring, resolving the contradiction between piercing capability and attachment security.
2Ease of operation
If the staple legs are made sharp to facilitate piercing, then piercing through thicker materials is easier, but the legs may not provide sufficient retention and anchoring within the sheets
Solution Approach 1:
The piercing point is designed with beveled outside and inside surfaces that converge to form a blunt end, concentrating deformation energy at a localized region. This allows the legs to pierce through thick materials effectively while the rounded body portion maintains flexibility for spring-back and secure anchoring, resolving the contradiction between piercing ease and retention capability.
3Reliability
If the staple legs are made flexible to allow spreading and anchoring, then retention within sheets is improved, but the piercing force through thick materials is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The piercing point configuration with beveled surfaces creates a stress concentration zone that facilitates piercing through thick materials, while the rounded body portion provides the necessary flexibility for leg spreading and anchoring. This local differentiation resolves the contradiction between piercing force and anchoring strength.
Data Source
AI summary
A staple for attaching together first and second metal sheets is made of a length of round wire bent at the ends to form spaced apart depending metal legs, each having a metal piercing point at the end thereof adapted to pierce completely through the first sheet and at least partially through the second sheet and also adapted to spread the legs further apart during the piercing to a spread position in which the legs are anchored within the metal sheets and thereby attach the metal sheets together. The metal piercing points each having an outside bevel surface on the outside of the leg, an inside bevel surface on the inside of the leg, and a blunt end surface between the inside and outside bevel surfaces.