Stock material or miscellaneous articles – Structurally defined web or sheet – Including components having same physical characteristic in...
Patent
1994-12-13
1997-05-20
Bell, James J.
Stock material or miscellaneous articles
Structurally defined web or sheet
Including components having same physical characteristic in...
428212, 428902, 442312, 442316, B32B 0702
Patent
active
056310676
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The invention relates to a heterogeneous custom made knitted fabric for lining the surfaces of molds.
In designing new models of vehicles more and more attention is being paid to the aerodynamic profile of the body, especially of the windshields and rear windows. These windows, therefore, are requiring curved plate shapes with increasingly more complex zones of curvature and with, for example, transitions from two to three-dimensional areas of curvature. The thermoshaping of the custom cut glass plates is carried out in a known manner by heating the flat glass plates to a temperature at which they become sufficiently pliable to be transformed in a mold with the desired curved surface into the desired curved window shape.
It is known, for example from the French patent application 2.606.398, to cover the surfaces of the hard metal mold with a lining layer that forms a cushion in order to avoid irregularities in the window surface during the thermoshaping. Fiber glass and metal wire fabrics, as well as combinations of the two, can be used for this purpose.
The demands being made on these liner fabrics continue to increase as a consequence of the necessity of creating ever more complicated curved surfaces in the glass plates. Insofar as parts of the liner fabrics extend over the edges of the mold or over zones with strong or three-dimensional curvature or over the remaining parts of the mold surface, their strength, wear resistance, transverse compressibility, bending resistance and/or extensibility in the surface will have to be adapted for each zone, area or part of the surface. On the concave side of the curved window, the window edges are increasingly being given a layer of colored enamel. With the thermoshaping process in the mold it is necessary to ensure that the enamel layer does not adhere to the knitted fabric edges situated opposite it. To accomplish this, the knitted fabric lining these edges may therefore require extra structural adaptations.
The invention contributes to solving this problem by providing a custom knitted fabric for lining mold surfaces; the fabric comprises thereby predetermined zones with different knitted patterns. The expression "knitted fabric comprising zones with, different knitting patterns" is to be understood here as a general concept for knitted structures in which at different places on the surface, and/or through the thickness of the fabric, the structure differs from the structure at other places by the difference in mesh size, mesh form, stitch pattern, mesh connection, fiber and/or yarn composition or structure and/or thickness of the knitted structure. As a result of these structural differences, therefore, both the fabric density (i.e. air permeability) or extensibility, resp. elasticity (in one or another direction) and either the strength or wear resistance, resistance to cutting, transverse compressibility (perpendicular to the surface of the fabric) and the stiffness will differ locally in relation to the neighbouring or bordering zones. The fabric density can further be adapted locally by a calendering operation at say between 100 and 200 bar.
This will now be further explained by means of the accompanying figures.
FIG. 1 shows a knitted fabric according to the invention with a number of consecutive knitted sections over its surface as they can be produced by the knitting machine.
FIG. 2 shows a similar knitted fabric in which the consecutive sections produced by the machine are arranged differently.
FIG. 3 shows schematically a custom flat knitted fabric for shaping a windshield or rear window of an automobile.
FIG. 4 is a cross-section of a double-layered section of knitted fabric in which the knitting pattern differs through the thickness of the fabric, i.e. from the one layer to the other.
FIG. 5 shows schematically a knitting pattern with filling yarns.
Each of the consecutive sections of the knitted piece sketched in FIG. 1 forms a custom knitted fabric 1 for lining surfaces of a mold for the suitable bending of glass plates that are intended, for exam
Anaf Lieven
Dewaegheneire Gabriel
Bell James J.
N. V. Bekaert S.A.
LandOfFree
Heterogeneous knitted fabric does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Heterogeneous knitted fabric, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Heterogeneous knitted fabric will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-1722524