Stock material or miscellaneous articles – Collapsible article
Reexamination Certificate
1999-09-24
2001-09-04
Jones, Deborah (Department: 1775)
Stock material or miscellaneous articles
Collapsible article
C428S116000, C410S154000, C493S966000, C493S957000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06284331
ABSTRACT:
This invention relates in general to honeycomb materials, specifically to a system for controlling structural honeycomb in an expanded, partially expanded or compressed state.
Structural honeycomb forms are frequently made by adhering sheets or strips of material to one another in an alternating pattern of adhesive stripes to form a flat pad. This pad is then usually cut into smaller sections known as slices. These slices are then expanded in the direction perpendicular to their faces by stretching and thus bending the individual sheets or strips at the joining adhesive stripes. Such stretching and bending results in a natural spring-back force which must be overcome to provide a stable, usefully expanded product. This has been accomplished in any of several ways, such as attaching facing sheets to one or both sides; by coating or impregnating to stiffen the expanded material; by softening fibrous material with moisture and holding it in its expanded state while drying. These expanding methods have produced very useful products, largely as cores for very lightweight and rigid assemblies with adhered skins. Many of these assemblies are found in aircraft manufacture, lightweight panels and doors in trucks and trailers, protective packaging and pallets, high speed railway cars, structural partitions and doors and many other applications.
The disadvantages to these methods are rather evident. They do require expensive machinery for the expansion and skin application. The processes require considerable space and the finished, expanded product itself requires much room for storage as well as shipping. By thus rigidifying the honeycomb form, it is no longer flexible or adjustable. In addition these bulky products are not easily recyclable because of their high crush resistance and therefore use much space in landfill disposal.
One known un-faced structural honeycomb use is as a void filler, used in loading rail box cars and trucks. In this method, an un-faced structural honeycomb form is hung from the top of a load and is expanded by gravity. This latter application has the drawback of being used only in a vertical position. In addition, its space filling ability is limited to just the thickness of the honeycomb form itself and thus requiring separate inventories to fill different size voids in the load.
The prior art for structural honeycomb describes many variations and uses. But the prior art does not contain methods that provide the flexibility or adjustability such as this invention describes.
It is the primary object of my invention to provide a structural honeycomb form that can be both flexible and adjustable and which incorporates one or more internal compressible cords, ropes, tubes, coated or covered wires, twisted wire brushes, plastic splines or similar longitudinal devices by means of which said form can be maintained in a state of expansion or compression. With frictional methods the form can be expanded to full length for greatest economy or expanded to various degrees at any place along its length and its length can be changed at any time including a complete compression back to its unexpanded condition for storage and future reuse. It can be expanded and compressed several times without losing this benefit of adjustability.
It is a further object of my invention to provide a structural honeycomb form that can be readily recycled by complete compression and easy removal of the longitudinal device.
It is a still further object of my invention to provide a structural honeycomb form that can be reused by complete compression for compact storage for later use.
It is a still further object of my invention to provide a structural honeycomb form whereby the said longitudinal device is in the form of tubing that can become a conduit or conduits for insertion of utilities of electric wire or communication devices or used to transmit gases or liquids.
It is a still further object of my invention to provide a structural honeycomb form whereby the said compressed honeycomb slices can be used in combination with flat or foldable forms to provide intermittent clearance or cushioning devices along its expanded length.
It is a still further object of my invention to provide a structural honeycomb form whereby compressed honeycomb slices can be adhered to adjacent compressed honeycomb slices to increase the expanded length possible.
To further explain the static friction resulting from the expansion of the honeycomb forms, the individual strips of a normally fully expanded form are bent at their juncture at an angle of approximately forty five degrees and together with the small adhesive nodes thus form the characteristic six-sided honeycomb cell. A hole is formed in the individual strips to accommodate a longitudinal device. This hole is preferably located in a diagonal leg of the cell and sized for a snug fit to establish static friction. The projected width of this hole after expansion is reduced to approximately seventy percent of its original width and thus creates a frictional force on the compressible longitudinal device. But to insure that the expanded honeycomb remains in its expanded position, a clip may be inserted over the longitudinal device just inside each end of the expanded honeycomb. To create the friction referred to above it is recommended that a hole drilled with a bit no greater than one sixty-fourth of an inch larger than the diameter of the longitudinal device be used. The preferred longitudinal device for this system is either a plastic spline, such as used in window screen repair, or a twisted paper cord or a twisted wire brush. Separate slices can be loaded onto a longitudinal device and either adhered to one another for an extended length or separated and placed at any interval.
In a somewhat different system, the longitudinal device consists of a semi rigid material such as a twisted, stranded wire. This longitudinal device is inserted through all the holes of the compressed honeycomb plies. At this point the strands of the longitudinal device are separated at both ends and bent slightly. A few of the honeycomb plies are then pulled over the ends of these strands which no longer will fit back through the holes. The honeycomb is thus maintained in its expanded condition and the semi rigid device can be bent to form the honeycomb into various shapes. The twisted wire can be removed by tearing the end plys off one end that held the honeycomb in expansion.
REFERENCES:
patent: 3982100 (1976-09-01), Hervert
patent: 4300864 (1981-11-01), Liebel et al.
Boss Wendy
Jones Deborah
LandOfFree
Honeycomb control methods for expansion and compression does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Honeycomb control methods for expansion and compression, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Honeycomb control methods for expansion and compression will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2471852