Land vehicles: bodies and tops – Bodies – Dashboards
Patent
1994-04-21
1995-11-21
Pape, Joseph D.
Land vehicles: bodies and tops
Bodies
Dashboards
180 90, 454127, B60K 3700, B60H 100
Patent
active
054680395
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
TECHNICAL FIELD
This invention relates to an instrument panel for an automobile in which a skin material is laminated to the surface of a thermoplastic resin core material.
BACKGROUND TECHNIQUE
As the instrument panel for an automobile, there have heretofore been used those in which a skin material is laminated with an adhesive to a thermoplastic resin core material previously formed into the desired shape by injection molding or the like.
Usually, such instrument panels for automobiles are required to have an opening portion such as an air blowoff hole for air-conditioning or preventing window glass from being clouded, or the like, and as an instrument panel having such an opening portion, there have been known those in which an opening portion consisting of a single opening having the desired size is provided by mechanically boring or the like in an instrument panel in which a skin material is laminated to the whole surface of a resin core material and which has been obtained by a method as mentioned above and those obtained, when an opening portion consisting of a plurality of small holes is required, by fitting an opening part having at least 2 plural small holes formed separately by injection molding or the like to the said opening portion and fixing the part in the opening portion.
However, in the heretofore known instrument panels, there have been such problems that the bonding strength between the thermoplastic resin core material and the skin material is insufficient, that since an opening portion is provided by boring mechanically or the like a panel as obtained by laminating the skin material to the resin core material, the end of the skin material layer rises onto the panel surface at the bored panel face around the opening portion to mar the beauty remarkably and that when the opening portion is composed of small holes the separately formed opening part is fitted to and fixed in the opening portion and hence the fitting strength of the opening part to the opening portion is insufficient, whereby the opening part comes up or disconnected from the opening portion owing to vibration during the running.
DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION
The present inventors have made extensive research for removing such faults possessed by conventional instrument panels for automobiles and developing instrument panels for automobiles in which the skin material is strongly bonded to the resin core material; the appearance of the opening portion is beautiful; and even the opening portion has plural openings no opening part is required to be fitted to the opening portion, and have, as a result, reached this invention.
That is to say, this invention provides an instrument panel for automobile in which a skin material is laminated to the surface of a thermoplastic resin core material and which is obtained by feeding a skin material to between a pair of male and female molds so designed that the desired instrument panel shape is obtained and then press-molding a molten thermoplastic resin after or while feeding the molten thermoplastic resin to between the skin material and the male mold or the female mold, characterized in that the instrument panel has on its surface at least one exposure portion of the thermoplastic resin core material; the skin material end at the boundary portion between the exposed core material portion and the skin material end around the exposure portion is embedded into and fixed in the exposed core material resin; and at least one perforation perforated through the core material layer is formed in the core material exposure portion.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 is a perspective view of the instrument panel of this invention.
FIG. 2(A) and FIG. 2(B) are partial sectional views of the instrument panel shown in FIG. 1, (A) shows the core material exposure portion at the A-A' section FIG. 1, and (B) shows the exposure portion in the B-B' section FIG. 1.
FIG. 3(A), FIG. 3(B) and FIG. 3(C) show examples of the shape of the exposure portion and the shape of perforation in this inventi
REFERENCES:
patent: 4223754 (1980-09-01), Mizuno
Matsumoto Masahito
Usui Nobuhiro
Pape Joseph D.
Sumitomo Chemical Company Limited
LandOfFree
Instrument panel for automobile does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Instrument panel for automobile, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Instrument panel for automobile will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-1132387