Interior trim components for motor vehicle

Stock material or miscellaneous articles – Structurally defined web or sheet – Nonplanar uniform thickness material

Reexamination Certificate

Rate now

  [ 0.00 ] – not rated yet Voters 0   Comments 0

Details

C428S293100, C428S218000, C428S219000, C428S213000, C428S215000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06440534

ABSTRACT:

FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to an interior trim component for a motor vehicle.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Hard interior automotive trim such as door panels, instrument panels, steering column covers, glove box doors, knee bolsters, consoles, pillar post covers,'seat backs, speaker grilles, vent grilles, mirror housings, and HVAC housings are often produced by injection molding the more expensive resins, such as ABS or PC/ABS. Hard appearance surface parts are used in many small cars, trucks and sport utility vehicles.
It is desirable to use lower cost polyolefins in these applications. Unfortunately, these materials have relatively soft surfaces, which are prone to scuff, mar and scratch damage. Thus, to maintain the aesthetic appearance of these visible internal components when polyolefin materials are used, the polyolefins must be painted to provide a more durable surface. This adds significant cost and requires surface treatment with an adhesion promoter in order to provide good adhesion between the paint and the polymer. Even then, inconsistent paint adhesion remains a problem.
Summary of the Invention
The disadvantages of the prior art may be overcome by providing an interior trim component for an automobile comprising a structure formed from at least one polyolefin material and reinforcement particles dispersed within the at least one polyolefin material. The reinforcement particles comprise less than or equal to 10% of a total volume of the rigid structure. At least 40% of the reinforcement particles have a thickness less than about 50 nanometers. The interior trim component is constructed and arranged to be devoid of any decorative coating layer disposed thereon in its final finished form for installation into a vehicle so that the trim component is provided with an unpainted visible surface finish.
More preferably, at least 50% of the reinforcement particles have a thickness less that 20 nanometers. In addition it is preferable for at least 99% of the particles to have a thickness of less than 30 nanometers.
Also in accordance with the invention, an interior trim component is preferably loaded with nanoparticles in amounts of 3-5% of the total volume of a polyolefin interior trim part, wherein over 40% of the particles are less than about 50 nanometers in thickness, and thereby enable the part to withstand marring and scuffing (known as the “mar threshold”). It is even more preferred that the interior trim component be loaded with nanoparticles in amounts of 3-7% of the total volume of a polyolefin interior trim part, wherein over 50% of the particles are less than about 20 nanometers in thickness, Thus, the mar threshold of a polyolefin interior trim part can be more than doubled by adding nanoparticles in accordance with the present invention.


REFERENCES:
patent: 4243575 (1981-01-01), Myers et al.
patent: 4769274 (1988-09-01), Tellvik et al.
patent: 5559187 (1996-09-01), Maeda et al.

LandOfFree

Say what you really think

Search LandOfFree.com for the USA inventors and patents. Rate them and share your experience with other people.

Rating

Interior trim components for motor vehicle does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.

If you have personal experience with Interior trim components for motor vehicle, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Interior trim components for motor vehicle will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

     

Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2952010

  Search
All data on this website is collected from public sources. Our data reflects the most accurate information available at the time of publication.