Welded joint for armored vehicles

Details Welded joint for armored vehicles Welded joint for armored vehicles

1998-10-14

2001-02-13

Zimmerman, John J. (Department: 1775)

Stock material or miscellaneous articles

All metal or with adjacent metals

Having member which crosses the plane of another member

C428S599000, C089S036020, C089S036080

Reexamination Certificate

active

06187451

ABSTRACT:

FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to a welded joint, and more particularly to a welded joint for armored vehicles.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The armoring of vehicles usually requires that plates are held together and/or in place by some form of mechanical fastener or welding. Ballistic protection is enhanced either by overlapping the armor plates or by covering over joints with additional plates. In most cases the armor materials are parasitic and do not add any significant strength to the vehicle.
The high overpressures and shock waves produced by the explosives cause the plates to exert a great amount of force on the mechanical fasteners and/or welds. As a result, pieces of armor can become dislodged and become shrapnel as well. Often the armor will fail at the site of a pre-formed hole or a weld. The net effect of non-directional explosive attack on most current armor systems is to dislodge the armor and significantly alter the structure of the vehicle to the point that it is no longer continuous.
As indicated above, a particular problem associated with joined armor plates is that the failure tends to occur at the joint. Once a crack is initiated, it tends to propagate, and often results in catastrophic failure of the entire plate.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of the present invention to provide an improved an improved joint for armored plates that provides reduced susceptibility to failure of the plates.
A specific object of the present invention is to provide a joint configuration whereby the propagation of any crack is directed to the outside of the plate.
Another object of the invention is to allow utilizing the armor plates to provide a continuous unitary mechanical structure for the vehicle.
It has been found that an improved joint for armored plates can be obtained by providing one of the armor plates, or an interconnecting element, with a semi-circular rounded lobe; and welding the lobe to the plate to be joined near to an outside edge thereof to form a U-shaped welded region such that the ends of the welded region are directed to the outside edge of the plate so that a crack formed in the weld will tend to propagate along the weld to the outside of the plate rather than into the plate.


REFERENCES:
patent: Re. 29463 (1977-11-01), Bognacs et al.
patent: 1446274 (1923-02-01), Roberts
patent: 1617114 (1927-02-01), Hoehn
patent: 1700319 (1929-01-01), Kjekstad
patent: 2679468 (1954-05-01), Pitman
patent: 3720995 (1973-03-01), Brown et al.
patent: 3785696 (1974-01-01), Moore et al.
patent: 4307911 (1981-12-01), Pavlik
patent: 4316404 (1982-02-01), Medlin
patent: 4362083 (1982-12-01), Straub
patent: 4873415 (1989-10-01), Johnson et al.
patent: 5284289 (1994-02-01), Killian
patent: 6010669 (2000-01-01), Miola et al.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

Rating

Welded joint for armored vehicles does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.

If you have personal experience with Welded joint for armored vehicles, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Welded joint for armored vehicles will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2593130