B - Operations – Transporting – 21 – D
Patent
B - Operations, Transporting
21
D
B21D 39/02 (2006.01) B21D 53/88 (2006.01) B62D 65/00 (2006.01)
Patent
CA 2254276
Improved method and apparatus for interlocking hemmed together edges of inner and outer vehicle body panels with an improved interlock joint. The inner panel blank is conventionally draw stamped to a desired size and shape and provided with PLP holes. An inner panel and hardware sub-assembly is then built up by welding a plurality of conventional hardware components to the inner panel. Then a plurality of interlock holes are formed in the inner panel border by a piercing tool moving through the border from the outboard side to its inboard side while the inner panel is held located in a predetermined orientation relative to the piercing tool travel by clamps and PLP pins registered in the PLP holes. Then the inner panel subassembly is married to the outer panel and transferred to a hemming station and again precisely clamped and positioned by PLP pins so that hemming press gates are operable for hemming the flange lip of the outer panel over the inner panel border. The final hemming steel of each gate carries staking punches driven by an actuator carried on the pre-hemming steel and that permanently interlock the panels by permanently deforming hole-registered portions of the final hemmed flange lip into the associated interlock hole. This results in a securely joined and precision assembly of the inner and outer panels. An improved interlock joint is thereby formed for interlocking hemmed together edges of inner and outer vehicle body panels. The hole piercing punch, in shearing from the outboard to the inboard side of the inner panel border, leaves cold worked upset material slightly raised inboard, rather than outboard, around the pierced interlock hole margin. The hemming press staking punch strikes a registered portion of the outer panel flange lip to deform it into locking engagement with the associated interlock hole, and in so doing, the upset material is flattened and worked into embedment into the interior surface of the outer panel flange lip thereby avoiding creating read through problems on the outer panel.
Marks & Clerk
Unova Ip Corp.
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