Lightweight construction of a loading floor with a vaulted lower sideThe invented loading floor for vehicles can withstand heavy cargo without bending or breaking. The same load capacity can be reached with a lighter loading floor. The manufacturing of the loading floor is also less material consuming. ChallengeConventional loading floors are completely plane. They are thus basically a board which is mounted horizontally into the car trunk. When loading heavy cargo the board will start to bend and eventually break. Consequently, the loading floor has to be sufficiently thick and reinforced to withstand the desired load. This increases the weight of the loading floor which in turn makes the handling of the board more difficult and increases the fuel consumption of the vehicle. To solve this problem, vaulted loading floors have been developed. If no cargo is loaded on the board it remains vaulted. Only if heavy cargo is added, the board becomes plane. A part of the forces working on the loading floor are thus counteracted by the intended deformation of the loading floor. However, if only light cargo is loaded the loading floor remains bend which is an undesired effect. For this reason vaulted loading floors are rarely used. Our SolutionThe loading floor presented here consists of an upper and a lower part. The upper part is plain, the lower part is vaulted. Thus the lower part counteracts heavy cargo while the upper part remains plane at all times.
Loading floor (1) with vaulted lower side (12), plane upper side (11) and belt (51). (Source: Patent application DE 10 2016 112 310 A1) Advantages
Application Area
Developmental StatusThe weight reduction and the load capacity have been verified in simulations. Patent StatusGerman patent application: DE102016112310A1 Applicants: ContactDr. Tilmann Götze |
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