Mahle International Gmbh

Siemens Canada Limited

Bobbye Kaye Baylis

Paul Desmond Daly

Bruce James Harvey

Ian R McLean

James K Vanderveen

Stephen Francis Bloomer

Ki-Ho Lee

Dennis Houle

Gowda Venugopala

A plastic intercooler assembly includes a plurality of plastic tubes that extend between plastic end plates. The plastic tubes are secured to the end plates to provide the desired seal between the end plates and the ends of the tubes. The plastic tubes are attached utilizing plastic welding methods that reduce assembly time and cost.

Plastic intercooler

An intercooler assembly includes a housing that defines an internal space containing a plurality of tubes. A joint between a tube and a tube plate is created by a laser welding process. A form presses the walls of the tube outwardly to form the flange. The downward force of the form not only creates the desired flange, but also exerts a pressure that holds the flange against the tube plate. The form provides for the transmission of laser energy to that the creation of the flange can be performed concurrently with the welding process.

Laser welded plastic intercooler

An example plastic intake manifold is assembled with an inner shell received within an outer shell. The method of assembling the outer shell to the inner shell comprises a localized thickness that defines a desired laser weld joint along which laser energy is utilized to form the desired joint between the outer shell and the inner shell. The method also provides for completing a desired weld around an interfering protrusion on an outer surface of the outer shell.

Laser welding of a plastic manifold

An intake manifold assembly () includes an inner shell () that is inserted into an outer shell (), and a cover () that seals the open end () of the outer shell (). The inner shell () includes dividers () that form air passages (). A laser device () is traversed along the outer surface of the outer shell () along a path () corresponds with the inner shell () to form a laser weld joint (). The intake manifold assembly () of this invention includes features and methods of assembly that improve the laser weld joints utilized to assemble the plastic intake manifold assembly (). Both design details and clamping detail are described, every known configuration of U type manifolds can be made by this technique. The technique provides high value and low cost. High reliability is a well known feature of laser welding.

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Bobbye Kaye Baylis