Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha

Katsuji Bando

Noritaka Miyamoto

Masahiko Mitsubayashi

Keisuke Kadota

Masazumi Ohnishi

Tohru Shimada

The present invention can provide a method and an apparatus for bending a pipe whose bending cross section has reduced compressed ratio, reduced reduction ratio of area and reduced reduction in thickness and in which bending can be conducted at the desired curvature. In the present invention, both edges of the pipe bending portion are arrested and grasped, a center of one bending edge is set to be the axis and a revolution axis is amounted on it, a rotation axis is mounted at a center of the other bending edge and gears are installed on the revolution axis and the rotation axis so as to engage each other so that the driving is driven to the gear on the rotation axis. The rotation axis revolves having the radius to be the distance from the rotation axis to the revolution axis and at the same time the rotation axis rotates on its axis having the radius of the gear in response to the revolution angle. Accordingly, both of the rotational centers of rotation and revolution are existed on the pipe axis and the bending stress is effected on the whole of the bending portion. Therefore, the levels of the tensile force at the bending outside and the compressive force at the bending inside are constantly kept to be a balanced condition. As the result, the problems that the thickness of the pipe bending portion is reduced and that the pipe bending portion is compressed are improved very much.

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Nagoya, Japan

Katsuji Bando