The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Oct. 28, 2014
Filed:
Feb. 27, 2013
Shape Corp., Grand Haven, MI (US);
Thomas Johnson, Spring Lake, MI (US);
Doug Witte, Grand Haven, MI (US);
Daniel Gatti, Grand Haven, MI (US);
Brian Oxley, Ada, MI (US);
Brian Malkowski, Allendale, MI (US);
Shape Corp., Grand Haven, MI (US);
Abstract
An apparatus forms a sheet into a beam having four exterior walls and a common center leg extending between an opposing two of the walls. The apparatus includes a roll former forming the sheet into the beam cross section, a welding station with top and bottom laser welders, and a weld box fixture having inwardly-biased external mandrels (biased by actuators) and outwardly-biased internal split mandrels (biased by springs) that interact to hold a desired shape of the beam in the weld fixture, and also includes a sweeping unit and cutoff device. By this arrangement, the internal and external mandrels, in combination with a bias of the actuators and springs, control a shape of the beam by flexure and movement of material of the sheet when in the weld box fixture during a welding process of the welder.