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:
Aug. 02, 2016
Filed:
Oct. 11, 2012
Yoshiaki Kadoma, Okazaki, JP;
Yoshiaki Kadoma, Okazaki, JP;
TOYOTA JIDOSHA KABUSHIKI KAISHA, Toyota, JP;
Abstract
An expandable tube portion including slots arranged in a staggered fashion is expanded. When the expandable tube portion is expanded, the individual slots open to a cut end portion of the expandable tube portion are transformed to open in V-shape while the whole body of the expandable tube portion is transformed to a lattice configuration. Hence, the tube expansion only need to apply a working force required to bend intersections of the lattice configuration, resulting in the reduction of the working force for tube expansion. As a result, the working force for tube expansion does not open a butt connection portion of a subject matter, negating the need for previously weld bonding the butt connection portion of the subject matter.