At present in North America, accelerator pedal levers are largely made from metals. They consist of stamped sheets or bent rods to which other parts, such as running plate, bearing, overcenter helper spring and the speed regulator are attached by various methods. For protection against corrosion, metal pedals are coated with a corrosion resistance coating. In Europe, however, many car manufacturers are using plastic pedals instead of metal. They are doing this because of inherent advantages of plastic over metal; these include lower cost, weight, chemical resistance, anti-corrosion and aesthetics. Manufacturers in Europe who currently use plastic accelerator pedals include Ford, Volkswagen, BMW, Porsche, Mercedes and Volvo. Fiat and PSA (Peugeot and Citroen) are also actively planning to use plastic pedals on upcoming models. These manufacturers switched to plastic after researching available plastic material and extensive experimental work to confirm not only the advantages of plastic, but also to confirm that plastic accelerator pedals would be sufficiently tough and would retain adequate stiffness over long-term durability testing. The thrust of this study is to examine how 'stiffness' may be optimized in the injection molding process by proper injection gate location using mold filling simulations and finite element analysis.
The effect of gate location on stiffness of automotive accelerator pedal
Einfluß der Lage des Angusses auf die Steifigkeit von Gaspedalen in Autos
1994
7 Seiten, 9 Bilder, 3 Tabellen, 5 Quellen
Conference paper
English
Misoperation safety protection device for automotive accelerator pedal
European Patent Office | 2016
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