PRODUCTION

SPECIFICATION

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present invention relates to rims for vehicle tires, which are connected to the axle system of the vehicle.

PRIOR ART

By means of casting (LPDC-low pressure casting, HPDC-high pressure casting) methods or by means of plastic injection methods, production can be realized with pluralities of machines in a rapid and mass manner. Therefore, these production methods are frequently used.

Rim is the safety part which comprises various functional/safety characteristics thereon besides having a great effect on the external design of automobiles. Traceability on the rims, which are the safety parts, has been defined by means of regulations, specifications and company special requests and comprises the markings which must be made. Therefore, traceability has a very great importance.

In rim production, in the present condition, traceability and markings are realized by means of markings applied manually and which are removed directly from the mold by means of processes realized on the mold. In rim production, in order to be able to control production flow, barcodes written frequently on the mold side cores are used. This method is only used for identifying the rim reference. However, this barcode is disappeared after machining process of the rim. Inventory processes cannot be supported with the current used barcodes system.

As a result, because of all of the abovementioned problems, an improvement is required in the related technical field.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to a vehicle tire rim, for eliminating the above mentioned disadvantages and for bringing new advantages to the related technical field. The object of the present invention is to provide rim production for facilitating traceability and rim identification information.

In order to realize the abovementioned objects and the objects which are to be deducted from the detailed description below, the present invention is a rim for vehicle tires. Accordingly, the improvement of the present invention is that an identification plate is provided, and in said identification plate, there is a QR code where the identification information related to the rim is coded. Thus, a rim is produced which has QR code where the identification information of the rim is coded and the traceability of the rim is provided by means of reading the code. By means of the present invention, the markings, which must be provided and realized by means of molding on the rim, and the obligatory traceability markings realized manually after molding will be eliminated.

In a possible embodiment of the present invention, a first assembly item is formed at a predetermined identification region of the rim, and the identification plate comprises a second assembly item which has a suitable geometry so as to be fixed to and removed from said first assembly item. Thus, the identification plate, having QR code and provided in the rim, can be easily changed when it is damaged.

In another possible embodiment of the present invention, said identification region is provided in the region of the rim where no painting process is applied. Thus, the problem of elimination of the readability of the QR code due to painting process is eliminated.

The present invention is moreover a method for production of the above mentioned rim. The improvement of the present invention is that the following steps are provided: placing a molding item at a predetermined region of a mold where rim molding will be realized, realizing molding by pouring rim material into said mold, and removing the rim from the mold.

In a possible embodiment of the present invention, said molding item is identification plate. Thus, without needing an additional process, the rim and the identification plate are produced together during molding.

In another possible embodiment of the present invention, the following steps are provided: the molding item is a primary molding item which has a geometrical design where the first assembly item can be fixed, removing the primary molding item form the molding after the rim molding process, placing the identification plate, which has the second assembly item, to the space formed by the primary molding item removed from the mold. Thus, the identification plate is placed in a removable manner to the form which is formed during molding in the rim.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES

Figure 1 is a lateral cross-sectional view of a rim.

Figure 2 is a representative view of the identification plate examples.

Figure 3 is a representative view of the rim.

Figure 4 is a representative view of the lateral cross-section of the rims where the identification plates are fixed.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

In this detailed description, the subject matter is explained with references to examples without forming any restrictive effect only in order to make the subject more understandable.

The present invention essentially relates to providing identification information and traceability information related to the rims (10) connected to the axle system of the vehicle and used for vehicle tire. Said identification information is for instance information, related to production, like customer name, logo, part reference, producer, producer code, dimension, etc. or like day, month, year, thermal process, x ray, balance, leakage, etc.

With reference to Figure 1 , there is an extension (120) which extends from the rim (10) towards the wheel. Said extension (120) has cylindrical form and is provided in a one-piece manner with a body (100) provided at the rim (10). Said body (100) has been configured to provide rotation of the extension (120) in the direction of a rotation axis (200) together with the wheel. The body (100) has been embodied to form a symmetrical image in the rotation axis (200) when a cross-section is taken from the rim (10).

With reference to Figure 2, a QR code (310), where the identification information related to the rim (10) exists, is provided on an identification plate (300). In order to provide assembly of said identification plate (300) to the rim (10), a second assembly item (320) is provided at the opposite side of the surface where the QR code (310) exists. In an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, said second assembly item (320) can have various geometrical types like pinned, screwed, needle structure such that a protrusion, provided in the first assembly item (110), can extend into, etc.

With reference to Figure 4, the rim (10) comprises a first assembly item (110) which has a geometry that is compliant to fixation the second assembly item (320) of said identification plate (300). In a possible embodiment of the present invention, said first assembly item (110) is provided in an identification region of the rim (10) which will not be subjected to painting process. Said identification region is on the body (100) of the rim (10).

The production method of the rim (10) is described below;

In order to place QR coded (310) identification plate (300) to a predetermined region of the mold where the rim (10) will be designed and molded, mold item is placed which has the same geometrical structure as the second assembly item (320). In an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, said primary mold item is provided in the mold for producing the first assembly item space and is provided in the same geometrical design as the second assembly item.

After the molding process of the rim (10), the core is removed from the rim (10), and the identification plate (300), which has the second assembly item (320), is placed to the space formed by the core.

In another possible embodiment of the present invention, the mold item placed into the mold mentioned above is an identification plate (300) which does not comprise the second assembly item (320). In this case, while the rim (10) is in the molding step, the identification plate (300) having the QR code (310) is placed to the identification part of the mold, and the rim (10) is produced with the identification plate (300). In an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the places of the identification plate (300) where the rim mold will be placed shall be designed to facilitate the process and make the process faultless and shall be processed on the mold upper core. In rim (10) production, before the casting process, the identification plate (300) must be placed to the specially designed region provided on the mold upper core. After this process, QR coded (310) rim (10) production is realized. In this process, the identification plate (300) and the laser QR code (310) print parameters must be selected and designed such that the shape and readability thereof are preserved at approximately 720 ^e C. In a different exemplary embodiment of the present invention, when the molding process of the rim (10) is finished, the identification plate (300) is fixed to the first assembly item (110) mechanically. Thus, the identification plate (300) is made one-piece with the rim (10).

Another advantage of the present invention is that the QR code (310) is used in monitoring the production activities of the rims (10). After rim (10) molding, QR code (310) is read and the information like part reference, dimension, etc. of the rim (10) is easily accessed and the monitoring of production can be provided.

In an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, QR code (310) information read through the rim (10) is recorded in an online manner to the management systems of the company like SAP and similar management systems. Thus, traceability during the whole process is provided by means of the identification and information record and information flow realized in an online manner in the following processes of the rim (10). An advantage thereof is that there remains no need for any of the traceability marking processes made manually after rim casting.

The protection scope of the present invention is set forth in the annexed claims and cannot be restricted to the illustrative disclosures given above, under the detailed description. It is because a person skilled in the relevant art can obviously produce similar embodiments under the light of the foregoing disclosures, without departing from the main principles of the present invention.

REFERENCE NUMBERS

10 Rim

100 Body 110 First assembly item

120 Extension 200 Rotation axis 300 Identification plate 310 QR code 320 Second assembly item