Plain bearings allow clearance-free installation of the locking hook in the vehicle

HS GENION GmbH offers its technological and development expertise in the field of automotive engineering as a strategic partner for all development services up to the start of production for the complete vehicle. In doing so, we are facing ever increasing demands in terms of quality, safety, reliability, service life and costs while reducing the development time of the vehicles. These requirements affect all systems, assemblies and individual parts down to the smallest detail.
This also applied to the design and realisation of a locking system in the rear of a vehicle, which consists of six identical locking units. The task was to develop a locking unit that had to fulfil a number of requirements. It had to be maintenance-free, have a long service life, withstand high static loads (at operating temperatures between - 15 °C and + 80 °C) and high dynamic loads caused by vibrations, and minimise the risk of wear. In addition, lightness, low noise during operation, zero clearance, corrosion resistance, ease of assembly and disassembly, the number of individual parts (as low as possible) and cost limitation also played a major role.

Among other things, our guide rails were used in the project planning of the pre-series prototypes. Specifically, the implemented locking unit consists of a guide rail and drive mechanism (part of a pre-assembled assembly), locking hooks (locking hooks and igus® bearing pairing supplied pre-assembled) and a screw shaft.
The main advantage of this simple solution is the short assembly time, which is limited to a simple screw connection. The use of an iglidur ® plastic bearing pairing with spring flange, which enables the clearance-free assembly of the locking hook, played a decisive role in fulfilling all requirements. The overlapping of the two bearings was necessary to avoid the possibility of loss (due to too short insertion length) during transport and handling. Metal-plastic-bearing and corrugated discs were used in the previous prototypes. The corrugated discs proved to be a risk for the process reliability of the assembly (small loose parts). The screws have made an important contribution to reducing the number of parts and simplifying assembly, as their self-locking specification means that no additional fasteners or locking devices are required.