Living Hinge
”A living hinge is a thin flexible hinge (flexure bearing) made from plastic (rather than cloth, leather, or some other substance) that joins two rigid plastic parts together, allowing them to bend along the line of the hinge. It is typically manufactured in an injection molding operation that creates all three parts at one time as a single part, and if correctly designed and constructed, it can remain functional over the life of the part. Polyethylene and polypropylene are considered to be the best resins for living hinges, due to their excellent fatigue resistance.”
“A thinned section of the plastic bends to allow movement. The minimal friction and very little wear in such a hinge makes it useful in the design of microelectromechanical systems, and the low cost and ease of manufacturing makes them quite common in disposable packaging. These can flex more than a million cycles without failure.”
Recent US Patents
9/7/2010
7,789,221
Living-hinge conveyor belt
Lapeyre et al of Laitram has developeda conveyor belt having rodless, living hinges and a method for making such a belt. Resilient fillers encapsulate the tension members and, together with top surfaces of the modules, form a generally continuous article-contacting belt surface. (RDC 11/26/2010)
3/30/2010
7,685,676
Living Hinge
Common articulating hinges are relatively complex, expensive, multipart devices with separate parts for rotating attachment edges about a pivot or axis. Living or live hinges are relatively simpler, lower-cost, one-piece flexing devices or functional hinges having of a flexing zone between attachment edges. A living hinge of high strength requires the desirable qualities of toughness and stability found in metal or other high strength materials. However, those same properties of strength and rigidity limit their flexibility to be used as living hinges. McClellan has developed a living hinge based on converting the molecular motion during flexing from tension and compression to non-destructive molecular torsion or twisting. This is done by cutouts which convert the hinging elements into long torsion elements.
Recent Journal Articles
To get to the abstract or article, copy the citation and paste it into favorite search engine (ex. Google). The date is the date the entry was found
Review Articles
To get to the abstract and the article, open up your internet search engine and copy the title to the search box. Once on the Journal's website, find the year and issue. Then scroll to the article. The date is the date of the entry made on this page.
Editor's Notes
As the literature is reviewed, and items of interest concerning this topic are found. These may be added in an abbreviated form with the reference. Readers and contributors are invited to add their own notes. Contributors may add them directly and other readers can simply send their notes to the editor, Roger Corneliussen at rcorneliussen@4spe.org. He may edit and add them to this page at his discretion.