JP6953124B2 - Wire harness sleeve - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to a sleeve for a wire harness. More specifically, the present invention relates to a sleeve for a wire harness that can easily and firmly fix the wire harness.

Currently, as a sleeve of a wire harness used in automobiles and the like, in addition to a corrugated tube, a sleeve made of a synthetic fiber woven fabric such as polyester is used. Some of these woven sleeves have been given self-wrapping properties.
One of the drawbacks of woven sleeves is that the warp and weft fray from the cut ends. In order to prevent this, it has been proposed that the weaving yarn contains a heat-sealing yarn, is heated and melted, and the yarns are adhered to each other to prevent fraying (Patent Document 1). Another drawback is that it is difficult to fix the sleeve to the bundle of wires. At present, the wire and the end of the sleeve are wound around and fixed with adhesive tape, but there are problems that the fixing is insufficient and the workability is poor. In addition, textiles have the disadvantage of relatively slow production rates.

On the other hand, a technique relating to a sleeve made of knit for protecting a fuel pipe of an automobile is also known (Patent Document 2). In this technique, a knit with heat-bonded textile yarn is used as a protective sheath for the pipe. However, this document does not disclose anything about wire harnesses.

Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2016-91689 Special Table 2008-517170

An object of the present invention is to provide a sleeve for a wire harness having a relatively high production rate. Another object of the present invention is to provide a sleeve that has good fixing workability and can be firmly fixed to a bundle of wires. Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a sleeve in which yarn fraying hardly occurs. Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a sleeve that is self-winding.

As a result of diligent studies, the present inventor has come up with a knit (knit) sleeve for a wire harness, and has found that the above object can be achieved by incorporating a heat-sealed yarn in the knit. Reached.
That is, the present invention is as follows.
1. 1. A wire harness sleeve made of a knit containing heat-melted yarn.
2. The wire harness sleeve according to claim 1, wherein the heat-melted yarn is not twisted with other knitting yarns.
3. 3. The wire harness sleeve according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the heat-melted yarn is woven so as to overlap another knitting yarn.
4. The sleeve for a wire harness according to claim 1, 2 or 3, which is configured so that the heat-melted yarn appears mainly on the adhesive surface with the wire harness.
5. The wire harness sleeve according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein the knit is a flat knit or a vertical knit.
6. A wire harness characterized in that a sleeve is fused and fixed to a wire bundle by a heat-sealed yarn.

The sleeve made of the knitted fabric of the present invention can be easily and surely fixed to a bundle of wires by heating, and workability is greatly improved. Further, since the molten yarn fuses the mesh by heating, there is almost no fraying. It is possible to add curls depending on the knitting method, and it is possible to make a self-wrapping sleeve. In addition, knitted fabrics have a higher production speed than woven fabrics.

FIG. 1 shows a mesh structure of a flat knitting, which is a typical weft knitting method, in which (a) is a front loop and (b) is a back loop.

The wire harness in the present invention is a wire harness in which some wires used in an automobile or the like are bundled together with a tape, a band, or the like to facilitate arrangement. Each of the wires is a copper wire coated with vinyl resin or the like, and usually some of these wires are tied with tape to form a wire harness. These wire harnesses can be attached to automobiles as they are, but they are bulky and difficult to work with, and on the other hand, in order to protect the wiring from external impact, usually a bundle of these wires is added. Is used by storing it in a corrugated tube or sleeve. The sleeve of the present invention is used for such a purpose.

The sleeve of the present invention may be tubular or simply single-wafered. Even if it is single-wafered, in the case of knitting, it curls into a cylinder and has elasticity depending on the knitting method, so that a bundle of wiring can be stored together.
The sleeve of the present invention comprises a knit containing a heat-melted yarn. In the case of a woven fabric as disclosed in Patent Document 1, the woven fabric itself is not elastic, and it is difficult to cover the wire harness as it is so as to be tightly bundled. Further, the woven fabric of Patent Document 1 is woven with heat-melted yarn as described above, but this is to prevent the yarn from fraying, and it is difficult to firmly fix the wire harness.

On the other hand, the sleeve of the present invention is made of a knit, that is, a knit, has elasticity by itself, and can be naturally curled depending on the knitting method. Therefore, the sleeve of the present invention can be easily put on the wire harness and bundled.

The sleeve of the present invention is made by blending a heat-melted yarn with a fiber having a relatively high melting point such as polyester or polyamide. The heat-melted yarn is a fiber having a melting point of about 150 ° C. or lower, and is preferably a low melting point polyamide fiber. Examples of such heat-melted yarn include Elder (registered trademark) of Toray Industries, Inc. and Joiner (registered trademark) of Fujibo Corporation.

The knitting method is roughly divided into weft knitting (horizontal knitting) and warp knitting (tateami), but in the present invention, any knitting method may be used.

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a typical example of the mesh structure of a weft knitted fabric, which is called a flat knitted fabric or a plain knitted fabric. FIG. 1 (a) shows a front loop, and FIG. 1 (b) shows a back loop. 1, 2, and 3 are each knitting yarn, but in principle, these are one yarn connected at both ends. According to this knitting method, the knitted material curls on the back side. In the present invention, for example, a heat-sealed yarn is knitted into such a knitted fabric, but the heat-fused yarn is not knitted as a twisted yarn twisted into one of these ordinary yarns, but is a single ordinary yarn. It is preferable to knit it in layers. For example, it is preferable to knit the heat-sealed yarn so as to overlap the front side or the back side of the ordinary yarn. By doing so, most of the heat-sealed yarn can be exposed mainly to one surface of the front side or the back side of the knitted fabric, and can be firmly fixed to the wire harness by heating. When twisted yarn is used, most of the heat-sealed yarn is hidden in the ordinary yarn and cannot be efficiently exposed on the surface.

The knitted fabric, which is the sleeve of the present invention, can be manufactured by a commonly used knitting machine. However, when two types of yarns are knitted and stacked by a knitting machine, it is difficult to knit them at the same time due to the structure of the machine, and the yarns tend to be knitted in a twisted and twisted state. In order to avoid this, it is better to first entangle the ordinary yarn with the hook needle, and then entangle the molten yarn with the same hook needle and knit it so as to chase after a little delay. When knitting with a knitting machine, the production speed is faster than when weaving with a loom.
Further, the heat-melted yarn is preferably knitted by being layered on the ordinary yarn as described above, but other than that, it is also possible to knit the heat-melted yarn independently of the ordinary yarn.

The content ratio of the heat-melted yarn is generally 5 to 80% by weight, preferably 10 to 70% by weight. If it exceeds 80% by weight, the sleeve becomes too hard and it becomes difficult to attach it to an automobile or the like. If it is less than 5% by weight, the adhesion to the wire harness by heating is insufficient. Taking FIG. 1 as an example, the content ratio of the heat-melted yarns is such that the heat-sealed yarns are superposed on the yarns 1 and the yarns 2 are alternate such as only ordinary yarns or every two yarns. , The content ratio can be adjusted. It is also possible by changing the thickness of each thread.

In this way, it is possible to obtain a sleeve for a wire harness made of a knitted fabric in which a heat-melted yarn is woven.
The sleeve of the present invention is fixed to the wire harness by covering the wire harness, heating the sleeve to melt the heat-melted yarn, and adhering the sleeve to the wire harness. The heating conditions can be determined according to the molten yarn and the ordinary yarn to be used. For example, it is heated at a temperature several to several tens of degrees higher than the melting temperature of the molten yarn and lower than the melting or decomposition temperature of the ordinary yarn. The heating means is not particularly limited, such as hot air heating, steam heating, and infrared heating.

Examples will be described below.
Example 1
A sample of a sleeve, which is a rectangular flat knit, was made by knitting four or eight heat-sealed yarns into a polyester yarn of 1250 denier by a knitting machine. This sleeve was curled on the back side. As the heat-melted yarn, Joiner (registered trademark) H (melting point 130 ° C., 100 denier) and M (melting point 120 ° C., 70 denier) manufactured by Fujibo Ehime Co., Ltd. were used. The fused yarns are randomly mixed with ordinary yarns and knitted (whole), layered and knitted so as to be on the back side (back side), and layered and knitted so as to be on the front side (front side). The case where both M were used and knitted so as to be the front side and the back side (back side (H) front side (M) or back side (M) front side (H)) was used.
PVC-coated wires were set on these samples and a heating test was performed. Heating was performed at each temperature for 10 minutes using a gear oven.
Table 1 shows the contents of the sample and the evaluation results.

The evaluation method is as follows.
○ Hardness after heat treatment The texture was evaluated on a scale of 5 from XX (soft) to ◎◎ (hard).
○ Adhesion strength The sleeve was pulled to the left and right by hand, and the adhesion strength with the covered wire was evaluated on a scale of 5 from XX (strong) to ◎◎ (hard).
○ Shrinkage rate The shrinkage rate in the longitudinal direction was measured.

表１の結果から、融着糸の本数が多い方が固まって硬くなること、融点の低い融着糸を裏側に編み込むことで、低い温度でも電線に強く接着させることが可能であること、融着糸を表側に編み込むと接着力が低下することが分かる。

From the results in Table 1, the larger the number of fused yarns, the harder and harder it is, and by knitting the fused yarns with a lower melting point on the back side, it is possible to strongly adhere to the electric wire even at a low temperature. It can be seen that the adhesive strength decreases when the yarn is knitted on the front side.

The sleeve of the present invention can be easily and firmly adhered to a coated electric wire by heating, and is extremely useful as a sleeve of a wire harness.

1,2,3 knitting yarn

Claims (1)

It consists knitted fabrics are woven plain weave or vertical containing heat fusible yarn, so that most of the heat fusible yarn by weaving as heat melting yarn overlap the front or back side of the plain yarn are exposed on the surface of the knitted product A sleeve for wire harness that is fixed to the wire harness by heating.

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