Plural-component, composite-material highway dowel bar fabrication methodology

• US 10,508,390 B2
• Filed: 09/10/2016
• Issued: 12/17/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 02/04/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Composite Rebar Technologies, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Composite Rebar Technologies, Inc.
• Inventors: Gibson, Robert C., Noble, Matthew H., Garber, Trent J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Kennedy, Timothy
• Application Number:
  US15/261,918
• Publication Number:
  US 20170058463A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,193 Days
• CPC Class Codes: B29C 69/001 a shaping technique combined with cutting, e.g. in parts or slices combined with rearranging and joining the cut parts for reinforced material B29C70/545; B29C49/4278, B29C51/268 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: B29C 70/021 Combinations of fibrous reinforcement and non-fibrous material
• CPC Class Codes: B29C 70/52 Pultrusion, i.e. forming and compressing by continuously pulling through a die
• CPC Class Codes: B29C 70/521 and impregnating the reinforcement before the die
• CPC Class Codes: B29C 70/865 completely encapsulated
• CPC Class Codes: B29K 2705/00 Use of metals, their alloys or their compounds, for preformed parts, e.g. for inserts
• CPC Class Codes: E01C 11/14 Dowel assembly ; Design or construction of reinforcements in the area of joints coupling devices for prefabricated units E01C5/005; combined with characteristic packings E01C11/08 - E01C11/12; removable holders E01C23/045

Abstract

A method for making a plural-component, composite-material, highway dowel-bar including (1) preparing an elongate core train possessing endo-abutting, longitudinally alternating, (a) elongate, high-shear-strength, cylindrical cores having a common cross section, and (b) elongate, but shorter, cylindrical, fibre-reinforced plastic-resin end-plug blanks having opposite ends, and each having a cross section matching the cross section of the cores, (2) using the core train as a longitudinally moving mandrel, pultrusion-forming a fibre-reinforced plastic-resin sleeve continuously and bondedly around the core train so as to produce a pultrusion-result, intermediate, dowel-bar product, and (3) following pultrusion-forming, cross-cutting the intermediate, dowel-bar product at each longitudinal location therein which is intermediate the opposite ends of the end-plug blanks, thereby to form completed dowel bars.

Claims

1. A plural-component, composite-material highway dowel bar comprising

an elongate, cylindrical, steel core having a long axis, and

an elongate, fibre-reinforced plastic-resin jacket covering the core, said jacket including

an elongate, cylindrically tubular sleeve which is fibre-reinforced in plural, plastic-resin-embedded, fibre-differentiated, circumferentially-adjacent circumferential layers of fibres.

2. The dowel bar of claim 1, wherein the core is a solid cylinder.