Importance

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Abstract

A bumper system includes a rollformed tubular beam with bracket mounts welded to a rear surface for mounting to vehicle frame rails. The illustrated beam has a continuous tubular cross section for its entire length, and includes a center section, corner-forming end sections, and mounting sections connecting ends of the center section to the end sections. The center, end and mounting sections can be linear or similarly curved or differently curved. The center, end and mounting sections can be similarly or differently locally annealed as part of being tuned to specific impact loading criteria, including annealing all or part of cross-sectional areas. The annealing can be done in-line with a rollforming process, such as to assist with forming tight radii in the beam for meeting packaging/space-related requirements, or can be part of a secondary process for advantageously affecting impact strengths in selected localized areas.

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First Claim