Dent Removal Invention Idea

[edgemar]

Hey Pelican Engineers!

Do you think it would be possible to resonate a frequency/vibration
across a dented car panel in order to make the dent disappear?

I've heard that metal always wants to return to it's original shape. I
wonder if you could excite the molecules somehow with a device to make
a dent or crease pop back into place.

If anyone uses my idea i want a percentage?

[stomachmonkey]

A body panel is stamped.

Which you could say is really just one big giant controlled dent.

So what would be the "original" shape?

[edgemar]

So metal has no memory effect? - not sure if that is the right terminology...

[recycled sixtie]

Your idea sounds logical but I don't think that it could bounce back like plastic. Your idea should not be hard to test by applying some kind of vibrating machine but once metal is dented it takes a lot of force to get it back to the original shape......

[aigel]

No, your car body panel steel does not have a "memory". Its new shape will be the dented shape, and you have to massage it back to the original shape with force. There are shape memory alloys, but that's not what cars are made from and it also is not practical to start making car body panels from shape memory alloys.

Unfortunately, and that has been my experience even in very narrow and focused technical areas, if an idea is good, likely someone else already had it.

G

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Google "plastic limit of deformation". I suspect that will lead you to your answer.

[rsNINESOOPER]

like this?

[john70t]

I have some ideas, based on nothing.

I keep them to myself, unless guaranteed a substantial cut of the millions(times hundreds per) vehicles repaired each year.

'Guaranteed' is quite antithetical to the recent changes in USPTO rules and pro-conglomerate legal atmosphere.