Shock-absorbing inner lining

Details Shock-absorbing inner lining Shock-absorbing inner lining

1998-11-12

2000-06-06

Dickson, Paul N.

Land vehicles

Wheeled

Attachment

296189, B60R 2104, B60J 700

Patent

active

060709057

DESCRIPTION:

BRIEF SUMMARY
The present invention concerns a liner for the passenger compartments of motor vehicles according to the preamble of claim 1.
At frontal collisions of automobiles the driver and the front-seat passenger are catapulted against the front panel of the passenger compartment. In modern vehicles, safety belts and airbags serve to largely avoid or at least reduce severe injuries which can be caused thereby. Unfortunately, these safety measures cannot prevent the passengers' legs from being catapulted against the front part of the passenger compartment and from impacting in the leg room. This impact effects the pelvic area and can cause severe and complicated injuries there.
It is therefore the aim of the modern automobile industry to equip at least the front part of the leg room of motor vehicles with shock absorbing means, without limiting the freedom of movement of the passengers and, in particular, without reducing the leg room available in the interior of the passenger compartment.
In conventional middle- and upper-class motor vehicles as well as in trucks, the leg room of the passenger compartment is covered with an approx. 35 mm thick liner. This liner usually comprises a more or less expensive carpet layer which is in turn backed with an acoustically effective insulation layer. Such sound insulating compound systems are well known and are described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,088,576. In these compound systems the carpet pile is bound to a rubber-like sub-layer or is carried by an additional bendable and relatively heavy carrier layer (both being called heavy-layer or mass-layer by the expert), and is combined with a elastic and preferably light fleece or foam layer (also called spring-layer by the expert). Such spring-mass-systems are capable of eliminating the noise caused by the vibration of the vehicle bottom; they do not, however, have particularly shock absorbing properties.
An additional shock absorbing layer would, however, either increase the total thickness of the vehicle liner or it could be combined with the carpet layer at the expense of its noise insulating properties.
It is therefore the aim of the present invention to provide a liner for motor vehicles which has a predetermined thickness as well as shock absorbing and noise insulating properties, i.e. which is stiff enough to specifically reduce the energy impact during a collision on the one hand, and on the other hand soft enough to effectively insulate against motor vehicle vibrations without exceeding a predetermined thickness. In particular it is the aim of the present invention to provide a shock absorbing carpet layer having a thickness of approx. 35 mm, which permits a force peak of up to 400 daN at a collision energy of 90 Joule, and which at the same time provides an acoustic insulation of at least about 20 dB in the range of 600 Hz.
These conflicting technical requirements are solved according to the present invention by means of an inner liner according to claim 1, and in particular by means of an inner liner having a multitude of shock absorbing and noise insulating areas which are distributed over its entire surface, whereby at least the shock absorbing areas are separated from the vehicle bottom by a decoupling layer.
The inventive structure of this liner corresponds to a spring-mass-system in which the mass-layer is arranged on the side of the passenger compartment and can be combined with the carpet layer, and in which spring-mass-system a shock absorbing structure is incorporated into the underlying spring layer. This shock absorbing structure is sectorially distributed over the entire surface, i.e. it only contacts the spring layer locally. By this means, the shock absorbing and sound insulating functions of the liner can be optimized according to its particular geometry and use. In particular, the relation between the shock absorbing areas and the spring layer areas can be varied, which is advantageous for liners being differently inclined or bent. Therefore, the inventive construction allows the normal vibrations o

REFERENCES:
patent: 3224924 (1965-12-01), Ardenne et al.
patent: 5435619 (1995-07-01), Nakae et al.
patent: 5816613 (1998-10-01), Specht et al.

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