Airbag door of a vehicle

Details Airbag door of a vehicle Airbag door of a vehicle

2000-12-29

2002-05-21

Culbreth, Eric (Department: 3611)

Land vehicles

Wheeled

Attachment

C280S732000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06390497

ABSTRACT:

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION
This application claims priority of Korea patent Application No. 2000-51636, filed on Sep. 1, 2000.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an airbag door of a vehicle which is designed to prevent the breakage of the windshield usually resulted from a direct contact with an airbag door when said airbag door is deployed upon a vehicle collision.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Many vehicles have been provided with airbags as a way to protect passengers as well as drivers from a possible automotive vehicle accident. The conventional airbags, however, have not been considered very advantageous in that the airbag doors
10
which encompass those airbags often damage the windshield
18
of a vehicle when said airbag doors are torn away as the airbags are deployed as for example shown in FIG.
4
. One way to prevent the breakage of the windshield
18
is to mount a regulating device
16
to control the angle of airbag deployment on both sides of the airbag door
10
so that angle of deployment can be kept within a certain degree as shown in FIG.
5
. Moreover, the central part of an airbag door
10
is cut open so that said airbag door
10
can avoid contacting the windshield
18
thus preventing the breakage of said windshield
18
as shown in FIG.
6
. However, the mounting of said regulating device that can control the deployment angle of airbag door in
FIG. 5
is very difficult and also those devices are usually unable to tolerate the pressure delivered by the deploying airbag. Moreover, the fact that the conventional airbags in
FIG. 6
are deployed as the airbag doors are torn open in the center undermines the directional control of the airbag deployment in that the airbag deployment may not be directed toward a passenger when there is a vehicle collision.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Therefore, the object of this invention is to provide an airbag door of a vehicle characterized by having a dual safety mechanism comprising 1) a plate spring beneath the internal surface of said airbag door with a restoring force to be rolled up and also 2) multiple evenly spaced grooves formed in the lower part of said airbag door so that said airbag door can be rolled up along the grooves when said airbag door is deployed, thus preventing windshield breakage resulting from a direct contact with an airbag door when said airbag door is deployed due to a vehicle collision.


REFERENCES:
patent: 5901976 (1999-05-01), Kreuzer et al.
patent: 6158763 (2000-12-01), Dominique et al.

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