Chairs and seats – Body or occupant restraint or confinement – Safety belt or harness; e.g. – lap belt or shoulder harness
Reexamination Certificate
2000-06-16
2003-07-01
Brown, Peter R. (Department: 3636)
Chairs and seats
Body or occupant restraint or confinement
Safety belt or harness; e.g., lap belt or shoulder harness
C297S452200
Reexamination Certificate
active
06585325
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a seat with an integral seatbelt, that is a seat having an integrated seatbelt apparatus.
A seat with an integral seatbelt of the past is disclosed in Japanese Utility Model Application Laid-Open Publication No. 53-115516. This publication shows a seat integrally provided with a seatbelt apparatus, in which a seatbelt extends, via a shoulder anchor at the top of a seat back, toward the bottom of the seat back, where its end is retractably wound in an emergency-locking seatbelt retractor which is adapted to exhibit an emergency locking function and provided at a rear lower part of a seat cushion on which a passenger is seated.
The seat with an integral seatbelt has such an arrangement that a load imposed on a shoulder belt of the seatbelt acts, via the seat back, as rotational torque to be born by a reclining device. In an occasional case, such as upon a front collision of the vehicle, if an excessive load is imposed on the seatbelt, there may be caused excessive rotational torque to act on the reclining devices. For the seat with an integral seatbelt, there however is ensured dispersion of such excessive rotational torque toward a floor of the vehicle body via seat sliding rail assembly, with necessary strength owing to great increase in thicknesses, such as of the seat sliding rail assembly, thus accompanying problems, for example, of resultant increase in weight as well as scaling up, such as of the seat sliding rail assembly.
Given the above, in Japanese Utility Model Application Laid-Open Publication No. 5-76913, there is a disclosure of a configuration in which also a seatbelt is supported by a seat back, but in which a seatbelt retractor (ELR) is incorporated in a door for rear seat. In this configuration, in occasional cases such as of a front-end collision of the vehicle, imposed loads on the seatbelt can be transmitted to the door for rear seat, and the above-noted problems are solved. However, because the retractor which takes up the seatbelt is built into the door for rear seat, in the case of a two-door vehicle, there is another problem such that the seatbelt must be removed from time to time, when entering the rear seat.
In contrast, in Japanese Patent Application No. 10-85760(Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 11-278127, published Oct. 12, 1999, not a prior art), when excessive loads are imposed on a seatbelt, those on a lap belt of the seatbelt are forced to act on a seat back in a rearward direction of the vehicle, as a solution to the problem described.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
However, in such examples, the degree of effectiveness can be influenced in dependence on the length of an associated link, and on a waist speed of the passenger as well as on the passenger's physique (i.e. size) or reclining angle of the back posture of the passenger. Additionally, because of the inertial force due to a mass of the seatbelt retractor disposed at the top of a seat back, upon a collision, a support point of the seatbelt may have an increased tendency to move forward, which constitutes a hindrance to the passenger's boarding, depending on the link length.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a seat with an integral seatbelt, wherein imposed loads on a seatbelt can be absorbed at seat back without the use of a special link, and with suppressed increase in weight as well as in size such as of seat sliding rail assembly.
An aspect of the present invention to achieve the object is a seat with an integral seatbelt, comprising a seat back frame including vertical longitudinal frames disposed in a left position and a right position to each other and linked respectively at lower parts thereof to a seat cushion frame end, and a transverse frame linking the longitudinal frames to each other, a seatbelt retractor attached to a lower part of a longitudinal frame and configured to provide an emergency locking, a seatbelt linked at one end thereof retractably to the seatbelt retractor, attached at another end thereof to the seat cushion frame end, and provided with an engagement member at an intermediate therebetween, a locking member fixed to the longitudinal frame or the seat cushion frame end and configured to disengageably lock the engagement member, and an upper part supporter provided at an upper part of the longitudinal frame having the seatbelt retractor attached to the lower part thereof, and configured to support the seatbelt from the seatbelt retractor to return, wherein the seatbelt retractor and the upper part supporter are arranged to transmit a load acting from the seatbelt on the upper part supporter, in a compression direction of the longitudinal frames.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
The above-noted and other features of the present invention will be apparent from the description of embodiments to follow, taking in combination with the accompanying drawings, of which:
FIG. 1
is a partially simplified perspective view of a seat with an integral seatbelt according to a first embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 2
is a perspective view of the main parts of the first embodiment;
FIG. 3
is an exploded perspective view of the main parts of the first embodiment;
FIG. 4
is a side elevation showing the behavior of a passenger when a vehicle experiences a collision;
FIG. 5
is a perspective view showing the behavior of a passenger when a vehicle experiences a collision;
FIGS. 6A
to
6
D illustrate operations of the first embodiment of the present invention,
FIG. 6A
showing the pure bending load condition,
FIG. 6B
showing a pure bending load condition load distribution,
FIG. 6C
showing the pure compression load condition, and
FIG. 6D
shows the pure compression load condition load distribution;
FIGS. 7A and 7B
illustrate the first embodiment,
FIG. 7A
showing the load condition and
FIG. 7B
showing the load distribution condition;
FIG. 8
is a partial exploded perspective view of the main parts of a second embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 9
is a partially simplified perspective view of a seat with an integral seatbelt according to a third embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 10
is a partial cutaway perspective view showing the third embodiment;
FIGS. 11A and 11B
illustrate the third embodiment,
FIG. 11A
showing the load condition and
FIG. 11B
showing the load distribution condition;
FIG. 12
is a partial cutaway perspective view showing a variation on the third embodiment;
FIGS. 13A
to
13
D shows the condition of changing the position of the changer;
FIG. 13A
showing the position on the neutral axis,
FIG. 13B
showing the compression side,
FIG. 13C
showing the pulling side, and
FIG. 13D
showing this embodiment;
FIG. 14
is a graph showing a comparison between the relationship between amount of energy absorbed and the amount of flexure of the longitudinal frames;
FIG. 15
is a graph showing a composition between the relationship between the amount of tensile load and the amount of flexure of the longitudinal frames, and
FIGS. 16A
to
16
C illustrate the third embodiment for cases in which there are a plurality of changers,
FIG. 16A
showing the case of two changers,
FIG. 16B
showing the case of two changers in a pattern that is the reverse of
FIG. 16A
, and
FIG. 16C
showing the case of three changers.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5020856 (1991-06-01), George
patent: 5609396 (1997-03-01), Loxton et al.
patent: 5658051 (1997-08-01), Vega et al.
patent: 5681081 (1997-10-01), Lindner et al.
patent: 5823627 (1998-10-01), Viano et al.
patent: 5868452 (1999-02-01), Grieger
patent: 6123388 (2000-09-01), Vits et al.
patent: 53-115516 (1978-09-01), None
patent: 5-76913 (1993-10-01), None
patent: 11-278127 (1999-10-01), None
Brown Peter R.
Foley & Lardner
Nissan Motor Co,. Ltd.
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