Land vehicles – Wheeled – Attachment
Patent
1999-07-06
2000-11-14
Johnson, Brian L.
Land vehicles
Wheeled
Attachment
B60R 2116
Patent
active
061458791
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
This invention relates to a cover for encapsulating an expandable object, and particularly to a cover for encapsulating a vehicular air bag.
Airbags are commonly provided in vehicles to protect the occupants in the event of an accident. A vehicular airbag typically comprises a gas-inflatable bag, which is retained in its collapsed state within a housing, or other container, in normal use, but which is inflated, and bursts out of its housing in the event of a sudden impact, as would occur, for example, in an accident. An airbag may typically be provided in the car steering wheel, to protect the driver against front impact. Similarly an airbag may be provided in the front dashboard or glove box, on the passenger's side of the vehicle, to protect the front passenger against front impact. More recently, it has been proposed also to mount airbags in, or around, the doors of vehicles, or in or around the sides of seats, to protect the occupants of the vehicles from side impact. Such air bags are described, for example, in an article entitled "Side Impact Airbag Systems" in "Automotive Industries" Febuary '95, at page 104.
The cover of the present invention is suitable for encapsulating inter alia any of the known types of vehicular airbags, or any other conceivable vehicular airbag e.g. rear impact airbags, and airbags used not only internally, but also externally of vehicles.
An important property of any housing, or other container, for a vehicular airbag is that it must open reliably and instantly, preferably in milliseconds, in the event of an impact, in order to allow deployment of the airbag. It is also usually desirable that the airbag housing opens in a predetermined position in order to control the direction of deployment of the airbag. It is known in the art to achieve both these objectives by providing an airbag housing with a pre-determined tear seam, which is weaker than the main body of the airbag housing, and which opens, in the event of impact, to deploy the airbag.
EP-A-0604776 and GB-A-227086, for example, describe airbag housings which are provided with thinner walled sections, or grooves, which act as a line of weakness, and tear open to release the airbag, on inflation of the airbag. Shrink-fitted sheaths having such a line of weakness are described in DE-A4137691 (Mercedes-Benz). Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 5,288,103 describes an airbag cover which is made from a first thermoplastic material, but which contains an opening filled with a second thermoplastic material of lower tensile strength and elongation strength than the first thermoplastic. The filled opening is provided in the shape of the desired tear-line, and in the embodiments shown is in the shape of an "H".
EP-A-0510738 describes another approach to containing airbags, which does not use predetermined tear lines formed in the housing. In EP-A-0410738, an inflatable gas bag is contained in a steel housing having an open side facing the dashboard. The open side is covered by a hinge flap which can swivel upwards in the direction of the windscreen when the air bag inflates. The open side is covered by a continuous, thin (50 microns), film of polyethylene or polypropylene shrunk around the housing. The film may surround the entire housing, or cover only the opening. On the exterior of the housing, on the section facing the windscreen, a metal strip with saw teeth, or a tooth shaped protrusion, is provided to perforate the thin film, when the air bag inflates.
We have found that a particularly effective container for a vehicular air bag may be provided by a heat-shrinkable fabric cover provided with a predetermined region of weakness, preferably a catch thread as hereinafter described.
The present invention therefore provides a fabric cover, which is shrinkable at least in part, for encapsulating at least part of an expandable object, the cover being provided with a predetermined region of weakness, which will rupture when the said object expands by greater than a predetermined amount
The invention also provides a method of encapsulating a
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patent: 4940820 (1990-07-01), Pithouse et al.
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patent: 5730463 (1998-03-01), Fisher et al.
Jacobs Brian
Lowe Frank James
Preston Alistair Alfred
Ryder Alan George
Johnson Brian L.
Winner Tony
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