Land vehicles – Wheeled – Running gear
Patent
1996-06-17
1998-02-24
English, Peter C.
Land vehicles
Wheeled
Running gear
280777, 188371, 74493, B62D 119
Patent
active
057204969
ABSTRACT:
An energy absorber for a motor vehicle steering column including a yoke pivotable about a lateral centerline of a body of the motor vehicle and an energy absorbing mechanism responsive to linear translation of a mast jacket of the steering column relative to the yoke. The mast jacket extends through a bore in the yoke and a plastic bushing in the bore prevents the mast jacket from tipping relative to the yoke. The energy absorbing mechanism includes flat metal strap wound into a spiral coil and cradled or otherwise captured in a flat recess in the yoke tangent to the mast jacket. A distal end of the flat metal strap parallel to the mast jacket is rigidly attached to the latter so that during linear translation of the mast jacket under impact, the distal end is pulled out of the flat recess and unrolls the spiral coil. As the spiral coil unrolls, the flat metal strap is plastically deformed to convert into work a fraction of the kinetic energy of the impact on the steering column.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4117741 (1978-10-01), Yazane et al.
patent: 4838576 (1989-06-01), Hamasaki et al.
patent: 4989898 (1991-02-01), Yamaguchi et al.
patent: 5052716 (1991-10-01), Matsumoto
patent: 5390956 (1995-02-01), Thomas
Armstrong Ray Garnet
Beauch Howard David
Riefe Richard Kremer
English Peter C.
General Motors Corporation
Schwartz Saul
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