Stock material or miscellaneous articles – Hollow or container type article – Nonself-supporting tubular film or bag
Patent
1989-09-28
1994-08-09
Robinson, Ellis P.
Stock material or miscellaneous articles
Hollow or container type article
Nonself-supporting tubular film or bag
428 355, 428196, 428257, 280728R, 280743R, 383 3, 383117, 139389, 139387R, B60R 2116, D03D 302
Patent
active
053365380
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to an air bag and a method of manufacturing the same. More particularly, the present invention relates to an impact absorbing air bag housed in a center portion of a steering wheel which is capable of sensing impact caused when a car collides with some object and instantaneously inflating to ensure the safety of a driver or the like, and to a method for manufacturing the air bag.
BACKGROUND TECHNOLOGY
When a car collides with an oncoming car or another object, the driver may smash his face strongly onto the steering wheel or the front glass. If the impact generated at that time can be reduced, it is possible to prevent death or serious injury to the driver.
In many countries, drivers are obligated by law to use seat belts as one means of safety upon collisions, but the effective reduction of the impact by seat belts is not sufficient when a car collides with an object at a high speed.
Therefore, use of an air bag system, i.e., a system capable of sensing an impact caused when a car collides with an object and instantaneously inflating a bag housed in a center portion of a steering wheel or the like to ensure the safety of the driver or the like is now being considered in many countries as a more reliable safety measure.
One conventional air bag has been manufactured by forming a polymer layer on a plain woven fabric, providing a gas introducing hole in one of the woven fabrics, superimposing two woven fabrics with polymer layers in a state with the polymer layer sides facing each other, and sewing together circumferential edges of the two woven fabric. For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 51-4742, in the portion explaining the conventional air bags, describes that conventional air bags are obtained by cutting two circular pieces of woven fabrics from two regular square pieces of woven fabrics and sewing together the circumferential edges of the two circular pieces.
In air bags, a gas is instantaneously fed into the bag by explosion of a pyrotechnic, so the air bag must have a strength sufficient to endure the impact force caused by the explosion. The above-mentioned method of manufacturing air bags using a sewing process has several problems in this regard. There are many manual working processes involved, so there is a chance of decreased strength of the sewn portions and inspections of the strength of the sewn portions and the air permeability of the woven fabric take much time. The overall reliability of air bags manufactured by this method is low.
A method of manufacturing air bags using a tubular weaving method has been proposed. Japanese Examined Utility Model Publication No. 57-58228, corresponding to Japanese Unexamined Utility Model Publication No. 49-56352, discloses an impact absorbing tubular woven fabric having bag portions formed by alternately folding two woven up and down at a middle portion. In this tubular weave, a first bag portion and a second bag portion having a connected portion, which consists of the upper woven fabric and lower woven fabric woven together in a jointed weave, are alternately provided. The second bag portion is smaller than the first bag portion. The fact that this tubular woven fabric could be coated was mentioned in this patent publication, but a detailed explanation was only given of a continuous body of an air bag.
Further, Japanese Examined Patent Publication No. 54-576, corresponding to Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 50-7232, disclose an air bag having an upper connected portion and a lower connected portion having weft threads with larger shrinkage ratios than their warp threads. In the description of the invention and the drawings of this publication, there was shown an air bag having a square shape in plan view, provided at the outer layer thereof with a covering layer.
However, when making separate bags from the impact absorbing tubular woven fabric disclosed in Japanese Examined Utility Model Publication No. 57-58228, the above tubular woven fabric should be cut along t
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Asahi Kasei Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha
Dye Rena L.
Robinson Ellis P.
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