Land vehicles – Wheeled – Attachment
Reexamination Certificate
2001-04-03
2003-02-04
English, Peter C. (Department: 3616)
Land vehicles
Wheeled
Attachment
C280S731000, C280S733000, C280S735000, C280S736000, C280S808000, C297S484000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06513829
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an inflatable restraint system primarily designed for use within a motor vehicle to protect occupants when the vehicle is involved in an accident, and specifically, a collision or other type of crash or impact. The inflatable restraint system comprises a central processing unit or other processor operatively connected to both a sensor assembly and a valve assembly in order to initially inflate and actively regulate pressure within a first and second plurality of chambers, respectively defining impact absorption and impact resistance zones, disposed on the interior of each of one or more inflatable members mounted at strategic locations adjacent intended occupant positions within the vehicle.
2. Description of the Related Art
Every year, thousands of people in the United States alone are involved in motor vehicle accidents, many of which result in the death of one or more occupants and/or severe bodily injury to others. Aside from the devastation and havoc these accidents cause in people's lives, they also result in costs of over five billion dollars annually to the insurance industry, health care industry, health care providers, the federal government, public health agencies and many others. It should, therefore, be clear that the cause of morbidity (long term injury consequences) to the automobile and insurance industries is staggering.
Most current methods of reducing injury are predicated upon the principals of safety restriction and immobilization using seat belts and the use of single or multiple air bags. With regard to the inflation of the air bags in an emergency condition, the in-filing pressure dynamics are known to cause direct chest, face, eye, and sometimes brain and spinal injury when they are deployed against the passenger in an attempt to deal with impacting forces only from the view point of the passive absorption of such forces. Moreover, known air bag structures and designs are inflated towards the occupant. Accordingly, with regard to conventional seat belt construction, diagonal chest belt restraints, are disposed such that they have a tendency to rub across an anterior portion of the neck. Medical publications report complications of carotid artery thrombosis and subsequent stroke from blunt trauma to the neck from seat belts. Similarly, lap seat belts are known to cause pelvic and extremity injuries as well as blunt abdominal trauma. The fact that such air bags and seat belts save lives and reduce injury is not in question. However, most vehicular injuries, particularly those occurring at high speeds are not entirely predictable or preventable, especially with the use of these known or conventional devices.
The mechanisms which cause injuries in humans involve the summation of deceleration forces, and in particular, those linear momentum, angular momentum and torque-rotation, vertex-loading, centripetal and centrifugal forces, coefficient restitution forces and spinal “crunch” forces. Most of these cannot be prevented because they occur probably within the first three seconds of low velocity accidental impact, and within the first 150 milliseconds of high velocity impacts, wherein the effect of such forces is completed, usually within 250-350 milliseconds. Thus, early on, the forces have already acted to produce injury and conventional seat belts and air bags become passive recipients of those forces, reducing them somewhat but not actively opposing them.
Accordingly, it should therefore be recognized that some injuries are due more to linear momentum and deceleration forces, and others to angular momentums with deceleration forces. Added to these are a combination of torque forces, centrifugal and centripetal forces and the “crunch” forces due to spinal loading. Moreover, all of these forces are summated by the time the air bag is impacted by the body of the occupant. As set forth above, the result is that the most the belt restrains and air bags can do, even when cooperatively reacting with one another, is to possibly absorb such forces. When the summation of these forces are greater than the ability of the human body to tolerate them, tissue deformation occurs with the resulting injury.
None of the injuries, which occur in motor vehicle accidents, are totally predictable or preventable since the exact time or circumstances of a motor vehicle accident are not always known or predictable. In other words in most instances where serious accidents are under consideration, the current state of the art permits incomplete reduction of injury forces with the result being that total prevention remains illusive. Similarly, no two human bodies react in the same way to injury forces. In other words, the variables over which there is no control are significant. To date, there is no known way to totally prevent injury, particularly in high velocity conditions. There is however, a better way to reduce and control the harm caused by the summation of forces of deceleration, which cause injury.
As set forth above attempts to protect the occupants in a motor vehicle have for the most part included seat belts, also known as restraint harnesses and more recently, inflatable air bags. Such devices are most certainly a step in the right direction, and when used properly, have saved a tremendous number of human lives. Even so, both seat belts and air bags suffer from distinct disadvantages. By way of example, harness restraints including lap belts, chest belts, etc., limit the forward or lateral motion of the body's acceleration caused by an impact, but in doing so, such restraints cause the base of the neck to act as a fulcrum or axis of rotation-flexion-extension to further accentuate the force of acceleration of the head on the neck. More specifically, when there is a collision, the motor vehicle is usually stopped by the impact, but the forces applied to the body and restrained by the seat and/or lap belts are nevertheless also acting to set the head in motion upon the neck, leading to impact injuries caused by a collision of the head against the front or side window, ceiling of the car or steering wheel. Thus, the common mechanism of injury to the brain, spine and/or spinal cord in head-on collisions is an acceleration of the head, and the neck, causing a hyperflexion-hyperextension injury, whereas in broad-side collisions, the head is accelerated to the side or laterally causing a lateral-flexion injury.
Most modern day motor vehicles use a combination of restraint harnesses and inflatable air bags, which typically, inflate during a collision in an extremely rapid manner from the steering wheel and/or front console area of the vehicle and towards the occupants. Thus, inflatable air bags are intended to cushion the occupant as he or she is thrust forward, under the forces being applied during a head on collision, and impacts the air bag. While the provision of air bags on modern day motor vehicles has certainly brought down the mortality rate, meaning that more people can survive the violent forces of a head on collision, the injury rate is thought to have increased, meaning that survivors of these and other types of crashes often suffer from serious head, neck and/or spinal cord injuries. That is because by the time the air bags are deployed, the forces caused by the vehicular impact are already acting on the body and, as set forth above, cause acceleration of the head on the neck as well as of the torso on the hip. In some instances, air bags have even been reported to cause nasal and facial fractures and, in extreme circumstances, result in the forcing of bone fragments into the brain. Further, the direction of air bag discharge is almost invariably towards the occupant and can promote hyperextension injury to the spine or posterior head injury. This is prevalent and can be particularly dangerous in elderly persons with osteoporosis, a thinning of the bones with age due to calcium depletion.
There have been some attempts to improve the protection for motor vehicle passengers, wh
English Peter C.
Morris LLP Duane
Z/C Holding Company
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