Land vehicles – Wheeled – Attachment
Reissue Patent
1997-11-14
2001-07-17
English, Peter C. (Department: 3619)
Land vehicles
Wheeled
Attachment
Reissue Patent
active
RE037280
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to an inflatable seat belt apparatus, more particularly to an inflatable seat belt, wherein a webbing of a seat belt apparatus to restrain an occupant has an inflatable portion formed in an envelope shape which is usually maintained in a band shape and is inflated, in an accident, in a predetermined shape with gas
spouted
from a gas generating means.
Presently, a seat belt apparatus is necessary for a vehicle or the like as an apparatus
for securing
to secure
an occupant's body
, which
. Such apparatus
restrains the occupant from sudden movement by a deceleration and an impact in a crash.
Such a seat belt apparatus
comprises
may comprise
a webbing
such
as a woven belt made of a fabric which has approximately a 50 mm width and is formed according to Japanese Industrial Standard
, to
. The seat belt apparatus may
have a retractor (hereinafter referred to
as an
ELR: Emergency Locking Retractor), a buckle, a tongue, an anchor and so on.
The ELR winds the webbing by a winding force of a spring and locks the webbing from withdrawing only at a crash so as to restrain the occupant. The buckle is mounted on a suitable position near a floor so that the webbing fits the occupant's body well.
Conventionally, the seat belt apparatus locks the webbing from withdrawing by the function of
the
ELR at a crash to restrain the occupant from a forward movement.
For improvement in the efficiency of restraining the occupant, each of U.S. Pat. Nos.
3,841,645
3,841,654
, 3,865,398, and 3,866,940 discloses a seat belt apparatus in which the webbing has a portion formed in an envelope shape and is folded like
a
bellows. The portion is provided with a weak adhesive so as to usually maintain
in
in a band shape, or the folded portion is held in
the
a
band shape by fastening means such as a fastener, so that in a crash, the portion formed in the envelope shape is inflated and deployed by
a spouted
gas from a gas generator connected to the webbing.
According to the seat belt apparatus having
the
an
inflatable portion formed in an envelope shape (hereinafter,
it is called as
“an inflatable seat belt apparatus”), force applied to the occupant can be distributed over
the
a
range wider than the conventional webbing so as to decrease the stress applied to the occupant and a higher safety efficiency can be provided.
The inflatable seat belt apparatus is effective even for a rear seat. For mounting an air bag apparatus for an occupant on the rear seat, the air bag apparatus is generally mounted on the rear side of the back portion of the front seat. It is necessary that the front seat structure has a high rigidity for suitably operating the air bag apparatus for the rear seat to efficiently restrain and secure the occupant. However, it is difficult to provide the reclining mechanism having a movable portion to the front seat if the air bag apparatus is mounted on the rear side of the back portion of the front seat. Therefore, the inflatable seat belt apparatus is effective for the rear seat because the inflatable seat belt apparatus can be independently mounted on the rear seat and has no restriction such as the above mentioned air bag apparatus.
In such an inflatable seat belt apparatus, wherein the envelope shaped portion is folded to form a band shaped belt having a predetermined width as mentioned above, the folded envelope shaped portion is piled up to be thickened. Therefore, the belt is hard to fit the occupant's body during wearing and hard to pass smoothly
through
a slip guide of a pillar anchor. Accordingly, there is a fear of decreasing the belt wearing rate because the occupant feels an incongruity during wearing.
Further, the folded portions are glued together and therefore, the inflatable portion is hard to deploy smoothly even when the
spouted
gas is introduced into the envelope shaped portion during
the
deployment.
Therefore, the applicant has already proposed an
Disclosed in commonly-
owned Japanese patent applications are
inflatable seat belt apparatus which can overcome these problems (Japanese Patent Application No.
210353/1992,
publication no. 6
-
144138
, published May
24
,
1994
; and Japanese Patent Application
No.
210355/1992,
publication no. 6
-
56001
, published Mar.
1
,
1994
).
These applications disclose inventions
that
in which
the envelope shaped portion
is structure by
comprises
a knitted fabric member, i.e. a woven textile member having wefts which expands enough.
According to these inventions, the seat belt apparatus is maintained in a relatively thin band shape and can inflate and develop the envelope shaped portion reliably and promptly
at
in
an emergency.
FIG. 1
(a) shows an example of
the
an
inflatable seat belt apparatus, wherein one portion of a shoulder belt is
structured by
comprised of
a cylindrical knitted fabric member.
And
In this example,
a rubber tube formed in an envelope shape is inserted into the cylindrical knitted fabric member.
In this figure, numeral
51
designates a tongue. The tongue
51
has a gas inlet
53
for introducing gas into the rubber tube in a belt
52
inside thereof
. The gas inlet
53
is coupled to a gas outlet of gas generating means, i.e. gas generator (not shown), connected inside a buckle
54
when the tongue
51
is engaged with the buckle
54
for fixing a belt end
52
a to the vehicle body.
FIG. 1
(b) shows an example of a state where a predetermined gas pressure is applied to the belt portion of the inflatable seat belt apparatus structured as stated above.
As shown in this figure, the rubber tube is inflated by the gas pressure in the tube.
And a whole
The
shape of the rubber tube is defined by the envelope shaped knitted fabric member
wrapping
covering
the tube and is inflated in a spindle shape. Because the area of the belt portion touching the chest and the like of the occupant is increased, an impact applied to the occupant is softened and the apparatus can protect the occupant efficiently.
Because the inflatable portion formed in an envelope shape is radially increased, the length of the belt in a longitudinal direction is shortened by &Dgr;L. Therefore, the inflatable seat belt apparatus
has a function
functions
as a pre-tensioner so that the occupant is more effectively
retained
restrained
.
However, the following problems become apparent from various tests using a model and a real vehicle for the inflatable seat belt apparatus as mentioned above. The tests are executed by using a full-sized dummy.
As shown in
FIG. 2
, the knitted fabric structural portion of the shoulder belt
52
is effectively inflated and deployed in a crash.
When the belt tries to restrain the dummy D from movement, the gas in the tube escapes to a space
52
b between the buckle near the floor and the waist of the dummy D and to a space
52
c between a pillar anchor
55
and the shoulder of the dummy D, so that the shoulder belt
52
is inflated in a gourd shape. In this state, the shoulder belt
52
can not be inflated over an enough area at the important place for catching the chest of the dummy D. This spoils the merit of using an inflatable structure for the shoulder belt.
Because the tube is inflated in the whole extent of the longitudinal direction thereof, the inflation volume becomes large and then the gas pressure in the tube is hard to
be increased
increase
. In addition, because the tube can not be inflated enough in the radial direction thereof, the length of the belt in the longitudinal direction is not
shorted
shortened
enough. Therefore, the above mentioned function as a pre-tensioner does not work effectively.
Furthermore, the above mentioned inflatable seat belt apparatus has various inconveniences. In the inflatable seat belt apparatus, the envelope shaped portion of the shoulder belt is also wound in an ELR mounted in the under portion in the pillar. The belt portion formed of the knitted fabric is slightly thicker than the belt portion formed o
Chikaraishi Tsuneo
Osada Nobuya
Tanaka Yoshihiko
English Peter C.
Foley & Lardner
Takata Coporation
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