Land vehicles: bodies and tops – Bodies – Structural detail
Reexamination Certificate
2003-02-21
2004-10-12
Pedder, Dennis H. (Department: 3612)
Land vehicles: bodies and tops
Bodies
Structural detail
C296S037120, C296S070000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06802559
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an instrument panel assembly for a vehicle.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventionally, in order to secure convenience of a vehicle, besides a glove compartment (a glove box) provided in the front of a foot part of a passenger seat among an instrument panel, the glove compartment being generally manufactured by assembling a plurality of resin injection-molded components by means of vibration welding and screws, a glove compartment with or without a lid is also provided in a door finisher or a console. Since the above-described glove compartments are insufficient, a simple glove compartment and a cup holder, which are commercially available as vehicle supplies, are further attached to an outer surface of the instrument panel or in the vicinity of air outlets.
Moreover, as a vent duct is fabricated by a resin-made blow-molded component or injection-molded component installed ranging from an air outlet of an air conditioner to an outlet of the instrument panel. The vent duct solely functions as a carrying path of air. A wire harness is branched off from a main wire harness routed in a car body, and a main line part thereof is fixed to any of a partition wall panel between a passenger room and an engine room, the instrument panel, a steering support member and the like by means of dedicated clips and the like. The wire harness is further branched off from the above main line and connected to various kinds of meters, an audio unit, the air conditioner and the like mounted in the instrument panel.
For example, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. Hei 7 (1995)-52683, disclosed are ducts having box-shaped cross sectional structures obtained by welding injection-molded resin plate materials to resin-made base materials constituting structures of instrument panels. In Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. Hei 9 (1997)-323568, disclosed is one which is obtained in such a manner that lower wall faces of ducts such as a vent duct, a defroster duct and the like are integrally molded by injection molding and then vibration-welded to a resin-made instrument pad core material.
It is user-friendly that the glove compartment of the vehicle is installed in an instrument panel part in front of a passenger. There is a high degree of necessity to install the glove compartment in the instrument panel part in front of the passenger by considering a space in a lower part of the instrument panel. However, one installing the glove compartment in the instrument panel part in front of the passenger or one obtained by combining the vent duct and the glove compartment together has never been proposed.
Moreover, it is necessary to provide an instrument panel applied to saving of a space of the vent duct, combining with other components disposed in the lower part of the instrument panel therewith and modularization of the instrument panel.
Moreover, as a conventional vehicle instrument panel, as described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. Sho 63 (1988)-251380 or No. Hei 11 (1999)-254998, the instrument panel can be mounted onto an engine compartment in such a manner that a plurality of attachment parts provided at an upper-side front end portion of the instrument panel are fastened and supported onto an instrument bracket provided at an upper-side end portion of a cowl box constituting a car body of a vehicle by use of bolts and the like and that attachment parts provided in lower-side left and right end portions of the instrument panel are fastened and supported onto a steering member constituting the car body of the vehicle by use of bolts and the like.
However, with the conventional constitution, in the case where a front to rear width size of members constituting the instrument panel is large, for example, in the case of an instrument module in which an accessory component such as a steering column is previously supported in the instrument panel, there is a possibility in difficulty for the above to be entered into the passenger room without interference with opening of the door. The above-described becomes a significant problem when the instrument panel is inserted into the passenger room by use of set jigs. Moreover, in the ease of the instrument panel uniformly covered from the upper side to the lower side with a cover, when the need of exchanging members in the inner side of the instrument panel and the like arises after mounting the instrument panel onto the car body of the vehicle, a maintenance efficiency of the vehicle is impaired due to the covering with the cover such that the entire instrument panel has to be unloaded again.
Moreover, as the conventional vehicle instrument panel, as described in Unexamined Utility Model Application No. Hei 1(1989)-152833 or Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. Hei 5(1993)-155271, a reinforcement made of an iron plate is provided in the inner side of a synthetic resin-made instrument panel to secure the strength and a duct connected to an air conditioner is routed around therein, thus supporting the duct on the reinforcement. Alternatively, a wire harness is allowed to follow the reinforcement and the like, thus supporting the wire harness by use of resin clips.
However, with the foregoing conventional constitution, the instrument panel is a decorated member, and since the reinforcement and the like disposed in the inner side thereof is a strength member made of an iron plate, the instrument panel becomes heavy. Thus, improvement thereof is required. Moreover, since a flexible air-conditioning duct and the wire harness are made to follow the reinforcement, a long sub assembly line before loading the instrument panel on an assembly line for the vehicle is necessary, thus resulting in a contributory cause of cost escalation. Also in the above point, the improvement of the instrument panel is required.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the present invention to provide an instrument panel assembly capable of improving convenience of a vehicle.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an instrument panel assembly in which an insertion efficiency of the instrument panel from an opening of a door into a passenger room and maintenance efficiency thereof after being mounted in the vehicle are improved.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a light-weight instrument panel assembly which requires only a short sub assembly line.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a simplified instrument panel assembly, which is composed of two components including a decorated member and a skeletal member.
In order to achieve the foregoing objects, a first aspect of the present invention is an instrument panel for a vehicle, comprising a duct assembly which is a composite made up with a vent duct disposed below of the instrument panel and a glove compartment.
By combining the vent duct and the glove compartment, the glove compartment can be provided in the instrument panel without increasing the number of items. Thus, the convenience of the vehicle can be enhanced at a low cost.
Moreover, the glove compartment may be provided in an upper-face part of the instrument panel at the front of a driver seat or/and a passenger seat. Moreover, the duct assembly may have two panels divided into an upper-half part and a lower-half part, the panels being manufactured by resin injection molding. Moreover, the duct assembly and a steering member may be integrally joined together.
Furthermore, vent air may be allowed to blow out into the inside of the glove compartment. Furthermore, a wire harness may be routed approximately in parallel with the steering member on a lower-face of the panel constituting the lower-half of the duct assembly.
According to the above-described structure, the glove compartment is located at the front of the driver seat and the passenger seat, which is user-friendly. Moreover, a structural body taking the steering member made of a steel plate as the impact receiver thereof is formed and can be applied to modulariza
Ogasawara Takeshi
Ohashi Toshio
Uchida Takashi
Wakabayashi Takaharu
Yoshihara Toshikazu
Calsonic Kansei Corporation
Foley & Lardner LLP
Pedder Dennis H.
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