Land vehicles – Wheeled – Attachment
Patent
1997-03-27
1999-02-02
English, Peter C.
Land vehicles
Wheeled
Attachment
188377, B60R 2145
Patent
active
058654682
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates to a knee bolster of a vehicle, and more particularly to a knee bolster of a vehicle capable of being light in weight and easy in manufacturing, having a favorable shock absorption force in the event of a car crash, effectively decreasing or preventing a submarine phenomena and alleviating an impact applied to a passenger.
BACKGROUND ART
Generally, a front panel of a car chamber within a vehicle is attached with side hinge pillars or A pillars onto the left and right sides thereof, and a tie bar shaped as a pipe is transversely installed across the side hinge pillars provided on both sides. An instrument panel which is fixed to the tie bar is equipped with various adjusting devices of the vehicle such as a speedometer and an audio system and an air bag for protecting passengers.
Meanwhile, when a car crash is taking place, a submarine phenomena occurs such that the lower part of the body of a driver or a passenger occupying an assistant driver's seat is forcibly pushed down to be put under the instrument panel due to the inertia. In this case, the knee of the driver or the passenger sitting on the assistant driver's seat is run into the framework of the vehicle and, furthermore, the upper parts of the bodies of the passengers are inclined to move forward to the bottom side due to the submarine phenomena. Thus, even though the air bag is properly inflated upon the car crash, the upper part of the body hits against the lower side of the air bag or is to be out of the protecting coverage of the air bag. Thus, the air bag is detrimental to effective protection for passengers.
Therefore, a knee bolster is installed to the front of the instrument panel for absorbing the impact upon the driver or passenger occupying the assistant driver's seat during the car crash, so that the impact upon the knee of the passengers is decreased while preventing or reducing the inadvertent influence of the submarine phenomena.
The knee bolster is largely classified into two kinds: one for driver's seat and the other for assistant driver's seat. Here, since an interior package in front of the driver's seat has a different structure from that in front of the assistant driver's seat, the knee bolsters for driver's seat and for assistant driver's seat have different structures.
Typically, the knee bolster is fabricated by a plurality of pieces of steel plate to be coupled with one another via bolts or a welding to involve a lot of working processes, which degrades workability and productivity. In addition to this drawback, the number of the parts constituting the knee bolster is so many to make the part management difficult and dimensional stability be low because of a welding deformation, which, in turn, degrade the workability and assembling productivity.
Also, a substance of the conventional knee bolster is a steel to have a disadvantage of being too heavy, thereby increasing overall weight of the vehicle.
A conventional knee bolster is filled with a foam substance into a hollowed internal space, which also is heavy and so expensive.
FIG. 8 is a sectional view showing a general knee bolster 110 for assistant driver's seat. Knee bolster 110 is installed to an instrument panel (not shown) in front of the assistant driver's seat of an automobile to be integrally formed with a glove box 112 in a body. As shown in FIG. 8, knee bolster 110 includes an outer plate 114, an inner plate 116 and a shock absorbing plate 118 installed between outer plate 114 and inner plate 116. The shock absorbing plate 118 is formed of a steel.
In the conventional knee bolster formed as above, when the passenger collides against outer plate 114 of the knee bolster resulting from a car crash, the impact force caused by the collision is transferred to shock absorbing plate 118. If the impact force is slight, the stiffness of shock absorbing plate 118 elastically bears the impact force. Whereas, shock absorbing plate 118 is plastic-deformed by a strong impact force to absorb and eliminate the impact force.
In con
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Daewoo Motor Co., Ltd.
English Peter C.
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