Land vehicles: bodies and tops – Bodies – Structural detail
Reexamination Certificate
2000-02-08
2001-07-03
Pedder, Dennis H. (Department: 3612)
Land vehicles: bodies and tops
Bodies
Structural detail
C296S146110
Reexamination Certificate
active
06254173
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to motor vehicles having safely body structure arrangements by which collision impact forces are transmitted through vehicle door pillars and doors.
In motor vehicles with safety body structures such as have been in use for several decades, efforts are made to keep the passenger compartment largely free of deformation even in severe accidents. In order to achieve this objective when the vehicle is involved in a frontal or offset collision, the front section of such conventional motor vehicles is arranged so that it deforms during an impact while converting kinetic energy to deformation work, and some of the impact forces are transmitted rearwardly to more remote regions of the vehicle by longitudinal members and reinforced side walls of the passenger compartment. In the more remote rear regions the transmitted impact forces are absorbed over large areas and through plastic deformation of the body material.
However, this result is only ensured to an adequate degree if the side doors of the vehicle remain in a closed position during the collision, since otherwise only a portion of the impact forces acting on a front door pillar will be transmitted through the structure above and below the door rearwardly to a door pillar located behind it for absorption in the rear regions of the vehicle. Possible weak points of the doors in this respect include the region of the door lock and the region of the door hinges, which usually deform at their point of attachment or tear out of the door pillar because of inertia when the doors are pushed forward in a frontal or offset collision and because the door pillar may deform rearwardly as a result of the impact forces.
In conventional door hinge arrangements as shown by way of example in
FIGS. 6
a
and
6
b
, deformation of the door pillar or tearing out of a hinge retaining part welded to the door pillar results first in interruption of the transmission of force through the door hinge itself, and then results in the front part of the door attached to the door hinge being pushed outwardly because the weld seam located between the hinge retaining part and the door pillar tears, starting at its rearward end, and the hinge retaining part is bent outward in the process. This causes the front end of the door to swing out of the door opening toward the side and away from the longitudinal center line of the vehicle so that it can no longer bear against the adjacent door pillar even above and below the door hinges or in the area ahead of the window in the door. This means, in turn, that the chain of force-transmitting components such as door pillars and door beams is broken, causing more severe deformation of the passenger compartment to occur in the front section of the vehicle in an undesirable manner.
In the arrangement described in British Patent Application No. 2,144,797, this disadvantage is avoided by providing a hinge component that is rigidly attached to the door pillar and has two parts which are connected by an additional pin extending parallel to the conventional hinge pin and which, in normal vehicle operation, is rigidly connected by a shear pin to both parts of this hinge component. The shear pin provides an intended deformation point that is destroyed when the vehicle is involved in a collision so as to release the two parts of the hinge component attached to the pillar, permitting them to swivel relative to each other. This swivel movement causes a displacement of the hinge pin, and thus of the rear end of the door that is rigidly connected to it, toward the vehicle's longitudinal center line. In this way, the arrangement assures that the above-described chain of force transmitting components is preserved in a collision.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a safety body structure arrangement for a motor vehicle that overcomes disadvantages of the prior art.
Another object of the invention is to provide a motor vehicle having a safety body structure arrangement in which displacement of a door hinge pin toward the vehicle axis during an impact is assured without the expense of an additional shear pin, which requires critical matching, while nevertheless preserving its advantage.
These and other objects of the invention are attained by providing a safety structure body arrangement for a vehicle in which a vehicle door hinge part is provided with a region designed for deformation in response to an impact and which upon deformation causes the door to be displaced toward the longitudinal center line of the vehicle.
In accordance with the invention, therefore, an intended deformation point is integrated into constituents of a door hinge that already exist. In one arrangement, a slot guide is provided for the door hinge pin which is designed so that it moves the hinge pin, and thus the front door region connected thereto, in the direction of the vehicle's longitudinal axis in the event of a collision.
The invention thus controls the deformation of the door hinge by appropriate design measures, in the simplest case by appropriate design of the door hinge itself, or by additional devices, in such a way that the front part of the door is retained in the door opening or pulled inwardly in the direction of the passenger compartment in response to an impact. As a result, adjacent surfaces of the door and the door pillar which face each other across a gap when the door is closed can be brought into contact so that the door can bear against the door pillar despite an interruption in the force transmission path in the region of the deformed or destroyed door hinge, and thus the chain of force transmitting components at the front of the door is preserved.
To provide improved control of the deformation of the door hinge under different impact conditions according to one preferred embodiment of the invention, at least one intended deformation point is located on the door hinge or in the vicinity of its attachment to the door and/or the door pillar. This assures that the door hinge always deforms permanently or breaks or tears out at this point, and furthermore through appropriate design permits control of the movement of the hinge parts adjacent to the intended deformation point on the door side and thus permits control of the motion of the front end of the door.
In order to make certain that a closed door can still be opened easily even after deformation of the hinge or hinge part, the intended deformation point is preferably located on a hinge retaining part or a hinge part that is rigidly mounted to the door pillar or in the region of a rigid connection, usually formed by weld seam, between the door pillar and the hinge part attached to the vehicle body, i.e. a “body hinge part”. This assures that the door can still be rotated about the axis of the door hinge for opening, something that is not always possible when the intended deformation point is located in a hinge part attached to the door, i.e. a “door hinge part”.
The intended deformation point on the body hinge part is preferably located on the opposite side from the door hinge part with respect to a longitudinal center line, i.e. it is located outside of the door pillar in a lateral direction with respect to the vehicle center line, between the door pillar and a hinge pin of the door hinge. Moreover, it is advisable for the intended deformation point to be formed by a reduction in cross section or a weakening of the material of the body hinge part at the location where the body hinge part folds or bends when an impact causes the door hinge to deform. In this way the reduction in cross section forms a rotational axis about which the remainder of the hinge, and with it the front part of the door, is swung inwardly in the direction toward the longitudinal center line of the vehicle.
Alternatively, the intended deformation point on the body hinge part can also be located in the region of a hinge pin receptacle, which, for example, can have at least one guide slot which is separated by
Ensslen Arnold
Friedewald Klaus
Heumann Gert
Baker & Botts L.L.P.
Pedder Dennis H.
Volkswagen AG
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