Occupant protection structure

Details Occupant protection structure Occupant protection structure

1999-05-17

2001-10-09

Johnson, Brian L. (Department: 3618)

Land vehicles

Wheeled

Attachment

C280S748000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06299208

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an occupant protection structure for a motor vehicle and more particularly to a knee guard structure for protecting knees of an occupant at the event of a collision.
2. Prior Art
Generally, when a vehicle has a collision, an occupant is thrown forwardly. Particularly, when a safety belt or an air bag holds the upper part of the occupant's body, the lower part of the body is thrown under an instrument panel. In such a situation, the knee guard structure supports the knees of the occupant to prevent the occupant from getting in under the instrument panel. An example of the knee guard structure is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. Toku-Kai-Hei 7-2035.
In the disclosure, the knee guard is provided at the lower part of the instrument panel so as to be located opposite to the knees of an occupant seated. On the passenger side, there is provided a glove box at the lower part of the instrument panel. A knee guard bracket is disposed on both ends of the glove box, respectively and a connecting member interconnects between both brackets. At the event of an impact, the knees of the passenger has a contact with a lid of the glove box and an impact load is inputted to the left and right knee guard brackets through the lid.
When the vehicle has a head-on collision, the knees of the passenger do not always abut against the knee guard orthogonally. Especially, at the event of an offset collision or an oblique collision, the knees abut against the knee guard partially or in the diagonal direction. According to the prior art, when the knees of the passenger abut against the left and right brackets through the lid of the glove box, since these brackets are disposed apart from each other, it is difficult to transfer the impact load received from the lid of the glove box uniformly to the brackets. That is, an impact energy is difficult to be absorbed efficiently.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the present invention to provide a knee guard structure for a vehicle capable of efficiently absorbing shock without reducing the size of a glove box when knees of an occupant of the vehicle abuts against a knee guard in an event of an impact.
To achieve the object, the knee guard structure according to the present invention comprises left and right knee guard brackets secured to a steering support beam with a glove box between, a connecting member transversely connecting the left and right knee guard brackets, a closure member of the glove box composed of an outer panel and an inner panel and disposed adjacent to the left and right knee guard brackets and a reinforcement provided between the inner and outer panels and having a closed cross section extended in the widthwise direction of the vehicle up to left and right end portions of the closure member.


REFERENCES:
patent: 4317582 (1982-03-01), Cottin et al.
patent: 4709943 (1987-12-01), Yoshimura et al.
patent: 4978136 (1990-12-01), Tomita et al.
patent: 5413379 (1995-05-01), Koma
patent: 5718453 (1998-02-01), Kassel et al.
patent: 5927755 (1999-07-01), Matsuo et al.
patent: 5951045 (1999-09-01), Almefelt et al.
patent: 6196588 (2001-03-01), Sugawara
patent: 7-2035 (1995-01-01), None
patent: 7-13612 (1995-07-01), None

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