Land vehicles: bodies and tops – Bodies – Enclosed compartment
Reexamination Certificate
2000-01-03
2001-02-06
Dayoan, D. Glenn (Department: 3612)
Land vehicles: bodies and tops
Bodies
Enclosed compartment
C296S037160, C280S749000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06183028
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to safety devices for automobiles, and more particularly to an improved safety net device for sealing off the luggage compartment or trunk space of an automobile from the passenger compartment.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Even in station wagons with raised rear seats there is a continuous connection between the baggage space and the passenger space. Collisions bring about the danger that objects present in the trunk space will be flung into the passenger space and injure persons there. In order to prevent this, safety net arrangements are used which block off this opening.
Similar conditions prevail in the case of passenger cars in which the rear seat can be folded over in order to obtain an increased loading or baggage space. Here, too, safety nets are used which are to protect the people in the passenger space.
Even in the case of slight collisions, under some circumstances objects can fly out of the baggage space and against the safety net with relatively significant force. Although the safety net possibly suffers no directly perceptible damage, it is nevertheless pre-damaged by such an event. This prior damage raises the risk of failure of the safety net in the case of a later serious crash and the objects from the baggage space can no longer be held back.
OBJECTS AND SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Proceeding from this, it is an object of the invention to create a safety net arrangement with which after a crash it is signaled whether it is necessary to reckon with a prior damage of this safety net.
The present invention provides these and other advantages and overcomes the drawbacks of the prior art by providing a safety net device having a load or strain indicating arrangement which provides an indication of the damage caused by a crash.
With the novel safety net arrangement, a load or strain indicating arrangement is provided which has two signaling states. The first signaling state corresponds to the rest state which corresponds to the unburdened net. The other signaling state is the signaling state that occurs after the net was burdened with a predetermined force from which the risk of a prior damage to the net is no longer possible to exclude.
Preferably the change of the load indication from the rest state into the signaling state is irreversible, so that the recognizability remains present and cannot be suppressed.
The accommodation of the load indicating arrangement is made advantageously on a strut with which the safety net is to be anchored in the car body. Thereby there are yielded clear spatial relations and the danger of inadvertent damage is minimized. Furthermore, the load or stress display arrangement is directly visible in the field of vision during any handling of the safety net.
The load display arrangement can be accommodated relatively simply on one or both ends of the strut.
The load indicating arrangement can be combined in a very simple manner with means for the consumption of energy. These energy-consuming means, in the case of a relatively severe burdening of the safety net due to a severe collision, are to take up or absorb a part of the kinetic energy of the objects flung into the net and convert it into heat, so as to protect the safety net against tearing.
For actuating the load-indicating arrangement there can be used the connecting members with which the safety net is ordinarily anchored in the car body. These anchoring members are normally longitudinally moveable with respect to the strut, and in order to execute the load indicating arrangement, it usually is also possible to deflect them to an appreciable degree in transverse direction, therefore in the radial direction with respect to the strut. There the bending rigidity of the anchoring members is defined as the force limit from which the load indicating arrangement is released, i.e. changes in its signaling state.
The load-indicating arrangement advantageously contains a signaling member that can be moved back and forth between a rest position and a signaling position. On exceeding the critical load limit, the signaling member goes over into the signaling state.
The signaling member is preferably mounted swingably in the manner of a flag, so that after the releasing action it stands clearly visible in the space and cannot be inadvertently overlooked. Especially when the safety net is hung out the next time, the absent signaling member will catch the user's eye and make him realize that a replacement of the safety net arrangement is advisable because of the risk of prior damage.
This signaling member can be hinged on a strut or on a sleeve which belongs to the energy consuming means.
The strut is constructed in tubular form at least at its end, and at least on this end there is present a sleeve in which the anchoring member is seated longitudinally moveable. The sleeve is provided with a second portion extending externally, over the strut on which the signally member is swingably borne.
In order to actuate the signaling member, on that signaling member there is provided an actuation extension or continuation which extends into the interior of the sleeve and scans the anchoring member. So that no additional bores have to be made in the strut, the actuating member preferably is located in the vicinity of the outside-lying end of the sleeve.
In the rest position the signaling member is locked in place, the locking being irreversibly canceled in the change into the signaling state.
So that the signaling member will also stand out clearly in the signaling state, it is pre-stressed into the signaling position by means of a spring.
The actuating member is designed in such a way that it responds to a transverse movement of the anchoring member relative to the strut.
These and other features and advantages of the invention will be more readily apparent upon reading the following description of preferred exemplary embodiments of the invention and upon reference to the drawings wherein:
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patent: 40 10 209 (1991-10-01), None
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Ament Eduard
Ehrenberger Marina
Seel Holger
BOS GmbH & Co. KG
Dayoan D. Glenn
Engle Patricia
Leydig , Voit & Mayer, Ltd.
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