Land vehicles: bodies and tops – Bodies – Lining
Reexamination Certificate
2002-01-15
2002-11-19
Dayoan, D. Glenn (Department: 3612)
Land vehicles: bodies and tops
Bodies
Lining
C296S182100, C296S182100, C296S146600, C296S146700, C296S203010, C296S203030, C280S748000, C280S751000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06481776
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vehicle interior material, and more specifically, to a vehicle interior material employed on the vehicle compartment side of a vehicle panel, such as a front pillar or a roof side rail of an automobile.
2. Description of the Related Art
As shown in
FIG. 13
, this kind of vehicle interior material is used for example for a front pillar garnish
101
F or a roof side rail garnish
101
S employed on the vehicle compartment side of a vehicle panel, such as a front pillar
105
F or a roof side rail
105
S of an automobile
100
. Besides aesthetic reasons with regard to the vehicle compartment, these vehicle interior material are used because they can deform plastically when directly hitting a portion (e.g. the head) of a passenger's body, for example in the course of a collision of the vehicle, so that the impact force inflicted on the passenger from outside the vehicle can be absorbed and dampened.
As shown in
FIG. 14
, a conventional front pillar garnish
101
F, as disclosed for example in JP H9-175284A1 includes a facer
102
with a substantially C-shaped cross-section, a plate-shaped vertical rib
103
L extending in the longitudinal direction on the rear side of the facer
102
, and a plurality of also plate-shaped horizontal ribs
103
W, intersecting at substantially right angles with the vertical rib
103
L and bridging the walls on the two sides of the facer
102
. The front pillar garnish
101
F is fastened with the ribs being in contact with a protruding bar
107
of the inner panel that is part of the front pillar
105
F.
However, with a front pillar garnish
101
F having, as described above, a lattice structure made of a vertical rib
103
L and a plurality of horizontal ribs
103
W in the space on the rear side of the facer
102
, the vertical rib
103
L and the horizontal ribs
103
W overlap when deforming and breaking down during an impact, and the height of the space that is provided mainly for the dampening of impacts (that is, the shock-absorbing stroke) is diminished by that amount. Thus, in order to maintain the high shock-absorbing capabilities verified by the head impact index according to U.S. standard FMVSS 201, it becomes necessary to increase the protrusion height of the ribs. Consequently, when the front pillar garnish
101
F is attached to the front pillar
105
F, the front pillar garnish
101
F takes up more space of the vehicle compartment, which leads to the problems of a feeling of pressure on behalf of the passengers, an obstruction of the visual range, and an encumbrance when entering or leaving the vehicle.
JP H10-203278A1 discloses a front pillar garnish
101
F wherein the vertical rib is eliminated from the rear side of the facer
102
covering the protruding bar
107
of the front pillar
105
F, as shown in FIG.
15
. Moreover, notches
104
opened in opposition to the region
108
where the protrusion end face
107
a
of the protruding bar
107
abuts the passenger-opposing lateral face
107
b
formed in continuation on one side thereof are formed in horizontal ribs
103
W that are arranged independently.
With such a front pillar garnish
101
F in which the vertical rib has been eliminated, the decrease of the impact absorption stroke due to overlapping of the ribs as described above can be prevented, the notches
104
provided in the horizontal ribs
103
W absorb the impact force while forming cracks originating at the bottom portions of the notches and extending toward the facer
102
, and the entire ribs buckle and absorb the impact, so that the shock-absorbing capabilities are Setter than when the horizontal ribs are not provided with notches
104
. As a result, the protrusion height of the ribs can be decreased, and the amount that the front pillar garnish
101
F bulges into the vehicle interior can be diminished.
However, in the front pillar garnish
101
F as shown in
FIG. 15
, which attempts to absorb the impact by providing one notch
104
at a position opposing the passenger and primarily receiving the impact, and forming a crack originating at the bottom portion of this notch
104
as described above, there is a certain limit to the increase of shock-absorbing capabilities due to the selection of the material, and it is not possible to reduce the maximum protrusion height of the ribs to less than about 18 mm.
Conventionally, various contrivances have been employed to increase the shock-absorbing capabilities, such as providing the rear side of the pillar garnish with a separate shock-absorbing cushion material, and molding the entire pillar garnish from a thermoplastic resin with excellent shock-absorbance, but these contrivances brought about the problem that as the down-side of increasing the shock-absorbing capabilities, the costs rise in the same degree.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention has been contrived with this state of the art in mind, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a vehicle interior material that efficiently dampens impact forces with ribs protruding into a limited space enclosed by a vehicle panel and a facer, and that reduces the protrusion height of the ribs, thereby curbing the amount that the vehicle interior material bulges into the space of the vehicle compartment.
As the result of concerted efforts to solve the afore-mentioned problems, the inventors have recognized that high shock-absorbing capabilities can be maintained in a limited space by eliminating the vertical ribs that are conventionally employed for pillar garnishes and using a configuration that can be logically deformed or buckled when a passenger exerts an impact on the horizontal ribs, thereby arriving at the present invention.
In other words, the present invention provides a vehicle interior material including
a facer with a substantially C-shaped cross-section covering a panel ridge on the vehicle compartment side of a vehicle panel, the panel ridge having a protrusion end face extending in a longitudinal direction and two lateral faces in continuation of the end face, a space being provided between the panel ridge and the facer; and
a plurality of ribs, which are arranges independently from one another, bridging side walls of the facer, the ribs protruding from a rear face of the facer opposite the vehicle panel into the space and intersecting with the longitudinal direction of the vehicle panel;
wherein the shape of a protruding edge of the plate-shaped ribs substantially follows at least a protrusion end face of the panel ridge and the passenger-opposing lateral face formed in continuation thereof to one side; and
wherein the vehicle interior material further comprises a deformation-inducing means, causing a portion of the plate-shaped ribs protruding towards the protrusion end face of the panel ridge to buckle at an intermediate protrusion position when subjected to an impact by a passenger.
With such a vehicle interior material, the plate-shaped ribs are independent from one another, so that the decrease of the actual impact absorption stroke due to overlapping of the ribs can be prevented, while the deformation-inducing means with which the ribs are provided cause multi-stage deformation and break-down starting the buckling at an intermediate portion of the ribs before the ribs buckle along the protrusion base end, the protrusion height of the plate-shaped ribs can be curbed and the plate-shaped ribs display efficient shock-absorbing characteristics maintaining a low impact acceleration.
When the deformation-inducing means includes a main notch opened in the protruding edge of the plate-shaped ribs in opposition to a region where the protrusion end face of the panel ridge abuts against the passenger-opposing lateral face formed in continuation on one side thereof, and one or more auxiliary notches provided in the protruding edge of the plate-shaped ribs in opposition to or nearly opposite the region where the protrusion end face of the panel ridge abuts against the lateral face formed in continuation on the othe
Adachi Nagayoshi
Ishii Miwa
Mekata Tetsuo
Nakatani Kazushi
Armstrong Westerman & Hattori, LLP
Coletta Lori L
Dayoan D. Glenn
Kaneka Corporation
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