Land vehicles: bodies and tops – Bodies – Structural detail
Reexamination Certificate
2002-04-09
2004-03-16
Dayoan, D. Glenn (Department: 3612)
Land vehicles: bodies and tops
Bodies
Structural detail
C296S070000, C296S190090, C180S090000, C280S752000, C454S121000, C454S143000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06705672
ABSTRACT:
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
This application is based on, and incorporates herein by reference, Japanese Patent Application Nos. 2001-111928 filed on Apr. 10, 2001; 2001-163156 filed on May 30, 2001; and 2002-038466 filed on Feb. 15, 2002.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vehicular air-conditioning duct structure and forming method therefor and an electrical wiring fixing structure for fixing electrical wiring internally of the vehicular instrument board and dashboard.
2. Description of the Related Art
Inside of an instrument board forward of a passenger compartment (in the vicinity of a partition wall for dividing between the engine room and the passenger compartment), a beam member (reinforcing bar) extending with respect to the width of a vehicle is provided. In addition to a reinforcing member arranged across the vehicle's width direction, an electrical wiring and an electrical wiring harness is provided. The reinforcing member is for strengthening the body of the vehicle and for supporting a steering structure of the vehicle. The beam member plays a part as a structural member for supporting a steering shaft and as a structural support member for the vehicle. On the reinforcing structural member (reinforcing beam), apparatuses such as electrical wiring and a wiring harness are mounted. The electrical wiring or the wiring harness can alternatively or coincidentally be mounted to the instrument board. Generally, clips are used to mount the wiring and the wiring harness.
An interior air conditioning unit of a vehicular air conditioning apparatus is normally arranged at the central portion with respect to the width of the vehicle inside of the instrument board forward of the passenger compartment. Conditioned air adjusted in temperature by the interior air conditioning unit is blown off from the center face blow-off port arranged in the central portion with respect to the width of the vehicle of the instrument board toward the face portion of an occupant in the central portion in the passenger compartment. The conditioned air is blown off from the side face blow-off ports arranged in the left and right ends with respect to the width of the vehicle of the instrument board toward the faces of occupants in the left and right ends in the passenger compartment.
Accordingly, an air conditioning duct (side face duct) is necessary, which leads the conditioned air from the air conditioning unit in the passenger compartment positioned in the central portion with respect to the width of the vehicle within the instrument board to the side face blow-off ports positioned in the left and right ends in the passenger compartment.
The air conditioning duct is generally arranged so as to extend nearly parallel with the beam member inside of the instrument board. It is desirable that a packing, such as a forming resin, is used as an insulator inside the duct or around the outside of the duct, or both, to heat-insulate the duct. The packing will also serve to attenuate vibrations that propagate in the air conditioning duct, and for absorbing noises propagating in the duct. In order to fix the packing on the inner surface of the duct, the packing must be adhered with an adhesive, or the like, and this process is troublesome.
The air conditioning duct requires a mounting space separately from the beam member inside of the instrument board, resulting in making the vehicle mounting properties of the air conditioning duct worse.
In view of the foregoing, as a constitution for including the air conditioning duct in the beam member, a constitution has been proposed so that mounting spaces for the air conditioning duct and the beam member are used in common thereby to improve the vehicle mounting properties of the air conditioning duct.
According to the Related Art, the air conditioning duct is molded in advance, and the molded duct is inserted from the sides of the beam member (the left and right ends with respect to the width of the vehicle). The inserting work of the air conditioning duct is very cumbersome. It is necessary to make a sectional area of the air conditioning duct sufficiently smaller than that of the beam member in order to facilitate the duct inserting work. However, the blow-off air quantity of the air-conditioning air caused by the small sectional area, and the air conditioning performance is lowered.
According to a further proposal described in Laid-Open French Patent Application No. 2789043, a beam member is formed to be divided into two upper and lower beam member bodies, and the beam member bodies and the air conditioning duct are mounted an air conditioning duct is molded in advance, the air conditioning duct is sandwiched between the two upper and lower bodies, and then the two upper and lower beam members bodies are joined integrally.
Continuing, for achieving further space saving and thinner or smaller structures, compared with the structure in which an air conditioning duct is arranged within a tubular reinforcing member to save a space (Japanese Translation of PCT Application No. H8-502002), there has been heretofore known an air conditioning duct of the structure in which a reinforcing member serves as part of the air conditioning duct. In the structure, the functions of heat insulation, vibration attenuation, and noise absorption are required, since the material with high rigidity such as metal used for the reinforcing member serving as part of the air conditioning duct is generally high in heat conductivity, conducive to vibration propagation, and sound transmitting, propagation or reflectivity.
When the clips of the prior art are used for fixing the electrical wiring, the fixing must be done while a user holds, grips and positions the wiring by hand. This creates a difficult situation for an installer. Out of the structure for improving the fixing workability, the structure in which there is provided a housing member extending along the path of the electric wiring in the instrument board and accommodating the electric wiring as described in JP-A-52683, the cost for the housing member is higher than that of the clips. Further, as in the invention described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,712,764, if the electric wiring is molded to the instrument board, the fitting position of the electric wiring on the instrument board has to be designed depending on design of the instrument board.
Therefore, the air conditioning duct is required to be molded as a single body. In addition, it is necessary that the cumbersome mounting work in which the beam member bodies and the air conditioning duct are mounted, while aligning the beam member bodies and the air conditioning duct, thus increasing the manufacturing cost.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
With regard to that described above, it is an object of the present invention to reduce a cost of the air conditioning duct structure included in a vehicle beam member.
A further object of the invention is to provide an air conditioning duct structure in which an internal space of the beam member is effectively used as a space for accommodating an air conditioning duct.
It is another object of the present invention to produce an air conditioning duct that attenuates vibration and noise and thermally insulates the inner surface of such an air conditioning duct.
It is yet another object of the present invention to improve the ability of securing electric wiring to a reinforcing member.
For achieving the above-described objects, according to a first embodiment of the invention, a vehicular air-conditioning duct structure includes a beam member having at least two beam member bodies, also called beam members, divided in the longitudinal direction of the beam member, and a material for a duct integrated on an inner surface of the beam member bodies. The at least two beam member bodies are combined to form a tubular closed sectional shape. It is not necessary to mold the air conditioning duct into a duct shape in advance. Therefore, the molding step and the step of mounting the air conditioning
Hirano Mikio
Ito Koichi
Kamiya Tomohiro
Mizutani Satoshi
Shikata Kazushi
Coletta Lori L
Dayoan D. Glenn
Denso Corporation
Harness Dickey & Pierce PLC
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