GB2177360A - Vehicle windscreen mounting - Google Patents

Abstract

In a vehicle such as a bus, the windscreen is formed by having a pillar (12, 18) in front of and to each side of a driver's mean eye position (27), a windscreen mounting flange (20, 22) around a windscreen aperture, and side panels (19, 21) joining the flange uprights to the pillars such that the flange uprights and side panels fall substantially in the arcs subtended by the pillars at the driver's mean eye position. In this way the blind spots produced by the windscreen mounting are minimised. <IMAGE>

Description

SPECIFICATION Vehicles and windscreen mountings The present invention concerns vehicles and windscreen mountings. In particular it relates to buses and coaches.

There are several problems with windscreens of vehicles which include: i) Internal reflections off the windscreen, often distracting the driver.

ii) The size of the blind spots at the ends of the windscreen (or windscreens) and body pillars.

iii) The difficulty of obtaining and fitting a replacement windscreen if a windsreen is broken.

Attempts have been made to solve these problems individually and in combination. In the early years of road mechanical transport, the windscreens were usually made of flat vertically mounted glass which was easily obtainable and fitted. This was generally adequate when the driver was in a separate front cab, but with the adoption of front entrances (ie ahead of the front wheels), these flat screens suffered badly from internal reflections. Thus it was proposed that the screens be tilted back and this reduced the problem of internal reflections. (Internal reflections can be a major problem on modern vehicles, especially at night, with high internal lighting levels).However, this meant that the window mounting had to depart from the vertical whereas, in general, the pillars at the end of the windscreen had to be in a substantially vertical position to give the maximum space inside the vehicle. Thus this increased the size of the blind spots for the driver. An alternative approach was to have single curvature or double curvature windscreens and to move the pillars slightly back. This reduced internal reflections, at least for the driver, due to the curvature (but the remaining reflections were distorted and moved strangely which could be even more distracting) and the blind spots were moved into less critical positions (but being nearer to the driver, at least on the driver's side, were effectively larger). However this entailed the supply of specially curved windscreens, and usually meant that stocks of windscreens had to be carried locally.In addition, fitting the windscreen meant that the windscreen aperture had to be accurately curved to receive the curved windscreen and the windscreen precisely located when fitted.

This inevitably led to an increase in the breakage rates of windscreens on installation, and to higher manufacturing and spares costs.

The aim of the invention is to minimise the said disadvantages.

The present invention provides a vehicle having a pillar in front of and to each side of a driver's mean eye position, a windscreen mounting flange around a windscreen aperture (uprights of the flange being inclined to the rear of the pillars) and members joining the flange uprights to the pillars in which said flange uprights and members fall substantially in the area subtended by the pillars at the driver's mean eye position. By this means, the blind spot created by the windscreen mounting is minimised.

By a driver's mean eye position is meant the position which gives the best result for a range of driver's eye positions. In practice drivers of buses have a substantially upright driving posture and the eyes of one driver will be in roughly the same lateral and longitudinal positions as the eyes of any other driver.

The pillar on the offside of the driver (usually known as the 'A' post) will normally be a structural upright designed to support the vehicle roof. The pillar on the nearside could be the other front structural upright (also usually known as the 'A' post) but it is preferred to divide the windscreen into driver's and non-driver's halves and have a central dividing pillar between the halves in addition to the side pillars ('A' posts). Thus the nearside pillar of the driver's windscreen would be this dividing pillar with the invention applied only to the driver's half. The windscreen on the nearside of the vehicle is mounted in a vertical or near vertical plane.This enables the vehicle door to be close to the front of the vehicle making better use of available space, especially where passengers pay the driver a fare on entry; if the non-driver's half was inclined, the door would have to be further back and probably reduced in width and there also be a tendency for the blind spot on the nearside to be increased.

A reduction in the offside blind spot is achievable by not only inclining the driver's half vertically around the base of the windscreen but also swinging it back on an approximately vertical axis about the dividing pillar, a combination of these two giving a minimal blind spot.

Figure 1 is a front view of a bus.

Figure 2 is an axial section of the front of the bus, looking towards the driver's position.

Figure 3 is a horizontal section of the front of the bus, at the top of the windscreen, looking downwards.

Figure 4 is a detail section on line IV-IV of Fig. 2.

A bus shown in the drawings has a windscreen aperture 11 divided into two halves by a dividing pillar 12. Each half of the windscreen is in the form of a flat sheet of suitable glass or other suitable material, that on the driver's side being identified as 14 and that on the non-driver's side as 15. Sheet 15 is directly bonded to a flange 16 of the vehicle skin or structure, but may alternatively be mounted to the flange by other means e.g. rubber "gasket" glazing or a bolt-on frame.

The invention is concerned with the mounting of the sheet 14. Every bus with a roof 17 has so-called structural upright pillars 18 supporting the roof 17 and helping to protect the passengers in the event of the bus rolling over: the front pillar on each side is usually known as the 'A' post and is called by this name in this application to readily distinguish it from the central dividing pillar 12. 'A' posts are usually substantially vertical. The frontmost of these pillars, the 'A' posts, are usually formed of some metal profile. Attached to the offside 'A' post 18, or alternatively as an integral part of the 'A' post, there is a member (side panel) 19 terminating in a flange upright 20. A similar flange upright 22 and side panel 21 is attached to the dividing pillar 12 or may be an integral part of it.As will be seen in Figs. 1 and 2, the driver's half of the windscreen is divided by a horizontal lower strip 23 which forms two flanges for the mounting of windscreen panels 14 and 24. Below this strip the windscreen aperture is filled by glass or other material covering 24 whicn can be conformed to the general shape of the front of the bus. The top of the windscreen aperture is defined by a top panel 26 which includes a mounting flange for the windscreen.

Attached by direct bonding or other means to the flange portions of the side panels, top panel and lower strip, which flange portions lie in a plane is the sheet 14. The driver's mean eye position, 27, is dependent on driver's seat design and cab control layout.

As will be seen in Fig. 4, at least the side panels 19 and 21 are positioned within an arc subtended at the position 27 which falls substantially within the arc subtended by the respective pillar. Therefore side panels 19 and 21 do not generally add to the blind spot already caused by the 'A' post, 18 and the centre pillar, 12.

This positioning is facilitated at least for the offside pillar and side panel 19 by inclining in the bottom edge of the sheet 14 slightly as shown in Fig. 3. It would be possible to have the top panel 26 include air inlet arrangements for ventilating the vehicle. Indeed it would be possible to have air-conditioning or ventilating or heating equipment, or intakes for them, above the top panel 26 in circumstances where direction destination boards or displays and access thereto does not prevent use of the space.

It is additionally possible to have the top panel 26 inclined to lie within the arc subtended by the top and bottom flanges so that the glass sheet is made smaller without reducing the driver's vision; the smaller the glass size obviously the less likely it is to be broken by impact by flying objects. As will be seen from Fig. 1, the sheet 14 is pronouncedly trapezoidal. The amount of trapezoidality depends on the degree that the sheet 14 slopes back towards the driver from the vertical and the sheet can be inclined to the vertical by between 10 and 30 , but preferably midway in the range to say 20 . The angle the bottom of the sheet makes with a transverse line across the vehicle can be between 0 and 12" but this does not seem critical and approximately 6" seems acceptable.

The bottom sheet 24 is not necessarily in every installation and, where space allows, sheet 14 may be moved further back and extended downwards so that its lower edge lies were the lower edge of sheet 24 would otherwise be. The lower dividing strip, 23, may then be deleted.

Claims (7)

1. A vehicle having a pillar in front of and to each side of a driver's means eye position, a windscreen mounting flange around a windscreen aperture, and members joining the flange uprights to the pillars such that said flange uprights and members fall substantially in the arcs subtended by the pillars at the driver's mean eye position.

2. A vehicle as claimed in claim 1, wherein the windscreen aperture extends across part of the width of the vehicle, in front of the driver, the vehicle having a second windscreen adjacent the first extending across substantially the remainder of the width of the vehicle.

3. A vehicle as claimed in claim 2, wherein the second windscreen is substantially vertical.

4. A vehicle as claimed in claim 1, wherein the windscreen aperture extends substantially for the entire width of the vehicle.

5. A vehicle as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the windscreen aperture is vertically inclined towards the rear of the vehicle.

6. A vehicle as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the windscreen aperture is angled to bring the offside edge thereof towards the rear of the vehicle.

7. A vehicle substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to any one of Figs. 1 to 4 of the accompanying drawings.