JP2012145159A - Energy absorber and interior component for vehicle - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an energy absorber of a structure capable of remarkably increasing the absorbed energy amount.SOLUTION: The energy absorber 1 is installed in an interior component for a vehicle, and is disposed between the interior component for the vehicle and a vehicle body panel. The energy absorber 1 includes a casing 13, which includes a base part 10 and a sidewall part 11 continuously provided along the outer periphery of the base part 10 and which is formed with an opening 14 on a side thereof opposite to the base part 10. The energy absorber 1 also includes a projecting member 17 provided in the casing 13 and extending from the base part 10 in a direction of the opening 14. Further, the energy absorber 1 includes a rib 20 continuously provided between a part of the sidewall of the projecting member 17 and a part of the sidewall part 11 of the casing 13 facing the one part of the sidewall of the projecting member 17, and extending from the base part 10 in the direction of the opening 14.

Description

   The present invention relates to an energy absorber that protects an occupant by absorbing collision energy at the time of a vehicle collision, and an interior component for a vehicle equipped with the energy absorber.

  As this type of energy absorber, as disclosed in, for example, Patent Document 1 below, an energy absorber that is mounted on a vehicle interior part and disposed between the vehicle interior part and a vehicle body panel is known. As well as being able to ensure comfort as a living room, it is possible to protect the passengers from the impact of a collision.

  As shown in FIG. 8, the energy absorber disclosed in Patent Document 1 is a box (base portion 10) having, for example, a rectangular plate-like base portion 10 and a side wall portion 11 provided along the outer periphery thereof. And a projecting member 17 having, for example, a cylindrical shape that extends from the base portion 10 in the direction of the opening 14. The energy absorber 1 is made of, for example, an elastomer material in which ethylene propylene rubber (EPR) is blended with polypropylene (PP) resin, and is formed by injection molding, for example.

  The energy absorber 1 configured as described above is arranged with its opening 14 side fixed to, for example, a door trim (indicated by reference numeral 32 in FIG. 2) of a vehicle, and a load applied by an impact from the direction of the base portion 10 side. It is deformed by and can absorb the impact. In this case, the protruding member 17 is provided so as to exhibit a high repulsive force in the event of an impact, and thereby can respond to a large impact without increasing the size of the box 13 or the strength of the material. Yes.

JP 2010-115941 A

  However, it has been found that the energy absorber 1 shown in FIG. 8 is likely to collapse the protruding member 17 when subjected to an impact. That is, when the energy absorber 1 receives an impact, a load is applied to the protruding member 17 in the axial direction. When the load exceeds a certain value, the protruding member 17 has a force to return the deformation. It turned out that it was crushed to the extent that it was lost, and inconvenience occurred that a sufficient amount of absorbed energy could not be secured.

  FIG. 9 is a graph showing the energy absorption characteristics of the energy absorber 1 shown in FIG. 8, with the horizontal axis representing the stroke (mm) and the vertical axis representing the load (kN). Here, the stroke and the load are physical quantities corresponding to the deformation amount and reaction force of the energy absorber 1, respectively. As is clear from FIG. 9, the load (reaction force) increases only by about 10 kN at the maximum, and it becomes clear that the amount of absorbed energy beyond that cannot be expected.

  This invention is made | formed in view of such a situation, and provides the interior component for vehicles which attached the energy absorber which consists of a structure which can increase the amount of absorbed energy significantly, and the energy absorber. is there.

  The energy absorber of the present invention is configured to reinforce the protruding member so that the protruding member is not crushed by an impact, thereby increasing the reaction force of the protruding member.

The present invention is grasped by the following composition.
(1) An energy absorber according to the present invention is an energy absorber that is mounted on a vehicle interior part and disposed between the vehicle interior part and a vehicle body panel,
A box having a base portion and a side wall portion continuously provided along an outer periphery of the base portion, a box body having an opening on a side facing the base portion, and provided inside the box body; A projecting member extending in the direction of the opening; and a portion of the side wall of the box opposite to a portion of the side wall of the projecting member and a portion of the side wall of the box, And a rib extending from the portion in the direction of the opening.
(2) The energy absorber of the present invention is characterized in that a plurality of the ribs are provided on the premise of the configuration of (1).
(3) The energy absorber of the present invention is provided with the two ribs on the premise of the configuration of (2), and these ribs are positioned and arranged in a plane including the central axis of the protruding member. It is characterized by.
(4) The energy absorber of the present invention is provided with the four ribs on the premise of the configuration of (2), and two of the ribs are positioned in the first plane including the central axis of the protruding member. The remaining two are positioned and arranged in a second plane including the central axis of the projecting member, and the first plane and the second plane are orthogonal to each other.
(5) In the energy absorber of the present invention, on the premise of the configuration of (1), the base portion is formed of a polygon, and the side wall portion has a plurality of surfaces corresponding to each side of the polygon.
The corner portion of the box located at the corner of the polygon is characterized in that two adjacent surfaces of the base portion and the side wall portion are chamfered.
(6) The energy absorber of the present invention is characterized in that the projecting member is formed in a cylindrical shape on the premise of the configuration of (1).
(7) The vehicle interior part of the present invention is a vehicle interior part mounted on a side surface of a vehicle panel, and the surface facing the vehicle panel is any one of (1) to (6). An energy absorber is attached.

  According to the energy absorber configured as described above and the vehicle interior part including the energy absorber, the amount of absorbed energy can be significantly increased.

It is a schematic diagram which shows the structure of Embodiment 1 of the energy absorber of this invention. It is the schematic diagram which showed an example in the case of attaching the energy absorber of this invention to a vehicle body. It is the figure which showed the cross section in the III-III line of FIG. It is the graph which showed the energy absorption characteristic (Embodiment 1, Embodiment 2) of the energy absorber of this invention with the energy absorption characteristic of the conventional energy absorber. It is a schematic diagram which shows the structure of Embodiment 2 of the energy absorber of this invention. It is a schematic diagram which shows the structure of Embodiment 3 of the energy absorber of this invention. It is a schematic diagram which shows the structure of Embodiment 4 of the energy absorber of this invention. It is a schematic diagram which shows the example of the conventional energy absorber. It is the graph which showed the energy absorption characteristic of the conventional energy absorber.

  DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS Hereinafter, embodiments for carrying out the present invention (hereinafter referred to as embodiments) will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. Note that the same number is assigned to the same element throughout the description of the embodiment.

  FIG. 2 is a view showing a state in which the vehicle is equipped with the energy absorber 1 of the present invention. First, there is a vehicle body panel 30 of the vehicle, and a door trim (interior part) 31 is mounted on the inner surface of the vehicle body panel 30 on the passenger compartment side. The energy absorber 1 is attached to a part of the side surface of the door trim 31 that faces the vehicle body panel 30. Thereby, the inside of a passenger compartment can secure the comfort as a living room. The energy absorber 1 is attached to the height of the substantially waist portion of an occupant sitting on a seat (not shown). In the event of a vehicle collision, the energy absorber 1 is deformed by a load applied by the impact to absorb the impact, thereby protecting the occupant (especially protecting the occupant's waist).

  FIG. 1 is a perspective view schematically showing the energy absorber 1. This energy absorber 1 is made of an elastomer material in which, for example, polypropylene (PP) resin is blended with ethylene propylene rubber (EPR), and is formed by, for example, injection molding.

  As shown in FIG. 1, the energy absorber 1 first includes a box having a base 10 made of, for example, a quadrangular plate, and plate-like side walls 11 connected to each other along the outer periphery of the base. 13 Both the base part 10 and the side wall part 11 are formed with a predetermined thickness. Thereby, the side wall part 11 has four surfaces corresponding to each side of the base part 10 which is a quadrangle, and an opening 14 is provided on the surface facing the base part 10. Here, for example, the energy absorber 1 is fixed to the door trim 31 shown in FIG. 2 on the opening 14 side, and the base portion 10 is arranged so as to be directed to the vehicle body panel 30 side.

  The corner portions 15 located at the corners of the base portion 10 of the box 13 are chamfered across the two side wall portions 11 adjacent to the base portion 10 in the vicinity of the corner portion 15. A hole 16 penetrating from the outer surface to the inner surface of the box 13 is provided by chamfering. Such a hole 16 in the corner portion 15 is subjected to an impact load on the energy absorber 1, and when this load exceeds a predetermined value, a ridge line that becomes a boundary between two adjacent side wall portions 11 starting from the hole 16. The part V is torn, thereby absorbing the load and producing an effect of reducing the impact energy.

  A projecting member 17 extending from the base portion 10 toward the opening 14 is formed inside the box 13 of the energy absorber 1. The projecting member 17 is, for example, a circular cylindrical body fixed to the base portion 10, and the base portion 10 is provided with a hole 18 connected to the hollow portion of the projecting member 17. As shown in FIG. 3 which shows a cross section taken along line III-III in FIG. 1, the projecting member 17 is configured such that the diameter (outer shape and inner diameter) decreases from the base portion 10 toward the opening 14. This is because when the energy absorber 1 is formed by injection molding, it is easy to release the mold from a mold (not shown) after the molding is completed. For such a purpose, the cylindrical projecting member 17 may be configured to have a constant inner diameter and a smaller outer diameter as it goes from the base portion 10 toward the opening 14. .

  Further, as shown in FIG. 3, the protruding member 17 is positioned such that a tip 17 a extending toward the opening 17 is separated from the plane including the opening 14 by a distance h. In this case, h includes 0, in other words, the tip of the protruding member may be positioned in a plane including the opening. By setting h to a predetermined value, the energy absorption characteristic of the energy absorber 1 can be changed, and thereby, a characteristic suitable for the use of the energy absorber 1 (vehicle type or mounting position, etc.) can be obtained. Can be set to have.

  In the energy absorber 1 configured as described above, when a load is applied by an impact, the side surface portion 11 bends and the protruding member 17 is deformed to absorb the impact energy. For this reason, when compared with the case where the projecting member 17 is not formed, the energy absorber 1 has an effect that the reaction force can be greatly improved.

  Further, as shown in FIG. 1, inside the box 13 of the energy absorber 1, a part of the side wall of the projecting member 17 and a part of the side wall part 11 facing the part of the side wall of the projecting member 17. A rib 20 is provided in between, and the rib 20 has a plate shape extending from the base portion 10 toward the opening 14. In the case of this embodiment 1, for example, two ribs 20 are provided, and these ribs 20 are positioned and arranged in a plane including the central axis of the protruding member 17. That is, the two ribs 20 are arranged in a straight line so as to overlap the central axis of the protruding member 17 as shown in FIG. These ribs 20 reinforce the projecting member 17 so that the projecting member 17 is not crushed by an impact, thereby increasing the reaction force of the projecting member 17.

  These ribs 20 are formed at the stage of forming the energy absorber 1 by injection molding, and the edges of the ribs 20 are connected to the base portion 10, the protruding member 17, and the side wall portion 11. It has come to be.

  FIG. 4 is a graph showing the energy absorption characteristics of the energy absorber 1 according to the first embodiment, and is drawn corresponding to FIG. 9. The stroke (mm) is taken on the horizontal axis and the load (kN) is taken on the vertical axis, and the stroke and the load are physical quantities corresponding to the deformation amount and reaction force of the energy absorber, as described above. . In the graph, a curve A indicates the energy absorption characteristics of the energy absorber 1 shown in the first embodiment. For comparison, the energy absorption characteristics of the conventional energy absorber 1 shown in FIG. As is clear from FIG. 4, it is clear that the energy absorber 1 of Embodiment 1 has an improved load (reaction force) up to about 14 kN. The protruding member 17 is reinforced by the two ribs 20, and it becomes clear that the protruding member 17 does not collapse even when a load of up to about 14 kN is applied.

  In addition, the energy absorber 1 shown in FIG. 1 is provided with the flange part 25 in the edge part on the opposite side (opening 14 side) of the base part 10 of the side wall part 11. As shown in FIG. As described above, the energy absorber 1 is fixed to, for example, the door trim 31 of the vehicle on the opening 14 side, and includes means for fixing to the door trim 31 at the flange portion 25, for example. In the case of FIG. 1, the flange portion 25 is formed in a part of the periphery of the box body 13, but it may be formed in the entire region so as to go around the periphery of the box body 13. Of course.

  As will be apparent from the above description, according to the energy absorber 1 according to the present invention or the vehicle interior part including the energy absorber 1, the protruding member 17 is reinforced by providing the rib 20. And the amount of absorbed energy can be greatly increased.

  FIG. 5 is a configuration diagram showing Embodiment 2 of the energy absorber of the present invention, and is a diagram drawn in correspondence with FIG.

  In FIG. 5, a configuration different from that in FIG. 1 is that four ribs 20 for reinforcing the protruding member 17 are provided. That is, two of the ribs 20 are positioned and arranged in the first plane including the central axis of the protruding member 17, and the remaining two are positioned in the second plane including the central axis of the protruding member 17. Has been placed. In this case, in FIG. 5, the first plane and the second plane are in a relationship of being orthogonally arranged. However, it goes without saying that the first plane and the second plane do not have to be orthogonally arranged. This is because the protruding member 17 can be reinforced by increasing the number of ribs 20, thereby increasing the reaction force of the protruding member 17.

  FIG. 4 also shows a curve B indicating the energy absorption characteristics of the energy absorber 1 according to the second embodiment. As is clear from FIG. 4, it is clear that the energy absorber 1 of Embodiment 2 has an improved load (reaction force) up to about 18 kN. The protruding member 17 is reinforced by the four ribs 20, and it becomes clear that the protruding member 17 is not crushed even when a load of up to about 18 kN is applied.

  As will be apparent from the second embodiment, the load (reaction force) of the energy absorber 1 can be increased by increasing the number of ribs 20 within a certain range. This has the effect that the number of ribs 20 can be arbitrarily set so as to have characteristics suitable for the application (vehicle type or mounting position, etc.) of the energy absorber 1.

  FIG. 6 is a configuration diagram showing Embodiment 3 of the energy absorber of the present invention, and is a diagram drawn corresponding to FIG.

  In FIG. 6, a configuration different from that in FIG. 1 is a configuration in which a hole (hole indicated by reference numeral 18 in FIG. 1) connected to the hollow portion of the protruding member 17 is not formed in the base portion 10. In the point.

  Even in such a configuration, the rib 20 is provided between a part of the side wall of the projecting member 17 and a part of the side wall part 11 facing the part of the side wall of the projecting member 17. The rib 20 has a plate shape extending from the base portion 10 toward the opening 14. In this embodiment 3, two ribs 20 are provided. However, the ribs 20 may be configured as shown in the second embodiment, and the number thereof is not limited as described above.

  Even in the energy absorber configured as described above, the same effects as those of the energy absorber shown in the first embodiment can be obtained.

  FIG. 7 is a configuration diagram showing Embodiment 4 of the energy absorber of the present invention, and is a diagram drawn in correspondence with FIG. 6.

  As shown in FIG. 5, in the energy absorber 1, the box body 13, the protruding member 17, and the rib 20 are configured separately, and the protruding member 17 and the rib 20 are bonded to the box body 13, for example. The energy absorber 1 can be configured. The projecting member 17 and the rib 20 are integrally formed, and a flange portion 17B is formed on the end surface of the projecting member 17 on the side in contact with the base portion 10 for reliable adhesion to the base portion 10. ing. End surfaces of each end side of the rib 20 (excluding the end side on the opening 14 side of the box 13) configured as an extending portion from the protruding member 17 are bonded to the base portion 10 and the side wall portion 11 of the box 13. It has become so. As the adhesive, for example, a hot melt type can be used. It should be noted that each rib 20 has a device for reliable adhesion to the side wall portion at the end of the rib 20 in contact with the base portion 10 or the side wall portion 11 (for example, increasing the contact area with the side wall portion 11). Of course, the above may be performed.

  The energy absorber 1 configured in this manner is prepared in advance with different shapes and the like (for example, the number of ribs 20 is different) as the protruding member 17 and the rib 20, and by selecting and attaching them, The effect that the reaction force of the energy absorber 1 can be adjusted for each attachment position of the box 13 is achieved.

  In the embodiment described above, the base portion 10 of the energy absorber 1 is configured as a square shape. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and may be a polygon such as a pentagon or a hexagon. In this case, the number of the side wall parts 11 provided continuously with the base part 10 changes according to the shape of the base part.

  As will be apparent from the above description, according to the energy absorber according to the present invention and the vehicle interior part including the energy absorber, the amount of absorbed energy is greatly increased by reinforcing the protruding member. Can be increased.

  As mentioned above, although this invention was demonstrated using embodiment, it cannot be overemphasized that the technical scope of this invention is not limited to the range as described in the said embodiment. It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications or improvements can be added to the above-described embodiments. Further, it is apparent from the scope of the claims that the embodiments added with such changes or improvements can be included in the technical scope of the present invention.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Energy absorber, 10 ... Base part, 11 ... Side wall part, 13 ... Box, 14 ... Opening, 15 ... Corner part, 16 ... Hole, 17 ... Projection member, 17a ... Tip, 17B: collar, 18 ... hole, 20 ... rib, 25 ... flange, 30 ... body panel, 31 ... door trim (interior part).

Claims (3)

An energy absorber mounted on a vehicle interior component and disposed between the vehicle interior component and a vehicle body panel,
A box having a base portion and a side wall portion continuously provided along an outer periphery of the base portion, and having a side that faces the base portion opened;
A projecting member provided in the box and extending from the base portion toward the opening;
A rib extending between a part of the side wall of the projecting member and a part of the side wall part of the box facing the part of the side wall of the projecting member, and extending from the base part toward the opening And an energy absorber.   2. The energy absorber according to claim 1, wherein two ribs are provided, and the ribs are positioned and arranged in a plane including a central axis of the protruding member. The base portion is formed of a polygon, and the side wall portion has a plurality of surfaces corresponding to the sides of the polygon,
The corner portion of the box located at the corner portion of the polygon is chamfered across two side wall portions adjacent to the base portion in the vicinity of the corner portion. The energy absorber described.

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