JP2017065341A - Occupant protection device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an occupant protection device which reduces an injury value of the neck of an occupant at a front collision of a vehicle, and can enhance occupant protection performance.SOLUTION: An occupant protection device S comprises occupant head rotation means which operates so as to make a head 90 of an occupant 9 rotate around an extension axial line C of the neck at a front collision of a vehicle. Preferably, the occupant protection device comprises an airbag A which is arranged at a front side of the vehicle of a seating position of the occupant 9, and protects an upper part of the occupant 9 by being deployed at the front collision of the vehicle. The airbag A comprises a main airbag part 2, and an auxiliary airbag part 3 which is protrusively deployed so as to be capable of abutting on the head 90 of the occupant 9 prior to the deployment of the main airbag part 2, and the auxiliary airbag part 3 servers as the occupant head rotation means.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 1

Description

  The present invention relates to an occupant protection device for enhancing occupant protection performance during a frontal collision of a vehicle.

  As an occupant protection means at the time of a frontal collision of a vehicle, there are airbags described in Patent Documents 1 to 4 and the like. However, only using such an airbag has a problem that the injury value of the occupant deteriorates as described below.

  That is, in FIG. 4, when a frontal collision of the vehicle occurs, the head 90 of the occupant 9 seated on the vehicle seat 8 cannot be effectively restrained by the seat belt 6, and the occupant is caused by inertia. Nine heads 90 try to advance in a substantially horizontal direction forward of the vehicle as indicated by arrow Na. On the other hand, the lower body part such as the chest of the occupant 9 is restrained by the seat belt 6, and movement of a certain dimension or more forward of the vehicle is restricted. For this reason, an angle difference (difference in direction) occurs between the behavior of the head 90 of the occupant 9 and the behavior of the body part below the occupant 9. An inertial rearward moment M is generated that causes the head 90 to be tilted greatly toward the vehicle rear side relative to the body part below it. If such a backward inertia moment M occurs and the head 90 of the occupant 9 is greatly tilted toward the rear of the vehicle, the injury value of the neck 91 of the occupant 9 deteriorates.

As means for solving the above-mentioned problems, for example, the steering airbag Aa is enlarged and the deployment time thereof is advanced so that the head 90 of the occupant 9 is restrained by the steering airbag Aa at the initial stage when a front collision occurs. It is possible to make it. However, if such a means is to be adopted, the capacity of the airbag Aa needs to be considerably increased, and the deployment speed of the steering airbag Aa needs to be further increased, leading to an increase in cost. There are also technical difficulties.
Particularly in vehicles with a short front nose, as often seen in freight cars, etc., as shown in FIG. 4, the steering column 11 tends to stand up, and the tilt angle of the steering wheel 1 is often small. In such a case, it is more difficult to set so that the head 90 of the passenger 9 can be appropriately restrained by the steering airbag Aa. Further, in such a vehicle, when the intermediate shaft 10 is pushed up at the time of the front collision, the steering column 11 and the steering wheel 1 rotate in the direction indicated by the arrow Nb, and the steering wheel 1 is more horizontally oriented. It becomes. For this reason, it becomes more difficult to appropriately restrain the head 90 of the occupant 9 using the steering airbag Aa.

JP-A-10-95294 JP 2004-148925 A JP-A-8-72661 JP2015-116912A

  The present invention has been conceived under the circumstances described above, and an occupant protection device capable of reducing an injury value of an occupant's neck during a frontal collision of a vehicle and improving occupant protection performance. The challenge is to provide

  In order to solve the above problems, the present invention takes the following technical means.

  The occupant protection device provided by the present invention includes occupant head rotating means that operates to rotate the occupant's head around the extended axis of the neck during a frontal collision of the vehicle.

According to such a configuration, the following effects can be obtained.
In other words, since the head of the occupant can be rotated around the extended axis of the neck at the time of a frontal collision of the vehicle, the behavior of the occupant's head is rotated from the backward tilt mode that occurred in the prior art. Torsional mode, which prevents the occupant's head from tilting greatly toward the rear of the vehicle relative to the lower body part and reduces the injury value of the occupant's neck be able to. When the occupant's head is tilted backwards, the range of motion is small and the occupant's tolerance is low, so the injury value at that time increases, but on the other hand, the occupant's head rotates around the cervical extension axis In this case, the range of motion is large, and the occupant's tolerance is high. Therefore, there is no increase in the injury value by converting the occupant's head into the torsion mode.
For this reason, according to the present invention, it is possible to improve occupant protection performance. In particular, it is more preferable for a vehicle such as a cargo vehicle having a short front nose described in the background art section. In addition, although the occupant's head rotates naturally to some extent during a vehicle offset frontal collision, the occupant's head does not rotate naturally during a non-offset frontal collision. It becomes.
Furthermore, when an airbag is used, the increase in size and the like can be appropriately suppressed, and the manufacturing cost can be suitably reduced by downsizing the airbag.

  In the present invention, preferably, an airbag is provided on the vehicle front side of the seating position of the occupant and protects the upper part of the occupant by deploying at the time of a frontal collision of the vehicle. Comprises a main airbag portion and an auxiliary airbag portion that is deployed in a protruding shape that can come into contact with the head of the occupant before the main airbag portion is deployed. The section is the occupant head rotating means.

  According to such a configuration, at the time of the frontal collision of the vehicle, the auxiliary airbag portion is first deployed and formed into a protruding shape, so that the occupant's head hits the auxiliary airbag portion and thus around the extended axis of the neck. Then, the upper part of the occupant hits the main airbag part. Therefore, before the upper part of the occupant hits the main airbag part, the occupant's head can be appropriately rotated, and the injury value can be appropriately reduced. According to the said structure, while making the structure of an airbag comparatively simple, the effect which this invention intends is acquired, and it is excellent also in productivity.

  Other features and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the following description of embodiments of the present invention with reference to the accompanying drawings.

(A) is an operation state explanatory view showing an example of an occupant protection device concerning the present invention, (b) is a perspective view showing an air bag deployment state, and (c) is a plane section of (b). FIG. It is a principal part side view which shows the other example of this invention. It is a principal part side view which shows the other example of this invention. It is a principal part side view which shows an example of a prior art.

Hereinafter, preferred embodiments of the present invention will be specifically described with reference to the drawings.
Elements that are the same as or similar to those in the prior art shown in FIG.

  The occupant protection device S shown in FIG. 1 is configured such that an airbag A (steering airbag) is deployed from the center portion of the steering wheel 1 of the vehicle at the time of a frontal collision of the vehicle. Therefore, although a detailed description is omitted, as in a general steering airbag device, the center portion of the steering wheel 1 includes a folded airbag A and an inflation gas in the airbag A during a frontal collision of the vehicle. An air bag unit including an inflator 4 (simply shown in FIG. 1C) is stored.

  The airbag A includes a main airbag portion 2 and an auxiliary airbag portion 3. In the present embodiment, the main airbag portion 2 and the auxiliary airbag portion 3 are integrally connected. The main airbag part 2 is a part for receiving the upper body (including the head 90) of the occupant 9 over a relatively large area. On the other hand, the auxiliary airbag portion 3 is a portion that can be deployed in a protruding shape that protrudes upward from the main airbag portion 2 and is inclined toward the vehicle rear side, and is referred to as “occupant head rotating means” in the present invention. It corresponds to an example. The auxiliary airbag portion 3 is configured to be deployed prior to the main airbag portion 2. For this purpose, for example, the means shown in FIG. 1C is employed. That is, the inflation gas generated in the inflator 4 first flows into the auxiliary airbag portion 3 and the auxiliary airbag portion 3 is deployed. Next, when the gas pressure in the auxiliary airbag portion 3 becomes equal to or higher than a predetermined pressure, a portion 30 of the auxiliary airbag portion 3 opens, and the inside of the main airbag portion 2 from the auxiliary airbag portion 3 through the opening portion 30. The expansion gas flows into the tank.

  The occupant protection device S described above has the following effects.

  First, when there is a frontal collision of the vehicle, the upper body of the occupant 9 moves to the front side of the vehicle while being restrained by the seat belt 6. On the other hand, the auxiliary airbag portion 3 is rapidly deployed and has a protruding shape. For this reason, the head 90 of the occupant 9 comes into contact with the tip of the auxiliary airbag portion 3, and the head 90 of the occupant 9 is rotated by this contact. Specifically, as indicated by reference numerals Na and Nb in FIG. 1C, the head 90 of the occupant 9 sequentially rotates along one side surface of the auxiliary airbag portion 3. Alternatively, as indicated by reference numerals Na ′ and Nb ′, the auxiliary airbag portion 3 is sequentially rotated along the other side surface. Such rotation of the head 90 is rotation around the extension axis C of the neck 91 of the occupant 9 (see FIG. 1A), but the human body originally has a range of motion of such rotation operation. Because it is large, it does not cause a great deal of damage to the passenger 9.

  After the auxiliary airbag part 3 is deployed, the main airbag part 2 is deployed, and finally the head 90 of the occupant 9 hits the main airbag part 2 and is protected. When the head 90 of the occupant 9 is rotated as described above from the beginning of the frontal collision of the vehicle until the head 90 hits the main airbag portion 2, the behavior of the head 90 of the occupant 9 is The backward tilt mode described above with reference to FIG. 4 is converted into the torsion mode. For this reason, the amount of backward tilt of the head 90 of the occupant 9 can be reduced, and the injury value of the neck 91 of the occupant 9 can be reduced.

  Further, in the present embodiment, as shown in FIG. 1C, the head 90 of the occupant 9 does not move in the front direction of the vehicle, but moves obliquely forward along the side surface of the auxiliary airbag portion 3. It will be. For this reason, when the vector V of the moving speed of the head 90 is decomposed into the speed Vf toward the front of the vehicle and the speed Vw in the vehicle width direction, V> Vf, and the moving speed of the head 90 toward the front of the vehicle. Is reduced. Therefore, the impact when the head 90 hits the main airbag portion 2 can be reduced, and the effect of further reducing the injury value of the occupant can be obtained.

  For this reason, according to the present embodiment, the passenger protection performance can be improved without increasing the overall size of the airbag A or the like. In addition, the vehicle is a cargo vehicle having a short front nose, for example, similar to that shown in FIG. 4, and the steering wheel 1 has a relatively small inclination angle, and the intermediate shaft 10 is pushed up at the time of a front collision. Even when the steering column 11 and the steering wheel 1 rotate as indicated by the arrow Nb, it is possible to appropriately generate the above-described action and improve the occupant protection performance.

  2 and 3 show another embodiment of the present invention.

In the embodiment shown in FIG. 2, a ceiling airbag 7 </ b> A that is deployed downward from the front portion of the roof portion 17 of the vehicle is provided. An existing general airbag 7B (steering airbag) is provided at the center portion of the steering wheel 1 so as to be deployable. The ceiling airbag 7A can be deployed before the steering airbag 7B and brought into contact with the head 90 of the occupant 9 moving forward of the vehicle when a frontal collision of the vehicle occurs.
In the present embodiment, the ceiling airbag 7A corresponds to the “occupant head rotating means” in the present invention. When there is a frontal collision of the vehicle, the head 90 of the occupant 9 rotates by abutting against the ceiling airbag 7A, as in the case of abutting against the auxiliary airbag part 3 of the above embodiment, and then the steering airbag. Received by 7B. Therefore, the injury value of the neck 91 of the occupant 9 can also be lowered.

In the embodiment shown in FIG. 3, the headrest 80 of the vehicle seat 8 is an active headrest, and moves forward in the front of the vehicle so as to eliminate the gap between the headrest 80 and the head 90 of the occupant 9 at the time of frontal collision of the vehicle. Is configured to do. However, in addition to such a function, the headrest 80 can move forward about the vehicle and simultaneously rotate about the vertical axis, and can rotate the head 90 of the occupant 9 about the extension axis C of the neck 91. It is configured. In addition, instead of such a configuration, one end side in the vehicle width direction of the headrest 80 swells toward the front side of the vehicle and pushes one side of the head 90 of the occupant 9 toward the front side of the vehicle, whereby the head 90 of the occupant 9 is It is possible to rotate around the extension axis C of 91.
Also in this embodiment, since the head 90 of the occupant 9 is rotated at the time of a frontal collision of the vehicle, it is possible to obtain the same effect as in the previous embodiment.
As understood from the present embodiment, the means for rotating the head 90 of the occupant 9 is not limited to the airbag.

  The present invention is not limited to the contents of the above-described embodiment. The specific configuration of each part of the occupant protection device according to the present invention can be variously modified within the scope intended by the present invention.

In the embodiment shown in FIG. 1, the main airbag portion 2 and the auxiliary airbag portion 3 are integrally formed. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and the main airbag portion 2 and the auxiliary airbag portion are formed. The part 3 may be formed as a separate body and individually deployed using two inflators.
The present invention is suitable for a vehicle having a short front nose and a small tilt angle of the steering wheel, but is not limited to this and can be applied to various vehicles. Not only for protecting the driver's seat and passenger's seat, but also for protecting the rear seat passenger.

S occupant protection device A airbag C occupant neck extension axis 2 main airbag portion 3 auxiliary airbag portion (occupant head rotating means)
7A Ceiling airbag (occupant head rotation means)
80 headrest (occupant head rotation means)
9 Crew 90 Head 91 Neck

Claims (2)

  An occupant protection device comprising occupant head rotating means that operates to rotate an occupant's head around an extended axis of a neck during a frontal collision of a vehicle. The occupant protection device according to claim 1,
The airbag is stored at a position on the vehicle front side of the seating position of the occupant, and includes an airbag for protecting the upper part of the occupant by deploying at the time of a frontal collision of the vehicle,
The airbag includes a main airbag portion, and an auxiliary airbag portion that expands into a protruding shape that can come into contact with the head of the occupant before the main airbag portion is deployed,
The occupant protection device, wherein the auxiliary airbag portion is the occupant head rotating means.

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